I don't know if you've noticed the hardest comments to make at the front, or the riskiest comments to make at the front, are the ones you haven't planned. And there when Mark made his comment about how “it's always the wives,” I noticed one person in the room not laughing. And I also noticed Mark choose to go down this side of the staging to kind of test the water as he came around. So, let's be praying for Mark this afternoon.
If you have your Bibles, could you open them up, please, to Luke chapter 14? Luke chapter 14. This morning, we want to consider verses 7 to 11. But the whole thing is taking place at a dinner table. And so, I want to remind us of the context by reading from verse one. Can I ask that you would stand if you are able while we read the Word of God. Luke chapter 14 and reading from verse one:
[Scripture Reading] “One Sabbath, when He went to dine at the house of the 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 and Pharisees saying, “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained 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 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 a parable to those who were invited when He noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “when you're invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest 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, being with shame, 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.”
Let's pray.
[Prayer] Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for this time around the Word of God, and we pray and ask that You in grace would speak to us, that You would help us to understand the call of Scripture. We pray that You would cultivate in us that character that is so unlike our natural selves, that You would break down our pride and cultivate a heart of humility. We pray that You would make us more like our Savior, and we pray as well, as we come and see His teaching, but also see something of His person in the text, that He would be exalted in our minds and in our hearts, and that He would receive glory. We pray that even through our study, You would prepare our hearts to eat and drink in remembrance of Him later on. For we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. [End]
Have a seat.
Well, you remember the context. Verses 1 to 6, there is a meal, a dinner that is planned, that is organized, but this is more of a trap than a feast. The intention of this dinner is sinister. The ruler of the Pharisees, or a ruler of the Pharisees, has plotted and planned how he may embarrass, how he may ridicule, how he may show up Jesus to be one who is a lawbreaker, or at least according to his standards, and to embarrass Him before all of His friends, all of His guests, all of those who are like-minded to Him. But in an amazing turn of events, Jesus takes that moment designed to trap Him and He uses it to show that actually these Pharisees and lawyers, those experts in the law themselves were in opposition to the very intention of the Old Testament. And so, several times in those six verses, we read about an angry silence that falls around that particular dinner table.
We said last week, Jesus is the ultimate conversation stopper. And that's exactly what took place. And so, you can imagine everybody looking at each other, no one daring to say anything. And you can imagine the host of this dinner starting to sweat a little because nobody likes a silent dinner.
Well, Jesus is there. And to fill that awkward silence, He tells a story. A story that underlines how much self was in everything the other dinner guests did. In other words, Jesus, He doesn't just poke once, He twists the knife here. He's highlighting to them their folly. While you are silent, let me show you more of your shortcoming. And so, I want you, first of all, in the text, in verse seven, to notice “an exposing situation.” You can already picture the scene in your heads, but look at verse seven:
“Now, He told a parable to those who were invited when He noticed how they chose the places of honor saying to them…” and on it goes.
It begins by telling us He told a parable. This is exactly the same response that He issued last time, back in chapter 13. You remember there was a similar episode. He was receiving indignation from the religious elite, and so to them, He told a parable. And now, in face of this angry silence, He tells another parable, but notice who He is telling the story to. He's not telling it to the man with dropsy or who used to have dropsy, because that man is already set free. He's left the building. He's not telling it to the general public.
In those types of dinners, there would often be other people who would kind of slip into the room, who would eavesdrop into the conversation. And so, undoubtedly, there are other people in the vicinity of this conversation who are eager to know what Jesus is doing, to hear what He is saying. But this story is not primarily for them. Indeed, the story is not for the disciples. Rather, verse 7 says it was to those who were invited, invited by that ruler of the Pharisees.
We're talking about his friends, his comrades, his fellow Pharisees who shared his worldview. We're talking about those listed in verse 3, the Pharisees and lawyers, all of those who reckon themselves expert in the Old Testament and who propagated this broken, surface-level, self-promoting religious system. Now, remember as well the setting. We're in the ancient Near East, in particular in a Jewish setting around a dinner table. And verse 7 here notes how they chose the places of honor.
The type of dinner table we're talking about here is a very low table, low to the ground. And people, they didn't sit up in, you know, chairs or bar stools the way maybe you'd sit around a breakfast bar in your home. Instead, this is a low table and people reclined around it in couches. It was kind of, if you thought about the kind of arrangement of the room, there would have been this low table and around it in a kind of U-like shape were a series of couches. And the idea was that these meals could go on a very long time. They were prolonged.
In America, you want your food fast. I've noticed that. And they bring it too fast because the tip depends on it. Well, in this type of setting, it's altogether different. People are reclining. They're leaning on their left arm. They're lying down, and they're slowly reaching out with the right hand, taking a drink or taking some food, and they're nibbling. You know, this is a slow meal. Yes, a time where you seek to be nourished, but it's a time to be social. It's a time to talk. It's a time to debate. It's a time for all the events and affairs of the day to be discussed. That's the idea at this particular table.
Now, obviously, the table would fill up quickly, and there was a sense of, if there were extra guests brought, that, well, we could bring out another couch. We could add to this kind of U-shape around the table. But the center of the “U”, the bottom of the “U”, was always where the host sat. You can imagine, you know, in that position, you had people on this side, you had people on that side. If you're at the bottom, you're in the center of the conversation. You can hear everything that is being said, everything that is being discussed. You really are the center of attention. And so, while obviously the host would sit there, other significant players in the conversation were brought into the heart of the “U”. They were brought in to the point where they could be heard.
If you came late, or maybe you just weren't that significant, and you were sitting on the far side, one of the points of the “U”, it was very hard to hear what was being said. It was very easy to miss the intricacy of the conversation, and especially if it's a large, you know, dinner table. You very quickly could be left with just the two or three around you, and really, who are they? Because the host, he's dining on the other end. And so, in a desire to be in the heart of the conversation, in a desire to be where it is happening, most people had formed a custom when they came into those types of settings of rushing to the significant seats, to the places where you could be engaged in the heart of the conversation.
But similarly, you could imagine the particular host, he is wanting to talk about a particular topic. And he comes into the room and he notices that, you know, there's somebody who's an expert in that topic here. He naturally would bring that individual up to sit beside him, so that he can be a real player in this particular conversation. And so, you can understand something of the dynamics here. Everybody wanted to be at the center. People naturally thought of those seats as the most prized, the ones carrying the most dignity. If the host really liked you, that's where you should be.
And so here we're told of that habit that folks had of rushing forward to take the best seats, the places of honor, as verse 7 says. And it's in that exposing situation that Jesus then tells this exposing story. Jesus here, He tells the parable, and the story itself is, well, it's very like many stories that you find in many types of cultures. It's very hard to find a culture where food is not a significant part of what they do. And so, you can go to other parts of the world, other cultures, and you find stories that are very like the one that Jesus tells here, because this is a universal principle. There's something here very obvious, something here that we really can't miss. Look at verse 8:
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest 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, being with shame, 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.”
Jesus' telling of the story here, it's sharp. He has an ability to emphasize in very few details the point that He is making. And so, the setting of the story He tells also begins with an invitation, an invitation from a host. But Jesus, He heightens the significance. He heightens the idea of formality on this occasion by making the invitation one to a wedding feast, a wedding feast. You know what it's like. Any type of dinner with guests, there are dynamics that have to be considered, but there is nothing like planning a wedding. It's an especially big deal where people would sit or should sit at the reception. You've got to think about who's at the top table. You've got to think about where are the grandparents going to sit. You've got to think about who's going to sit by the crazy uncle that only ever talks about trains and on and on and on it goes.
Well, in the ancient world, weddings were long events. They could go over days, days. And of course, in that length of time, there's lots of movement, lots of interchange. People naturally would have sat where they wanted, kind of. If the host came in, though, and he looked and he saw that there was someone not being shown honor who should be, he would ask them to come and to sit up near him, and he would expect everybody to shuffle down accordingly, give him room.
You could imagine the host coming in and he sees the father of the bride, and there's no seat for him. The father of the bride, for whatever reason, has just arrived. He was putting on his makeup, and he's just arrived, and there's no seats left. Well, he's significant, he's important, and so naturally, he would be invited up to the front. So, there's something very obvious about the dynamics here. What a special thing to be asked to come to the prize seats. It communicates something of the value that the host has for you; the significance he places upon you. But equally, it's humiliating to be asked to move down, to have it highlighted that there is somebody more significant than you, more important than you.
In fact, the language that Jesus uses in verse 9, He talks about the host saying, “give your place to this person.” It literally means surrender your seat. Well, that's not flattering, is it? It's not what you want to hear. So, the simple moral of the story is exactly the same that we find in Proverbs chapter 25, verses six and seven:
“Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence, or stand in the place of the great. For it is better to be told, come up here, than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”
It's the same idea. The point is, be humble, be humble, rather than risk embarrassment, rather than having to be put in your place in front of others. It's a very simple story that highlights the folly of self-promotion, which really, Jesus gets it. It's the problem with the pharisaical system. It was a system that encouraged self-promotion.
Now, did you notice there's a word that's being repeated through this section? And it underlines the main issue with this self-promotion mindset. Look at verse 7. It talks about those who were invited. In the start of verse 8, “when you are invited.” The end of verse 8, “lest someone more distinguished than you be invited,” verse 9, “and he who invited you both,” verse 10, “but when you are invited,” did you hear it? You hear the repetition? There's something here we're meant to catch.
Jesus is making the point that the value isn't determined by yourself. That's not the idea. Sometimes we look at this story and we think, oh, I've got to think less of myself. The issue is I think too much of myself. Well, that's not really the idea. The issue primarily is not what you think of yourself. It's not, do I think too much of myself? And it's not even, do I think too little of myself? Stop thinking about yourself.
The only assessment that matters is that of the host, the one who gave the invitation. That's the point. All emphasis is meant to go off me and onto him. All focus is meant to go off you and to go up to him, the host. That's what's important. Jesus is stressing here, stop thinking about yourself and start considering the host. It's the relationship with him that defines your significance at the meal. You see that reinforced in the wording there in verse 10. Well, what does the host say? “Friend, move up higher.” In other words, when it comes to the individuals, it's not their bank account. It's not their moral standing in society. It's not their expertise in the subject matter up for discussion that particular mealtime. Rather, it was their relationship with the host. That's where significance is brought in this story. I think it's a very subtle reminder of the very nature of the gospel. That's how the gospel itself works.
Your suitability to have a place at the marriage feast of the Lamb is not based on what you have done. It's not based on the money or the influence or the social standing that you bring to the table. It's not even based on the giftedness that you possess. Rather, it's simply based on the relationship you have with God that's secured by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's how the gospel works. The gospel is very akin to this particular story. It stresses we've got to think much less of ourselves. In fact, we've got to stop thinking of ourselves altogether, because it's the opinion of the master of ceremonies that matters. And God has revealed in Scripture that He calls friend all who have repented and trusted in Jesus Christ. That's where your place at the heavenly feast is found.
But come back to this dinner, the one here with the Pharisees back in Luke 14. He's healed the man with dropsy. They're all full of silent anger. He tells the story, and then he presents “an exposing summary” in verse 11. Look at verse 11:
“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus summarizes the moral of the story, and at one level, it's a lesson again that we've heard before in Luke's gospel in various points. For example, Luke chapter 13, verse 10, just one chapter before, it says:
“And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
And it's a lesson we're gonna hear again. We need to hear it again. Luke chapter 18, verse 14, at the end of Jesus' parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector going to the temple to pray, He says:
“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
This is something that Jesus continually will bring up in His ministry. But what makes this echo of that particular moral unique here is the situation, because again, remember, we're in a room full of men who refuse to help the man with dropsy. And they've been seeking instead to trap Jesus around the dinner table. And in this teaching moment that's marked by the genius of Jesus, He highlights that these people who think that their laws are more important than God's, and that their influence is more important than Christ, He says here, will be humbled. They're gonna lose the little influence that they've held on to white-knuckled. While Jesus, the one they were out to get and embarrass, well, He's going to continue stepping forward and acting out the plan, the divine plan of His Father, who in time will insist on exalting Him.
Jesus is teaching the dinner guests here that in the end God on high will expose that self-promotion, and God on high will reward every true act done in humility for Him. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees who ignored and had a tendency to ridicule the vulnerable as a way of lifting their own prominence, and He bursts their bubble. But by making clear that in time, every broken intention, every spirit of self-promotion, every spirit of self-aggrandizing will be exposed, and only those who have truly sought to serve God will be honored.
It's so easy, isn't it, to slip into the patterns of a pharisaical religion, to start to think of even the things we do to serve in church with a spirit of self-promotion, of greed. Instead of raising high in the name of Christ, our very ministry in the context of the church becomes something that we become precious about because it's all about raising our own name, our own effectiveness, our own significance. I sometimes think it's not so much what happens in the world where the self-promoting spirit tends to show itself. I think most often, like we see in Scripture, it's when it comes to religion, when it comes to church. This self-promoting spirit seems most fertile to grow.
Remember, Jesus came to serve, and He expects His followers to likewise serve others. It's not for your reputation. You do it because you care for others. That's what Jesus is concerned about here. And I know it's a simple lesson, but how often are simple lessons like this the most piercing? If you claim to follow Jesus Christ, you're to be a servant. Yet how often, even when it comes to our church activity, do we tend to be marked more by this mindset that sits with the Pharisees, then that servant-heartedness that marked our Lord.
Here we have an exposing situation, an exposing story, an exposing summary. And lastly, I want you to notice “an exposing storyteller.” An exposing storyteller. Because we miss something here if we don't see that not only are piercing words spoken but there is a visual contrast in the room. When you set these characters, the Pharisees and our Lord beside each other, as took place at this dinner table, the contrast is stark.
Here is Jesus. He is the perfect one that declares in verse 11:
“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Now, I last week kind of shifted into a boring Greek grammar lesson with you. I need to ask your forgiveness, and then I want to come back and do it again. Do you remember last week we talked about the divine passive? That sometimes in Greek you have these passive verbs and the idea sometimes with them is to indicate that it's not the individual or anybody else in the room necessarily that's doing the action. Rather the point is the divine, God himself is the actor. He's the one that's going to bring this thing to be. He's the one that's going to cause this to take place.
Well, in verse 11, there are two divine passives, two of these verbs that not anybody else, not somebody humanly in control of the situation, but God Himself is going to bring about, is going to cause to take place. It's the verb humbled and the other one, exalted. And so, the idea here in verse 11 is, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, not by anything they do or by anything they can control, but God Himself will do the humbling. And he who humbles himself will be exalted, not by anything he can bring about, but simply by the intention of God Himself. Did you get the idea? God will do it.
This isn't something we can conjure up or manufacture. God will do it. The Pharisees were working so hard to promote themselves, but they were working hard. These were men with sweat on their brow. That this was an activity that they were committed to. The one thing you can't say about the Pharisees is that they are lazy. No, these boys work hard. But then there's Jesus. And He serves hard, and then He trusts. And He trusts the outcome to His Father. Nothing shows the impoverished attitude of the Pharisees up more than the humble Son of God who reclined beside them at the same dinner table. There's no greater contrast from these self-promoting Pharisees than Jesus who looked not to Himself but to His Father to vindicate Him. And each day, He simply walked on earth with humility and in obedience.
You can't not turn to Philippians chapter 2. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 5, we're told:
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess in Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
What an example! Your attitude should be like this. The one who came to earth and lived each and every day in obedience, marked by a clear humility, though He was in the very form of God, all that makes God, God, you have in Jesus Christ, He's lacking nothing. Everything else in this world is part of His creation. He is the creator. And yet, humbly, He walked amongst us. We didn't respect Him. He was familiar with suffering, rejected by man, scorned, ridiculed. Like we see here in chapter 14, traps were set by wicked men to catch Him out.
And yet he was obedient to the point of death, even the most humiliating death of the day, death on the cross. And He did it all trusting His Father. And in time, His Father exalted Him and gave Him that great name. But in the duration of His time on earth, He had an attitude unlike us, soaked in humility.
In Scripture, there is another meal that's recorded, John chapter 13. This time, it's not the ruler of the Pharisees, it's Jesus. He's the host of this dinner. And again, it's such a clear example that underlines how unlike us He is, how wonderful He is. For in true Christ-like humility, we read in John chapter 13 about how this humble man, the most humble man who ever walked on earth. He took upon Himself the role of the servant, and He insists in that moment on washing 24 arrogant feet that insisted on standing on their own self-importance. If you look at John 13, even just verses 3 to 5, you see that stark contrast. It says, John 13, verse 3:
“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God…”
You see what verse three is saying? The one we're about to talk about. He knows this all belongs to Him. He knows he is gonna be exalted. He knows that is set in stone, that is certain. There's nothing lacking here. It's not that He is in a moment of, you know, manliness in the sense of aware of His humanity. Rather, the idea is, as He is crystal clear about all who He is, about the hugeness of His significance, the reality that He will be raised above all. In that moment, we read in verse 4:
“...He rose from the supper, He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, He tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel that was wrapped around Him.”
Did you see the stress? What a contrast that you can't get one more significant, verse 3, and yet you can't get one who serves more fervently, verse 4. He knew He was Lord of all, verse 3. He knew He would be exalted above all, verse 3, and yet immediately, verse 4, that same ruler of all wraps a towel around His waist and takes upon Himself the role of the lowest servant. What a humble Savior. What a meek King.
And so, when you come to Luke 14 and you look around that dinner table, these Pharisees look even more ridiculous, that their self-promotion seems all the more foolish. Their hearts are seen to be all the more selfish because of the contrast that sat at the dinner table. But what about you? Do you see yourself more like these Pharisees or more like our Savior? Well, I think we know the answer, don't we?
It's humiliating, isn't it, to look and to see what true humility looks like by looking at Jesus Christ. What a good God we have. What a kind Savior. What a servant King. He deserves our praise. He deserves our worship. And we need to pray earnestly that in time He would cultivate in us a heart like His. Let's pray now.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, when we look into the mirror that is Your Word, we see the muck upon our person. We see how far we fall short; how much we tend to relate to the sinister characters in the text rather than the Savior. But Lord, we thank You that that declaration that we are friends of You is one that is brought to us not based on our achievement, our own internal significance, but as a statement that You issue for all who are found clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that this great servant, King, obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross, did not die upon the cross simply to be an example, but to be an atonement. And because of Him, we give thanks, Lord, that we the guilty are able to go free, we can acknowledge our sin and yet have confidence it has been paid for in full by that great servant King. Yet Lord, You know how much of the old man still resides, how much purification needs to take place, and we ask, Lord, that You would be faithful to bring to completion that which You have begun, and to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, for it's in His name we pray, amen. [End]
