For They Cannot Recompense Thee

Service Notes

Rejoice

Today we pause and rejoice about the decision to over turn Roe vs Wade

We should immediately make plans (1) to make rooms in our homes (2) make room in our hearts for the discussions that come from this

We will start our service tonight with a special time of prayer for this.

Tonight we will also be singing many hymns. You will not want to miss it.

Do not forget the change in schedule for this coming weekend

We are meeting on Saturday night instead of Sunday night

Tailgate meal starts at 6:30 pm

At 8 pm we will have some singing, short message, and time of prayer

Going to be a good time that ends with fireworks!

Join us today at 4:30 pm as we have need of some volunteer spots to be filled.

Overview and Reading

This is the third time Luke has depicted Jesus as an invited guest at a Pharisee’s table (see also 7:36–50; 11:37–54), and on each occasion Jesus makes things uncomfortable, challenging the social conventions and the moral values of his hosts and fellow guests.Reading Introduction

Luke 14:1–15 (KJV 1900)

1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.

2 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.

3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?

4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;

5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?

6 And they could not answer him again to these things.

7 And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,

8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

9 And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

12 Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee.

13 But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:

14 And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

15 And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.

Sermon Introduction

Overdue for a basketball illustration \ running in front of Joey Randolph - constant confrontation

The Word of God and Jesus in particular confront us continually with our sin.

It’s safe to say that if you are not using Scripture to confront your life, then you are not growing in Christ.

Scripture is given for reproof and correction (2 Tim. 3:16).

Just another Saturday Night of Ministry

Jesus was very intentional about His meal plan

Luke 7:34 “34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!”

Jesus would often be found at a meal / Stephanie always calling me about lunch time. “Sounds fun.. with kids crying in the background.”

The Bible is filled with stories of meals with Jesus

In Luke and Matthew, we read about angles ministering to Jesus after his Temptation in the Desert. We assume they do so with food. (Luke 4:1–13) and (Matthew 4:1–11).

In John 2, Jesus is at the Wedding Feast at Cana (2:1-11).

In Luke 5, Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at the home of Levi (5:29-32).

In Luke 7, Jesus is anointed by a woman in the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal (7:36-50).

In Luke 9, Jesus feeds the five thousand (9:10-36).

In Matthew 14, Jesus feeds 5000 with two barley loaves and two fish. (Mt 14:13-21).

In Luke 10, Jesus eats in the home of Mary and Martha (10:25-42).

In Luke 14, Jesus shares about the parable of the large banquet in which He urges people to invite the poor rather than their friends (14:7-24).

In Luke 19, it is implied that Jesus ate with Zacchaeus and his household (19:1-10).

In Luke 22, we read the account of the Last Supper (22:14-23).

In Luke 24, states that Jesus stayed and had supper with the two disciples after the encounter on the road to Emmaus (24: 13-35).

In Luke 24, there is a second occurrence of Jesus eating after his resurrection. This time with his disciples in Jerusalem (14:35-48).

In John 21, Jesus ate fish with his disciples after his resurrection and the miraculous catch of 153 fish (21:1-14).

Jesus demonstrates conversations around a meal can change lives.

Eating together creates a special bond. Psalm 41:9 “9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, Which did eat of my bread, Hath lifted up his heel against me.”

Whom you ate with, or whom you invited to eat with you, defined your place in society.

Realized I spend a good bit of my delivering sermons to Christians about conversations that Jesus had a table surrounded by unbelieving people.

In following Jesus I should be found at that table more often.

Ladies, next time you ask your husband what he wants to do for dinner and he says “I don’t know.” Remind him that Jesus would know. Jesus had a plan for his meals and where he would invest His time.

Accept the invitation

Jesus gave the truest and most effective protest against the world's evil--may be made from within, by living a holy, godly, and beautiful life--in the midst of the world's evil.

In a society where shame and honor were central motivating factors, this mattered. Jesus’s willingness to eat with and to accept invitations from both the respectable and the disreputable, the influential and the marginalized, was one of his most striking traits.

Jesus is accused of “being a friend of sinners.”

He was a friend in the truest sense. He never came unprepared. He came ready to share the truth.

Pharisees believe they have set the stage

Luke 14:1-2 “1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. 2 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.”

Jesus meets the man with dropsy, when he dropped in for this meal

Did they plant the man with dropsy or did they just take the occasion to see what Jesus would do?

Jesus has run into trouble in the past on the Sabbath, Saturday.

AMAZING AND WONDERFUL. They knew how Jesus would respond to a person in need being put in His path.

Jonah 4:2 “2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”

Pharisees want to see if Jesus will break their Sabbath laws, once again.

In Luke 6 the disciples had been picking and eating wheat kernels in the fields on the Sabbath and got into trouble with the Pharisees.

Also in Luke 6 on another Sabbath, Jesus was in a synagogue, and saw a man with a withered hand and healed him.

In Luke 13 a woman showed up who had been bent over for eighteen years and of course it was the Sabbath and of course Jesus was moved with compassion and healed her.

What were the Sabbath instructions.

Exodus 20:8-11 “8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

What a gift to a people who had over 400 of the slavery of bondage.

Got pulled over when first married. Officer gave me two options. Though it was a command it was also a gift.

They had made the gift a curse.

Many Jews believe that the first five books of the Bible were NOT all that Moses received from God. They also believe that God told Moses a lot more things, things that were passed down by word of mouth from rabbi to rabbi until they were finally written down 200 years after Jesus. These teachings are called the Mishna. They fill six volumes.

About 23 books of this size.

One example – it was against the law to tie a rope to your bucket at the well on the Sabbath, but it wasn’t against the law to tie a knot in your wife’s girdle on the Sabbath. What do you do if you need water on the Sabbath? Use your wife’s girdle to tie the bucket to the rope!

In all actuality, Jesus was setting the table

Luke 14:3-4 “3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? 4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;”

The power of asking questions

We live in a time where we think that a well crafted response by someone like Ben Shapiro on a college campus is how we help people change their way of thinking. Jesus demonstrates the necessity of asking the right questions.

We already know their thoughts. They told us last chapter “you have 6 days to get healed why come on the Sabbath?”

They weren’t willing to speak up and admit their faulty worldview. They knew it would demonstrate their lack of compassion for the man.

The follow up question

Luke 14:5 “5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?”

Their response: Crickets. Luke 14:6 “6 And they could not answer him again to these things.”

The narrator could inset into the story: You see the preservation of their own comfort was clearly a higher commitment than rigorous sabbath keeping. But when it comes to another person's need, whose illness is no skin off your nose, then the law becomes conveniently rigid to protect them from involvement

Outside of the truth of God’s Word their is nothing but logical fallacies and inconsistent application of rules.

Man at his worst is religious man using his religion to protect himself from the inconvenience and disturbance of needy strangers!

Transition: Jesus has now set the stage to teach them a very important lesson about how their view of life needs to be turned completely upside down.

Jesus sets the table and resets their understanding of life

This is where I see if my friends were paying attention when we read the passage earlier. Bring in two round tables and 6 chairs.

Luke 14:7 “7 And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,”

Jesus looks for what we love.

READ AFTER THE GUYS ARE SITTED Luke 14:8-11 “8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; 9 And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. 10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. 11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

Jesus is not looking at what they are wearing, what they drove up in, or who came with them but He is looking at their motive. He is looking at whom they love.

You might say that is a whole lot of information from a simple decision of where to sit. (1) It is Creator of man we are talking about. (2) It is not a simple decision, but a symbolic decision we have here.

Jesus watches and he sees what their treasure is: they love the praise of men. They love to be esteemed for occupying the seats of honor. (WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE SEAT THAT YOU CHOSE?) LET THE GUYS BE SEATED

Danger of living for the praise of men

Jesus has spoken about this exact scenario twice before.

Luke 11:43 “43 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets.”

Luke 20:46-47 “46 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; 47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.”

What is the danger? Two things go with loving the places of honor.

Exploitation of the weak

Condemnation

If your treasure is the praise of men and a widow's house stands in your way, you will just destroy it. Luke 14:11 “11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

If you live to pursue the seats of honor on earth you will have no seat at all in Heaven. Luke 6:20 “20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Danger of only seeing others for what they can do for you

Jesus wasn’t done after offending the guests, playing musical chairs, His parable now speaks to the host

Luke 14:12-14 “12 Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. 13 But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 14 And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”

Is Jesus forbidding meals with friends and family? Of course not, remember what we read at the beginning. Jesus is very much pro-meals together.

We need to recognize in every human heart a terrible and powerful tendency to live by the law of earthly repayment. Quid-pro-quo friendships are not real friendships.

Be aware of the desire to make life as comfortable as possible and to avoid what will inconvenience us. That is not the way of Christ.

When we serve a meal we should not be self-serving but serving God through our actions and intentions!

This type of worldview will be empty and lead to a long and Christ-less eternity.

Luke 6:24 “24 But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.”

Why does the rich man of Luke 16 only give Lazarus the crumbs? Because Lazarus cannot repay him.

The Rich Man lived for the “here and now”

The Christian knows the blessing of living for the world to come. 14 And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

The Gospel even changes the way we set a table

Who talks like this?

Someone whose Kingdom is not of this world. John 18:36 “36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

Someone who knows life is just a vapor James 4:14 “14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

Someone who knows if we seek to save our lives we lose it. Mark 8:35 “35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.”

Someone who has done this. “When thou hast been invited, go and put thyself down in the lowest place"

Jesus took the form of a servant. Phil 2:8-9 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:”

Conclusion

How do you view those who that “cannot recompense thee:?”

Your answer says so much about how much you really believe about what Kingdom you are living for?

Perhaps this one in attendance thought to break the tension with these words. Luke 14:15 “15 And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.”

The man speaks truth. He Jesus was speaking of matters of eternity.

The Bible tells us Rev 19:9 “9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.”

We are “the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:” that has been called to supper.

Let us follow Jesus example with the time He has given us upon earth and around the tables we will set?