Jesus Confronts Our Hearts

Intro: “I just love confrontation, and I’m super good at it,” said no sane person, ever. Confrontation either makes us extremely uncomfortable, and we only do it because we have to, or we jump at the opportunity to confront because we love our anger and we love fighting. I’ll just tell you right now that the latter is a sin. But refusing to lovingly confront sin is also sin, because if we know that we ought to do something to build others up to the glory of God, and we don’t do it, that’s sin. And since we don’t want to confront, and because we fear doing it wrongly, we need a model for both a reason to do it and how to do it well.

In God’s Word today, we see that Jesus’ method of confrontation is to lovingly call people to face their accountability to God. He is not reacting out of frustration and speaking out of turn. Nor is he cowering from the conflict that confrontation represents. Jesus is loving enough to meet people where they are, but not to leave them as they are.

Jesus confronts the issues in our hearts: we are self-righteous hypocrites, and we are self-exalting and self-serving. In order to confront our hearts, Jesus asks probing questions and gives appropriate comparisons to help us face our true motivations.

Luke 14:1–14 ESV

One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And 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 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 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 table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or 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, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

What kind of a host would invite you as honored guest to a friendly meal with less than honorable motives? Who would have you there, under the guise of table fellowship, to try to trap you in something you might say or do? - In our text today, that appears to be the tactic of the Pharisees with Jesus.

Or what kind of a guest willingly confronts you over a meal you invited him to? One who is either very rude, lacking self control, or one who knows what you are about, and is so kind and loving that he takes the opportunity of table fellowship to reveal his sincere concern for your condition before God. This too is in our text, where Jesus not only confronts the Pharisees yet again with their hypocritical religiosity, but he also uses the opportunity to teach lessons that confront the hearts of guests and host alike.

As we study this today, I want us to see ourselves in the heart issues that Jesus confronts, and I’d like us to consider Jesus as a model for how we can faithfully and lovingly confront others with their accountability to God.

In vv. 1-6 we see that…

Jesus confronts our self-righteous hearts.

The Pharisees here are true to from in what we have come to expect from them. They are self-righteously hypocritical. Jesus too is consistent—consistent in his compassion and consistent in his confrontation of the Pharisees and their hypocritical religiosity.

Luke leads us to immediately question the motivation of this important man among the Pharisees, probably a member of the Sanhedrin, and other members of the religious establishment there present. They are watching him closely, it says. They are deliberately seeking for some way to catch him in wrongdoing, some way that they can discredit him. In fact, it’s possible that they have planted this man suffering from dropsy, though we can’t be certain. Dropsy, which we now call edema, is a condition that describes tissues in the body being swollen with excess fluids, most noticeable in the hands, arms, feet, ankles and legs. According Mayo Clinic, “Edema can be the result of medication, pregnancy or an underlying disease — often congestive heart failure, kidney disease or cirrhosis of the liver.” For this man, I think we can rule out medication… or pregnancy. :-) However, he likely had an underlying heart, kidney, or liver issue. Undoubtedly Jesus heals him not only of these swollen symptoms but of the actual condition.

As we said, Jesus is consistent. He knows what they’re about and proves it by asking up front if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath, not the first time the issue has arisen. Their initial silence is either due to their complicity in planting this man who needs healing or because they don’t know what to say. On the one hand, some rabbinical teachers (for instance, among the Essenes) would have prohibited healing on the Sabbath, but if they said it was not lawful, then Jesus might ask, “Where do you find this in the Torah?” To which they would have no answer, because such prohibition is not found in the Law of Moses.

Out of compassion for the need of this individual, and to deliberately confront the self-righteous hypocrisy of these religious elite, Jesus heals the man and sends him on his way. While we have nothing else about the healing or the man’s reaction to it, Luke tells us that Jesus made sure their hypocrisy was readily evident in their judgmentalness and hypocrisy over his helping hurting people on the day of rest. If your son, or even your ox, needed rescuing out of a well on the Sabbath, would you not immediately pull him out? Well, of course, they have nothing to say because the answer is obvious. They would sound either heartless or like liars if they said they would not but must wait until the following day.

Jesus’ critics are silenced by the consistency of his wisdom and power from God. They can’t argue with the results, and they can’t claim that he is acting inconsistently with God’s desire, because they look foolish every time. Jesus demonstrates consistency in compassion and character, in word and in deed. We’re not surprised, or we shouldn’t be, at Jesus consistency in acting lovingly on both counts (compassion and confrontation), nor at his wisdom to ask probing questions that force the people he addresses to consider their own motivations.

What are some ways that this scenario and Jesus’ questions allow us to see their hypocrisy showing its true colors? (These are adapted from Steve Cole: https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-68-jesus-confronter-luke-141-14)

It is hypocrisy to use God’s Word as a weapon against others but not for the purpose of applying it to ourselves.

Remember that if the Bible is God’s authoritative Word (that means that it communicates truth about God and what his expectations are for us in relationship to him), and it is, then we must not use it for ammunition against others while not submitting our own lives to the authority of God’s Word for every belief and practice.

(Similarly…)

A hypocrite will bend the rules for his own purposes but apply them rigidly to others.

Or you might say it is hypocritical of us to want others to give us space to be discerning in application of biblical principle but to be super strict in our judgment when we see them making decisions that we wouldn’t make ourselves. (I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ask one another questions for accountability that challenge whether or not we are carefully considering our motivations. But I am saying that we often give ourselves more grace than we extend to others. That’s hypocritical.)

We want to be forgiven but do not want to forgive.

Hypocrites care more about man-made rules than they do about having a right relationship with God in their hearts.

In fact, I would say hypocrisy arises from taking religion and shaping it into our image, rather than seeking the heart of God on his terms. Caring more about rules than hearts is like parents who care more about their children’s behavior because of how it reflects on them than being concerned for whether or not that child’s heart is being shaped to submit to God.

Hypocrisy ignores overwhelming evidence in order to persist in sin.

We will justify it and justify it and justify it in our minds. That’s not what God means when he says . Or that applies to others but not to me. Or this is a private sin that doesn’t affect anyone else. Or I’m under so much stress, surely this *minor* anger problem is justified, or this activity is a necessary release of stress that God may not *technically* approve of. Or my spouse doesn’t treat me the way he ought to or he has changed so much; therefore, I’m justified in treating him this way, or in meeting my emotional needs in another relationship, or in leaving him. Or just about everyone is doing it, so surely it can’t be that bad, or surely it is actually ok.

Hypocrites aim to tear down anyone who confronts their sin with God’s Word.

We see this in our passage, we see it on a large scale in our society, and we see it on an individual scale in our own lives. The religious establishment hates Jesus all the more for exposing their hypocrisy (see how harshly he goes after them in Lk 11:37-54).

The moral revolutionaries who justify the killing of unborn children (no longer even calling it abortion but rather a woman’s right to planned pregnancy… if it was unplanned, it is her right to have it undone) have and will continue to vilify those who maintain that all human life is to be protected from defenseless murder. The same moral revolutionaries make biblical conservatism enemy #1 because we continue to hold that God’s design for both marriage and gender is for humanity’s own good and his glory.

Individually, we will at times have a conflict with someone in the church or otherwise, and instead of seeking to understand what was and is indeed wrong in our own hearts, all we continue to focus on is what they must have done wrong and how they continue to behave wrongly. That’s hypocrisy in our hearts: We would rather tear down another than deal with our own sin.

Of course, the point of all this is that we must face our own inclination toward self-righteous hypocrisy.

Jesus confronts our self-exalting hearts.

(our selfish pride… closely connected to behaving as self-righteous hypocrites)

Picture with me what happens in Jesus’ parable. ***

What is the spiritual implication of the parable? The key is in v. 11. If you don’t learn your place before God, humbling yourself before him while there is opportunity, the time will come when your self-exaltation will result in humiliation.

Our lives will be like one of those guys who runs out on the pitch in the middle of a professional sporting event. He’s dashing around madly, stealing his moment of fame. But it doesn’t last. It quickly ends in humiliation.

And the humility we need to lead lives of patient submission to God isn’t easy. In fact, humility is not something we achieve by trying harder. It’s not ultimately a result of effort, per se. Humility results from a right understanding of our place, particularly before God.

To try to be humble without knowing more of God is like trying to drink the chocolate out of chocolate milk without getting any of the milk! … Like trying to enjoy the colors of the reef without getting in the ocean!

To grow in humility is to know more of God. (Careful study of and appreciation for the nature and activity of God will lead to humble thinking, speaking, and behavior.)

Humility results from swimming in the knowledge of God’s glory in all things, and from drinking deep of his unmerited grace toward us who believe!

Jesus confronts our self-serving hearts.

True generosity (humble hospitality) is considerate and caring of those in need; it does not simply do that which is comfortable and convenient. [verses ***]

Think about your opportunities for generosity, and for hospitality, as mirrors of the gospel. ***

And true service (generosity, hospitality) is not done for credit before God or men but is a result of a changed heart that reflects the compassion and caring concern in God’s own character.

Seek only to be rewarded and recognized by God.

Conclusion:

Jesus models the humility and hospitality that reflect the highest levels of our heart accountability to God. As believers, we feel convicted by impure motives—by our self-serving, self-exalting, self-righteous hearts.

What do we do about our hearts?

Since our own hearts elude us, lie to us, and lure us astray, we need something else—someone else—to listen to, who rightly interprets, corrects, and guides our hearts. We need God and his truth to invade and permeate our hearts. We need the Holy Spirit to use God’s Word to do our “heart laundry,” plunging away the stains and grunge to give us garments of pure motives.

Trusting in yourself to try to get your heart right is like thinking that you can clean up your nasty, sweaty, filthy clothing by washing it in the same dirty water… like getting out grass stains by beating the shirt against the freshly mowed lawn.

[second… and final application for today]

How do we confront?

I wonder if we could be better at lovingly confronting others in a way that asks probing questions, and with a motivation not to tear them down but to see them restored to God?

Two things we often lack (in order to confront, and to do it like Jesus): we often lack either courage or compassion. Jesus is not lacking in either.

Although Jesus would have been tempted to fear what they might think of him or do to him, he knows that God’s truth and authority for their own good is on his side. And because their souls are at stake, he has compassion on their state. Jesus lovingly confronts those who continue in rebellion. He lovingly displays compassion on the hurting, in order to draw attention to their even greater need, to which he is the answer. Confrontation is indeed confrontation, but his goal is not to shame & condemn people but to help them see their need for God’s blessing and intervention.

Often we lack sympathetic humility. What’s missing from our hearts is the goal of the greatest good for the one we confront. This impacts the tone of our confrontation… Are we confronting the sin acts themselves as the greatest evils ever perpetrated against God, or is our concern to lovingly confront those who are caught up in that sin so that they will see God’s standard and fear him for the good of their own souls, and then respond to his grace to them in Christ Jesus?

Before confronting, measure your motivation against the standard of Jesus’ model: Is it for the sake of their own eternal good, aiming to help them consider what’s going on in their hearts? Is your goal that they be restored to God? Then lovingly confront.

Most importantly, what we must put before people is Christ himself. ***

***