The Example of His Humility - Luke 14:1-14

<)) Listen to the sermon here and here.

[Luke 14:12-14] 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. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

The Example of His Humility

Knowledge of our Lord’s humility – what He did for us – teaches us to look at our neighbors, and ourselves, from a heavenly perspective instead of an earthly one.

The story I told to the children a minute ago was based on Scripture in James 2:1-5. Here it is: My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. ² For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, ³ and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” ⁴ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? [James 2:1-4]

So much of how we perceive others is based on self-benefit, without even realizing it. That well-dressed visitor, or that good-seeming family, how good would it be for us to have them here! But that man or woman who look another way, do we notice that they haven’t come back? Do we ask?

Are we chummy with those whose resources or connections we imagine could somehow benefit us, while being quick to dismiss those who look like they could only need something from us?

In your own life, as a Christian – and in your life together as a congregation – are you looking to the benefit you could receive from others or are you seeking how you could be a benefit to others? Which of those motives will God bless?

From an earthly perspective, that man in fine clothing may be of greater benefit to you. But from a heavenly perspective, both he and the shabby looking man are equally sinners for whom their Savior has shed His blood to redeem them.

From heaven’s perspective, both poor and rich are in poor condition – and you and me – physically and spiritually. Therefore, you and I are called not to be benefited by others but to be of benefit to them. Individually and as a congregation, this is Christ’s mission in us – “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…” [Matthew 20:28].

However, in ways we may not notice about ourselves, the natural tendency of our sin-fallen nature is to look to our self-benefit in various situations.

Self-benefit is sometimes the hidden motive behind both giving and receiving hospitality. “I don’t like that person, but I better go to their party – because of how it might benefit me someday.” “I better invite so-and-so – to avoid the drama that would come it I didn’t.”

Sometimes that’s just the way life works – and it is how the world operates. Fine. But Jesus is telling us to have another motive. Go and invite out of sincere desire to be a good friend, a good family member, a good colleague to those not easily liked.

Self-benefit is the true reason behind the excuses for not being generous toward others – though God has been generous and patient with us.

Very strangely, self-benefit is so engrained into our nature that it even becomes our excuse for doing good to others. “I give to that charity because it makes me feel better –like I’m part of something bigger than myself.” “I believe it will come back around to me.”

We feel the need to justify charitable behavior, or treating another well, by saying how it benefits us. But what should my real reason be? “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” 

Let it not be self-benefit but a true perspective of what our Savior has done for us which determines what we do for others [Philippians 2:3]. And “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” [Matthew 7:12].

Some of us may succeed at outwardly presenting ourselves as being dressed “in fine clothing” – but inwardly, we are in that “shabby clothing” of sin.

What Jesus has done for us is that He has humbled Himself to become our Savior on the cross: “…Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.⁸ And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” [Philippians 2:5-8]

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich” [2 Corinthians 8:9]. “God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” [2 Corinthians 5:21].

Jesus emptied Himself to become the poor man on the cross – making your poverty of unrighteousness His own, to die in your sins — In order to fill you with His richness, to make His righteousness yours, to make you alive in His resurrection. He made your true poverty His to make His true riches yours.

“Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” [Philippians 2:9-11]

To finish the verse I started earlier, “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” [Matthew 20:28]

Jesus has not acted for self-benefit, but for your benefit – to make the poor rich. He gets nothing from us that was not already His own – instead He gave Himself for us.

He has “chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” [James 2:5]. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” [1 Timothy 1:15]

This is the heavenly perspective from which we look at both our rich and poor neighbor. We are here for how Jesus will benefit them, as He has benefited poor us.

So, into your life – and into your church – don’t just invite those who can give you a return that “you be repaid” [Luke 14:12]. Invite and work for those who can give you no benefit whatsoever [Luke 14:13] – and “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” [Luke 14:14] as you gather there with those whom you welcomed here. Amen.