I invite your attention to Luke
chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. Luke 14, we'll start in verse
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. And behold, there
was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And Jesus
answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees saying, is it lawful
to heal on the Sabbath day? And they held their peace. And
he took him and healed him. and let him go. Here, our Lord
is in a chief Pharisee's house. He was surrounded by lawyers,
Pharisees, religious people, religious leaders, all right?
And it tells us here that there's a man there who had an infirmity. Now, I don't know, this was often
the case, where the Pharisees or the scribe, they go find somebody
and bring him to where the Lord was tempting him to do something
that was unlawful. And it makes sense that that's
what happened, because our Lord asked that question, is it lawful? Would
it be right for me to do this? He had the dropsy, nowadays known
as edema. Now our Lord, we know He's the
great physician, and as He often did, He healed this man. I love
how it tells us very plainly, He took him, He healed him, He
let him go. And look at the reaction here, verse five. The Lord didn't
even let these men say anything. But look here, verse five says,
he answered them. He knew what they were thinking. He knew the
evil thoughts running through their heart. He 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? And I love this. And they could
not answer him again to these things. Didn't even let him get
a word out. He shut their judgmental, self-righteous mouths before
they could even speak a word. And though they often tried,
any chance they got to trap him, to trip him up in his words,
or try to get him to do something wrong, they never could. They
never could. It's kind of like with Pilot,
even he said, I find no fault with this man. No man could ever
find fault with this man. Praise God. Look, verse seven. And he put forth a parable to
those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out
the chief rooms. The Pharisees, they chose out
the chief rooms. They always did. And the reason
is because they thought themselves to be worthy, most worthy, more
worthy than anybody else who could possibly be in the room.
And it was no different this day. No different at all. Our
Lord said this in Matthew 23, 6. He said, They love the uppermost
rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and
greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. Our Lord said, Don't call anybody
that. He said, You have one master. That's Him. These Pharisees,
they saw themselves as greater than others. And here our Lord
is going to teach them something. They're going to get a lesson
on pride and humility. That's what this Bible study's
all about. I pray God would teach us today.
Verse seven again, he put forth a parable to those which were
bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms, saying
unto them, when thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit
not down in the highest room, lest a more honorable man than
thou be bidden of him. And he that bade thee and him
come and say to thee, give this man his place, And thou begin
with shame to take the lowest room. Our Lord, he marked how
they did this. He observed their pride. This is a big word in our day.
Their self-worth. Gotta know your self-worth. Their
self-righteousness. He observed it. He knew it. Now
with this parable, he's gonna put them in their place. And
let me go ahead and say this. We need God to put us in our
place continually. You know, if you're
anything like me, it is so easy to do something which we're proud
of ourselves for, pass a test, earn a credential, something,
okay? These are things I have been given the ability to do.
And we just, oh man, we just get lifted up? We need to be
laid low. What do we have that we didn't
receive? What are we gonna start glorying in that God didn't do
for us? The chief rooms here, it means
the first reclining place, the chief place. That's where they
sat. And I couldn't help but wonder,
this occasion, when our Lord was in this chief Pharisee's
house, surrounded by these religious men who wanted nothing to do
with him, they saw nothing in him, I wonder where our Lord
sat. Where you supposed he sat? Scriptures
tell us a son of man hath not where to lay his head. You think
they gave him a seat of honor, the first reclining place? And
I thought of this. Back when I lived at home with
my parents, as I got a little older, I would want to sit in
the best chair in the living room. It was my dad's recliner. Especially when he got a new
recliner. That's where I wanted to sit. And I would often go
and I would sit there and my dad would get home from fishing
or hunting or work or something. And he'd come in the living room
and he'd say, get out of my chair, boy. Get up. That was his chair. I knew it. That was his chair. If we're sitting in someone else's
chair, If we try to put ourselves in that seat of honor, that reclining
place that does not belong to us, God will see to it that we're
moved. God will get us up, move us out,
put us somewhere we belong. Now, did you notice a phrase
towards the end of verse eight? It says, lest a more honorable
man than thou Be bidden of him. And it goes on to say he and
the man that's hosting the event kind of tell you to get up. There is a more honorable man
than you and me. No son or daughter of Adam in
God's sight, as we are in this flesh, is an honorable man or
woman. It means someone that is held
in honor, prized, noble, precious. Who here is that inside of God?
Is there any reason God should look your way? Go ahead. Adam's entire race is fallen
dead in sin, covered head to toe, or desperately wicked, deceitful
hearts. You know, we can make the outside
look pretty good, can't we? I put on a suit this morning,
shaved my face, or my neck. But I am fully corrupt within, dead in sin. That's what I am
in this flesh. The Pharisees, they didn't believe
that about themselves. Neither do we, naturally. Their
wicked hearts deceived them into thinking that they were good,
thinking that there was something honorable about them. Do we not
fool ourselves into thinking the same thing? Do we not? Good? Yeah, a lot of evil happens
in this world, but down deep there's a little good in everybody.
God says there's none good. When that rich young ruler came
to our Lord and called him good master, he said, why do you call
me good? There's none good but God. You see, he said good master,
and yet he turned around and said, what good thing can I do?
Well, you're good, I'm good, we're all good. No, God's good.
We're not good. The chief seat, there's just
one chief seat. There were apparently several,
perhaps many, Pharisees and lawyers here. I think it's right to think
they had a bunch of chief seats sitting around. There's just
one chief seat in glory, and that seat has been reserved for
the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is honorable. He's the more honorable man than
us. He is. He alone is honorable
in God the Father's holy sight. He's the chosen one, mighty-legged,
in whom my soul delighted. He's daily His delight, the delight
of His Father, beloved Son, in whom He's well pleased. The Lord
Jesus Christ, as He walked this earth, He healed all manner of
disease. He still does that today. He compels, we're not gonna look
at this, but starting in verse 15, down several verses, there's
a man who hosted a great dinner. Our Lord compels, causes, draws
sinners to his dinner, his great eternal wedding feast, the marriage
supper of the lame. He compels them, he brings them
in, sinners. The lame, blind, Poor, worthless,
needy sinners. He saves souls. You know, we
can do what we call good things for each other. We can help a
brother or sister in need, and we should, but we can't save
a soul. We can go into all the world
and preach the gospel as God enables us, but we're reliant
on Him to do anything. We can do nothing without Him.
Not a thing we can do. God saves souls according to
His will and His good pleasure. He said, I will have mercy. I
will have compassion. I will be gracious to whom I
will. What a man. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ who does these things. What an honorable man He is. My soul. Now, let's acknowledge
something, all right? I thought of this verse. I think
it's in 2 Samuel, maybe. God said, them that honor me,
I will honor." Let's consider ourselves for a second. Who here has done that? I'm not talking what God has
done in you and for you. Who here, as we are dead in sin,
who here has done anything honorable to God? You know, we'll say things
like, your honor, your majesty, that's who Christ is. No son
of Adam or daughter of Adam deserves such a title. Have we done anything
to honor Him? God said, those that honor me,
I will honor. Anybody here worthy of that? I'm not. The Pharisees didn't, they thought
they did. They saw no beauty in our Lord
that they should desire him. Nine, how often they heard his
glorious voice, utter gracious words. How often, how many times
they saw him perform miracles and wonders. How many times?
How many times he healed the person right in front of them,
just like right here. And yet their hearts remained
cold and dead and hardened against him and his goodness and his
grace. But it's not just them. This
isn't a message to condemn the Pharisees. This is a message
to condemn us, as we are in our flesh, and to cause us to look
elsewhere for any hope to stand before God. Our carnal minds,
mine and yours both, enmity against God, enmity against the Lord
Jesus Christ. The friend of this world is the
enemy of God. Who here is not naturally the friend of this
world and the things of it? If we love the things of the world,
God says the love of the Father's not in him. Does that not convict
us? Does that not convict you? Our Lord was despised. He was
rejected of men. We esteemed him not. None of
us did. Not one of us. We're not honorable. If someone's honorable, they're
commendable. Are we commendable to God? I think the last message I brought
here about a month ago was about how we're unworthy. I just, we
need to know that. We need to not lose sight of
that. How unworthy we are and how worthy Christ alone is. I really pray God will enable
me to hammer that home. Pray God will hammer that home
to me. We don't deserve to be in his presence. These Pharisees,
they were in his presence right here and time and time again.
They didn't deserve that. God has blessed you and me with
the privilege of coming here week after week. We have four
messages every single week to hear the gospel preached, to
hear Christ proclaimed from his word. We don't deserve that. We don't deserve that. I believe God has given many
of us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, enabled us to call upon
him, revealed himself to us. We don't deserve that. Oh, may God never let us think
we, you know, we sing a song. I love the song, In Tenderness
He Sought Me, but it says, I wondered what he saw in me. I know what
he saw in us. God looked down from heaven to
see if there were any good, any that understood, any that sought
him, and he found none. They're all gone aside, they're
all together, become filthy, unprofitable, all of them. Sovereign
mercy, that's it. Sovereign mercy. Look right here, verse eight.
When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in
the highest room, I'm so guilty of that. If someone has you over
for dinner, you just, maybe you see a recliner and that's, we
go straight to it. Or someone has people over for
dinner and we're the first one to sit down and we have a fellowship
dinner, we're the first to jump in line. I'm so guilty of these
things. Our Lord said, don't do that.
Don't do that. Middle of verse eight. Sit not
down in the highest room, lest a more honorable man than thou
be bidden of him. Verse nine. And he that bade
thee and him come and say to thee, give this man his place. Now, let me tell you something.
This is a command, all right? Now, it's talking about the more
honorable man. God says, give this man his place. Honor him. Praise him. Look to Him. Glorify Him. Fall down on your face and worship
Him. That's His place. That's His
place. Let everything that hath breath
praise the Lord. Turn over with me to Psalm 111.
Psalm 111. He's the more honorable man. It says in our text that the
Lord went into their house and they ate bread. He's the bread
of heaven. It said it was the Sabbath day. He's our Sabbath
rest. He healed a man. He's the great physician. The Pharisees were so interested
in keeping the law. That was their hope, is their
law keeping. Our Lord is the only one who ever kept the law,
magnified it, and made it honorable. The only way for us to establish
the law, keep the law, is by being in Him, vitally joined
to Him, which is something God must do for us. He's the law
keeper. It talked about a wedding, a
wedding feast. He's the bridegroom to God's
elect. He's God. Give this man, may
God enable us to give this man his place. Now, It's not, let
me say this real quick. It's not that if we don't give
him his place, then he's not gonna have it. No, he has it.
We would be wise to acknowledge it. We would do well to confess
our place and acknowledge his place. And he said, every knee
shall bow. I thought this was only in Philippians
2. I believe it's in the scriptures three times. Every knee shall
bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He
has his place and he's going to forever have his place. Pray
God will cause us to Acknowledge this, confess this. Look here
in Psalm 111 verse 1. It says, Praise ye the Lord.
I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of
the upright and in the congregation. The works of the Lord are great,
sought out of all of them that have pleasure therein. His work
is honorable. and glorious, and his righteousness
endureth forever. He hath made his wonderful works
to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion. Everything about the Lord Jesus
Christ is honorable. His works, his name, his person,
everything about him, everything about him is honorable. May God cause us to praise him.
May God cause us to seek his honor. to seek His glory and
not our own. Go back in our text, Luke 14, verse 9. Luke 14, 9. He that bade thee and him come
and say to thee, give this man his place. Now look at this,
the end of the verse. And thou begin with shame to take the
lowest room. You know, it would be horribly
embarrassing if I went into someone's house and I sat down in a seat
that was for a man more honorable than me. And the host and that
more honorable man came up to me and told me to get up and
move me to another seat. That would be humiliating, would
it not? When God comes to his people,
reveals to us the more honorable man, the end of this verse is what
happens. We begin with shame to take the lowest room. Now
for God's people, When the gospel comes to us in power and in love,
this is a glorious thing. We need to know something about
our shame, our wretchedness, our sin before God. We need to
be humbled. God gives grace to the humble.
God gives grace by which he humbles us. And it's a wonderful thing. He lovingly breaks us. A broken and a contrite heart.
God said he will not despise. It's a good thing. He lovingly
draws his people to the Savior. And it's his beautiful, glorious
work that he does. And that's what I pray God would
do for me and for you and for our children. Just had a son
born five days ago. It's what I pray God will do
in time for my children. Break them. Bring us to Christ. Again, when the gospel comes
and does this for us, it's a wonderful thing. But if that doesn't happen,
if we leave this world and that never happens for us, we're still gonna, the moment
of shame is coming regardless. And for the unbeliever, for the
person who dies in their sin, it's a most terrible, terrible,
heartbreaking, devastating thing. Go ahead and turn with me to
Jude. We will not bow. We will not
confess our sins and come to Christ unless God draws. We know that God declares that. Look here in Jude, look at verse
four. Just one chapter, Jude verse four. There are certain
men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness,
denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And let
me say this, denying Him alone to be the honorable man. Thinking again that he's good,
I'm good. We can be one as I am in this flesh, as I am
in my sin. Look down at verse 11. Woe unto them. Woe unto them,
for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after
the heir of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsetting
of Korah. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when
they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Look
at this, clouds they are without water, carried about of winds,
trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked
up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their
own shame. wandering stars, to whom is reserved
the blackness of darkness forever. That's the condition for those
who will not bow in this life, for those who do not bow until
it's too late. Pray God would cause us to bow
now. I pray God would show us the more honorable man now and
cause us to give him his place. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Look back in our text. Luke 14, verse 10. Luke 14, verse 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 meet with thee. Come to
Christ in absolute shame. It's the only way to come to
him. Not asking what good thing we can do that will be accepted.
There's nothing we can do. Nothing. Come to Christ in absolute
shame, no boasting, no goodness, nothing to offer, no worth, completely
empty, good for nothing. Come like that. Come like that. If God calls us to come like
that, this is what we'll hear him say, friend, What a glorious thing to hear
him say, if God says to you or me, friend. And he didn't just say that,
he said, go up higher, and go up higher. The Lord Jesus Christ,
he's the friend of publicans and sinners, whom he's broken,
whom he's broken. I can't help but think of that
publican in Luke 18. You know the story, you've heard
it. That Pharisee stood there boasting about himself and his
works, his do's and his don'ts. Wanted everybody to see him.
Stood right there in the middle for everybody to see. And that poor
publican stood afar off. He smote upon his breast saying,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That man was broken. God broke
him. And God said, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. Pharisee didn't.
He was lost as could be. Now, this is a great question. How could a shameful, unworthy,
wretched sinner possibly be God's friend? Psalm 5 verse 5 says, The foolish
shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. You know, people say God hates
the sin. He doesn't hate the sinner. Well,
read that verse, Psalm 5 verse 5. The soul that sinneth, it
shall die." Not the sin, the soul. That's a person. The wages of sin is death. How could such a one be accepted
before God? Here's the answer. Listen. The
answer is, the more honorable man. That's how. He's the answer. He's the sinner's
salvation. You know, we say this, and it's
in the scriptures multiple times, and I'm gonna keep saying it
as long as God allows me to. Salvation's of the Lord. But
it's not just that. The Lord is our salvation. He
is my salvation. That's what the psalmist said,
isn't it? He's our substitute. Go ahead, turn with me to Hebrews
chapter two. Read a couple verses here, Hebrews two, and I'm almost
done. He's our hope. What hope do we
have apart from Him? Nothing. He's our life. All our
life. I have no life but Him. Christ
is our life. A verse in the Proverbs said, He's
the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Now we're gonna
use that for context here in Hebrews chapter two, look at
verse 17. Hebrews 2, 17. And we're told earlier in this
chapter that there were children that
the father gave to him. Those children are also called
his brethren. Look here, Hebrews 2, 17. Wherefore, in all things
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. He was
made like unto His brethren, His people, His elect. Turn over
to chapter 7, verse 22. Hebrews 7, 22. By so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better testament, and they truly were many priests, because
they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this
man, this more honorable man, because he continueth ever, hath
an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able also to save them
to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth
to make intercession for them." Look here, verse 26, "'For such
an high priest became us, who is holy harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who
needeth not daily as those priests to offer up sacrifice, first
for his own sins, then for the people's. For this he did once
when he offered up himself. Now he had no sins of his own.
He knew no sin. No guile was found in his mouth.
He died once. That's all it took. One sacrifice
to put away the sins of all his brethren, all his children that
the Lord gave to him, his friends. who were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others, his enemies. He brought us to his
footstool in mercy, in loving kindness. And he died for us. He became
us. He traded places with us so that
we could be with him where he is forever. Gathered around the
throne, gathered around his seat of honor to sit at his feet and
praise his holy name forever and ever. What a God. What a man. What a God, man. What an honorable man. We'll
close. Look back at Luke 14, verse 11. What a friend. There's no friend
like this friend. No friend like this friend. Luke
14, 11. For whosoever exalteth himself
shall be abased, And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Jesus Christ, the more honorable
man, he must increase, but I must decrease. Are you
all right with that? Does that sound good to you?
He must be exalted, we must be abased. That's the way it is.
Whether we see it or not, that's the way it is. I pray God reveal
to us this more honorable man. I pray God calls us to abase
ourselves, loathe ourselves, exalt, praise, honor, glorify,
worship Him alone, who is worthy to be exalted forever. Amen. May God bless His word.