Luke #34: Humility Exalted (14:1-14)

Again, welcome to Family Worship with the church body of Eastern Hills this morning! I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor of this church family, and it’s my honor and privilege to get to be in this position, and to get to share the Word of God with such a wonderful congregation each week.

It’s been a great morning of praise and worship, and it’s a joy to be able to share in this experience together. If you’re visiting with us this morning, thanks for being here today. We’d really like to be able to connect with you to thank you for joining us for worship. If you could take a second during my message and fill out a communication card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you, we would really appreciate it. You can return that to us one of two ways: First, you can bring it down to me at the end of the service, because I’d like to meet you and give you a small gift as a token of our gratitude for your visit today. If you don’t have time for that this morning, you can drop the Welcome card in the boxes by the doors as you leave after the service ends. If you’d rather fill out something online, you can head to ehbc.org or download our church app (EHBC Albuquerque) and fill out the contact form at the bottom of the “I’m New” link.

Thanks Kids Ministry Shepherds and leaders! (give us 2?)

Announcements

NMSMO ($3,620), Goal $13,500, VIDEO

Opening

Throughout this year, we’ve been focused on the Gospel of Luke, and we are referring to it as the Story of the King—the story of our King Jesus’s ministry on Earth, including His birth, life, death, and resurrection. Last week, our focus was on “a Place in the Kingdom:” the invitation of Jesus into His kingdom, and His warning about ignoring that invitation.

This morning’s passage is in a way “uncoupled” from last week’s. Rather than it being a straight continuation of the narrative that Luke was telling, in chapter 14, Luke jumps to a new day in the life of Jesus, beginning on some unknown Sabbath day where Jesus was invited to a dinner party at a Pharisee’s house. We will read the first 14 verses of this chapter.

So as you are able, stand and open your Bibles or Bible apps to the 14th chapter of Luke’s Gospel.

Luke 14:1–14 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. 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.” 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.”

PRAYER (Sandia Baptist Church, Don & Clare Davis)

Have you ever used a physical compass? Most of us have them on our phones now, but pretend with me for a moment. Now, we know that basically a compass’s magnetized needle (the red one, usually) always points pretty much north. But what if you were taught about compasses incorrectly? What if you were told that the needle always points south? What would happen as you attempted to use it to navigate? We’d be holding the compass upside-down, and would go the wrong direction entirely.

If you’ve looked in the Life or on YouVersion, you’ve seen that the title of my message this morning is “Humility Exalted.” This seems like an oxymoron, right? Humility is humility, not exaltation.

In our culture, and perhaps in most cultures, we have a kind of internal compass. This compass doesn’t necessarily direct our feet—it directs our lives. Unfortunately, the cultural explanation of this internal compass says that the right direction is to climb higher, get noticed, earn respect, take what you can get, make a name for yourself. But what if this cultural version of our internal compass is upside-down? What if true greatness comes not from climbing up, but from bowing down?

In our focal passage today, Jesus seeks to reorient our hearts to the “true north” of His example. Each example section of this passage reflects some feature of pride. Now, Jesus doesn’t just challenge our pride—He uses three interactions with the Pharisees to paint a picture of humility that redefines compassion, position, and even hospitality.

1: Compassionate humility

In the first section of our focal passage, Jesus faces off against Pharisees who cared more about their rules than they did about people. Their pride was their rule-keeping, and their rules actually ruled out compassion on the Sabbath day:

Luke 14:1–6 CSB

This is the third and last Sabbath healing narrative in the book of Luke, with the others being in chapters 6 and 13. It appears that the Pharisees haven’t learned much from the first two run-ins that they’ve had with Jesus regarding healing on the Sabbath. Their compasses were upside-down then, and they are still upside-down.

Again, Jesus was invited to a “leading Pharisee’s” house for a meal, and also again, they were “watching Him closely,” as we saw they had really started to do back in 11:54:

Luke 11:54 CSB

54 they were lying in wait for him to trap him in something he said.

Sadly, they were not watching Jesus in order to see something that amazed them, gave glory to God, or deepened their faith, but to catch Him in something that they could accuse Him with. They were watching Him with judgmental pride. They were living out the rejection that Jesus spoke about in verses 34 and 35 of chapter 13, which we saw last week.

So this man who was at the meal had dropsy (formerly called “hydropisy”), which appears to have been whole body edema (fluid swelling). At the time, the thinking about this condition was that it was linked to the sins of gluttony or greed, and was a fitting punishment for those who lived in such sins. Now, this man could have been brought intentionally, and they knew Jesus would heal him (a plant), which is what happened in chapter 6. He could have been a guest, or he could have just come to the banquet, hoping to meet Jesus, like the woman with the perfume back in chapter 7. We don’t really know, but I have a guess.

Jesus didn’t “respond” (v3) to the man being in front of Him: He “responds” to the fact that they were watching Him closely, because He knows their hearts. We know this because He doesn’t speak to the man—he speaks to the scribes and Pharisees. This makes me think that this guy was a plant, another attempt to get Jesus to heal on the Sabbath, like back in chapter 6. But it doesn’t matter to Jesus why the man was there. The guy was in a bad way, and Jesus could heal him. But first, he exposed the complete lack of love in their hearts with His question. The question is simple: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”

Since Jesus was a healer, then healing folks was considered “work,” so doing that on the Sabbath was out-of-bounds. It didn’t matter to them that this man was miserable. It didn’t matter to them that this man was there and ready to be healed. Their rules prevented them from approving of Jesus’s display of compassion in this man’s life.

The fact that it says, “but they kept silent,” tells us that Jesus wasn’t being rhetorical. He was actually asking a question that He wanted them to answer. And they could have answered this question. They could have said that yes, it was lawful in the event of a life-threatening situation. They could then have argued that this man’s condition wasn’t life-threatening, and that he could have come back the next day (13:14), but they certainly knew how that was going to go (it didn’t go well in chapter 13). They just chose not to answer Jesus and display so clearly their lack of mercy and love.

So Jesus just took action, healed the man, and sent him home. He then asked another question that trapped them instead of being trapped by them: Would they take action if their son or ox fell into a well on the Sabbath? Of course they would, and they knew it. But again they wouldn’t answer here either: because there is no “right” answer: If they say they wouldn’t rescue the son or ox, they are monsters. If they say they would rescue the child or ox, they are hypocrites. Basically, you wouldn’t ask your son or your ox to wait until the setting of the Sabbath sun to be rescued. You would take action, even if their lives weren’t directly threatened. Quite a dilemma.

This part of our focal passage today is actually less about Jesus’s authority to perform miracles on the Sabbath than it is about His opponents’ concern for rituals and traditions over the well-being of others.

Thabiti Anyabwile wrote:

Jesus performs the miracle right before their eyes, and their hearts do not soften one bit. No one’s mind is changed. No one’s heart is changed.

— Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in Luke

There’s no rejoicing, no celebration, no praising God because this man has been made instantly well. There’s just sitting silently in their pride.

The progress of their responses to Jesus in these Sabbath interactions is interesting to note: In the first interaction back in chapter 6, verse 11 tells us that they were “filled with rage” over Jesus healing the man with the shriveled hand. In 13:17, Luke records that they were humiliated after his healing of the woman who had the injured back. And here in 14:6, they have nothing to say at all. Perhaps I was wrong: maybe they have learned something after all. But not what they needed to learn.

Compassion is an act of humility. It’s setting aside your right to your time or your resource to help someone else. For the Pharisees, the man being there was an opportunity to see God do something great for someone who was in a dire place, to care for him and desire his well-being, but instead, they just wanted to have a reason to attack Jesus so they could stop Him. They didn’t care about this man—they just wanted to use him. Their internal compass said control was more important than compassion. But we’ve already seen Jesus explain that the Sabbath wasn’t given to prevent compassion through rules, but to display God’s compassion on humanity by giving them freedom from work through fully trusting God. Humility prioritizes compassion over control.

We’re not called to put on stricter and stricter rules so that we can get better and better at condemning one another. Instead, we’re called to put on humility as a choice, according to Colossians 3:

Colossians 3:12–15 CSB

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. 14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.

Humility, compassion, kindness, gentleness, and patience go together. Are these the qualities that we wear? Do we have compassion for people around us, walking in humility as we seek to serve them?

The Pharisees didn’t have any humility in their hearts, which is displayed in the fact that they had no compassion for this diseased man.

So Jesus turns the tables and goes on the offensive in explaining humility with two other illustrations that fit his context: a dinner banquet. Reversal: now HE is watching THEM.

2: Positional humility

The remaining two sections in our focal passage both focus on teachings that are actually very practical. However, the point is that they both reflect a heart that is rightly pointing at God in humility. Both of them have to do with the context that Jesus was in at that moment: a banquet. The first teaching is given to those who were invited to a banquet:

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.”

Jesus watches and listens to those who had been invited to the same banquet that He has been, and what He sees is sees everyone jockeying for the best places to sit: the ones closest to the center, near the host. As the group reclined to eat, they would be along a low table (possibly in a V shape) with the host in the center. The “best” positions would have been nearest to the host, because they showed how honored you were, because the host chose to have you sit with him.

But the men at this banquet were all choosing their own places at the start, and I wonder if they weren’t even arguing and negotiating with each other to get better seats. See, their internal compasses were pointing up the social ladder, trying to serve only their own interests. Jesus says that this way of thinking an acting is upside-down.

Now, Luke calls Jesus’s teaching here a parable, and it is one because it is a real world story with a spiritual meaning. Jesus took their actions at this meal and crafted the story of a hypothetical wedding banquet in the future.

So here’s where Jesus’s advice is really practical: Suppose you are invited to this banquet, and when you came in you grabbed a prime seat because it hadn’t been taken yet. However this isn’t first-come-first-served, or like calling the front seat of the car, or even like laying your jacket down at the theater to show that seats are saved. The host knows who he has invited, and he knows what order they deserve to sit in. So someone with more status comes in a little late. The only seat left will be the least important seat… The host is left with a choice: insult the more important guest by having him sit so far away; or give the important guest your spot, and then guess where you’ll be going: the lowest. And not only that, but that move will happen with everyone looking at you.

Rather, put yourself in a low seat when you come in, and then the host will move you up if you should be moved up. Same thing… this happens in front of everyone. It’s not a manipulation trick. It’s an act of humility, and it seems to be Jesus paraphrasing verses 6-7 of Proverbs 25:

Proverbs 25:6–7 CSB

6 Don’t boast about yourself before the king, and don’t stand in the place of the great; 7 for it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here!” than to demote you in plain view of a noble.

There are several practical benefits to humility shown in what Jesus says: Taking the lower position actually gives the opportunity for you to be honored by the host if he so desires, but makes it so that you don’t get disappointed, because you’re in the seat that you chose. It avoids being humiliated (having humility FORCED upon you) in front of everyone. Can you imagine how embarrassing that would have been?

But the crux of this, and really of this whole passage, is verse 11:

Luke 14:11 CSB

11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus was no longer talking about dinner parties in this verse. He was talking about life. In fact, He was talking about how things are to be in the Kingdom of God.

Humility is to be a hallmark of the Christian life. If we are in Christ, our compasses are to point us away from putting ourselves first, because this is precisely what our Savior did. He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, humbled Himself by dying on the cross. He did this because He laid down His rights to being first, even though He is God in the flesh. He did this not because He wanted to—He was obedient to the plan of the Father for the redemption of mankind. So the sinless One took our sin on Himself, and has offered to us His righteousness, if we will in humility believe in Him. It’s only because of Christ’s humility that we can be forgiven. And according to Philippians 2, because He humbled Himself, He has been given the name that is above every other name—He has been exalted over everything and everyone. The One who had the right to exalt Himself humbled Himself instead, and as a result, is exalted.

Brothers and sisters, we are called to lay down ourselves for others, and especially for one another. We aren’t in competition according to Paul, except in one thing: showing honor to one another.

Romans 12:10 CSB

10 Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.

This humility of position means that we are to serve one another, because this is the example that Jesus has set for us. I quoted Mark 10:45 a couple few weeks ago, but I need to share it again this morning in context of what Jesus was saying at the time:

Mark 10:42–45 CSB

42 Jesus called them over and said to them, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

There is verse after verse about the blessing of exaltation that comes from truly humbling ourselves before the Lord. This isn’t false humility (which we will talk about when we get to chapter 18), but truly seeing ourselves accurately in the light of God’s greatness. When we compare ourselves to others, we might feel like we’re doing well. But when we compare ourselves to God, we see just how far we have to go, and how incredible His grace is in our lives. It’s then that we’re in the right position for God to lift us up and exalt us in His will and in His way. Here are a couple of those verses:

James 4:10 CSB

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

1 Peter 5:6–7 CSB

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

Brothers and sisters: we are called to humble service in the world, and humble service in the church. We are called to humble service in our jobs, at our schools, on our teams, with our friend groups, and in our homes. This might mean that your service actually goes unnoticed by anyone but God, but that’s okay. As Paul also wrote in Philippians 2:

Philippians 2:3–4 CSB

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.

Look for those you can serve today—others whose interests you can serve instead of your own. This service may mean that you display hospitality to those who cannot repay you. This was Jesus’s third point, and it is ours as well.

3: Hospitable humility

Sometimes the compass of our hearts points toward parity: keeping things in balance. Hospitality is one of these areas, and now instead of the folks vying for the best position at the meal, Jesus addresses His host directly:

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.”

It’s reasonable to think that since the room was filled with Pharisees who were watching Jesus closely that this “leading Pharisee” had invited all his closest pals over to keep and eye on Jesus and enjoy the meal while doing so. Socially for them (as it often is for us), being invited to this banquet would have basically obligated those men to each host their own banquet and invite the host of this one.

But Jesus again says that this way of thinking is upside-down compared to the Kingdom. Jesus instead tells His host that next time he throws a party, he should invite people who could never hope to invite him back—the poor, maimed, lame, and blind. In so doing, he would be serving not himself, not those people that he favors, but God. And as a result, he would be blessed.

This actually goes against a lot of worldly thinking when it comes to hospitality. We’re a world that keeps score, and humility doesn’t need to keep score. Jesus wasn’t saying that it’s sinful to host your friends and family, or that it’s somehow wrong to be invited back. What we need to understand is that being invited back is all the reward we can expect for being hospitable to those that we expect to invite us back. When what we want is a reward from the world, that’s all the reward we will get.

Jesus talked about this kind of attitude in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:1 CSB

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven.

Matthew 6:5 CSB

5 “Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.

Matthew 6:16 CSB

16 “Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.

So if we invite those who cannot possibly hope to repay, then we can invite with no thought of our being paid back. We can then know that our reward comes from somewhere—from Someone—else.

True humility isn’t concerned about the rewards of the world. Its focus is on who God is and how undeserving we are of His hospitality—a hospitality that we can never repay. In God’s hospitality, we are the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind! We’ve already been invited to a banquet that we can never even begin to hope to pay back: the marriage feast of the Lamb:

Revelation 19:6–9 CSB

6 Then I heard something like the voice of a vast multitude, like the sound of cascading waters, and like the rumbling of loud thunder, saying, Hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty, reigns! 7 Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself. 8 She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.”

When we in humility invite without thought of repayment, we honor God by acting like Him. We know that our reward will be covered later: we have to have an eternal perspective. Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 25:

Matthew 25:34–40 CSB

34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 “ ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

When we humble ourselves in order to love well those who can never repay us, we don’t just love them—we love Jesus! Look for these kinds of opportunities to bless others. You never know:

Hebrews 13:2 CSB

2 Don’t neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.

Closing

The question that we need to ask ourselves as we close is this: is our compass upside-down? Are we navigating life by the world’s map? Or are we imitating the Lord by showing compassion instead of judgment, by being satisfied with the lowest of positions instead of striving to be first, by showing hospitality to those who cannot possibly repay us? This is why humility is exalted—because when we are humble, we show the world and one another who Jesus is.

The first step of humility for you today might be confession of sin. Confess your pride. Confess your desire for the world’s rewards instead of God’s blessings. Confess the ways that you put yourself first. Repent and submit to God in faith. If you need to come and pray at the steps or with one of us about that, in a moment the band will be coming up for our invitation song. Joe and Kerry will be down front with me.

I explained the truth of the Gospel in my second point this morning: that Christ died for our sins and rose again so that if we humble ourselves in faith, believing in His work to save us, we will be forgiven and promised eternal life with God.

Church membership

Giving

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Catch up day after Romans, Psalm 57… 1 Cor tomorrow)

Pastor’s Study returning tonight: The Problem of Evil (finishing up apologetics) for this week and next, then Business Meeting, and then on to the Sermon on the Mount

Prayer Meeting

Messengers for CBA (October 2) and BCNM (October 21-22) sign up sheets on counter in office

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Romans 12:1–3 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. 3 For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.

Related Media

Related Sermons

Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.