Lessons from the Table

In this passage of scripture Jesus tells series of parables back to back while dining with some important people.

Instead of looking at each parable and teaching in depth. There is a common theme that runs through out each of them. Each teaching and parable shows a different aspect of humility and how it relates to our relationship with God.

This is how the word humility was viewed in the Jewish mind

Humility- In the O.T., Hebrew it carries the basic sense of “to crouch” or “to bend low to the ground”—either to express submissiveness or to metaphorically describe one’s impoverished condition.

I. Humility determines how we see God.

Luke 14:1–6 CSB

1 One Sabbath, when he went in to eat at the house of one of the leading Pharisees, they were watching him closely. 2 There in front of him was a man whose body was swollen with fluid. 3 In response, Jesus asked the law experts and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they kept silent. He took the man, healed him, and sent him away. 5 And to them, he said, “Which of you whose son or ox falls into a well, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” 6 They could find no answer to these things.

We know from past experiences the pharisees were critical of Jesus for healing on the sabbath.

So in this account Jesus takes the question to them. Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?

How one answers this question reveals how they ultimately view God, the father.

Self-righteousness and pride will always turn into legalism. Where instead of asking What is the heart of God, we ask the question what will make me look more righteous either in the eyes of men or in the eyes of God.

Then in turn we begin to teach and believe in a God that values what we value as opposed to the what God himself values.

Having grown up in church I have seen first-hand how legalism affects our relationships with each other and our relationship and view of God.

I have seen where people have had the tendency to try to outdo one another in having the highest set of standards.

Where one might brag about how he wears a suit and tie to church on Sunday; another may brag on how he wears one everyday even to mow the lawn. (true story)

Which ever standard of righteousness seemed the most inconvenient was consider the highest one and brought the most honor to God.

So when Jesus asks this question” is it lawful to heal on the sabbath” he is asking more than just the question. He is asking how to you view the Father?

Is he harsh and austere caring more about your external righteousness than his people?

In case your wondering this question that was posed is not the question,” is it okay to do wrong in order to do right?” The answer to that question will always be no. There is never an instants where God broke his own law.

Rather this is an instance due to there self righteousness they could not imagine a God that whose intent of the sabbath was to care for man.

In fact there was not a scriptural president that stated a man or woman could not heal on the sabbath.

This is the reason for the experts in the laws silence. You see pride will always result in a unbalanced view of God.

On the one side are those who act as if God cares only about piety and not people. He is only the righteous judge. Then on the other side of the road is a view that God values only love and cares nothing about righteousness. He is the God that doesn’t judge.

Both of these ideas are ditches dug with the shovel of pride alongside the will of God.

Where in our prideful hearts we invent an idea of God, made in our own image and ignore the very character of God as recorded for us in scriptures.

Humility or the lack of it will determine how you view God and ultimately affects our relationships to each other.

Humility will also affect how you view yourself.

II. Humility determines how you view yourself.

Luke 14:7–11 CSB

7 He told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they would choose the best places for themselves: 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don’t sit in the place of honor, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host. 9 The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in humiliation, you will proceed to take the lowest place. 10 “But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Humility determines that we should not think to highly of ourselves. Humility also recognizes that we shouldn’t think to lowly of ourselves either.

You ever been around a christian Eorre? I’m scum, I can’t do anything right. I’m not gifted enough. I’ll just do nothing but read my bible and pray that I can become better.

In other words, humility is not self-debasing rather humility understands our Identity in Christ. It understands our rightful place as children of God. It understands that we have purpose and that God will exhault us and that we needn’t exhault ourselves.

1 Peter 5:5–6 CSB

5 In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time,

III. Humility determines whom we will serve.

Luke 14:12–14 CSB

12 He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. 13 On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

In the middle eastern world dinner parties were a way to show status. The more important the guest at the table. The higher you were seen in social standing. Nothing has really changed today in that way. The big shots of the world tend to spend time with others who are either in the same social standing or slightly above.

So in other words, dinner parties such as the one Jesus was attending were not so much for the guest as they were for the host.

Jesus gave these instructions to instead invite the nobodies of society, The people who were often overlooked by the aristocracy.

This would have been a radically difficult instruction to follow. To do this meant, to purposefully lower your social standing to reach down instead of reaching up.

It meant being willing to sacrifice your reputation in order to serve those who needed it most.

Humility will often determine who and how you are willing to serve.

Even more important than all of this...

IV. Humility determines who will answer the Gospel call.

Luke 14:15–24 CSB

15 When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 Then he told him, “A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. 17 At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’ 18 “But without exception they all began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. I ask you to excuse me.’ 19 “Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’ 20 “And another said, ‘I just got married, and therefore I’m unable to come.’ 21 “So the servant came back and reported these things to his master. Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in here the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.’ 22 “ ‘Master,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, and there’s still room.’ 23 “Then the master told the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will enjoy my banquet.’ ”

So then how do we remain humble?

Philippians 2:5–8 (CSB)

5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,

6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man,

8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

The phrase “he emptied himself” means

“to completely remove or eliminate elements of high status or rank by eliminating all privileges or prerogatives associated with such status or rank—‘to empty oneself, to divest oneself of position.

Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 739.

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Ask Have I humbled myself like Christ? In what ways are we serving like Jesus?