Jesus Owned the Dinner Party

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith.

Alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Alright, so our gospel text today, wow, what a text.

And you're going to note here, it starts off with the fact that Jesus is heading off to dinner at a house

of a ruler of the Pharisees.

This guy's a church official.

He's got a vote on the council.

This guy's important.

He can make decisions.

And what we're going to note here is that, remember, the Pharisees believe that you are saved by

your law keeping.

They have taken the law of God and codified it and worked it all out and made it

so that it's doable.

And when you do it, you can say you're righteous.

And when you do it, you can say you're saved by your righteousness.

But Jesus is going to come into this dinner party like a gospel wrecking ball.

I mean, and I've got to tell you, working through this text, I'm convinced Jesus was the only one

who had a good time at this dinner.

I'm just saying, because the rest of the group there just left befuddled is a good way to put it.

So let's walk through this text, shall we, and see what Christ has to say to us

now.

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him

carefully.

What a great set up.

I mean, so they invited Jesus to dinner in order to trip him up, in order to find some charge that

they can bring against him.

And so what happens next?

I mean, you have to wonder if this was some kind of Sabbath sting operation.

You know, you ever seen the, you know, like the news stories where like they do a sting operation on

people who are taking drugs or buying drugs and stuff like that.

And you end up buying drugs from an undercover officer and then they bring the video cameras in and they show

you being arrested with the, you know, they still have programs like that on television.

It's been a while since I've watched it.

Haven't you guys seen cops, bad boys, what you're going to do?

Nevermind.

Tough crowd today.

Anyway, so I kind of think this is like the dinner from Hades, it, you know, because the whole goal is

to trip Jesus up.

So what happens next?

Behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.

Doesn't say where he came from, makes you just wonder, did they kind of decide to bring this guy in?

Because remember the Pharisees believe that if you are suffering from an illness, if you are poor, well, the reason why

that this has happened to you is because you've deserved that because you have sinned against God

and you are getting your just punishment from God.

So I can't, I can't exactly say that the Pharisees would be good friends with somebody with

dropsy and it's a terrible disease.

You know, you end up having different parts of your body filling up with water and people with dropsy usually die

from congenital heart failure.

So this guy's like a cardiac arrest waiting to happen.

And so there he is.

It just says, behold, he's there.

And so Jesus responded to the lawyers and the Pharisees.

And so he, he first begins and says, Hey guys, you know, listen, um, you know, I know pass it,

pass the chicken.

But when you're done passing the chicken, I got a question I need to ask you.

Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?

There's the question.

It's hanging out there in outer space.

And the text says they remained silent.

No answer given.

Consider the options.

If you would hear, um, remember the Sabbath, the prohibition is that you shall keep the Sabbath

day holy and no one is to labor.

No one is to do work on the Sabbath.

This is a day off from the office.

This is a day off from the vocation.

And so the question is, is it lawful to heal or not on the Sabbath?

Now, if you were a doctor, if you had gone to medical school, taking the medical boards, done your internship and now

are legally practicing medicine somewhere and it's a Sunday or we should say Saturday because the Sabbath is on a

Saturday and you are at work and people are coming in and you're healing them, you're, you're

bandaging up their wounds, you're sewing up their, their, their, their cuts, you're, you're giving them and

prescribing the medicines and all that kind of stuff.

Would you be working?

Yes, you would.

So we all, we all know that.

But if God healed somebody on the Sabbath, would that be

work?

No.

No.

Nobody, nobody would think that is work.

But here's the thorny question.

What if God is healing people through you on the Sabbath?

Is that work?

And see, the Pharisees basically crossed their arms and say,

nothing, we're not going to.

Say nothing.

We don't know.

So we're not going to answer your question, Jesus.

So Jesus took him, healed him and sent him away.

And you can just see Jesus going, praise the Lord, man, I'm just so happy for you.

The guys, I'm healed, I'm healed and we'll see you and sends him off his way.

And there the Pharisees are just kind of left flat footed.

Their sting operation isn't going as planned.

So now Jesus decides, you know what, I'll ask you guys another question.

So let me ask you this, 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.

Now note before they were just being silent.

Now they are completely checkmated.

They don't even have the ability to answer such a question because every one of them knows if their son

fell into a well and consider the wells of the ancient world, they're not those really cute things that we like to see in like the storybooks,

you know, with the brick, you know, circle wall and the little kind of hut thing over it.

And the crank with a really cute bucket and the butterflies and stuff, you know, it's not like that at all.

Wells of the ancient world were pretty much just these really large holes in the ground and falling into them

was a real possibility, especially at night.

So can you imagine your son wandering, playing around by the well and just happens

to fall right into it?

And you know what's going to happen next because it's a long fall.

If he didn't break anything on the way down, he's now got to tread water while everyone grabs a

rope and pulls him out.

Because if you don't grab the rope and pull him out, he's going to get really tired of treading water and he's going to go down to

the bottom of the well and he will cease to.

Be.

So everybody knows that nobody says to your son, son, I'm sorry, can't help you.

You know, it's the Sabbath.

Hang in there.

Hang in there, son.

Sunsets in seven hours.

You can make it because we don't want to sin.

It's the Sabbath.

None of them are thinking like this at all.

And so Jesus calls him out and points out in his question that if they had a son or an ox had fallen into a well,

they would immediately pull it out no matter how difficult the task.

So they could not reply.

And so there's Jesus, the house of the ruler of the Pharisees and conversation has

gone totally silent.

No one's talking.

You can tell that everything's really awkward.

And so Jesus decides, you know what, I'm going to fill in the awkward pauses here.

No one's talking.

So, hey, I got I got a story to tell you guys.

And it's all about how you guys are always picking the places of honor when you show up at somebody's house for dinner.

So this is a good teaching moment for you.

I thought I'd offer some some constructive criticism to you since none of you guys are talking.

So Jesus told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places

of honor, saying to them, when you were 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, you both will come to you and say, give your place to this person.

And then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.

Now, when I was a kid and in the Nazarene church and I would hear sermons and lessons along these lines, I couldn't

really make heads or tails of this particular parable.

And the reason why is because the few weddings I had attended as a kid, I mean, there weren't like super

duper seats of honor.

Pretty much there was one table and you got the bride, the groom, the best man, the

bridesmaids and you know, the you know, they sit at that table facing everybody.

And then it's pretty much, you know, fill in as you go.

So I don't really understand how this places of honor thing worked.

And so usually when people would preach on this text, they would kind of really drill into the importance of

not really trying to be too arrogant or something like that, but maintaining a humble posture

before other people.

But the problem is, is that it was always kind of put forward as that's a necessary step if you want to

be saved.

So this becomes a work that you've got to do.

And so that's how the parable was usually taught.

And it really didn't make any sense.

But I would note here, as we continue the parable that Jesus taught, there's something in here that alerts us to what this parable is

really about.

And here's what it says.

So when you are invited, you go and you 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 with you.

For everyone who exalts himself and watch the future tense will be humbled.

And he who humbles himself, future tense, will be exalted.

Ah, this is an eschatological thing.

This is pointing to the end.

In other words, how much you want to bet that this parable has something to do with the wedding feast that we have all

been invited to?

You and I have both been invited to the same wedding.

I don't know if you know this, but we've been invited to the marriage supper of the lamb.

God, the Father has invited us personally and and we are to show up.

So the idea here is, is in talking about that great wedding feast that we are all invited to,

you'll note that the right thing to do is to take the lowest place, to

sit with the chiefs of sinners.

To not exalt yourself in your own self -righteousness, in your self -importance, and go and take one of the

precious few seats of honor at that particular wedding feast, because you'll note then taking a

seat of honor is not only presumptuous, it is, well, just flat out

arrogance.

Because the idea is this, each and every one of us know that none of us deserve to be at that wedding

feast.

Not one.

Instead, what Jesus is calling us to do is very much modeled by the Apostle Paul.

As the Apostle Paul was finishing his course, as he was getting ready to be martyred for

the Christian faith, he wrote letters from prison.

One of those letters or two of those letters were actually to a young pastor by the name of Timothy, who pastored a congregation in the city of

Ephesus.

And you'll note the Apostle Paul, this is the guy who wrote more than half of the New Testament.

This is a guy who planted so many churches that I don't think there's a

human being alive who's planted more churches than he has.

And so this is a fellow that if there was ever anybody who could just presume he's got a

place of honor among the Christians at the wedding feast of the Lamb, that he would be the

dude.

But as he's finishing his course, he says to Pastor Timothy, this is a trustworthy

saying, Christ died for sinners of whom I

am the chief, chief of sinners, though I be Jesus

shed his blood for me.

So the idea here is that to take the lowest place is to recognize that

there may be only one error in all of Scripture and that error may be along the lines of, I don't think the

Apostle Paul is the chief of sinners.

I think that I am.

That's the right way to look at it.

And so that posture doesn't come by mere stark, well, I'm going to humble myself

so that I can be exalted kind of thinking.

Instead, that kind of thinking comes by being fully aware that when you consider your life

in light of what God's law says and what God's commandments command that you and I all

fall woefully short.

Terribly short.

So short that we don't even deserve the lowest place.

The lowest place at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Because we are saying that we are by nature sinful, unclean, that we've

sinned against God and thought and word and indeed.

By the things we do, by the things we don't do.

And we truly deserve hell as a result of that.

We are rebels, but God has pardoned us.

So when it comes to the wedding feast of the Lamb, we all then soberly.

Willingly.

It's not even a thought that we would even contest will take our place

among the lowest at the wedding feast of the Lamb, but note this.

Jesus, who is the bridegroom at the wedding feast of the Lamb, has loved his bride so much.

That he has gone to the cross and he has suffered and bled and died for her

sins, for your sins.

And mine.

Truer love has no one than this.

Truer love.

In fact, this is the greatest love story of all Christ's love for his bride.

And so as a result of that, she does not have to have the walk of shame or be cast out.

She can be forgiven, pardoned, cleaned and clothed in dazzling white.

The brightness and shininess of Christ's righteousness itself is placed upon her.

And all of this because Jesus languished.

Crucified, nailed to the cross for her, he conquered sin, death and the devil by his death

and his resurrection, and now he is able to pardon her.

And so Jesus says to you who are part of his bride, come up

to a higher place.

Come up to a higher place and he will honor you.

Everyone then who exalts himself will be humbled.

In self -righteousness and self -importance, the one who exalts himself will be humbled and not only

have to walk the walk of shame from going from a high place that they never

really should have had, but to actually being cast out of the wedding feast itself and thrown into the fires of hell.

But the one who humbles himself and recognizes that he is poor and needy, worthless.

Sinful and unclean.

Christ will exalt.

By his death, his resurrection and by his clothing us in his righteousness.

So this then calls us to sober minded humility, the humility of repentance,

the true godly sorrow that comes from recognizing that we have fallen short of the glory

of God.

And Jesus doesn't end there.

Just doesn't end there.

Like I said, Jesus is the only fellow here having a good time at this particular dinner.

And so he decided, you know, I'll tell you what I'm going to tell, give you some advice.

The guy who invited him, the guy who probably set up the sting operation in the first place.

So he said to the man who invited him, Hey, and when you give a dinner or a banquet, watch what happens next.

Don't invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors or your neighbors, lest they also

invite you in return and you'd be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite and watch the list, the poor, the crippled,

the lame, the blind, all the people whom the Pharisees doctrine claim are cursed

by God.

You invite them and then you will be blessed because they cannot repay

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

And so Jesus just gospel wrecking ball smashes their self

-righteousness, smashes their self -importance.

And he then calls the question himself and points out his host's own

hypocrisy, his own false doctrine to his face in his own house.

And he calls him to repentance.

And he says, so you invite these people whom you despise and think are cursed of God and you will be

blessed because they cannot repay you.

In other words, God richly forgives you.

And so live out that forgiveness in richly giving to others who cannot give back to you as well,

because you'll note then that the gospel in the gospel itself, what does Jesus get in

return for his death and his resurrection?

There's anything that we can give him and we repay him for what he's done for us on the

cross.

Not even close.

And in that same way, then you invite people who cannot repay you and don't worry,

God himself will repay those who do such things at the resurrection of the just.

But that kind of begs the question, will you be part of that resurrection?

Only the forgiven will be.

Because they're just, the righteous will live by faith.

We are justified before God by grace through faith as a gift and not by works.

And so, you know, then the gospel makes it clear that there is no room for boasting among Christians.

For we are all the chief of sinners.

So take your place at the wedding feast with the lowest.

Where the tax collectors, the sinners, the prostitutes, the

attorneys, even the washed up pastors are.

And Christ himself will say, friend, move up higher.

And it's all a grace, all a gift for the one who exalts himself will be humbled and the one

who humbles himself will be exalted in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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