Luke 14:1-14 - Table Talk

Well this morning we continue on in our sermon series in the Book of Luke sermon. I've entitled tabletalk another passage that revolves around a table. Now the passage that we consider this morning is is just rich with application for our lives. In fact, as I was studying it preparing a sermon. I thought I could easily preach a six-week sermon on these 14 vs alone. Some of you were saying yes, of course you would think that But it's just so rich with application and so as I Was preparing us actually started out with 10 points of application and I thought that's too many. I've got a while I got it down to nine. I still too many and got it down to 6 last night and even this morning took one more out. So we're down to Five Points of application for this sermon, which is still a lot for the sermon and I needed help getting there. Sometimes when you're preparing sermons. God's word is so rich that often the most difficult thing is what you take out not what you actually put in one of these that was helpful in regards to that is a is a tool or a strategy that I learned from a book called christ-centered preaching by Bryan chapell. In it, he introduces this concept which he calls the Fallen condition Focus the Fallen condition focus and not that focuses is meant to help the preacher hone in on what he should be focusing on he describes it in his book and I'll quote from his book. He says the Corrupted State of our world and our beings cries for God he responds with the truth of scripture and gives us hope by focusing his grace on a facet of our fallen condition in every portion of his word. No text was written merely for those in the past. God intends for each passage to give us the insurance and the encouragement we need today. preaching that is true to these purposes first focuses on the following condition that necessitated the writing of the passage and stackin uses the text features to explain how the Holy Spirit addresses that concern then and now the following conditions focus is the mutual human condition that can temporary believer share with those two or about whom the text was written that requires the grace of the passage for God's people to glorify and enjoy him what he saying there is is these words were written originally Forest, but they were written for us and we have to take those words and understand what they said in the time they were given And the application that the spirit was doing in that moment and bring that to our minds into our hearts today to do that in terms of finding this Fallen condition Focus Chappelle suggest we ask for the test text three questions. First of all what we always start with what does the text say second what spiritual concerns did the text address and third what spiritual concerns delicious listener share in common with those For Whom the text was written in so I'm going to use those investigative questions to preach through this passage in doing so we will see that the main idea of these 14 vs can be could be said very simply Since God is merciful just and faithful. We should be compassionate humble and trusting since God is merciful just and faithful. We should be compassionate humble and trusting or to use some of the kingdom of God language. We've been using throughout the Book of Luke and certainly Jesus again is teaching about the kingdom. We could say it this way God the Father demonstrates his Mercy Justice and faithfulness through his appointed King Jesus the son of God therefore as citizens of the kingdom and Disciples of the king. We should live lives of compassion humility and Trust that's where we get to when we use this this framework. As we consider this passage to let's read the passage and get into it or reading from Luke chapter 14 verses 1 through 14. 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 he has responded the lawyers and Pharisee saying is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not, but they remain silent 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 is falling into a well on a Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out and they could not reply to these things. Now, he told a 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 down the place of honor less 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 Shane to take the lowest place. But when you are invited go and sit in the lowest place so that when your hose comes he may say to you friend move up higher then you'll be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. He said also to the man who had invited him when you give a dinner or banquet did not invite your friends or your brothers. Are your relatives. Are you rich neighbors less? They also invite you and return and you be repaid but when you give us peace 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 let spray father God we again ask for your help this morning. Would you by your spirit help us as we consider this passage in Luke, would you help us to see you as merciful and just and faithful?

And help us by your spirit to apply the text to our own lies. As you call us to be compassionate and humble and trusting. Why would you help me to communicate these truths in a way that is accurate in a way that's helpful to the end which we desire and the end that we desire is to be more like Christ to leave this building today.

More like our great Savior Jesus Christ. We can't do that without your help. In Christ's name we pray amen. Tabletalk three discussions that happened around this dinner table dinner discussion number 1 and verses 1 through 6. We see a merciful god require and compassion from his people. And so we start with that first question. What does the text say? Well we see in the text and I throw this section of lube that one of the major purposes of Jesus is to criticize the Pharisees and the religious leaders. We see in this the third and last episode in loot that takes place in the home of the Pharisee. It's also the third and last healing on a Sabbath at Luke reports in his gospel. And Jesus is dining at the home of a significant religious Persona, perhaps to the head of the synagogue or a chief priest most likely this is the midday meal a meal that was prepared the day before so the God's people could Fellowship together on the Sabbath. We're told her that the host and the other guess likely other Pharisees and religious leaders. We're watching him carefully that is more accurate Sera keeping an eye on him. There is clearly the idea of the malicious intent here. They may have been honored him by inviting him to this meal but they're watching him closely waiting for him to make a mistake. It seems they follow the adage keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer. They wanted Jesus near them so they could catch him in some sort of trap. Let me see that a man's present who has dropsy dropsy was a disease that resulted in swollen Limbs and swollen tissues that it was a serious disease and there's some discussion that made it a man was even brought to the dinner as a trap for Jesus to see if they could get him to heal on the Sabbath.

But Jesus mercifully. Even perhaps knowing that this was a trap compassionately Embraces the man when it says Jesus took him and healed them. It means he embraced him. To heal him in to send him off, but if you'll notice in this account, there's not much discussion about the healing. immediately moves into Jesus addressing the Pharisees until their response and how they react to this is of great importance. You remember that. We've already been here with Jesus before with a healing on the Sabbath. And he continues to demonstrate the importance of compassion. And this really is what raises the next question what spiritual concerns did the text address and the time that it was given Jesus is addressing the Pharisees. He's addressing how they understand God how they understand God's kingdom works. And the lack of compassion in their life. He raised this issue in Chapter 13. Remember the healing of the woman who is bent over because of demonic oppression.

Clearly the Pharisees are not understanding the teaching or more likely they understand perfectly. Well the teaching and they are rejecting it. It's a Jesus ask them again. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remain silent. They don't answer his question. What Jesus is asking them is is your god is a god you serve a merciful loving compassionate God and do your practices as religious leaders reflect who God is

Jesus doesn't really need their answer is because he gives the answer in his demonstration of power. When he does this work of healing it answers the question that he asked. But again, he returns to this issue with them bring you this idea of an animal or a child falling into a well or a pit and whether or not they would show compassion to their child or to this animal if it happened on the Sabbath. Then again, there's silence indicates. There is much spiritually to be concerned about in their lives. They don't understand God and I don't understand how God's kingdom works. See you in God's kingdom there are days of rest from work, but there are no days of rest from compassion.

Until there's a great spiritual concern the Jesus raises and their lives and so we asked our cells the question what spiritual concerns do the listeners hear this morning Sharon, I'm with the Pharisees the Jesus address in Luke's gospel. Let me suggest you to first of all, we just like the Pharisees are tempted to be callous to the needs of others. So we need to be persistent in our compassion compassion mean seeing people in their need and endeavoring to help them. Can we see throw the Gospel of Luke really sure of the gospels Jesus unceasingly shows compassion particularly to the sick and the poor and the lowly. That's what the Gospel of Luke is about. What's interesting here is Jesus also shows compassion to the proud and petulant Pharisees because he continues to spend time with them and he continues to lovingly rebuke and lovingly try to open their eyes to the ways in which they are misguided.

Until this morning, we need to exert ourselves to be tireless as we seek the good of others. Because we're tempted to be callous in the same way as the Pharisees were.

We are also tempted towards a self-centered posture.

But life that's lived out compassionately demands that we apply skip scriptural commands more rigorously to ourselves and we do to others. You see what the Pharisees were doing here. They were taking spiritual commands that I must rest on the Sabbath and they were applying the more strictly to other people than they were to themselves. Don't come to be healed on the Sabbath when I supposed to work on the Sabbath. What if my donkey or my aux or my sheep or my son falls in the pit? I'm going to help them. I'm going to ease up on how strictly I'm applying God's word when it pertains to myself. They would dare to frown upon Jesus for healing one of God's children on the Sabbath and yet they would make exceptions for themselves. They would be compassionate towards themselves. They would see and recognize their own need their own difficulty. I'm Goin sure that they got hell and yet they were cold hearted to other people who are going through trials and tribulations and wouldn't do anything to help them. Compassion and sis, we are more gracious and merciful to others even then we are to ourselves. We can't have that self-centered posture that the Pharisees had it reminded me. I know we have lots of Western students. I went to Western myself. And when I went to Weston, I remember a joke that made fun of sort of the stereotypical. proud Western student self-centeredness question went like this how many Western students does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Just one they hold it up in the world revolves around them.

I don't know what that's true today in adults. But it indicates this self-centered posture that the world revolves around me. And if I think the world revolves around me, I'm going to be gracious to myself. But not so much the other people we need to be cautious of that lets a spiritual concern Jesus raised to the Pharisees and we need to raise it to ourselves this morning that was dinner discussion. Number one dinner discussion number 2 takes place in verses 7 through 11 where we see a just God. Who will humble those who exalt themselves and exalt those who humble themselves and so we ask ourselves. What is the text say the text tells us that Jesus is now the one doing the watching they were watching him carefully, but she was watching them Jesus observe the guests coming in jocking for preferable seating that was close to the front where the host would be. Interesting Lee. It's pretty much opposite of what happens here every morning. The back seats fill up first and then slowly people come up to the front. But he noticed that the guess we're doing the opposite. They were trying to get to the important seats near the front.

And these dinners and banquets? And where one sat at the dinner in the banquet was a barometer in that time of one's standing in the community.

And they were proud and they wanted to be recognized as important. So they fought for these positions if you recall and Luke chapter 11, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for seeking the best seats in the synagogue and now he's rebuking them for doing the same thing in someone's home. And so he tells a parable Parable which we should note is primarily about God and not about humans if you read that terrible, like I did the first time you thought this is about humans and us being proud. What is Parable is not first about Humanity its first a parable about God. Why do I say that? Let me recommend another book to you this morning at 1 that Andrew and Sally will teach on a kaporos on the Saturday. He wrote a book on how to understand and apply the New Testament and in that book. He talks about how we figure out. What a parable means. Then again, you ask questions of the text. You asked questions. Like if you want to find out the point of a parable you need to find out who the main characters are. Until this Parable that Jesus tells we see that there are main characters. There's vague gas. We don't get their names. We don't get descriptions and there's a host. It's all that's helps us to hone in or it's got to be about these main characters. It was supposed to also ask me what happens at the end of a parable how a parable finishes is important to understand what it means that we seeing this Parable to do that. The host is the one who exalts people in the host of the one who humbles people who is having a banquet will be the one to decide who sits where and if someone has sat too closely, he will humble them and make them sit farther and if someone has humility stop far for them, he will exalt them and bring them to the front. We're also supposed to when we see Parables focus in on who is speaking. You'll see in this Parable. The only words are given to the host. It's not about the guests primarily. It's about to host the host is the one who speaks in the host represents God and so this Parable is about God and Jesus is conveying. His God is a just judge. He is fair. And he will exalt those who humble themselves and humble those who exalt themselves.

That's why I think he was trying to raise a spiritual concern that second question. What's spiritual concern? Does it raise and its context and there's two concerns that are prevalent in the section in regards to the spiritual condition of the Pharisees. First of all, they put themselves in God's Place thinking that they could determine their own need for exaltation or humbling. They put themselves in God's place by scrambling to get to the best see they were in fact saying I'll be God here and I will decide who's exalted. putting themselves first and secondly, they the incorrectly judge themselves and correctly evaluate in themselves and demonstrated that they had this serious spiritual sickness called Pride. What they were liking was humility. This group is severely lacking in humility.

And it's obvious because they thought they could exalt themselves and then correctly judge themselves thinking they were worthy of more honor than they were.

They would have understood that is the God's word is clear in the Old Testament Proverbs 25 verse 6 & 7 lays this out for them. Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great, but it's better to be told come up here then to be put lower in the presence of a noble. But you see they thought they were the noble ones and they thought they could make those decisions.

And So It causes us to ask ourselves What do we share in common with the Pharisees? How can we apply this text to us as we hear God's word?

Let me suggest to you that we are just like the Pharisees continually trying to exalt our own selves continually trying to play God and raise ourselves up. How do we do this? We do this by pursuing self-justification. We try to exalt ourselves in the eyes of God through good works.

And somehow think these justify us just like the Pharisees were frantically trying to demonstrate their own importance by jogging for the seats of importance. We try and justify ourselves the Gods Road dutiful obedience. God see how much money I gave this year. 2019 God look at all the money. I gave to the church and other charities.

God see how Faithfully I attend church. I never missed. I'm always there on Sunday. I show up early in the morning for prayer. I never miss lifegroup. I always do my studying.

See how important I am. God, see how worthy I am God.

God look at how beautiful I bring up my children. Nobody's more strict on their children than I am. I insist that they learn and keep God's Commandments, see how important I am. Now don't get me wrong. We should give generously and we should attend church faithfully and we should bring up our children in the ways of God, but none of these things will Merit salvation and God's eyes and none of these things will justify us before him.

Self justification, which is our preferred method exalting ourselves before God needs to be removed as a motivation for doing good works. We should do good works. But not to justify ourselves before God but because we have been Justified before God by Christ. We also see from this that we like you melody. And so we need to see ourselves with God's perspective. The gate a great Christian and Alliance of Christian and Missionary Alliance Theologian. Aw Tozer said this The Humble man is not a human Mouse Afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority rather. He may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and is as strong as Samson, but she has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be but paradoxically he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God more important than angels. In himself, he is nothing in God. He is everything. Just like the Pharisees we need to see ourselves with God's perspective. We need to make sure we're not fooling ourselves into believing that we're all that that were the center of the universe that were important that we can live our lives in such a way. That will make us in a saving sense significant to God. We can't do that. We also need to not fool ourselves into thinking we have no value. That's not humility either. Humility is seeing ourselves with God's perspective.

Finally dinner discussion number 3. We seeing verses 12 through 14 a faithful God who we can trust. What does the text say or text says that Jesus really summarizes the first to dinner discussions by putting forward an approach to having dinners and banquets in gathering that requires both humility and compassion. And humility a host needs to check his own motivation. His own motivation and who he is invited to his get-togethers. And one of the clear motivations for the Pharisees was to invite friends and relatives and brothers and rich people with the motivation of a reciprocal invitation. I'm an invite people who can return the favor.

When Jesus is telling them you need to be humbled so that you see and understand why you're doing this and you need to have compassion so that you invite the poor and the crippled in the lame and the blind because they're not going to be able to repay you.

The Pharisees were supposed to see the difficulty in suffering that these people live in and respond with compassion by inviting them to their Feasts. in the passage finishes with a a final indicative for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just Can you trust God that he will repay you? Can you set aside this desire to be paid now to do things so that you can be paid now and trust God. This is really the spiritual concerns use was Raising in their lives. They had this Paradigm of reciprocity. I'll do something and I'll get something in return When the commentator said hospitality and this time was regarded as a utilitarian investment designed to return a net gain and status and honor and influence. In the system ran on balanced reciprocity receiving invitations from the elite confirms and maintains one status as a member of the elite when they only accept an invitation to dine it confirms the contains their status also is a member of the elite. Consequently guess were scrutinized. So the guests would have the proper social rank. If one could not repay the honor and someway one was likely to not be invited the keyword was payment all of these categories of persons listed friends and family and relatives and Rich neighbors could repay the favor. That's why they were invited and this was a spiritually unhealthy practice the spiritual and healthy posture was Jesus confronted in the Pharisees. They didn't trust God to repay them. They were looking for other people to give them their reward and they should have known better. Let's go again. We ask ourselves what spiritual concerns does this raised in our own lives? Let me suggest to you that we also doubt God and don't trust him. And therefore we also have interior motivation for doing good to others. Do we know will do good to us? It's a we need to be motivated not by what we can get from other people but to be motivated by the character and Promises of God. God is a faithful God.

And we can trust him. And instead of looking in our Good Deeds to other people to get a return on our investment from them. We can trust God who is faithful that he will one day repay us and reward us Hebrews 11:6 says without faith. It is impossible to please him. If we don't trust him, we can't please him why or whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

We need to check our hearts in this do we trust God and looked at him for our reward? Are we looking to get back on our investment?

that's why I've made some applications just five and I'm almost at a time when we imagine if I went with 10, like I was originally going to But here they are be persistent in your compassion apply scriptural commands more rigorously to yourselves than you do to others. stop pursuing self-justification See yourself from God's perspective. Be motivated by the character and Promises of God brother and sisters. How do we do these things?

I'm not expecting any one of you to walk away from here and do all 5 but pick just one this morning. How do we do these things? Do we just try harder?

That's not how it works. You want to apply God's word to our lives we go to the gospel because the gospel and formed their minds and it inflames our hearts giving us both the knowledge and the power to apply these things to our lives. You see we can persist in our compassion because the gospel demonstrated The Compassion of God towards us God the Father sauce and are suffering and sent his son to save us know. He had created the world and created us to serve him in love and we were ejected that

Let me demonstrate that rejection by the sinan Our Lives we continue to not obey him and not recognize him as our creator. And God saw us and saw the results of that sin in our life both now and in the future and he had compassion on us and he sent his son to save us by dying on the cross. That's beautiful picture of compassion is supposed to help us to understand that that's how we're supposed to live our life and seeing it worked out in the life of the Son of God is is supposed to inflame our affections to give us motivation to show others compassion.

We can also graciously demand strict obedience from ourselves and we demand from others because the gospel reminds us that our Salvation is by grace alone.

Interesting that Jesus applied the scriptures more strictly to himself than he did too. Rebellious Humanity. We didn't deserve salvation. There's nothing that we did do have done or will do. That could earn us forgiveness that could reconcile us to God. That could result in a reward of eternal life in his presence know it was by grace alone that we were saved.

And we're supposed to learn from that. We're supposed to embrace that Grace that we've been showing our hearts so that we might be gracious to other people. We can stop pursuing self-justification because it's through the life and death and resurrection of Christ that we have been Justified. It was because of his death that we can be declared righteous by God if we put our faith in him we have been declared such but the righteousness of Christ

it's in the gospel that we can see ourselves from God's perspective. Most clearly. And it's the gospel. We should humble us. I probably should be crushed when we see our sin. And yet r value should be affirmed when we see God's love for us and sending his son to die for us that we might be reconciled to him.

It's the gospel that demonstrates that God is merciful and just and faithful. And by remembering the gospel, our minds are informed by its great doctrinal truths and our hearts are inflamed with affections that motivate us to live compassionate humble and trusting lives. If you're here this morning and you don't consider yourself a Believer, you don't consider yourself a disciple or follower of Christ. Please understand our message to you this morning is not one of moralism. Do not walk away from here this morning say pastors. You just told me I should live better. That's not our message and only tend to convey this.

My messages that you ought to believe the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You want to repent of your sins and put your faith in God because he's merciful and he's just and he's faithful and he has provided a way of salvation for you in Jesus Christ.

Unbeliever my couragement to you this morning is not to try harder in these things not to try to be more merciful or try hard to be more compassionate or try hard to start trying to justify yourself.

Well today I had mentioned to you as look to Jesus and look to the work of redemption because then that is where you're going to find Clarity on compassion. We're going to find Clarity on what Grace is what it means to treat others gracefully. And that's where you're going to find understanding on where your justification lines before God and that's where you're going to find understanding on what humidity is and what God's perspective of you is

That's where you're going to find an understanding of the faithfulness of God and put filling his promises. And how and why we were rewarded for doing good. So look to the gospel look to the gospel to understand. The spiritual issues in your life better and look to the gospel for power to change and to live the way a citizen of the kingdom of God should live. We can only get that in the gospel. Let's pray. Father God we thank you for your word. And we thank you for the truth that it conveys to us. And we're thankful father God for your spirit who can fix us of ways in which we're living our life that are contrary to your law.

was thankful for those things father God but If I might be so bold father were more thankful for the gospel. Because the truth of what your word reveals about us. Leaves us father God in a desperate situation. And yeah, the truth of your word in the Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us great Reason for Hope and my prayer father God for the people here this morning. They would focus in on the gospel focusing on the good news of Jesus who came from having to be canopy of man and lived a life of perfect obedience and died a death a sacrificial death for the sins of his people and then rose from the dead and I'll sit at your right hand. I pray father God that you by your spirit would help each one to look the gospel this morning. The look to the gospel is the only means of Salvation not.

Morley living in a different way But father got also that the power in the motivation to change our lives to live like Christ.

Father God you are just you are merciful. You are faithful and we know we ought to live lives of compassion and humility and Trust.

But we can't do it ourselves until we look to Christ. We look to Christ work on the cross. We ask you father God help us in his name. We pray. Amen.