Luke 14:1-35 - Do You Desire the Feast?

Church, one of the ways that God is gracious to us, and we're going to see this in this passage in Luke, one of the ways that God is gracious and kind is that as a father who loves his children, he keeps pressing in.

He's not absent.

He's not even distant to us.

He is not content to just save us from hell and then leave us there.

Rather, as a good, gracious, kind, loving Father, he redeems us and he keeps pressing in.

He keeps maturing us, growing us.

We're growing in our understanding of him and we're growing in our worship, in our love.

This is again a gracious thing the Lord does.

So this morning, if you feel distant from God, like he either doesn't know you anymore, or he's far from you, or doesn't care, I want you to hear this passage that's for you.

To be encouraged, be reminded of God's invitation to come and to feast with him.

And if you are here this morning and you feel apathetic toward God, you feel kind of blind, don't really, you don't really care, I encourage you that this passage is for you.

To encourage you and to remind you that the Lord is patient and kind, but he has given an invitation.

And so that this passage also be a warning for you.

That the Lord's invitation to you is not forever.

It does not go on forever.

The two points I have this morning as we work through this text is that Jesus invites us to the feast, and that Jesus warns us to count the cost.

So we first see this invitation to the feast.

We pick up chapter 14.

Again, it's a Sabbath day, and he went out to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, which is interesting because we know from chapter 13 and chapter 12 that Jesus has been speaking rather harshly to the Pharisees.

He's calling them out.

And the ruler of the Pharisee invites him to dinner, which would have been a customary thing.

Jesus is growing in respect.

He's now viewed as a teacher.

And so the Pharisees bring him in for dinner.

But they watch him carefully.

Not so they can learn from him.

Not so that they can understand wisdom that he is giving.

Their heart is against him.

They watch him carefully.

And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy, which is a condition of a swelling of the skin.

You get a lot of whole retention of water and different things, and it's tied to all kinds of issues and heart issues and kidney issues.

But it's visible deformity.

There's visible swelling of limbs or in the face.

So this man who had dropsy, it was very evident that he was sick.

It was very evident that he needed healing.

So the Pharisees, you know, I was reading commentaries and they were debating.

Did they bring him here to test Jesus?

Or did this guy just happen to wander in because he knew Jesus was there?

Either way, the opportunity is before him, and Jesus says, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?

But they remained silent.

Now remember, these are not new converts to Judaism.

These are the rulers of the Pharisees.

These are the elite of the elite.

Men who would have had an answer for every single question of the law.

And answers for all of it.

Because they made most of it.

And so when Jesus presents them this very fundamental, basic question, right?

This is a kindergarten question.

Is it lawful to do this, to heal on the Sabbath or not?

But they remained silent.

He then 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.

So we have this scene painted for us.

Jesus is again interacting with the Pharisees at dinner.

It's the Sabbath.

What's Jesus going to do on the Sabbath?

He's going to heal somebody, right?

He's going to reveal their hearts and teach truth.

A little side note here.

If you've ever wondered if you have religious idols in your life, meaning that you love certain doctrines or certain convictions more than you love Jesus, if you've ever wondered if that's true or happening in your life, I'd encourage you to go to people that you trust, who are godly and wise, and people who know you, who are around you a lot, and just ask them and say, please, be really honest with me.

Do I spend more time talking about Jesus and how amazing He is and the blessings he brings?

Or do I spend more time talking, you know, I'm more passionate about this certain thing, this certain conviction, this certain truth?

And just ask them.

I mean, this is if you really want to know.

If you don't want to know, then don't ask, right?

But if you want to know, ask people around you, just in the conversations, and how I spend my time, and what kind of comes out of my mouth.

Are there things about Jesus?

Or if we could pull back the layers, are they actually things about the law?

About how I think you're supposed to live according to my interpretation of Scripture.

Obviously, for the Pharisees, this was the law.

They were people who study the law, but when questioned about the law, they could not give an answer.

So then Jesus begins to teach them about honor and hospitality.

Remember, we're at a dinner scene here.

This man who has a health concern is now present.

And then they weren't watching the man who had health issues.

They were watching Jesus.

They're consumed with what he was going to do, is he going to keep the law according to their standards or break the law.

And so Jesus goes in to start teaching them again.

He tells them about this parable or about a feast.

Verse 8 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, You gotta move.

You're not worthy of this seat.

But when you are invited, verse 10, 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 the table.

For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Kind of a place of honor, if you will.

But for the culture here in this time and day and age, there was where you were seated in relation to the host, communicated your worth or your value according to the host.

So if you kind of stroll in and you think you're something, and you sit up by the host, and he comes in and says, Hey, thank you, but your seat's down there, right?

That's shameful.

In front of everyone, you're now ashamed.

But if he comes in and he says, Hey, you're come on, sit up here with me.

You belong up here.

It's a place of honor.

So Jesus, in just really human ways, is speaking to their thinking as Pharisees.

Right?

Because this stuff consumed them.

Like, who gets the most honor?

Who gets the most praise?

Where is someone sitting?

How are they dressed?

How are they greeted?

Like this was their life.

And Jesus is saying, listen, you go to a feast, this is what you should do.

Take a place of humility and not honor.

And then he teaches them, listen, if you're going to throw a party in verse 13, when you give a dinner or 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 ye will be blessed because they cannot repay you.

For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

Jesus is again going right after their heart and saying, Listen, you guys throw feasts all the time.

When you throw a feast, actually invite the people that you don't want to invite.

The people that aren't in your circles, the people who won't treat you and adore you and praise you as you want them to.

The people who, when you do something kind, so to speak, even though your motives are probably not good, they're just going to do something kind back to you because that's just the way the culture is.

But rather, when you throw a banquet, invite those who cannot repay.

So don't just assume that you deserve a seat of honor.

And don't just assume that you're going to invite people and they're going to repay you back.

Don't be selfish when you're hosting people.

And this is a scene of a dinner or a banquet, but this obviously applies to all areas of our life.

And there's a principle of hospitality here that hospitality is sacrificial.

Listen, as Christians, something you need to understand is you're called to be hospitable, which means you're called to be engaging toward others in making them feel welcomed and being kind to them, even to those people that you don't like.

Hebrews chapter 13, verse 2 says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.

Hebrews 13:2

Now that's not a recommendation from Hebrews 13.

That's a command.

That's a command from God through the Holy Spirit, through the author of Hebrews, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.

Now that doesn't always mean food.

I think we often think hospitality, we think food, and I don't have a home, maybe, or my home doesn't fit people.

You can be hospitable in all kinds of ways.

I encourage you to be creative in your ability to be hospitable.

1 Peter 4, 9 says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Without grumbling.

And we live in a day and age, for the most part, where if we don't want to be hospitable, we're just not going to do it, right?

We're just going to stay home.

We're not going to have people over, we're not going to go out and meet people.

We're just going to we don't grumble because we don't do hospitality.

The reality is, if you're someone who's practicing hospitality, guess what's going to happen?

Someone's going to say something.

Someone's going to bother you.

Something's going to happen.

It's going to kind of rub you the wrong way.

And this would have been a common practice in this day and age, and we see it throughout even our lives.

You have people over for dinner.

And maybe they don't appreciate your food.

Or their kids are a little bit more wild than you would like them to be.

Or this happened, or that happened, or whatever.

The command show hospitality without grumbling.

Being kind.

So Jesus is giving this little kind of lesson on hospitality to the Pharisees and to the crowd about how their heart posture is supposed to be.

Go and serve those who can't repay you.

Be kind to those who cannot be kind to you back in the same way.

And if you're so worried about being repaid, listen, you will be paid, repaid, at the resurrection of the just.

Not the resurrection of the prideful, not the resurrection of those who were correct and everything.

The resurrection of those who were justified before God.

Because someone in the crowd says, this is verse 15, says, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

Jesus said to him, A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.

And at the time for the banquet he sent his servants to say to those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready.

But they all alike began to make excuses.

The first said, I have bought a field.

I must go and see it.

Please have me excused.

And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen.

I gotta go look 'em over.

Please have me excused.

Another one said, Hey, I've married a wife, therefore I cannot come.

So the servant came and reported these things to the master.

Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the cities, and bring in the poor and crippled, and blind and 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 the hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.

For I tell you, none of these men who are invited shall taste my banquet.

Strong words from Jesus in this parable.

Dr.

Martin Lloyd Jones says the greatest insult to God is to refuse his offer in Christ.

You know, Jesus is speaking to Israel, and those listening were rejecting this invitation.

Obviously, this is a parable, but Jesus is speaking and teaching through this parable that those who there are people who would rather feast on false teaching and on pride rather than the true bread of life.

They'd rather chase after those things, they'd rather boast in those things than in Christ.

No gifts, no power, no wisdom, but I will boast in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection.

So Jesus is revealing to them what they're boasting in.

Are they boasting to the fact that they've been given an invitation to come to the feast?

Or are they boasting something else?

They're boasting in their pride.

It might not be explicitly clear here, but when these people are asked to be excused, they're saying, we're good.

We don't want to be at your feast.

And all these things are good things.

Right?

This guy's got a field, that's cool, that's great.

This guy's got some oxen.

This guy just got married.

Like these are all good things.

These are are blessings.

But these men, or these examples, are people caught up in these things.

I'd rather go look at a field than go to the feast.

I'd rather go look at some oxen than go to the feast.

I've married a wife.

I can't come.

Rather than go to the feast.

See, it's easy to look at this here in our position and understand what Jesus is saying.

He's talking about the kingdom.

He's talking about eternity and glory forever.

And yet, what are the people caught up with?

Just worldly things.

A field, some oxen, marriage.

None of those things are forever.

None of those things are eternal.

None of those things are ultimate in our life.

But they're distracted by those things.

They're enticed by those things.

They're lured away by those things.

Things that cannot sustain.

Things that cannot nourish.

Jesus is revealing these things.

And I will just say there is a fine line between just being distracted by something.

And you need someone or the Lord to just remind you, hey, hey, this isn't it.

Right?

This job, this isn't what you're living for.

Finding a spouse, this isn't what you're living for.

Having the kind of family you want, that's not what you're living for.

A money in the bank, that's not what you're living for.

We're living for Jesus.

We need regularly people to remind us, to kind of pull our eyes up, like, yeah, that's right.

We're living for glory.

We're living for eternity, for God's glory.

That's what we're going after.

But then there are others that just want to forsake those things.

They want to forsake the feast.

They're rejecting the invitation to come.

Last thing I want us to see in these verses here is that God is gracious and that He invites all to come.

He invites those who are close and those who are far away, those who have social prominence and those who are nothing.

All have been invited.

The invitation is for them, that they would come and enjoy the feast.

Come and enjoy what the host has prepared for them.

This invitation goes out to all.

And so this invitation is to you, it's to me.

Jesus is inviting us to leave the things behind that can't actually satisfy.

The things that look good for a moment, but they're empty.

And Jesus is revealing to them their pride.

So if you're someone and you feel distant, or you feel like God's distant from you, you feel like maybe he's forsaken you, or you just wonder, where is he in your life?

And why isn't he answering your prayers?

And why isn't he doing the thing that you want him to do for you?

I just want to encourage you to remember that you have been invited by the creator of the universe to the feast, to commune with him forever.

And that wasn't an invitation that he could just give out and say, You come, it's free, there's no cost to this.

It's an invitation that he could give out and say, Come, it's free.

There's no cost to you for this.

And we often say, in a sense, it's very right, we say as Protestants, salvation by faith alone, not through works.

Right?

Amen.

But the thing is, there was one man who had to work.

There was one man who had to work, who had to pay the price, who had to justify those who come to the feast.

Amen?

That's Jesus Christ.

So if you're weary and you're discouraged, this is a free.

Invitation to you to come and know the gracious provision of God for you, his mercy and his grace, that he will lay before you a feast.

There isn't a desire in your heart that there isn't something on that table for.

Everything that you've been created for, he will satisfy completely.

Every desire that's of him and for him, he will meet perfectly.

There isn't a thing that he's made you for that he will keep from you the feast.

And this is his invitation to you.

And this isn't just theoretical.

This isn't just like some kind of nice, encouraging pep talk.

This is real.

And there is a real day coming when all of these hopes and dreams will become reality.

They have already in part, if you're a Christian, you've been given a new nature, new desires, new affections, new abilities to walk in holiness.

And then will come the feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb.

When the bride of Christ, who has been redeemed by the blood of Christ through the covenant that God the Father made with God the Son to give him his bride, will come.

And that feast will happen.

And for those who are in Christ, you will be there.

You will be there.

Nothing can undo that.

Nothing can take you away from that.

If you are in Christ.

Yes, and amen.

And Jesus then paints a picture of what that kingdom will look like.

And then paints a picture of what it means to be in that kingdom.

See, there was a great crowd there, as verse 25 tells us.

And he wanted them to understand what was going on.

This wasn't kind of just, hey, I'm going to throw a big shinding.

Everyone's welcome.

And do what you want, live how you want, do your thing.

It begins with these very sharp words.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciples.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Jesus is saying, listen, you need to count the cost of this.

He gives this picture.

For which of you desire to build a tower, maybe you don't sit down and count the cost first.

You just start building, and then you run out of resources and you don't finish.

And then you just, you know, you have a shame and people just mock you.

Or which one of you would see someone coming after you as a king for war and you say, hey, you know what?

Let's just go out there, let's deal with this before they get to us.

Let's go out there and try to make peace before they come and kill us all.

So therefore, verse 33, if any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

What's Jesus getting after?

It's kind of confusing.

Because in one moment it's like, hey, I'm going to throw a feast and I'm going to invite everyone.

The lame, the beggars, the blind, the people in the hedges, people in the highways.

I'm inviting everyone.

But then this invitation turns into, now just forsake everything if you want to come to the feast.

Jesus is revealing to them their heart.

And if your heart is, I want to be at the feast, but I want this more.

And you won't be at the feast.

If your heart is, I want to be with Christ, in Christ, a follower of Christ, but I want these things more.

Which is another way of saying, I'm going to worship you, God, but not as God.

I will have something else above you in my heart.

I will love something else more than you.

And you can sit back and say, well, that's an awful selfish thing for God to do.

Then he's going to make everyone just worship him.

And he's going to make everyone prioritize him first.

And that would be a normal, I think, human response to that.

What you have to understand is God made you.

And he knows what you need.

He knows what you should love.

He knows that the way to life for you, the way to abundant joy and peace and prosperity for you, is to actually worship him supremely.

He knows that if you put anything else in your life above him, that will destroy your love for God and it will destroy your love for that thing.

See, because God made everything, he said, listen, if you worship and you love in the right order, then you can enjoy all these good blessings.

If you worship God and love God supremely and primarily, and then you can love your parents, you can love your spouse, you can love your siblings, you can love all those other things.

It's great.

But the moment you get those out of order, the whole thing is rotten.

The whole thing is empty.

So God in his infinite wisdom and his love for you is revealing your first love, your first priority is him.

It's him.

And what's amazing is that's what you were made for.

And that's what gives you the most joy and the most satisfaction.

That's where you find life.

But in order to do that, you must die to everything else.

Be willing to set it all aside.

See, as Christians, we we read this passage as cost of following Jesus.

And we do two things.

We have kind of two moves that we do.

The first thing we do, which is which is good, is we we clarify what's going on.

That Jesus says we must be willing to forsake all these things.

He's not saying, now go and do that, forsake all those things, your wife and your family and all these things, and yourself.

But what you must be willing to lay all that down, to die to all those things.

And also, as you go through life, you realize the Lord over time does.

He pulls all those things down.

If your priority is your marriage above everything else, your spouse, the Lord's gonna reveal that idol to you.

And he's gonna pull that idol down.

If your idol is a relationship with your parents or siblings, or some kind of earthly thing or earthly possessions or earthly dreams, the Lord's gonna reveal that to you and he's gonna break that down.

It's a gracious, very hard, very difficult thing that the Lord does to us, but it's so loving that he reveals our idols and puts them in their place.

The second kind of move that we do is we kind of just assume, yeah, this suffering, this counting the cost, this forsaking all, that would happen, you know, and we're willing to do it, but it would really happen if we lived like under a dictator or some kind of tyranny.

But because we're free and we're in America, like we don't really have to do this a whole lot.

That's kind of the second thing we kind of tend to do.

And that's revealed because we don't forsake a whole lot.

We don't do a whole lot of forsaking in our life.

We might forsake the big things.

We might forsake, you know, just extreme sin.

We hold on to our judgmental attitude.

We hold on to our anger, we hold on to our selfishness, we hold on to our pride, we we hold on to the shame, even, that others have spoken over us.

We hold on to our wounds, and they become our identity.

Our illnesses, they become our identity.

We hold on to all these other things instead of forsaking them.

Saying, no, no, all that's gonna go.

All that is gone.

I belong to Jesus Christ.

I'm his.

And whatever he wants from me, I'm willing to do that.

Believing that he will enable me to do that.

I think it's easy for us to have this fear kind of in our head of like, well, what it happens if something happens, if there's a situation and I'm called to forsake it, and I don't have the strength to do it.

What will happen then?

Does that mean I'm not a Christian?

Well, if you are a Christian, the Lord will enable you, he will strengthen you, he will give you what you need to forsake whatever it is you need to forsake, to follow him.

But he wants us to know we're not having this world and the kingdom of heaven at the same time.

We cannot serve two masters.

And he gives us warning in verse 34.

Salt is good, but if it salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile.

It is thrown away.

He who has ears, let him hear.

And so this warning is given.

Listen, you can't just start down this road in Christianity and claim to be a follower of Jesus and do all these things and then start following the world and do what the world wants.

Your soul that's lost, it's its savor.

You've lost your effectiveness, you've lost what you're there to do.

No longer can you call people to repentance, no longer can you teach others and disciple others, others, disciple them and encourage them.

You're trying to walk in this for this life and for the life to come.

You're trying to serve two masters.

Jesus is calling us not just to follow him and kind of figure this out, but to be committed disciples.

Alistair Begg is speaking on this text says, Jesus' words in Luke 14 call us not to mere curiosity about him, but to wholehearted commitment.

He isn't looking for admirers or spectators.

He's calling for committed disciples who count the cost and follow him above all else.

And this is the call.

So again, if you are discouraged, you're weary, you're broken down, the Lord invites you.

And through the blood of Christ, he enables you.

But you've got to forsake the things of this world.

Whatever thing you're holding on to, and it might be good, and it might be a blessing from the Lord, but if you're holding on to that thing more, and you love it more than you love Christ, the Lord loves you too much to let you keep doing that.

He loves you too much to let you try to have one foot in this world and one in the kingdom of heaven.

If you're someone who is your heart's callous, or it's hard, you just think, you know, I'm sure I won't be the first person in heaven or the greatest, but I'm definitely gonna be better than a lot of the other ones.

I haven't sinned that bad, I haven't done wicked things.

I I understand the gospel, I believe in it, I'm good.

And you're just kind of content, and you're you're content in your plateaued reality of in your spiritual walk.

You're you're content to just kind of get to heaven.

I don't need to be the I don't need to be first at the head of the table at the feast, but I know I'm gonna be at the feast.

You're just kind of you're there and you're content.

Not because you're having growth in your life, not because you're just overwhelmed by God's mercy, but you you just kind of, in your heart, you feel like you're good.

You're gonna be there.

I just want to give you a warning.

How easy it is for our hearts to become hard.

We're prideful in this.

We assume ourselves just because we know the truth, we're we're a part of a certain clan or whatever, a certain group, yeah.

Of course we're gonna be in the kingdom.

And we just say with the with the guy in verse 15, yeah, blessed is everyone who eats the bread in the kingdom of God.

But we haven't stopped to evaluate, man.

Have I responded to this invitation to the kingdom?

Am I one who's joyfully coming to the feast?

Or am I someone who's saying, hey, I'm gonna serve Jesus more fully, more appropriately.

I'm gonna live the Christian life more intently, but for right now I got this thing.

But for right now, I want to keep doing this.

That is not the way to the feast.

That is the way to destruction.

The Lord is gracious and kind, and he's inviting you to come to enjoy his mercy, to enjoy his love and his grace in your life, to enjoy these things.

So respond with joyful obedience.

Let's pray.