Summary
This sermon explores Jesus' teachings in Luke 14, where He challenges pride, hypocrisy, and self-centeredness, calling His followers to embrace humility and selfless service. It encourages us to prioritize God's will, extend compassion to the marginalized, and trust in His timing for true exaltation.
Transcript
Good morning, church. We're going to be reading from Luke 14 this morning. Hear the word of God. "One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy, and Jesus responded to the lawyers in the Pharisees, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?' Or not. But they remained silent. And then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, 'Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?' And they could not reply to these things. Now he told the parable to those who were invited. When he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 'When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by them. And then he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.' But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And he who humbles himself will be exalted.' And he said also to the man who had invited him, 'When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brother or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.' The word of the Lord. Please take your seats. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning, for this, just even listening to the reading from Daniel, a man you use mightily in a broken and twisted age, and he remained faithful. Lord, we pray the same prayer for us. As we come to this passage this morning, we cry out to you, asking you to help us to remain faithful, to asking you to help us to remain hopeful, asking you to help us to remain loving and faithful in all the things we do, Lord. And so we come to this text this morning asking to learn from your son, Jesus, needing your spirit to meet us, to give us eyes to see and ears to hear. We thank you, Lord, in the name of Jesus, amen. So how do you know when you are fearing God more than you're fearing man? How do you know when you're fearing man maybe more than you're fearing God? This morning we're going to see Jesus courageously model what it looks like to fear God, to be a man that is completely devoted to fulfilling God's mission in his life. We're going to see a man in Jesus' morning who confronts the religious leaders by specifically revealing their sins of fearing man and not pleasing God. Let's look to our passage. It says this, "On a Sabbath day, one Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully and behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy." This is not just any Sabbath day. This is a Sabbath day that follows a confrontation Jesus had with these religious leaders. The confrontation Pastor David talked about last week. We see in, in fact, if you go up just a few verses in chapter 13, the conversation is really, I would say, finalized in many ways by the words of Jesus. He says this, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who sent it, or who sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing? Behold, your house is forsaken. I tell you, you will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Jesus proclaims this judgment on these religious leaders. He says their house is forsaken. They are the ones who killed the prophets. They are the ones who stoned the faithful people who were sent to them. Confrontation, judgment from Jesus. And then this surprising event happens. They invite them over for dinner. I mean, I don't know why they would do that unless there was a plan in mind. Maybe they repented. Maybe they wanted to make friends with Jesus after this confrontation. Or maybe they had other plans. So they invite them over to the house, and I think we kind of see by looking at the passage why they wanted him at the house. It says this, they were watching him carefully. The original language has a kind of a tone of, they were almost spying him. Almost like a spy would be looking for their person they're trying to figure out and learn details about. They're watching him out. They're spying him out. Why? Because they want to see him make a mistake. That's why the next verse is so fitting. Because it says, "Behold, this man with troops is kind of ushered in." Now remember, this is a ruler of the Pharisees. He's, we don't know exactly his role, but he's the ruler of the Pharisees. He's a powerful man. This is probably an elite affair with all the elite people from the community where they invited Jesus to begin to test him. And so I don't know why this man who's a sick, diseased man would be there unless they invited him for this purpose. Because they're trying to get Jesus to make a mistake. So they bring this man in the passage says, "Behold, this sick man is now before them." Drupcy is an illness that causes your body to swell and it usually is connected to bad kidneys or a bad liver. And now your body's swelling and you're inflamed and you're sick and you're suffering. And those are the people Jesus loves to meet. Jesus loves to help. Jesus loves to heal. And so now he's before Jesus. He's before the Pharisees. What is Jesus going to do? Well, he's been here before also. He's been here before. And so he asks them a question. If you notice it says in verse three that he responded to the Lord. Now they didn't say anything. But he's responding to them ushering in this sick man. The cause, the response. He says, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? Is it black or is it white? What is it?" They're silent. No comment. But this is not how they always have behaved. If we look back to, and I'll just go there, you don't need to turn to it, to chapter 13. Just one chapter before this, verse 14, he healed another person who had been sick for 18 years. And they were mad. It was on the Sabbath. This is what they did. I want you to imagine almost what sounds like a third grader saying this, but here we go. He goes, so this religious leader, in fact, the ruler of the synagogue, so mad that Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath. He goes, "Oh, man." He says this. "There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days to be healed and not on the Sabbath." There's six days. If you're sick on those days, you can get healed. But don't come on the Sabbath to be healed. That's what the ruler of the synagogue says to Jesus, just one chapter ago. But now here we are again, the same question, and Jesus and these religious leaders are at a standstill. They're speechless. They have nothing to say. But he's an act. He's what he does. And kind of a move of authority, we see him in the next verse. He doesn't just touch the man. He doesn't just look at the man, but he took the man and he healed the man and then he sent him away. It's almost like he had to, he put his hands on the man to make sure they knew where it came from. The power, the healing, the grace of God, the mercy of God coming through Jesus to heal this man and send him away. He's not backing down. That's the point, friends. He's going to do God's work no matter what the cost is. Now let's look at verse five. So he took the man, he healed the man, he sent the man away. And then now he asked the question before they were silent, but now he has a deeper question. Which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on the Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out? You know those times when someone says to me that's kind of passive aggressive and then you want to ask the question, what are you really trying to say? You know, what are you really trying to say? I guarantee Jesus was not being passive aggressive. But what he was really trying to say was you guys are hypocrites. You know if your son or your daughter was in a well, you would immediately pull them out. And if you were even remotely righteous, if your neighbor had a son or a daughter in a well, you would pull them out. You're a hypocrite. Trying to set me up to do what you would do. You're evil. Now there's at least two types of people that are among the Pharisees in this group. There's one type that I would call the evil Pharisee. They're just the ones that they believe in their hearts that it is wrong to heal on the Sabbath. And they believe that in some ways for Jesus to do this, he's sinning against God. But now think about the evil part of it. They were willing to set Jesus up to sin on the Sabbath. You see that? They thought it was wrong. They believed it was wrong, but they're willing to tempt Jesus to actually break the law of God. No faithful person would ever tempt someone to break the law of God. In fact, in the book of James, it says these words, these are very important words. It says, let no one say he is tempted. I am being tempted by God. No one can say that. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one with evil. So if you're aligned with God, you would never tempt someone with evil if you thought it was evil. That's one group of the Pharisees. Then there's another group that I think we might be able to relate to more. Because we know throughout the stories of Jesus that Pharisees did come to faith in Christ. There's this other group. And this other group, I'm imagining, is there and they've been watching the miracles of Christ. They've been listening to the teaching of Christ and they're sitting back and they're going, "He's right. I am a hypocrite. I know if my daughter or my son was in that well, I would immediately get them out." But what do they do? The passage says very, very clearly to us. They could not reply to these things. The evil Pharisees had nothing to say and then maybe the ones who kind of thought Jesus was right, they still had nothing to say and they did nothing even when they thought it was right. Perhaps. Years ago, a man named Erwin Lutzer retells a story of living in Hitler's Germany. And he knows a Christian who told him this story and he retells it. And I want to just read it to you because it gives a vivid picture of what happens to the heart of a Christian when they know the conscience that tells him to do what's right. Here's what he says. This man telling the story to Erwin Lutzer. He says, "I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I consider myself a Christian. We heard stories of what happened to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it. Because what could anyone do to stop it? A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning, we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels come over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the trains as it passed by. We realized that it was the crying Jews like cattle in the cars. Week after week, the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to the death camps. Their screams tormented us. We knew the time the train was coming and we heard the whistle blow. We began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we sang at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more. Years have passed by and no one talks about it anymore, but I still hear the train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me, forgive all of us who called us those Christians, yet did nothing to intervene. There are moments in our lives where there's this macro issue and we just don't know what to do. We don't know the right thing we can do. But I listen to this story and I believe there's other things they could have done that would have been right instead of singing songs so they didn't have to hear the suffering. There's macro ideas, but there's also smaller things in our lives where we know there are things that are right that we should do, but we don't. Every day there's things that we know are right that we should do and we don't. Are there errors in your life right now? Maybe your marriage, maybe your parenting, maybe your finances, maybe your friendships and relationships, maybe your private thought life, or your private desires that are wrong and outside of the step and will of God, but you're doing nothing about them. The silence of the crowd was probably riveting at this moment. No one said anything when Jesus was talking. And then he launches into another parable because he's been watching them for a long time and now he's at a meal and he's watching their behavior. He's going to go deeper. He knows they are people that do not fear God. They fear man and he knows that the kind of people who are doing all they can to keep themselves in the places of honor, the places of power, the places of respect instead of doing what's right. So here's what he says. He says this. Now he told the parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor and he said to them when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down. Do not sit down in a place of honor. Let someone more distinguished than you be invited by him and he who invited you both will come and say to you, give your place to this person and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he may say to your friend, move up higher and then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. So Jesus noticed their behaviors. Jesus noticed their practice of finding the seat of honor. Yeah, I think there's two levels that we want to delve into as we consider just interpreting this passage. I believe it from a purely pharisaical motive. It was natural to work yourself up aspirationally to the seat of honor. This is what you would do. You would build your teaching, you would build your reputation, you would build your synagogue and you would work yourself into being the highest seat of honor. That was the natural motivation for a Pharisee. But God in Christ is flipping that upside down. Your motivation is what men do. God's motivation is the opposite. What you should do instead of seeking the highest seat of honor, put yourself at the lowest seat, humble yourself and trust God with whatever the outcome is. That's what he's saying very simply. And he says also here, it's not he who exalts himself might be humbled, should be humbled, could be humbled. No, it says will be humbled. It's not he who humbles himself might be exalted, should be exalted, could be exalted, but will be exalted. So on a very human practical level and also a very God driven spiritual level, he's hitting both of these. He's hitting them between the eyes with how they operate and he's flipping and he goes, this is how God operates. Take the lowest seat because you will be exalted, but you trust God with that outcome. Not building it for yourself. In Philippians two, three through five, it says this, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Jesus is ushering in this new way of thinking into this community. Of course, he knows these men are against him, but he's not backing down with presenting what God would have them to do. He moves forward. That was the guest invitation. Now he moves to the host invitation for the next parable. It says this, he also said, he said also to the man who invited him in, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brother or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. So two sides of this again, in this culture, in this first century, it was a reciprocity culture. Otherwise, I give you this, you give me that. I'll invite you to this party, you invite me to that party. It's a give and take type of relationship. We're working together as a group to build our reputation, to build our status. And so we have these parties, we invite our friends, we invite our brothers, we invite our relatives. In fact, he kind of gives four groups here. You have the already said one, the friends, the brothers, your relatives and your rich neighbors. This is your inside group that you invite to your inside events. This is who he's focused on. He's focused on naming the people and the group that they care most about. This is their focus, is their inside circle. Now that's the way they operate, but then Jesus is going to flip it upside down again. And he brings in another group. And he brings out inviting the poor, the cripple, the lame, the blind. Invite the people outside of your group who God is caring for, who God is seeking to serve, and bring them inside. This is the heart of the Lord, but not just bring them inside, just to bring them inside. Bring them inside so that you can be blessed because they cannot repay you. You see, there's a motive there about not being repaid that's important for us to pay attention to. It's the generosity, it's the humility, it's the outside, others focused nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus is calling them to. Remember, Jesus is the one in the beginning of Luke, he said. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because I've been annoyed to bring good news to the poor. I've been called to proclaim liberty to the captives, restore the sight to the blind, to proclaim liberty to the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favors, which Jesus said. This is what he's about. So when he speaks to people who are religious, who are supposed to know the heart and the mind of God, he's calling them to have the same attitude. Surely he's not saying you can't have family gatherings. What he's saying is that in this community, this first century Pharisee community, they had two great sins. One was selfish ambition to promote yourself to the seat of honor. The second one was to create a community that was all about themselves and not about others. And he was hitting that head on. You know, I think about just on a very practical level with this kind of resonates with me in some ways. When I was a kid, my mom and dad, we'd have these Thanksgiving dinners. I'm sure many of you do it. We have these Thanksgiving dinners where you invite, you kind of invite the people that don't have anywhere to go. And when I was a kid, I would see all these random people showing up every single year at our Thanksgiving meals. And it was always sweet to see them and spend time. And we would hope that they would enjoy a meal and they'd enjoy time with us. And they would be able to laugh and just enjoy what Thanksgiving is all about on the surface. But below the surface, my mom and dad prayed that all those guests would, through the love, through the hospitality, through the generosity, through the prayers, would see Christ. There would be just a, in our home that there would be just a, I would say this way, my parents shepherd me, shepherd me this way, that there'd be a generosity and there'd be an openness to inviting people that have nowhere to go into our lives. And I remember that as a kid. And I think in part, that's what Jesus is talking about here. But he's also talking about something else, something bigger than this. And the bigger thing he's actually talking about is where I started. How do you know when you're fearing God more than man? How do you know when you're fearing man more than you're fearing God? He shows us here as the perfect model. You see, Jesus is the one by the power of God who heals anyone any day of the week. He is the one that brings everyone to himself every day of the week because any sickness is an emergency. Any sin is an emergency to be saved. So he's the one Sabbath or no Sabbath. He brings people in. He's the one who invites people to the wedding feast and then he takes the lowest seat. You see, he's the one who invites people to the banquet, but he only invites the people who can't repay him back. He invites all the lame, all the sinners, all the broken, all the foolish, all the wayward, all the crooked. He invites all of them because they come to this banquet and they know they did nothing to get there and they are just grateful that they can receive the gifts of God and they can't repay him. He's the one that fulfills even in some interesting way all these parables, these two parables and even the story. He's the one that models what it looks like to fear God and to be completely devoted to doing all that is required, all that is needed, all that is desired from God in perfection. And we as Christians get to step into it with Jesus. You know, the Bible says all of the Bible says in Christ with Christ that when he does these things, we in some way step into it with him, that we begin to be the kind of people where we get to bless people no matter what day of the week it is in the name of God. We get to be the kind of people who take the lowest seat like Jesus would, not seeking to promote ourselves, not seeking our status, but trusting that taking the lowest seat of humility and having faith that God will always honor our faithfulness. We just trust in humility because Jesus did the same. We are the kind of people that don't expect God to, I'll say it this way, we know that God owes us nothing. We're the kind of people that trust God by faith and not by our works. We trust that he is the one who's given freely to us as the ones invited to his banquet. And so we come to these Sunday mornings every single week and we look at stories like this where we get to see Jesus teach and lead and then point people, especially these Pharisees in this case, to these powerful motives of the kingdom. We've got to remember that this morning is about this table as well. And this table is a place where God shows us himself and this down payment of this fellowship we have that he's invited us to the feast where we get to sit and we get to eat and we get to enjoy the goodness of God. And we know we can't repay him because he gave his body for us broken. He gave his blood shed for us and there's no repayment. He gave it freely to us and we are invited. And so for that reason, we get to celebrate. Let's pray. God in heaven, we thank you for this day. I thank you that you showed us again just the way your son continues to deal with these Pharisees and Luke and how he courageously trusts you every step of the way, Lord. Father, we couldn't be the kind of people that could ever have a life completely devoted to pleasing you and fearing you. We struggle at times. We are afraid of what man could do to us. We're afraid of we want to please people. We have all these things we struggle with Lord. And so we need your help with these things. And we ask you Lord that in this moment, in this, in this day, that we put all our faith in the Lord to be the one that could lead us, renew us, strengthen us, compel us to be like him in all that we do. Lord, we receive freely from you. We are blessed because we would be the kind of people that could be at the resurrection of the just as the passage says. That's the day we look forward to be paid on that day trusting whatever the payment is, which is a relationship with your Father. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.
