[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
It’s the Sabbath day and Jesus is invited out to dinner by some Pharisees and they were
watching him very closely because to this dinner they had also conveniently invited
a man who was sick.
They sat him there right next to Jesus as if this was going to be a temptation.
Now here’s what the Pharisees knew.
they knew that Jesus could not help himself from healing people. There’s
anything that comes to us in the Gospels as we read through it we see that Jesus
even if it’s going to cause him trouble, even if it’s going to mean staying up
all night, even if it’s going to mean he can’t even finish his sermon and he has
to be driven from one town to the next, Jesus cannot help himself from healing
people. He just loves them. He loves you too much. And so they put this man sick
next to Jesus and they’re watching to see if he’s going to heal them because then if
he does they can pin him down as a Sabbath breaker.
Now it’s amazing to see that they’re there, Luke tells us that they’re watching Jesus.
But you know what’s really happening is Jesus is watching them.
Jesus has his eye on these guys, I mean he sees right through them.
He sees the game, he sees what they’re playing at.
So even before he heals the man he asks them the question.
Is it right to heal someone on the Sabbath?
Jesus says, which of you, if you have a son, or even an ox that falls down in the pit on
a Sabbath, won’t go pull him out?
And he heals the man, and he sends him home, and the Pharisees are stunned into silence.
And then Jesus gets after them.
I mean, this is not how I think the Pharisees saw things going.
They were there, they were probably pretty proud of themselves for coming up with this
great plot to trap Jesus and have something to accuse Jesus of, but all of a sudden He’s
not only has the trap been sprung, it’s sprung on them and then Jesus keeps coming
at them.
Now, I want you to notice this first, that while the Pharisees were interested in trapping
Jesus so that they could accuse Him and condemn Him, Jesus is interested in what’s going
on with the Pharisees, not to condemn them but to save them.
He’s calling them to repentance.
And this we should not hear as a, oh yeah, he’s going to get them, he’s going to get
those bad guys, the Pharisees.
I want you to remember that all of us have a little Pharisee living in us.
Luther, it’s kind of funny, Luther used to call it in his preaching, the little monk
that lives in our heart.
Can you imagine?
You’ve got a little monk living in there, you’ve got a little Pharisee living in your
own heart.
heart, so do I.”
And that little Pharisee is interested in confessing its creed, and you know what the
Pharisee creed is?
I’m a good person.
I believe that I’m a good person, and I’m going to prove it.
The Pharisees were proving it by keeping the Sabbath, by keeping the law externally, by
doing all the things they said that God had commanded so that they could prove to God
and to everyone else that they were a good person, and each of us has that temptation.
In the church, outside of the church, every single human being has that pharisee making
that argument, wanting to be righteous according to our own works and efforts according to
the law.
Remember how we learned in catechism class that there’s three uses of the law?
The first use is the curb, it keeps society in order.
The second use, the theological use, the most important use is the mirror.
It shows us our own sinfulness, our own breaking the commandments, our own failures.
And the third use of the law, the guide or the map which shows us how we ought to live,
how we ought to love one another, how we ought to worship God, these instructions for the
Christian life, how to pray and so forth, that’s the true use of the law.
But the Pharisees had taken the right use of the law and twisted them.
So, the Pharisees had the ladder use of the law.
I can use God’s law to climb up into heaven.
Or the foam finger use of the law.
You know those foam fingers that you bring to the basketball game?
We’re number one.
That’s just how the Pharisees did it.
We’re the best, to show their own righteousness.
Or the pedestal use of the law, so that they could lift themselves up above everybody else
And then look down on everyone who wasn’t keeping the law like they were keeping it.
That’s how they were using the law, but this is a misuse of the law.
And here we come to the heart of the gospel, to the heart of the Christian religion, to
the heart of the preaching of Jesus, and to that thing which sets Christianity apart from
every other religion.
Because while every other religion and every other confession is trying to deal with the
problem of our human sin, our immorality, our breaking God’s law, our sinful desires,
our sinful actions, and our sinful deeds, Christianity, in fact, is talking about not
only the danger of our sins, but also â and hear me please carefully â the danger of
our good works, the danger of our pride, the danger of the thought that we’re good enough
to stand before God.
The danger of that confession of the little Pharisee in each one of us that wants to exalt
itself to stand before God or before the neighbor in the glorious adornment of our own good
works and our own efforts.
Jesus sees how dangerous this is, and He sees it in the simple act of the Pharisees all
trying to get to the best seat.
I think we still have this a little bit.
You know if you go to a formal dinner, the person who sits at the head of the table would
be the honored guest and the people who sit right next to them are the most important
people.
And the more important you are to the event, the closer you are to the front and the less
important you are, you’re at back.
Weddings are like this.
Can you imagine going to a wedding and you’re like, oh, that seat looks great right up there
next to the groom.
I’m going to sit there.
They get served first, they’re on the table,
they can see over, and so you go to a wedding
and you go and you sit next to the groom
and someone has to come and tell you,
hey, buddy, that’s not your seat.
That belongs to the best man.
Your seat is over there by the bathroom or whatever.
That’s the idea, but even more so in the culture.
I remember when I was a young man
and I spent a summer in the Fijian Islands
and there’s a very old and traditional culture
and they had this ceremony where at night
you would sit around and you would drink kava together.
I’ll tell you more about it sometime in Bible class,
but it was a very hierarchical ritual
so that the most important person received the drink first,
the chief, if he was there, and then his wife,
and then the next most important,
and the next most important,
and it went all the way around
where you knew exactly where you stood in the whole thing.
You knew your order in the social hierarchy
by what order you were given the drink to drink from.
This is probably how it is in the ancient world
with the Pharisees.
There was this higher, this social hierarchy
and you knew just exactly where you fit,
but they’re always trying to jockey for the better seat.
They’re always trying to sit in the better spot.
They’re always trying to, and this is how Jesus says it,
They’re always trying to exalt themselves because they’re thinking, and you know how
the Pharisee thinks because you’ve got that little Pharisee in your own heart thinking
like that, that the Pharisee thinks, well, I deserve that spot more than him.
I should sit closer to the front than her.
I’ve done more.
I’ve been better.
I’ve tried harder or whatever it is, and so that there’s always this act of self-exaltation.
And Jesus in the text today calls us to repent.
That those who exalt themselves will be humbled.
So that Jesus in this example of where you’re supposed to sit when you go out to dinner
is telling us really the mystery of the kingdom of God.
He’s telling us how the entire history of the world has unfolded.
He’s telling us how God always acts with us.
Those who exalt themselves He casts down and those who humble themselves He lifts up.
So, that we are called today, right now, we are being called by God, the Holy Spirit,
to abandon all of this business of lifting ourselves up and rather to humble ourselves
and that, dear saints, means to repent, to recognize that we are sinners, that we cannot
earn a place in God’s feast, at God’s table.
that we deserve, remember how we said it,
we just confessed our sins,
that we deserve His temporal and eternal punishment.
And we don’t just say that, we believe it.
It’s true, we do deserve these things from God,
but you know what God does to the repentant,
to the humble?
He lifts them up.
So we’re not in this pharisaical rat race
trying to claim the better seat,
trying to get the better spot,
trying to earn God’s favor or acceptance, we’re falling on our knees knowing that we
shouldn’t even be in the same room with the Lord, and He comes to us and He finds us
there on the ground and He says to us, this is amazing, friend, go up higher.
Now I want to tell you, it doesn’t matter what comes after that first word.
Jesus could say to us, friend, go outside, or friend, take a walk, or whatever.
If He calls us friend, that’s all we need.
It doesn’t matter how close or far you’re sitting to the head of the table.
Listen to this.
Jesus calls you His friend, and He means it.
He knows that you’ve sinned.
He knows all the things that you’ve done wrong.
He knows all the broken commandments, and He died for them and shed His blood to forgive
them and now he comes to you today and he says that you are my friend.
And he calls us in closer.
He lifts us up higher.
That’s what baptism is.
The Lord Jesus calling sinners, friend come up higher.
That’s what the absolution is.
Friend come up higher.
Be lifted out of the despair of your own sins.
When he calls us to the Lord’s supper, friend come up higher.
And that’s what your death is.
Can you believe it? When it’s time for you to breathe your last and your heart’s stopping,
that’s Jesus saying, friend, come up higher. I’ve made a way for you to live forever with me.
We sing the hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, but you know the hymn that Jesus sings?
What a friend I have in you.
your saint he loves you and he’s lifting you out of the humiliation and humility
of your sin and your death and your sorrow and your struggle and your shame
and all of it he’s lifting you out of all of that and he’s calling you to sit
with him at table to eat and drink his body and blood to rejoice and in his
kindness and in this great honor that he calls you his friend so may God grant us
the Holy Spirit so that we would bounce around with joy in this good news, that Jesus calls
us sinners His friends and invites us to share in His life.
May God grant it for Christ’s sake, amen.
And the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus
Christ our Lord, amen.
