Luke 14:1-24
Pray with me. Our great God,
we give you thanks that you have graciously allowed us to participate
in the work of your kingdom through our gifts and our abilities.
And so we offer ourselves to you now as living sacrifices. May our labors in your vineyard
be holy and pleasing in your sight. As we teach Sunday school,
as we count money, as we sweep floors, as we serve one another
in need, but also, Lord, accept your tithes and our offerings
for the work of the ministry here. We pray that you would
bless our general fund, our legacy fund, and our sanctuary fund.
Give us what we need to do the ministry which has been entrusted
to us here. And we do pray, Father, that
you would continue to provide our needs for repairs for the
sanctuary in order that we might have a house of worship, a fit
for your people to gather in your name and to call upon you
and to be a witness to the watching world. Hear our prayers as we
make it in the name of Jesus and the people of God said together,
amen. You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of the scriptures to Luke’s gospel. Our reading
is Luke chapter 14 verses 1 through 24. We’re going
to make a pretty big jump today in Luke’s gospel. Usually we’ve
had 2 or 3 verses, 4 or 5 verses, 6 or 7. Today we have nearly
the entire chapter of 14. And it’s all centers around Jesus
at the table on the Sabbath day with a group of Pharisees. And
he teaches them about the kingdom as he reads their hearts. Let us look to the scriptures
now as we read from the 14th chapter of Luke, beginning at
verse one. One Sabbath when Jesus 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 and to the Pharisees saying, is it
lawful to heal on the Sabbath day or not? But they remained
silent. Then he took him and healed him
and sent him away. And Jesus 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 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 begin with shame to take the lowest place. But then,
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,
and you will 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. Jesus also said to the man who
had invited him, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not
invite your friends or your brothers 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
and the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay
you. You will be repaid at the resurrection
of the just. When one of those who reclined
at table with him heard these things, he said to Jesus, blessed
is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus
said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet,
he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come
for everything is now ready. But they all alike begin to make
excuses. The first said to him, I have
bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me
excused. And another said, I have bought
five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them. Please have me
excused. And yet another said, I have
married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant
came and reported these things to his master. Then the master
of the house became angry and said to his servant, go out quickly
to the streets and to the lanes of the city and bring in the
poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. And the servant
said, sir, what you have commanded has been done and still there
is room. And the master said to the servant,
go out to the highways and to the hedges and compel people
to come in that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none
of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. Let’s pray together. Lord, your word is precious to
us. It’s what we need to live life.
It’s what we need to know how to worship you. It’s what we
need to know how to live for you. So in the next moments,
make it plain what we are to believe, how we are to honor
you and the way in which we ought to live for your glory and for
the good of our neighbors. We make our prayer in Jesus name.
Amen. There’s a question that I know
is deep in everyone’s mind and hearts. And that question is
this, what happens to a person when they die? What happens to
a Christian, more specifically, when they die? Well, at the graveside
of every funeral that I conduct, it’s been my practice to say
the words of the shorter catechism from question 37. The question
is this, what benefits to the souls of believers are there
at their death? And the answer is this, the souls
of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and
do immediately pass into glory. And their bodies being still
united to Christ do rest in their graves until the resurrection.
Those are the last words that I say to a family, usually sitting
at the graveside, when they are wondering in their hearts and
minds, where is my dear loved one? We see the coffin. We’ve
been to the graveside. We’re at the graveside. We’ve
been to the hospital or to the funeral home and all those sorts
of things. But it’s a moment of finality. And to say those
words of comfort is a great and wonderful pastoral privilege,
but the question we often don’t have answered in our minds and
hearts is this. What will heaven be like? What will heaven be like for
Christians? We know a little bit about what
hell will be like for those who aren’t saved, but what will heaven
be like? And I want to take a moment to
explain something about what heaven will be like because I
believe it relates to this theme of Jesus sitting at a feast. He is sitting at a feast at a
dinner with a group of Pharisees and he begins to teach them about
what his kingdom is like. And if we’re going to answer
the question, what will heaven be like, we can only go to one
place and that’s Well, that’s to the back bumpers of cars all
around us. No, no, that’s not it, is it?
If you look at the backs of the bumpers of cars, you’ll see moving
memorials to people’s loved ones, and it looks as if we sprout
angel wings, doesn’t it? That’s not the case either. We
remain humans. But what will heaven be like?
What does the scripture say? Well, just a quick glimpse of
what heaven will be like, it will be like a banquet. It will
be like a feast. We read in places like Isaiah
61, we read in books like the great book of Daniel, the prophet,
and in other Old Testament passages about these feasts, these banquets,
lots of food, lots of drink, lots of joy, lots of laughter,
lots of rich provision. You know how it is, you get to
go out for your birthday. You get to pick the restaurant
and you usually go somewhere special and we spare no expense. We go and we get the appetizers. We get the main course and we
for sure get dessert. And that’s a little bit of what
heaven is gonna be like. And we move through the scriptures
and we see banquets in the Old Testament. We see Jesus perform
his first miracle where? At the wedding feast. of Cana. And then Jesus institutes right
before his death, the Lord’s supper. And he as he’s eating
with the Passover with his disciples, he takes the bread and the wine
and he institutes what we call communion, the meal that we participate
in the first Sunday of every month. And one of the things
that we say month by month as we participate together in the
Lord’s Supper, we remember what Jesus said as he instituted the
Lord’s Supper, and then we remember his final words, I will not eat
this meal with you, until I eat it anew with you in the new heavens
and the new earth. And so banquets, feasting, are
a little picture of what heaven will be like. Now you move to
the book of Revelation. You move to the final chapters
of each gospel where Jesus alludes to the great banquet, the great
wedding supper of the lamb. You get to the book of Revelation
where it says, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding
supper of the lamb. And we recognize something about
heaven, that when God comes and makes all things new and he creates
a new heaven and a new earth and Jerusalem from above comes
down and the presence of God is with his people, there is
a great feast. There is a full meal. Now some of you after evening
service tonight will go home and you know what Sunday night’s
like, you’re a little lazy, you don’t wanna cook and so maybe
you just eat a little popcorn Maybe it’s a microwave meal if
you’re taking a step up, but this is a full meal that we eat
together in heaven with God’s people. The curses will be no
more. The presence of God is with his people and there will
be great joy, food, drink. We’ll wear our linen clothes
of righteousness and we will be at the table of the lamb.
in the restored kingdom of heaven. That’s what’s on Jesus’ mind
as he sits at the Pharisees’ table here in Luke 14. Jesus
is thinking of that wonderful heavenly meal when he’s eating
this awful Sabbath day meal. Not that the food is bad, it’s
just the company is poor. Jesus is eating at the home of
one of the rulers of the Pharisees. No doubt there are other Pharisees
and scribes and teachers of the law there. It’s a meal with the
religious elite. And what does our passage say?
They are watching him carefully. Don’t you get that vibe of when
you read Genesis 3? When it begins now, the serpent
was more crafty than any other beast of the field. And you get
this sinister feeling that these Pharisees, these scribes, these
teachers of the law, they’re watching Jesus. And it’s a sinister
event. This is no meal filled with joy. This is no supper of the lamb. This is not the redeemed at the
table of the lamb. But this is a sinister event,
for they have set a trap. for Jesus. They want to testify
against Him and put Him away, do away with Him once and for
all. But as they watch Jesus, Jesus is watching them. And as He is watching them, He
heals a man in their presence, He gives two parables, and He
also gives some advice to the host. And so as we experience
Jesus at this dinner table, We wonder, what did he see? What
did their actions and their behaviors reveal about their hearts? Well, the first thing that Jesus
sees is a group of speechless men. That’s the first thing we
see in verses one to six. Verses one to six tell about
the Sabbath meal, Jesus being at the home of the Pharisees.
They’re watching him and there’s a man who comes into the presence
of this table. and he has dropsy, he has edema,
he has what we would call in modern day terms, too much fluid
on his body, his circulation system isn’t doing what it ought
to be doing, he’s got puffy arms, his torso is bloated with water
retention, his legs also. Now you know rule number one
at the dinner table, we avoid two subjects, politics and what’s
the other? religion. Well, what does Jesus
do? He brings up religion. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? I mean, here’s this guy with
Dropsy. He’s right there in front of
them all. And they are, boy, it is ripe. Jesus is going to
heal the guy. They just know it. And we’re
going to catch him working on the Sabbath. He’s going to be
busted. We’re going to be able to tattletale
on him and he is going to die after all. Now Jesus had already
settled this matter. You remember a few verses back,
several chapters back, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.
Jesus healed the man with the withered hand. And then just
a few Sundays ago, we looked at the passage where Jesus healed
the woman who came into the synagogue and she was completely bent over.
Her spine had suffered many years of being bent in the wrong direction. And so they’re watching Jesus,
but Jesus is watching them. He sees their heart and he says,
is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And then he asked another question,
which of you, if you have a son or an ox that has fallen into
a well or a cistern does not help it out on the Lord’s day. And in both occasions, they are
silent. In both occasions, they cannot
make reply. Both questions are met with stunning
silence. The people, the Pharisees are
speechless. Of course, it’s humane to rescue
an ox. Of course it’s good to rescue
your son, but according to their laws, no, you cannot heal this
man with dropsy. It’s forbidden on the Sabbath.
And so Jesus shows their hearts. Their hearts are revealed by
their speechless response to his great questions. But what
does Jesus do? He shows his heart. He takes and he heals the man
and he sends him away. No doubt he goes and rejoices
with his family. I’m healed, I’m better. Not just
the retained water is gone, but his heart, his pulmonary system,
it’s all working as it should and Jesus has touched him. And
so this first little vignette shows us these Pharisees and
teachers who are speechless at the value of life and health
that Jesus has for his kingdom. Well, the second little vignette
we see in verses seven through 11 shows a people that aren’t
just speechless. They are shameless. And in verses
seven through 11, we have a picture of these grown men at this feast. And you remember what it was
like when you were a kid? At least for me, we grew up in
the day where you could ride anywhere in the car you wanted
to. You remember those days? Now you gotta have your seat
with your seatbelt and your booster or your whatever device. But back in the days when I was,
back in the olden days when we walked to school uphill both
ways in the snow, you remember? You could ride in the back window
of the car. Some of you remember that? It
was like a couch. The 70s and 80s produced these
hoopties. I mean, they were big. They were
like couches. And I remember we could ride
in the back window with our feet kicking in the air, too. Could
lay across the back seat. Somebody along the floorboard.
Oh, but nowadays, it’s not possible. But I’m gonna cause a little
fear and trepidation with my mother here. We used to fight
over the front seat. Oh, you remember those days?
Now you parents got it easy. Nobody’s riding in the front
seat until they’re this tall. Right? You can’t put a booster
in the front seat. The airbag, you know, might hit
a child and kill them. But back in our days before airbags,
when cars were safe, we could fight over the front seat. We
would call shotgun. We would scramble to the front
seat. Me first, me first. That’s the
way it was. Well, that’s what’s going on
here. These men want the prominent seat. They want the best seat
at the table. And Jesus is continuing to watch
them as they watch him. And he sees their kingdom etiquette
or lack thereof. They’re clamoring for the seats.
Now understand what the setting would have been. We eat at a
table. Say we have a table for six or eight and it’s all, you
know, rectangle, round, whatever. Well, they would have had three
tables and they would have had three tables that were U-shaped.
And so there would have been three tables with a head seat
and a left seat and a right seat. And so there would have been
nine seats altogether, most likely, at this Pharisee’s dinner party. And the best seat of the house
would have been the center seat. And the hosts would have sat
in that table at that particular seat. But as these men are clamoring
for the best seats, the best seat in the house is to the left
of the host. And then the next best seat would have been at
the center of the table to his left. And then the next seat
would have been to the left of that person, then to the right,
and then you would have come over to this table. And don’t
you see the picture of these shameless men, they’re diving
for their seats. Now we go to places and we reserve
a seat, we lean the chair forward, or we put our purse there, our
coat there, or we lick the fork. Some of y’all do that, right?
Nobody’s gonna sit there now. We mess with it just enough so
that somebody knows that’s my seat. That’s what these grown
men are doing. These are the teachers of the
law. These are the Pharisees. These are the cream of crop of
Israel. I mean, can you imagine Bill and James and Jim and the
elders fighting for seats at a congregational meal? I can’t. But that’s exactly what was going
on. These were the teachers of Israel. And they were shameless
in their behavior. And so how does Jesus address
their behavior? Well, he tells a parable. And
he tells a parable about a wedding feast, and you find it in verses
7 through 11. And he says, when you go to the wedding feast,
don’t pick seat number one. Because if you pick seat number
one, the host is going to come and say, I have an honored guest.
That is their seat. You move down. You’re embarrassed. You’re put to shame in front
of all. No, what he says to do is take the lowest seat. And
as the host is adjusting the positions of his dinner table
with his guest, he will then move you up in the sight of all. And then he gives a wonderful
little axiom, a wonderful little teaching in verse 11. He who
exalts himself will be humbled. but he who humbles himself will
be exalted. And so what a great lesson for
these men to learn, these Pharisees, these scribes, and these teachers
of the law who were shameless in their behavior, who were inhumane
towards the man who needed to be healed. Jesus is showing us
what life in the kingdom must be like if we are to follow him
faithfully. Well, there’s a third behavior
Jesus observes. These men are not only speechless
when it comes to how to heal the man or help him, they’re
shameless in grabbing for their places of position, their seats.
But we find them now, they’re stingy. We find it in verses
12 through 14. You remember, oh, it’s been so
long ago now, quid pro quo. You remember that? You’ve forgotten
it, haven’t you? You’ve forgotten all about impeachment.
We’ve had too much COVID. We’ve had too much Democratic
running mates being announced. We’ve had too much of just modern
news. But you remember quid pro quo,
you scratch my back, what happens? I’ll scratch yours. And that’s
what these dinners were like for the Pharisees and the teachers
of the law and the scribes. You see a meal was social currency
back in their day. You invite me to your table and
give me a prominent seat. Guess what happens next Friday
night? I’ll invite you to my table. and you’ll get the honored
seat. And so that’s why these men are
scrambling to get to the seat. And Jesus turns their social
ideals on their head as he says to them, you only invite to your
table those who can repay you with an invitation in kind. But
what you need to do is learn to serve others. This is not
the kingdom way. This is not the way of the love
of Almighty God. So what does Jesus say? He says,
when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or
your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest
they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But notice
verse 13, but when you give a feast, invite the poor and the crippled
and the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed because they
cannot repay you. you will be repaid at the resurrection
of the just. There’s a special word in the
New Testament for love, and it’s the word agape. The Greek language
has four different love verbs. There’s the philos, you get Philadelphia,
the city of brotherly love. There’s storge, affection for
family, I think it is. Eros, which is love between a
husband and wife. But then there’s agape, and it’s
the love that God has for us. He’s going to love us with a
love that will never let us go, and he expects nothing in return.
But it’s also the love with which we love other Christians. We
love because Christ first loved us, and we love others because
It’s the Christian way. It’s what we ought to do. And
that’s what Jesus is pointing out to these stingy Pharisees
and teachers of the law and scribes. You only love those who can love
you back. You only scratch the backs of
others who can scratch your back. And we understand the Lord Jesus.
He is the son of man who came not to be served, but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many. And so these men who
are speechless, who are shameless, but also who are stingy, they
are also shunned. They are unable to enter the
great banquet feast that God has in store for his children
in heaven. I was looking up yesterday a
list of good excuses, you know, we give to people. There’s the
typical excuse, right? I’m busy. I’m washing my hair.
I can’t come. We’ve all used that one. I like
that one. That’s my favorite. But we say now I’ve got to stay
at home and I’ve got to sign a package, sign for a package
that’s coming. not home and don’t sign up, won’t
get delivered until next week, it’s something I really need,
or I’ve got to work, I’m tired, I’m sick. But we get an invitation
from someone and we don’t take it so seriously. We say yes,
we really don’t mean it, and then when the time comes, you
know, Well, I’m gonna wash the hair. Sometimes we do have a
legitimate excuse. There are cases, but we usually
make some lame excuse and that’s exactly what takes place here
in this story where Jesus speaks of a man who gives a great banquet. And a great banquet typically
has two invitations. The first one is, come. I’m having
a meal on Friday at noon. Come eat. You’re invited, there’s
a seat for you. The second invitation is the
one where the servant goes out and says to those who were invited
and who RSVP’d, the food is ready, it’s really time to come. And so in this parable, Jesus
is saying that God has invited Israel through the ministry of
the prophets and now through the ministry of Jesus to come
to the table of salvation through faith in Jesus, through faith
in the Messiah, and come and eat at his bountiful and full
and joyful table. But they rejected the invitation
of the prophets. And now that Jesus has come and
said the day of salvation has come and the food is now ready.
These Pharisees, these scribes, these teachers of the law, the
mainstream of Israel. They’ve got a house to take care
of. They’ve got a stock portfolio
to mine. They have five yoke of oxen,
one of them says, they’ve got to go and see. I’ve just bought
some land and I haven’t seen it yet and so I must go see it
or I’ve just taken a wife. You realize every one of these
excuses is lame. First of all, who buys land without
having seen it? Well, I actually hear that people
are fleeing New York and fleeing the major cities and they’re
buying, I heard it on the news the other day, you probably heard
it, they’re buying houses and homes in Florida, sight unseen,
and shipping their stuff down there. So it’s a bad question,
right? But who buys land without having seen it? Nobody really
does. You see how laying the excuse
is, who buys five yoke of oxen without having seen them? I mean,
what if they’re sick? What if they’re weak? What if
they’re, you know, old? What if they were unfit for plowing? Why would you buy five yoke of
oxen sight unseen? And then there’s the man who
says, I’m married. What young wife wouldn’t want
to go to a nice dinner party and put on a pretty dress? Most
probably would. And so you see these excuses
are lame and you begin to see what Jesus is saying here. I
have invited you to my great feast. I’ve invited you to my
great banquet. I have invited you to the joys
and the bliss of eternal salvation in my presence, where I have
promised to be your God and you will be my people forever. No
more sin, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more darkness. No
more weak eyes, strained hearts, no more weak legs, hurt backs,
no more sin sick living, but eternal bliss. And what did the
people of Israel say to the prophets? No thanks, we’re busy. And what
have they said now to Jesus? Oh, we bought a field, we’ve
bought a yoke of oxen, we’ve taken a wife. And so it can be
with us. Lest you think this passage is
just about the Pharisees. Lest we think in our hearts,
I’m glad I’m not a teacher of the law. I’m glad I’m not speechless. I would have said, heal the guy.
I’m glad I’m not shameful. I would have waited and taken
the last seat. Maybe you would have. And you’re not stingy.
You invite all kinds of people over to dinner. But the Lord Jesus is looking
at our hearts this day, isn’t he? These Pharisees are long
gone. There’s a rule in the interpretation of scripture. If there’s a hero
in the passage of scripture, guess what? You’re not him. It’s
always Jesus. But if there’s a bad person with
bad character, bad behavior, guess what? That’s you. And so
we are like these Pharisees, are we not? We’re like the teachers
of the law. We’re like the scribes. We we get busy and say, Lord,
I know it’s Sunday, but The yard needs cleaning up and I’ve had
a busy week. Lord, I know you want me to invest in some of
the kingdom work, but I’ve got all this other. All these other
goals, my funds are obligated for we say, Lord, I know, I know,
I know, but, but, but, but, but. And what does God tell us in
the passage today? He says in verse 24, none of
these men who were invited shall taste my banquet. This is really a solemn warning,
isn’t it? And it really pairs up nicely
with our call to worship from Psalm 95, and then our psalm
that we sang as our psalm of adoration. Psalm 95 says, come
worship God. We’re his children. We’re the
sheep of his pasture. We’re to come worship him. And
then at the end of that psalm, it doesn’t just end with, oh,
God’s worthy of being praised. It says, don’t harden your hearts.
I’ve invited you, I’ve called you, I’ve summoned you, I’ve
gathered you in my name. Don’t be like the wilderness
generation who shook their fist at me, who hardened their hearts
against me and said, no, thanks, God, we’re busy. No, thanks,
God, your kingdom is not our priority at this very moment. And so here are the words of
the living God today as he calls you, as he summons you to the
gospel. Let me go back to the questions
I asked at the beginning. What happens to a Christian person
when they die? The souls of believers are at
their death made perfect in holiness. They do immediately pass into
glory when they die. And they enjoy the full blessed view of God Almighty
through eternity. But what happens? What will heaven
be like? That’s the other question. What
will heaven be like? It’s a great meal. It’s a great meal full
of joy in the presence of the living God. And the invitation
has gone out, hasn’t it? God has called us all in the
gospel of Jesus to repent of our sins, to come to Jesus by
faith and to receive him and to rest in him alone for our
salvation. But what does his invitation
require? It requires a response. It requires an RSVP. And for
us to say individually on our own, God, I know I’m a sinner. Your word tells me that. Jesus,
I know you’re a savior and that you have died for the sins of
your people. I come to you by faith and I want to receive you
and rest in you alone for salvation. And you know, the words of verse
24 will be flipped. Those who were invited, who’ve
come by faith, shall taste my banquet, God says. Let’s pray
together. Our Lord, we thank you for reminders
of how we ought not to live, how we ought not to act in light
of your gracious invitation. Bless us with faith, strengthen
it today, and may we have hearts as wide open as Jesus’ arms to
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, to go to the highways
and the byways and to proclaim the goodness of Christ until
all men and women and boys and girls come to faith in Him. We make our prayer in Jesus’
name, amen.