Luke 16.1-17

Seeing Through His Eyes

Luke 16.1-17

Jason Procopio

Before we dig into today’s text, I want to preface it by mentioning a different one. We’re not going to read the whole thing, but in the letter to the Hebrews, from 5.11 to 6.3, the author criticizes the people to whom he’s writing, saying that they have been Christians long enough to be further along in their faith; they should be “grown-ups” in their faith, but they’re still acting like children. They’re going around in circles, talking nonstop about the things they talked about at the very beginning of their Christian walk: what it means to repent, what it means to have faith, and so on. 

He’s not saying these things are unimportant; he’s saying that they’re basic—these are the first things these Christians would have learned as Christians, and they’re still hashing all these things out as if they were still young in their faith. 

The author is telling them, “There’s more to the gospel than the basics of the gospel. Don’t forget these things—especially things like repentance and faith—but don’t stop at those things either. Grow up.” 

That’s what he says in chapter 6, verse 1: Leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.

The reason I mention this today is because our church, as you know, is filled mostly with young Christians. Most of you don’t have more than ten or fifteen years of solid faith under your belt, because fifteen years ago you were little kids. (And that’s assuming you met Christ as a child!) Fifteen years isn’t a long time. And the temptation when you’re a young Christian will be to go back and rehash all of the things you learned at the beginning, things you learned when you were children, or when you were brand new Christians.

If you want to really grow in your faith, really grow to Christian maturity, you’ll need to go further. And “going further” usually doesn’t mean reading more books or doing more intense studies, or learning Greek and Hebrew. “Going further” in your faith means letting what you know shape who you are, and how you see the world, and how you make decisions. 

And that is what Luke 16 is all about.

Fair warning: this is a text that’s going to make a lot of people uncomfortable, because Jesus is going to talk about money. A lot. That’s not all he’s going to talk about (or even, I’ll argue, the main thing he’s talking about), but it is the example he’s going to use to hammer these truths home to us.

And he’s going to start with what is (for me) one of his most surprising parables.

Use Your Wealth for the Kingdom (v. 1-9)

1 He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. 2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ 3 And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 

The context of this story isn’t uncommon, even today. Very rich people will employ a household manager, someone to manage everything they own, and who runs it. If they find out that person isn’t doing a good job, but is being wasteful with their employer’s resources, they’ll be fired. 

Which is exactly what happens to the manager. He’s wasteful, so the master tells him he’s losing his job.

The manager knows he’s in trouble. So in order to protect himself for the day when his job is over, he decides to try to get in good with the people who owe money to his master. He calls them all up and tells them that the debt they owe his master is being reduced.

It’s a sneaky thing to do—his master never approved these reductions. But he’s doing it so that when his job comes to an end, these people will remember him, and the discounts he gave them, and let him work for them. 

What’s surprising here isn’t what the manager does—that’s actually pretty smart. (Sneaky, but smart.) 

The surprising thing is his master’s reaction to what he does. V. 8:

8 The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. 

Now, you need to know that commentators are all over the place about this. No one seems to know exactly what the master is commending. 

There are three main theories. 

1) Some say that these reductions amount to the manager cutting out his own commission. That would be praiseworthy, but it’s seriously doubtful his commission was that high (he gives massive discounts here). 

2) Some say that because debts are notoriously hard to collect, by giving these reductions the manager provides his master with a sudden influx of cash (which may be true). 

3) Others say that the master isn’t happy with the manager for what he’s done, but rather simply admitting that it was a smart way for the manager to protect himself.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. The point is that the master can see that when faced with a potential financial challenge, the manager thought about how he would meet that challenge, and he thought about it well. He knew his revenue would be cut off soon, so he found a creative solution to make friends with wealthy people, in order to not go poor. It was a smart move, an intelligent way to protect himself.

That’s Jesus’s point. He says in the second half of v. 8:

For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 

My dad used to say something a lot—he’d say that Christians are sometimes “so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good.” Some Christians think so much about the kingdom of God, and about heaven (as well they should), that if they’re not careful they fall into the trap of neglecting the things going on in the rest of their lives. 

They’re great on theology, but they waste insane amounts of time and money—not because they’re frivolous, but simply because they’re not paying attention.

Jesus doesn’t want his followers to be like that. Yes, he wants them to keep their eyes focused on the kingdom of God, on God’s glory, on his work…but not to the detriment of everything else. He wants his followers to be smart about the way they deal with the world around them—in this case, about the way they spend their money. 

To that end, he makes this very surprising statement in v. 9:

9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. 

We need to do some work here, because that is a very strange thing to say. 

Firstly, what does he mean by “unrighteous wealth”? 

We can be sure that he’s not saying we should go about amassing wealth for ourselves in ways that are underhanded or dishonest (Jesus knew his Ten Commandments). 

So more than likely, he’s referring to two aspects of wealth. Firstly, most of the wealth people can amass is worldly wealth (i.e. wealth we earn in this world). That wealth is “unrighteous” in that it wasn’t made by doing anything related to the kingdom (at least not directly). 

Secondly, wealth in this world can lead to unrighteousness, if we’re not careful. One can gain wealth by taking advantage of others. One can gain wealth to satisfy their own selfish desires. One can use wealth as a crutch, a way to take care of ourselves just in case God doesn’t provide. One can make wealth  an idol which takes the place of God in our hearts and minds. 

Wealth isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but it can be dangerous. It’s a hard thing to be wealthy and faithful to Christ. It’s not impossible, but it is difficult, because having great wealth tends to make you want more wealth; wealthy people always face the temptation of putting their ultimate trust in their wealth, whereas Jesus’s disciples are called to place their ultimate trust in him.

Jesus wants us to be aware of that danger; but at the same time, he knows how the world works. He knows we can’t live in this world without money for very long. 

So he wants us to be aware of the danger of wealth, so that we might not hold onto it at all costs, but rather that we might put it to wise use, for his glory. 

What does he want us to do with our wealth? He tells us (v. 9): make friends with your wealth—why? so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. 

What does that look like? I’ve heard a million true stories like this one:

Lydia can’t catch a break—her husband has left her for another woman; she has just lost her job; she has three children whom she still has to feed and clothe; and now, her car won’t start. She’s in the driveway in the morning, trying to start the car; she pops the hood, seeing if she can figure out what’s wrong, and finally in her frustration she begins to cry. 

Her neighbor Peter comes out to go to work, and sees her there crying. So he asks if he can help. Peter takes a look at the engine, has no idea what’s wrong, so he offers to drive Lydia’s children to school, then to take her to a garage to get her car looked at. He drives the kids to school with her, the car goes to the garage, and they see the transmission is shot—three hundred dollars to fix it. Lydia, obviously, can’t pay it. 

So Peter thinks for a minute. He takes out his phone and looks at his family’s budget. His family is not at all rich; but he looks at things they can cut out, things he can move around. He considers the problem, and finds a way to pay the bill for her.

And after that, he brings Lydia and her kids home to meet his family, and they have dinner together. Over dinner, Lydia asks why on earth they would do something like that—pay three hundred dollars to fix the car of a woman they don’t know.

Peter and his wife answer, “Because that’s what Jesus did for us.” They share the gospel with her; explain how Christ, though he was rich, became poor for us (2 Cor. 8.9); how Jesus, though we were his enemies, lived our life and died our death, so that we might be reconciled to God. Lydia is overwhelmed by their generosity, and of course she suddenly wants to know more about this gospel that made these people this generous. And after a while, she comes to know Christ.

Brothers and sisters, that is “making friends by means of unrighteous wealth.” That is using earthly resources for God’s glory. Some would say that’s an unwise way to use their money (since Peter’s family didn’t have a lot to begin with). But it’s not.

That car will break down again one day—the money will eventually fail. But if Lydia happens to arrive in heaven before her neighbors, she will be there to welcome them in, and they will celebrate Christ together.

That’s just one example of a million possible examples; the point of the parable isn’t only to incite us to generosity, but rather to use our wealth wisely, for the glory of God. What we have isn’t ours, but God’s, and he has given it to us to use for his glory. That is how we should think of everything we own.

This kind of thinking may seem a little accessory to some people (particularly those who don’t like the idea of God telling them what to do with their money). These people may think this kind of financial thinking is one possible implication of the Christian life, an implication that you could take or leave, depending on your interpretation of Scripture.

But it’s not. The reality that all our life belongs not to us, but to God is not an implication of the Christian life; this kind of thinking is at the heart of the Christian life. The stakes here are very, very high.

The Stakes Are High (v. 10-13)

Firstly, the stakes are high for our service to the kingdom.

10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 

God does not save us simply for our own benefit. He does not save us simply for heaven. Everyone he saves, he saves for his glory. He saves people in order that they might take the grace they have received, and pour it out to others, that others may know Christ. 

This is how God plants his kingdom; this is how he gathers his children home.

But if we aren’t faithful in the little, practical aspects of our lives—our own personal finances, for example—how can we expect God to trust us with something big, like working for someone else’s eternal salvation? If we aren’t faithful with things that don’t really matter (because they don’t last), how can we expect him to trust us with things that do matter?

Believe it or not, the way we spend our money says a lot about how much (or how little) we value the kingdom of God. 

Most people learn fairly early on to set up a budget. They have lines in their budget for clothes, for food, for utilities, for savings, for insurance, for entertainment, for vacation… And most Christians will have an additional line for money they’ll use for the church, or other gospel-centered initiatives (giving to a foreign missionary, or to another gospel-related organization). Some Christians will even have a “hospitality budget”, money they keep aside so they can invite unbelievers over for dinner and show them the gospel. 

How we spend our money shows how much—or how little—we value the kingdom of God.

But let’s think even bigger. 

What if thinking through how I could be most effective for the gospel changed where I decided to live, and in what kind of home? What if it changed the career I decide to pursue? What if it changed the people I decide to spend my time with? the after-work activities I decide to enjoy? where I sent my kids to school? 

Everyone’s context is different, so you’d know better than me exactly what that would look like for you. Jesus’s point is that this is how we should think, because God’s kingdom goes forward, not just through our own personal evangelism, but through the wise choices and investments of his children. God has given us all he has given us to use for his glory and for his kingdom. 

So if we don’t take serious time and effort to think through how we’ll use those resources, how effective can we expect to be? How can we expect him to trust us with big things if we’re not faithful with little things?

Secondly, the stakes are high for our own hearts. 

13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” 

The simple truth of the matter is that there is always only one thing that rules our hearts.

This is why idolatry is such a big deal in the Bible: God is meant to be the one who has final sway over our priorities and affections. 

And one of the biggest dangers to our affections for God is money—either in the wealth itself, or in what we do with it.

Wealth brings security: we see a comfortable sum in the bank account, and we feel safe. 

And yet, in Christ, we have all the security we need: he lived our life and died our death to secure our place in the kingdom of God, where even death could not ultimately harm us.

Wealth brings status: fewer places exist where we can see that more clearly than in Paris. The disparity that exists between the rich and the poor in our city is visible, and staggering. Wealth brings pride, and the idea that those who don’t look like me or dress as well as me (presumably because they can’t afford it) are lesser, somehow. Wealth is far too often a marker of our identity—if we don’t have access to the toys we want and the clothes we wear, then who are we?

But in Christ, we are children of the Most High God—we are Sons and Daughters of the Creator and Lord of the universe. There is no higher status than to be adopted children of God, loved by the One who has every right to judge and reject us.

Wealth brings pleasure: the example I always think of (because it’s so far from the way I grew up) is vacation. The amount of money we spend on vacation in our country is insane. People save up all year—they save up their money and their emotional health—for those few weeks in the summer when they can get away and have fun.

But what would our lives be like if we really believed what David says in Psalm 16, that in your presence there is fullness of joy, at your right hand our pleasures forevermore? If we really found our truest pleasure in God, would we feel so compelled to seek our pleasure elsewhere?

The stakes are high for our hearts. We can serve God, or we can serve money (and what money gets us), but we can’t serve both.

So what is the alternative?

Seeing Through God’s Eyes (v. 14-17)

14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. 

This seems like a change of subject, but it’s not—Luke is careful to tell us that the Pharisees to whom Jesus is speaking now were lovers of money. They ridiculed his pretty extreme statements on money, not because what Jesus was saying wasn’t true, but because they loved money too much to accept it.

The Pharisees touted their devotion to the Law and the Prophets, and yet their lives went in the opposite direction. They’d proclaim the necessity and the truth of the Law, and then turn around and conveniently ignore those parts of the Law which warned against their own vices. They talked about the Law, but they didn’t really care about what the Law actually said.

“…but God knows your hearts,” Jesus says. He knows what you really love. He knows what is really exalted in your affections. And these things you love are an abomination in the sight of God.

You see, he is trying to get them to see what God sees. To look at the world through God’s eyes. Because if they ever stopped to ask themselves, “What is exalted in the sight of God?”, they would remember the multitude of passages in the Law and the Prophets which called them to this same kind of wisdom in the way they use the resources God has given them.

Deuteronomy 15:7-8:  

7 “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor...you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 

Psalm 24:1:  

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein...

Proverbs 3:9-10:  

9  Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; 10  then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.

Ecclesiastes 5:10ff:  

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income...

The examples are endless.

The Pharisees ridicule Jesus for forgetting the law; but Jesus was the Law’s staunchest defender—which is his point in v. 16-17:

16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. 

You see, the Law was God’s means of showing his people what he valued, what he exalted; and the gospel reflects precisely those values. The gospel calls us not just to outward behavior; it calls us to an inner change of the things we value. It calls us to look at everything differently—not just our sin, but the world around us, the world’s values, the things we have, the things we love, the things we hold dear. It calls us to find our security, not in wealth, but in Christ; to find our identity, not in our social status (and its various markers), but in Christ; to find our pleasure, not in the paltry pleasures of this world, but in Christ.

The Heart of the Matter

The heart of everything Jesus is saying in this text can be summed up in one very simple question: What do you love? What do you value? What do you desire? 

Or, to say it in Jesus’s terms: What is most “exalted” in you?

God knows the answer to that question for each of us, but he knows it’s awfully hard for us to do that kind of deep self-examination. So Jesus helps us—he puts his finger right on the point which will hurt the most, the point which will give us perhaps the clearest evidence of what it is we love and value and exalt the most: the way we use our money. The way we use the resources God has given us tells us what we value the most.

So if Jesus helps us see what we value most, what do we do with that knowledge?

Well, what if we just flipped it around? Now that we can better see what we value the most, what if we asked what God values the most? What if we applied this same kind of logic to God himself?

What does God value the most? Scripture is abundantly clear that God most values his glory, manifested in the salvation of his children. 

And what did he do with the infinite resources at his disposal to obtain that which he values most? 

He gave his Son, who (as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8.9) though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. 

God is motivated by a passion for his own glory, and he most supremely manifests his glory in his Son, who became a man, and who lived and died and was raised to reconcile us to God.

If a passion for God’s glory, manifested in his Son, is what motivates God, it should also be what motivates us. If we are truly seeing through God’s eyes, we will see the world in light of that supreme value. 

And if we see the world in that way, then we will inevitably and necessarily think long and hard about how we use the resources God has given us. We won’t be flippant in the way we use the wealth he has given us, and neither will we pursue that wealth as our ultimate source of security, or status, or pleasure.

We are called to love what God loves, and to see the world through the lens of a passion for his glory and his kingdom.

So if that’s true of us—if we truly value, and love, and find our pleasure in a passion for God’s glory and his kingdom—then what will we do with what God has given us, in order to pursue that highest value? 

What needs to change (in our habits, in our time, in our budgets) to show the world, and our own hearts, that we truly value God’s kingdom and his glory above all else?

If you’re not a Christian this morning, and you’re hearing these things I realize how extreme it may sound. But think about it like this: if knowing Christ produces such a change in our way of thinking, our priorities, our habits—and not out of obligation, but because we want to change these things now—who must this Jesus be? If Jesus is so good that the simple fact of knowing would make us want to change everything for him, how good must he be?

If you’d like to know Jesus, if you’d like to take a first step of faith toward him (or even simply ask him to convince you), you’ll be able to do just that in a few minutes, while we are taking Communion.

Luke 16.18

Marriage and Divorce (Through God’s Eyes)

(Luke 16.18)

Jason Procopio

If you’re new here, or visiting today, you should know that in our church we typically preach through books of the Bible. We started the gospel of Luke a year and a half ago, at chapter 1, verse 1, and we’ll make our way through it until we get to the end. We do this so that we can’t avoid subjects that make us uncomfortable, and so that we can always remember why Luke says what he says at any given moment—how this passage fits into the larger story. We believe this is simply the most faithful way to preach the Bible.

Typically it’s best, when preaching like this, to preach on slightly larger chunks of text—that way, it’s easy to remember what came before, what comes after, and what one verse has to do with the others.

I’m going to break that rule today; this morning, we’re going to look at one verse.

When we came to Luke 16, we (the elders) had a choice to make. Luke 16 deals, in large part, with money and how we use it. Jesus begins with a parable, and he ends with a parable. And his teaching in this chapter is profound, if we take the time to hear it.

But then, almost directly in the middle of the chapter, Jesus says something that seems to come completely out of nowhere. He gives no indication of why he’s saying it—at least that’s how it seems when you read it quickly—and he doesn’t develop it any further afterward. It seems to have nothing to do with anything else he’s talking about. 

And what is more, it’s a bombshell of a verse. It’s a verse over which many theologians over the years have disagreed. It easily falls into the category of “Things we wish Jesus hadn’t said.” 

I’ll go ahead and read it for you, out of context, and then I’ll explain why we’re doing what we’re doing today, and how we’ll go about it.

Luke 16.18:  

Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. 

I think you can see why this is a problematic verse for many.

Last week I preached on verses 1-17 of this chapter, and today we’ll come back to what we saw in that passage, because there is a reason Jesus says this sentence at this point in his teaching. (If you haven’t done it yet, you may want to go back over what we saw.)

It would have been relatively easy to make last week’s sermon text come all the way through verse 18, and simply explain why Jesus says what he says. (It’s fairly straightforward.)

But what Jesus says in this verse is so inflammatory, in the light of today’s culture and mindset, that I knew you all would be up in arms if I brushed over it quickly. There are so many questions that this verse provokes, so many objections this verse raises, that we felt it needed to be addressed in a bit more depth.

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re first going to go back to the last part of last week’s text, to look at why Jesus says what he says at this point in the text. Then we’re going to talk about what he says, to see why this sentence is so important for our understanding of the gospel. And then we’re going to try to tie it all together.

Jesus and the Law (v. 14-17)

Let’s remember the context. Jesus has just told the parable of the dishonest manager (v. 1-8), encouraging his disciples to think long and hard about how they use the resources that God has given them. The way we use our money, he said, is an indicator of the things we value the most—we’ll either serve God, or money, but we can’t serve both (v. 13). 

Following this, we read (v. 14-17): 

14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. 

16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. 

As I said last week, this seems like a change of subject, but it’s not—Luke is careful to tell us that the Pharisees to whom Jesus is speaking now “were lovers of money”. They ridiculed Jesus’s extreme teaching, not because what Jesus was saying wasn’t true, but because they loved money too much to accept it.

The Pharisees prided themselves in being devoted to the Law and the Prophets, and yet their lives went in the opposite direction. They’d proclaim the necessity and the truth of the Law, and then turn around and conveniently ignore those parts of the Law which warned against their own vices. They talked about the Law, but they didn’t really care about what the Law actually said.

“But,” Jesus says, “God knows your hearts.” He knows what you really love. He knows what is really exalted in your affections. And he knows it’s not him.

All this time—through the parable of the dishonest manager, and everything Jesus says afterward—Jesus is trying to get them to acknowledge the way they see the world—what is “exalted” in their eyes—and then to compare that to how God sees it: as a “abomination.” He wants them to see what God sees. To look at the world through God’s eyes. 

The Law was God’s means of showing his people what he valued, what he exalted; and the gospel reflects precisely those values. The gospel calls us not just to outward behavior; it calls us to an inner change of the things we value. It calls us to look at everything differently—not just our sin, but the world around us, the world’s values, the things we have, the things we love, the things we hold dear. 

That was the whole point of the Law of Moses, that was the point of the Prophets—to help the people see what kind of God he is, and the things he valued, in order that they might align their own values with his.

The Pharisees ridicule Jesus for forgetting the Law and the Prophets; but in fact Jesus was the only one among them who accurately defended the Law and the Prophets, and put the Word of God into practice.

And that is Jesus’s point in v. 18 as well. He says,

17 [It] is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. 18 Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

In other words, Jesus says what he says about divorce as an example of how he is defending the Law far more fully than the Pharisees ever did. But why this example, when there were so many others to choose from?

There was, at the time, disagreement among the rabbis concerning marriage and divorce—about when divorce was okay, and when it was not okay (much like today).

There were a very small number of cases under the Law in which divorce was allowed; but Jesus himself said that these cases were exceptions, rather than the rule. He said in Matthew 19.8-9:  

8 ...“Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” 

But the overwhelming thrust of the Law and the Prophets was never to say, “Here are the times when divorce is okay;” it was rather to say, “GOD HATES DIVORCE.”

Nowhere is this clearer than in Malachi 2.14-16. Malachi says about a man who is unfaithful to his wife, and wishes to divorce her,

...the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Divorce in the Bible is always linked to adultery—adultery is the only acceptable reason the Old Testament gives for divorce, because (as Jesus says) the two are closely related. If one happens, so does the other: you can’t bring divorce into the mix without adultery coming along for the ride.

God hates divorce, because divorce is adultery. It is unfaithfulness to one’s wife. It is a breaking of the one-flesh union God brought together.

Do you see why Jesus brought in this example at this point? The Pharisees have been rejecting his teaching because they love money; they’ve been claiming Jesus is rejecting the Law.

But Jesus shows that he is defending the Law, far more faithfully than they ever did. Essentially, he is summarizing in a single sentence everything the Law teaches on divorce and adultery. He’s already showed that through his teaching on money, but to hammer the point home even more effectively, he gives this example on divorce.

So that’s why Jesus says what he says, at this point in his teaching.

That, I could have said last week.

But I know that that’s not the question you’re really asking when you read v. 18. 

What you want to know is, WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?! Why is Jesus so extreme?

To our modern ears, this statement is so inflammatory and so strict that it would be easy to simply pass it over as a cultural difference, and miss the more important point Jesus is trying to make, which is the same as the point we discussed last week.

Jesus is trying to get us to see the world through God’s eyes; to value what he values, to love what he loves, to esteem what he esteems. 

So we don’t just need to make sense of this sentence; we need to make sense of it in the greater context of Jesus’s teaching in Luke 16. 

If Jesus’s goal in Luke 16 is to help us see the world through God’s eyes, then the question we need to ask ourselves is this: How does God see marriage? Why is marriage such a big deal to God that Jesus would be willing to say something so extreme about it?

Marriage, Divorce and Adultery (v. 18)

Go to Ephesians 5 with me. We won’t go into great detail here—we’ve covered this at length in other series—but it’s in Ephesians 5 that we see the greatest reminder of why Jesus is so extreme. 

(Ladies, if you haven’t read this text before, don’t freak out: Paul’s going to use some words we don’t like these days—like “submit”—but when Paul uses them, he means something very specific, and probably not what you think. If you want to know what it means, go to our series on men and women, or come to me after the service and we’ll talk.)

Ephesians 5.22-33:  

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. 

A couple things to note:

In a marriage, the wife is called to “submit” to and respect her husband (and that doesn’t mean “let him dominate”); and the husband is called to love and protect and care for and provide for his wife.

That’s important, yes; but far more important than what we do is how we do it.

• V. 22: Wives, submit to your own husbands, AS TO THE LORD.

• V. 23: For the husband is the head of the wife EVEN AS CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 

• V. 24: AS THE CHURCH SUBMITS TO CHRIST...

• V. 25: Husbands, love your wives, AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH. 

• V. 29: No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, JUST AS CHRIST DOES THE CHURCH. 

• V. 32: This mystery is profound, and I AM SAYING THAT IT REFERS TO CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.

PLEASE tell me you see it! 

Our marriages aren’t even about us! 

The whole point of marriage, Paul is saying, is to reflect the covenant relationship between Christ and the church. This has always been the case—v. 31, in which he says, “Therefore a man shall leave his mother...” is a quote from Genesis 2; it’s what God said about the first marriage, before sin ever came into the world. 

This has always been God’s intention—marriage is a reflection of the covenant relationship between Christ and the church.

Why is it so important to understand that when we read Luke 16.18?

Because CHRIST DOES NOT DIVORCE HIS CHURCH!

Christ does not leave his church.

Christ is not unfaithful to his church. 

Christ does not neglect his church. 

He has entered into covenant with his church, AND SO HE STAYS WITH HER, no matter what hell she puts him through!

Not only that—not only does he not leave her when she forgets him and neglects him—he shows her the same care, the same love, the same attention, the same affection, as he did the very first day he died for her.

So why does God hate divorce?

God hates divorce, because it tells the world a lie about his Son.

It proclaims to the world that the Son might well end up being as inconstant as we are. 

It proclaims to the world that if we leave him, he might leave us.

It proclaims to the world that the covenant our marriage is meant to reflect and image is of FAR LESS IMPORTANCE than my own comfort and well-being and need for self-fulfillment. 

Every one of those statements is a lie…and WOE to those who spread lies about the Son of God.

The same can be said for sex, by the way. Sex is the most common illustration the Bible uses to talk about both idolatry and union with Christ. Sex outside of marriage always represents a breach of covenant with God, and sex in marriage represents the union we have with Christ, the union he purchased with his life, and which his Spirit applied to us at his resurrection.

This is why we make such a big deal about not being intimate with anyone who’s not your spouse, not living together before you’re married, not having extra-marital affairs—because that’s not how Christ acts toward his church. 

Christ did unite himself to his bride, by his Spirit, before going to the cross, and obtaining the right to marry her.

He proclaimed our need during his life; he satisfied our need in his death; and once his union with us was established at his resurrection, he remained faithful to us every step of the way, no matter what horrible things we threw at him.

God hates divorce—not just because it’s costly, not just because it wounds, not just because it’s devastating for our children. 

God hates divorce because, most importantly, it tells a lie to the world: the lie that Jesus is as casual with his commitments as we are. Christ is never adulterous; he is never unfaithful. He loves us even when we do not love him.

Which is why Jesus takes such a strong stand. Look at v. 18 again:  

Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. 

Now, let’s imagine that you’re about to marry a divorced man or woman, and you feel you’re going about it the right way. There was no adultery before the divorce; you haven’t engaged in casual sexual relations before getting married. 

Adultery (at least the Bible’s definition of adultery) is having sexual relations, or entertaining sexual lust, with someone who isn’t your spouse. So most people would think, “We haven’t committed adultery, so we’re clean.”

Well, Jesus takes our idea of what adultery is, and stretches it even further. He says that a marriage between a divorced man and another, or a divorced woman and another, is adultery by default. 

Why?

Because she had a husband, and that covenant was not meant to be broken.

Because he had a wife, and that covenant was not meant to be broken.

Hope for the Broken

If you’re one of those people I mentioned earlier, and you’ve been divorced, or come from a family of divorce, or have loved ones who are divorced, you may be hearing all this as absolutely brutal. But that is not Christ’s intention in saying what he says.

I’ve known couples of all stripes here. 

A couple gets married; one of them was divorced before they got married, and then the newly married couple hear what Jesus says here, realize how they began their marriage, confess that sin and repent of it…and then commit to making this new marriage a reflection of the relationship Christ has with his church.

A woman cheats on her husband with another man; confesses it to him; and although he could (with a clean conscience) leave her, he forgives her sin, and they begin the slow and painful and beautiful route back to reflecting Christ and his church.

A couple gets married, lives together for thirty years, then the husband leaves the wife for another woman. They divorce, and the wife remains single. Then, years later, the husband returns, repents of his sin and asks for forgiveness. The couple is remarried (their adult sons standing proudly by as witnesses), and their marriage is restored and beautiful and happy today.

All of these cases are couples I know personally. There is a great deal of pain in every case (there has never been adultery or divorce without pain), but for those who are willing to submit to God’s authority and repent of their sin, restoration is always possible. 

That is what God does—he takes broken things, broken people, and makes them new again.

And that truth not only heals us after divorce; it also protects us from divorce.

Many of you know that Loanne and I got married very quickly (nine weeks after we met), and found out very soon after getting married that we were completely incompatible with one another. We don’t like any of the same things, we process things differently, we handle conflict differently… For the first few years of our marriage, we were absolutely miserable. (Six years is a long time to live married to someone you don’t like.)

But we knew how God feels about divorce, and as we grew in our knowledge of the Bible, we came to understand why. We knew that Christ is faithful to his bride no matter how difficult it becomes; and we knew the perseverance we (as Christ’s bride) are called to show in our faith, no matter how much we may suffer. So we persevered. 

And we found, after a good deal of time and prayer and heartache and difficulty, that God knows what he’s talking about when he talks about marriage. That doing it God’s way, no matter what the circumstances, produces more joy in us than simply going the easy route and launching the ejector seat.

And although to this day things aren’t always easy, we remain faithful to each other, and we love each other, and we are happy knowing that our very imperfect marriage is what God willed for us, for his glory.

People often ask me, “If things were this hard, how did you know she’s the woman God had planned for you?”

My answer is always the same: “Because she’s my wife.” 

God never promises us pain-free marriages, and he never calls us to seek out people to marry who are absolutely, perfectly compatible with us. (That person doesn’t exist anyway.)

He calls us to leave our fathers and mothers, to hold fast to our wives, and to know that in him, we are now one. 

I’m sorry I can’t give you a five-step plan on how to perfectly put into practice what Jesus says in this verse: these situations never come up in a vacuum, and pain of this magnitude is often blinding.

But these things we can know:

Because of what marriage is—a living testimony of the covenantal love between Christ and his church—God hates anything that will damage or break it. He hates divorce, and he hates adultery.

For those who have sinned (whatever the sin) restoration and repentance are always possible.

For those who have suffered, been wounded, by sin—by your own sin, or by someone else’s sin—the church is there to love you and to care for you and to walk with you toward that restoration. The church has far too often taken broken people who have been through these things, and done a terrible job of loving them. We are all suffering from the consequences of sin, and we all need the same Savior; so although we aren’t content to remain as we are, there is absolutely no room for judgment or ridicule here. If there is one place on earth where it is okay to be broken, okay to have made mistakes, okay to come in barely able to stand because we’re hurting so much, this is the place. 

What’s the Point?

Now, I know that was a lot to unpack; but we have to remember that all of this talk of divorce isn’t the main point. Let’s go back to Luke 16.

Jesus defends and fulfills the Law—that’s what he was trying to show the Pharisees.

Jesus calls us to see the world, and ourselves, and others, as God sees us. Just as last week we heard him call us to see our resources—our money—as God does, here he calls us to see marriage and relationships as he does.

Jesus calls us to use what we have for his glory, and his renown. 

God is motivated by a passion for his own glory, and he most supremely manifests his glory in his Son, who became a man, and who lived and died and was raised to reconcile us to God.

If a passion for God’s glory, manifested in his Son, is what motivates God, it should also be what motivates us. If we are truly seeing through God’s eyes, we will see the world in the light of that supreme value. 

And if we see the world in that way, then just as we will think long and hard about how we use the resources God has given us, we will also, inevitably and necessarily, think long and hard about how we approach our relationships.

It is so hard for young people to remember that their romantic relationships are about so much more than physical attraction (partly because when you’re twenty-five, everyone’s still pretty; mostly because we just haven’t lived long enough to see beyond that attraction). 

But if we see how highly God esteems romantic relationships (which, biblically, will always play out in the context of marriage and which serve as living testimonies to the gospel), then how will we go about building these relationships?

What will we look for in a spouse? 

How will we go about pursuing our future wife? Will we really want to simply “date” like the rest of the world does?

How will we seek to love and honor our spouse in our marriage?

How will we seek to love and honor Christ in our marriage (since, in the end, it’s actually not about us, but about him)? 

How will that change the way we speak to one another? the way we resolve conflict? the way we fight temptation? the way we forgive each other’s sin?

God gives us everything he gives us to use for his glory. And he created us in such a way that when we act for his glory (and not our own selfish pleasure), we actually enjoy it more. 

So let us serve him well in our relationships; let us be joyful in our relationships; and let us ultimately rejoice, not in how happy we are in our husbands and wives, but in how happy we are in Christ.

Luke 14.1-24

Rules for a Dinner Party

Luke 14.1-24

Jason Procopio

When I first became a Christian, I believed (and was taught) that Jesus died on the cross to open the door to salvation for me; but that after he did that, it was all up to me to make the right decisions, to love Jesus, and to obey him faithfully enough to get saved and to stay saved. I believed this for a long time, and was surrounded by people who believed it. And one of the common traits of folks who believe this is a kind of frustration with people who aren’t Christians, or who aren’t faithful Christians. You know what you’re supposed to do! Just do it!

Then, about twelve years ago, I heard John Piper preach a sermon on Romans 9. And it completely destroyed me. Over the course of about two weeks, I listened to hours and hours of sermons, read everything I could get my hands on, and did a complete one-eighty to adopt Reformed theology: the belief that God is absolutely sovereign over every aspect of his creation, including the salvation of his children.

But here too I made a discovery: this belief, which should have sparked in me a kind of humility I had never known—because I did nothing to save myself, and couldn’t if I wanted to—actually had the opposite effect. Because I could so clearly see this taught in the Bible, I just couldn’t fathom these morons who could read their Bible and see anything else.

Here’s the point: every conviction, every theological position, every deeply held belief, will inevitably reveal bottomless wells of pride in ourselves, unless God does something to stop it.

Our text today takes place at a single dinner party. And although they may be separated by different headings in your Bibles, they do indeed go together.

Jesus is invited to a dinner party which takes place at the home of “a ruler of the Pharisees.” And we see in v. 1 that when he goes to this Pharisee’s house for dinner, “they were watching him carefully.” So you know this is no innocent, friendly party. These guys are trying to trap Jesus into saying something which they can use against him, to kill him.

And Jesus is going to do what he always does—he’s going to take advantage of the opportunity he has here, to teach those in attendance four essential rules for dealing with other people. And the further he goes, the more we see that his rules for our relationships aren’t really about our relationships at all.

Rule 1: Treat Others As You Would Treat Your Kids (v. 1-6).

1 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 

The man who came in probably had some kind of edema, in which excess fluid gathers in different parts of the body. This is the last time we see Jesus heal someone on the Sabbath. This time around, we don’t see any of the drama we saw the previous times. It’s a brief encounter, meant to introduce what’s coming.

Rather than seeing the Pharisees make a show of being offended at the idea that Jesus would heal someone on the Sabbath, he asks a simple question. 

3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. 

It was a brilliant move. If they say yes, then they contradict what they’ve said before. If they say no, then they risk seeming heartless and uncaring—which had already happened several times with this man.

So they say nothing, and Jesus does what we know he’ll do. V. 4b:

Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 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?” 6 And they could not reply to these things. 

In other words, there is no good reason to consider this poor man as any less important than their own children—and certainly not less important than one of their animals, whom they nevertheless cared for. He was no less worthy or valuable, no less human, than anyone. 

So they could say nothing.

Rule 2: Never Take the Best Seat at the Table (v. 7-11).

Now apparently at this point, they all get ready to eat. And some people sit down at the “places of honor.” Imagine you’re eating with a celebrity, someone you admire greatly, and there are lots of people invited. You’re going to want to get as close to that person as possible.

Same thing here. Whether they want to be close to Jesus, or to the master of the house, we don’t know; but they are choosing for themselves the places of honor. So Jesus addresses these people, who were invited to the dinner party.  

7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 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, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, 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 table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

This is one of the more well-known parables of Christ, and its meaning is quite plain. But no matter how clear its meaning is, it remains one of the hardest parables to actually put into practice, because it drives us to something which will be a struggle to all of us: humility.

All of us, naturally, are prideful people. Pride manifests itself in two general ways: arrogance (the “I’m awesome and you’re all losers” mentality) and selfishness (the mentality which thinks the world I live in revolves around me). Every single one of us will struggle with both, in some way or another.

You may not be the type of person who thinks much of yourself. You may actually have pretty low self esteem. But every one of us knows what it’s like to have an opinion about something, to be 100% sure we are right, and to struggle to consider any other possibility. We all know what it’s like to dig in when we should be listening. That’s pride.

And what’s perhaps even more predominant is the “it’s all about me” mentality. Because we are individual human beings who have individual human minds, all of us see the world from our own perspective. We have our own likes, our own fears, our own desires, and whether we want to or not, our natural mode of operation is to build our lives around the things that are important to us. That’s just part of what it means to be human.

But all too often, that aspect of our nature begins to seep out of us in ways that are unhealthy. Probably the easiest way to see it in our day and culture is in social media. Social media is uniquely engineered to feed our selfish nature, because it is almost always me, posting about me. 

And it’s uniquely engineered to feed our arrogance, too—even if we actually have low self-esteem. Because we always post things designed to make other people see us the way we want to be seen. We take the places of honor, even if it’s only in our own minds.

Here’s the point: we all struggle with this. We all struggle with wanting everything to be for us. We all struggle with wanting the place of honor, with getting what we want, with seeing ourselves as more than we are, and wanting other people to see us the same way. And we’ll use all kinds of very subtle means to get there. 

So what is the solution Jesus gives us? 

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

It’s amazing to me that in this teaching, Jesus tells us not to exalt ourselves, but to humble ourselves; and the reward he holds forward for us is that if we humble ourselves, we will be exalted. The desire to be exalted is a natural human desire—but there is a right, holy way to seek it. 

Jesus says that the best way to seek it is to stop seeking it, but to give it to others. And he’s not just talking about high-profile situations in which lots of people will see what it is we’re doing. We have the opportunity to do this every single day.

A guy won’t let up, and wears his girlfriend down so she’ll sleep with him, because he wants the pleasure of sexual release. 

• Humility would have him make every effort to protect his girlfriend from sexual temptation, because his own pleasure is far less important than her holiness.

A girl will gossip, speaking poorly of her sister in Christ, because she wants to feel better about herself in comparison.

• Humility would have her reach out to this sister and ask how she can pray for her, because no one is above the need for brotherly (or sisterly) love.

A guy will talk to his buddies about a girl likes, putting on macho airs to make it sound like she likes him too, because he wants his buddies to be impressed that a girl like her would be into him.

• Humility would have him talk to the girl about his feelings for her, because she never asked to be a part of that conversation, and might not feel the same way. (And might be devastated to know that guys were talking about her in this way.)

A father will lash out as his children, because he wants just five minutes of silence.

• Humility would have him show his kids what godly patience looks like, because he has received that same patience and grace from Christ. 

A woman will pass by a homeless mother on the road without looking, because she wants to avoid the uncomfortable exchange that might ensue.

• Humility would have her stop and speak to this mother, because it is only by God’s grace that she hasn’t found herself in that situation with her own kids.

In every situation, humility would have us act in ways which are counterintuitive, and which will definitely cost us something in the short run. But even if no one else notices that sacrifice, God does, and promises to exalt us in the proper time (more on that later).

Rule 3: Be Good to People Who Can Do Nothing for You (v. 12-14).

12 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. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” 

Now it’s important to see that Jesus isn’t talking about payment for services here. He’s talking about the kind of sharing mentality that often happens in a community. I lend you my wrench, and I’m happy to do it, because I know that you won’t be able to refuse if I ever need to borrow something from you. We get a coffee, and I pay for yours, and what do you say? “I’ll get it next time.”

Now I don’t think Jesus is being absolute in his restriction here: I don’t think he’s saying we can’t invite our friends or brothers to dinner. But the test of our mettle is the way we act towards those who can do absolutely nothing for us in return. 

Look at the groups he mentions in v. 13. The poor; the crippled; the lame; the blind. Those who can’t repay financially, and whose other contributions would have been extremely limited at the time. Jesus says, “When you give a feast, invite these people—” v. 14: “and you will be blessed, BECAUSE they cannot repay you.” 

What kind of sense does that make? Why would their inability to repay mean blessing for us?

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

Now this is incredible. Even if God paid zero attention to the things we did for those who can do nothing for us, we would still be rewarded beyond all measure for what Jesus did for us. And yet he still promises that the good we do for others, God will give back to us, beyond what we deserve. This is the simple and extravagant goodness of our God.

And here’s where we start to see where Jesus is going with all this. The idea that we would be repaid by God for any good we do to others is just laughable—every good thing we have or do, every good thought or motive or action, comes from him. God rewards us for what he gave us. 

Realizing that fact changes the way we see the rewards he promises us. It makes us realize that these rewards are less about us, and more about him. That any reward he promises is designed to make us marvel at his goodness, not ours. 

Which leads us to the fourth rule.

Rule 4: Remember It’s His Banquet (v. 15-24).

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ” 

God invites us all to a banquet. This is not metaphorical. Revelation 19 speaks of the marriage supper of the lamb, that day when all the saints—all those who have faith in Christ—will be gathered together and made perfect, and live forever in infinite joy with Jesus. John writes in Revelation 19.6-9:  

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, 

“Hallelujah! 

For the Lord our God 

the Almighty reigns. 

7  Let us rejoice and exult 

and give him the glory, 

for the marriage of the Lamb has come, 

and his Bride has made herself ready; 

8  it was granted her to clothe herself 

with fine linen, bright and pure”— 

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. 

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

The call to salvation is an invitation to a feast. The parable Jesus tells here is a very apt one. God calls all people to come to him and be saved through faith in Christ. He made that call first to the people of Israel: Jesus was born in Israel, and he taught there. The first people to hear the message of his kingdom, to hear the call to come to him, were his people.

But, as we see in the parable, when the time came, and Jesus invited them to come on behalf of his Father, the Master (Jesus is the servant here), his people found any number of excuses as to why they couldn’t come. One guy had to tend to his new field. Another guy needed to tend to his livestock. Another guy had to tend to his new bride. 

So what does the master do? He tells his servant to go to those people we saw in v. 12-14: those who couldn’t repay. He invites the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame. And they come. 

But there’s still more room. 

So the master tells the servant to go out of the city—to go invite those who have no earthly business being there—and to have them come in as well.

Once again: Jesus levels the playing field. The people to whom he is speaking during this dinner party—these Pharisees and lawyers and other people who of high society of rubbed shoulders in them—found their identity in the fact that they belonged to God’s chosen people, the people of Israel. And this identity gave way to pride: pride that they were good Israelites, who observed the law, who did things the way they should be done, who were clean before God, who were respectable.

Ever since the beginning of this dinner party, Jesus has been subtly chipping away at this pride. 

To the lawyers and the Pharisees (v. 1-6), he says, the sick are welcome at my table, and will be healed if they come. 

To those invited to the dinner party (v. 7-11), he says, don’t seek the places of honor, but if you want to be truly exalted, humble yourselves. 

To the master of the house (v. 12-14), he says, when you give a dinner, invite those people who can give nothing back to you. 

And to the man who says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God,” he responds, “Yes, but how can you be sure you’ll be there?”

It’s the final, ultimate blow to their pride, because Jesus places before them only two choices: either you are one of the “respectable” ones, who find excuses and miss out on the banquet; or you are one of the needy who were let in late. There is no third option. 

Those Israelites for whom their heritage was everything—that was their excuse for not following Christ. They counted on their belonging to a certain group to get in good with God, so they didn’t think they needed a Savior. So they found themselves excluded from the very promises they prided themselves in.

Jesus says in order to be present at this banquet, you have to realize you’re one of the needy. You’re one of the sick. You need a Savior.

You see, the people Jesus has been teaching them to accept, and to serve, and to welcome, are the very people they had to be if they wanted to eat bread in the kingdom of God.

Which is better? To keep your pride, and miss out on the feast? Or to realize just how needy and sick you are, and enjoy eternity with Christ?

Over the course of this dinner party, Jesus chips away at our pride, to make us see that none of this is about us. 

What does he say in v. 23?

‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ” 

This is God’s banquet. I was not invited because I’m one of the “good ones.” I was invited because I need him, and he wants to fill his house with people who know they need him, and who will be amazed and grateful when he gives them this amazing banquet to taste.

It’s all about him. His goodness. his gifts. His grace toward undeserving sinners.

the pride of excuses

Now that’s a lot of material to cover in a short time, so let’s take a step back for a minute. 

The overarching theme of this whole dinner is obviously humility: showing honor to others, despite the cost to our own pride. But I hope you see that the humility he’s talking about here is far deeper than just the way we deal with our social interactions, than just the way we treat other people. It’s about my relationship with him, and whether or not I’m truly counting on him for everything I need. (The way I treat others is merely symptomatic.)

Our son Jack is six years old (six-and-a-half, he says—that’s important). He’s got a lot of energy (many of you here have been worn out by him before), and we don’t tell him this, but he’s a really smart kid. He’s the kind of annoying kid who’s just naturally good at most everything he tries to do (I was not that kind of kid). So he’s in the phase right now where he’s starting to notice that, and when he talks about a game or an activity or a subject at school, the first words out of his mouth are almost always, “I’m really good at this.”

It’s not easy to teach humility to a kid who’s good at just about everything he tries. But the Bible gives us the ultimate tool to do it in the person of Christ himself.

When we talk to Jack about what it means to be humble, we always say the same thing. Jesus is the Son of God—the Creator and Savior and Sustainer of the world. No one has ever been more deserving of honor than he is. But he didn’t go looking for that honor, did he? No—at every step of his life on earth, he did exactly what he teaches us to do here. 

He treated others the way we would treat our own children.

He never sought the best seat at the table, but sat with the lowly and the poor.

He consistently and faithfully loved people who could do absolutely nothing for him.

He made a way for those of us who had no reason being invited to God’s table might be invited anyway.

And that act—the act which granted those of us outside of Israel the opportunity to be reconciled to God—was the ultimate act of humility.

Paul says in Philippians 2.8-11 that Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And because of his humble sacrifice, God highly exalted him, and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

When we look at Christ’s life and death and resurrection, and all that we have in God because of what he did for us, it no longer makes any kind of rational sense to count on anything else. It makes no sense to boast in anything else. It no longer makes any sense to seek the place of honor, because we’ve already got it. It no longer makes any sense to seek anything for ourselves, because we already have everything in him.

So in light of these truths, although this text is long, it can be boiled down to one essential question: What are you counting on?

A lot of people don’t know Christ, and don’t know the Bible. So they legitimately don’t know what God expects of them.

That’s not the case for many of you this morning. Many of you here are well aware of what the Bible calls you to do on a day-to-day basis. And many of you still don’t do it. 

But please understand this (and this goes both for believers and unbelievers): the excuses you make for not obeying betray the pride in you, because they show you what you’re actually counting on. 

The people who were invited to the banquet, and who found excuses, were all counting on the fact that whatever they had going on, whatever they wanted to do, was more important than doing what the master invited them to do.

Whether you realize it or not, if you’re making excuses for not doing what he calls you to do, then necessarily, you’re counting on something other than Christ.

At best, you’re counting on the idea that your plans for your life are better than his plans for you. At worst, you’re counting on the idea that the things in which you find your identity and worth are more important than the life and sacrifice of Christ, which gave you a new identity, and true worth.

So you make excuses for why this commandment is too hard to follow, or why God is too strict in this situation, or why you’ll do this when the time is right. You don’t want to lose friends, you don’t want to lose money, you don’t want to lose your good reputation…

But those who count on Christ for their salvation will also count on Christ for the consequences of obeying him. If you’re counting on Christ for your salvation, then you’ll also count on him to get you through when your friends reject you; you’ll count on him to sustain you when resisting temptation is painful; you’ll count on him to assure for you an identity and worth that don’t depend on what others may think of you.

So if you’re refusing to come when he calls, and to do what he says to do, you have to ask yourself: what are you counting on? Are you counting on God’s leniency? “He’ll forgive me tomorrow, so I can do what I want today…” Even if Paul told us that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance (Romans 2.4). Are you counting on your own ability to do the right thing tomorrow? Didn’t you say the same thing yesterday? Has your resolution to do better tomorrow changed anything for you today?

The only thing we can count on—that won’t let us down—is him. There is nothing we can contribute to what we have in him. 

And when we see that, when we truly realize that none of this is about us, but about him, then we’re freed to finally live our lives as if that were really true. We’re finally free to give others the place of honor—and we’ll want to, because we’ll no longer need it. We have all the honor, all the attention, all the good reputation, all the reward, that we could ever need or want in him. 

So knowing what Jesus Christ has done for you, knowing how he humbled himself, do what he tells you to do. 

Treat others as you’d treat your own children.

Never take the best seat at the table.

Be good to people who can do nothing for you.

And do it all because you remember that this banquet you’ve been invited to is his banquet, not yours. It’s not about you, and you don’t need it to be. 

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Luke 15.11-32

Two Sons of a father

Luke 15.11-32

Jason Procopio

If you remember, we had to change up the order of our series just a bit because I had a family emergency a while back; so today we’re following up on the text Paul preached two weeks ago.

If you remember, two weeks ago Paul preached out of Luke 15.1-10, in which Jesus gives two parables at the same time: the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin. In both parables, we see something which is lost, and which the owner goes to great lengths to find again, and then rejoices when he (or she) manages to find it. The point, of course, is that God rejoices in the same way when one of his children comes to faith in Christ: when those who are “lost” are “found.” 

Essentially (spoiler alert) that’s the same thing we’ll see today: this is another version of those same stories. 

But as you may already know, it’s a much fuller version of those stories. It’s a story which is very famous (even for unbelievers) and which has come to be known as the story of the Prodigal Son. 

But even that title, which you’ll find as a header in most modern Bibles, is deceptive—because there are two brothers here. Jesus even starts his story that way: in v. 11, we read,

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons.” 

If you don’t know the story well, it won’t be hard to follow (its simplicity is part of why it’s so well-known); but often we focus so much on one thing that we miss what the story is actually about. So let’s read it together.

The Younger Brother (v. 11-24)

Jesus continues his story with no break from the previous two, and he summarizes the main point of both just before—so let’s begin reading, not at v. 11, but at v. 10. 

10 “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 

Every son back then had a right to an inheritance from their father when he died. This guy is asking his dad to give him his inheritance right away, before his death. He wants to get out of there. It would have been a shocking blow—essentially he’s telling his dad, “I wish you were dead now—but since you’re not, give me my money.” 

The father does what his son asked: he gives him his inheritance.

13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 

I did this a lot when I was a teenager. I had a job working in a movie theater, and I’d spend my weekly paycheck in a day, on junk food, on movies, on books, on music (because when I was a teenager we didn’t have the Internet in our homes, and we had to buy our music on these brand new inventions, these round, shiny things called CDs). I’d spend all my money, and then have to ask my dad to lend me money to pay for things I actually needed (like gas for my car), then when I got my paycheck on Friday I’d have to pay him back, and I’d have nothing left. 

That’s this guy’s situation, except now he can’t go home—he’s taken everything he could from his father, he’s spent it all on reckless living, and now there’s no more food and he’s starving. So what does he do?

15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 

This would have been particularly disturbing for the Jewish people Jesus was speaking to, because pigs were unclean animals, according to the Law of Moses. And not only does he find work feeding pigs—it gets worse: 

16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. 

Everything here is meant to ram that point home to us: this kid has ruined himself. And now, finally, he knows it.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 

It’s a good plan as far as it goes. He knows how his father’s servants were treated. He can’t expect to be treated like his father’s son anymore—that ship has sailed—but his dad may hire him on as a servant, and his life will still be vastly improved if that happens. So he goes home, hoping against hope that his father will not spit in his face, but hire him on as a servant.

But the kid, like most young people, didn’t understand what it’s like to be a father.

20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 

Here’s the thing: HE’S RIGHT. The son is absolutely right. How his father must have been devastated at his son’s insult when he left. At this point, this young man deserves nothing from his father.

But he’s his father.

And a good father never gives his kids what they deserve. Kids are like little vampires (not all the time, but often), sucking up all your energy, and all your money, and all your time, and you’re lucky if you get a sincere “Thank you” out of it all. 

But that doesn’t change how we treat our kids, if we’re good parents. Our kids can be awful to us—but we still provide for their needs, and take care of them, and love them—because they’re our kids.

And that’s why the father reacts the way he does.

22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. 

Now let’s be clear. This father doesn’t react this way because his son is a great person. He’s not happy to see his son return because his son is so fantastic. He’s this happy at his return, and spares no expense to celebrate, because he is his SON. If it were any other kid, this would be a sad story for him to hear, and not much more. 

But this is his boy. He celebrates, not because his son has accomplished great things. He loves the boy because he’s HIS boy, and he celebrates because the boy he loves has come back to him.

We’ve heard this story, and we understand its meaning, but how seldom do we live like this were true! 

Without even meaning to, far too often we think about our relationship with God in terms of merit. When we do well, we feel secure in God’s love for us, because we are doing what God wants us to do. When we fail, we feel as though God must want to get as far away from us as possible, because we haven’t lived up to his call.

Brothers and sisters, that’s not how it works. I’ve often said this in the past, and here—hopefully—you can see why: God does not regret saving you. He doesn’t grit his teeth when we come back to him, as if he’s only forgiving us because he promised he would. 

We are his SONS. We are his DAUGHTERS. We were lost, and now he’s found us. We were dead, and now we’re alive. 

Of course, it makes God happy when we obey him. But (as we saw a few weeks ago) even our righteous acts are as filthy rags before him. Fundamentally, if we belong to God, he doesn’t rejoice in us because we’re obedient, he rejoices in us because we’re his. 

Nothing can suffocate God’s joy in saving us, or in bringing us to repentance after we have failed. NOTHING. He delights in his children because they are his children, not because they’re good.

This is the beautiful news of the gospel: Jesus was good for us, so that God could love us as good, even though we’re sinners. 

Jesus took our sins on himself, so that God could punish our sin without punishing us. 

Jesus did what we couldn’t do, so that God could make us his children, and delight in us as his children. 

Jesus lived and died and was raised so that God could delight in us, not because we’re good, but because we’re his.

Often, when we think about this story, our thoughts stop there: at the return of the prodigal son. But Jesus goes on, because the prodigal son had an older brother.

The Older Brother (v. 25-32)

Now before we get into what he says: Why do you think Jesus keep going with the story? 

If we take this parable as part of a larger picture he’s painting in all of chapter 15 (which it is), it would seem as if the last part of the story—the part about the older brother—is out of place. The point of the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin, is that God rejoices over the repentance of every sinner who comes to him in their need. And we see that same thing in the first part of this parable, the part about the younger brother.

So why does he add on this last section? Why talk about the older brother at all?

Jesus knows to whom he is speaking. He knows that in the crowd, there are those so-called “sinners”. Remember: in v. 1-2 of this chapter, we read,  

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 

These tax collectors—just about the most hated people in all of Israel—and other sinners of various sorts, people of ill repute, are there in the crowd: Jesus welcomes them, and spends time with them. These people, listening to the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, and the story of the prodigal son, would have been understood the point: that God not only doesn’t reject them for their sin, but invites them to come to him in their need.

But these so-called “sinners” are not the only ones there. In the crowd there are also the religious ones, those who follow the law scrupulously, the Pharisees and scribes who are grumbling that Jesus would lower himself to spend time with such wretched people. 

And Jesus doesn’t want to leave them out. 

He’s not satisfied with merely encouraging sinners; he wants to address those who feel they don’t need to repent.Jesus describes the prodigal son’s older brother. The older brother is angry about the fact that he has not gotten what his younger brother has—. V. 25:

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’

Whether we like to admit it or not, we (like the Pharisees and scribes) do the same thing. We may come to God not believing he’ll love us, because we don’t deserve it; but far too often we find ourselves expecting God’s love because we think we do deserve it. We’d never say that out loud, but we can see it (for example) when we suffer—we look at the situation in which we find ourselves, and we think, I don’t understand—I’ve done everything I was supposed to! Why is this happening to me? 

Without ever articulating it in this way, we think that because we’ve obeyed God, we deserve better.

What’s the problem with that? The problem is that that’s not the way relationships between fathers and sons are supposed to work.

Look at the way the older brother speaks to his father. What he says is very revealing. 

He says (v. 29), “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command…”

So right there the older brother reveals the way he sees his relationship with his father: he sees himself as a servant, who deserves a reward for a job well done; and he sees his father as the master, the one who gives the commands. You’d expect exactly the same reaction from a good employee who works hard, and who sees the bonus he’s been working for go instead to a lazy colleague who cheats to get to the top.

Earlier we asked why Jesus adds on this last section—why he talks about the older brother in the first place? Jesus adds on this last part of the story to show the religious people in the crowd—the Pharisees and the scribes, those who follow the Law to the letter—that they have fundamentally misunderstood what their relationship with God is supposed to be. 

In the older brother’s mind, his relationship with his father is that of a servant working to receive a reward from his master.

But the father isn’t looking at the work; he’s focused on something entirely different. He says (v. 31):   

31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

In celebrating the return of the prodigal son, the father isn’t giving an undeserved reward to an undeserving servant; it has nothing to do with what the young man has done or not done. 

He’s celebrating the return of the son he loves. He’s not looking at what the son did, or didn’t do; he’s looking at who he is. 

The prodigal son, who was lost and who comes back, knows he has done nothing to deserve his love; he knows that he could never possibly work enough to earn back the grace his father has shown him. But he now knows that despite all of that, he is loved—not because he’s deserving, but because he is his father’s son.

How this must have burned the Pharisees. Their entire identity was dependent on the things they did. They looked at their lives, and they saw how well they obeyed the letter of the law, and consequently, they assumed that they were the ones whom God applauded; they were the ones who stood in God’s good favor.

So they don’t understand why Jesus comes, claiming to come from God, and receives these people who did none of the good things they were supposed to do! Why would a teacher sent from God be gracious and kind to those who did everything wrong, all the while scolding those who did everything right?

Because he’s looking not at what they did, or didn’t do; he’s looking at who they are. They may have done everything wrong; that’s beside the point. They are God’s children, and they need him. They were dead, and now they are coming alive. They were lost, and now they are found.

The Father

Parables like this can make things complicated for us, because we like rules. 

Well, we don’t like rules, but they’re comforting in that they play to our understanding of cause and effect. Do good things, and good things will happen. Do bad things, and bad things will happen. Rules make it clear what’s expected of us. Our understanding of the world depends in large part on this understanding of cause and effect—follow the rules, and you’ll be rewarded. Don’t follow the rules, and you’ll be punished.

So we assume that because that’s the way the world works, God must work the same way. We assume that God operates by giving us rules, expecting us to live by them, and punishing us if we don’t. We assume that if our morality holds to a certain standard, the rest will fall into place—if we are good people, we will receive good from God.

But this parable shows us very clearly that that’s not how it works.

It all boils down to two simple facts. Your bad behavior does not exclude you from being a son or a daughter of God; and your good behavior does not make you a son or a daughter of God. 

Our morality (our obedience to God’s commands, our good behavior) contributes NOTHING to our status as God’s children. The only thing our morality does in terms of our salvation is that it serves as a marker: as evidence that we truly are children of God. 

We can look at the change in our lives, in our obedience to God’s commands, and see in that obedience visible evidence that God has changed us. Because if we are his children, we will obey his commands; if we are his children, we will be holy, because he will make us holy. 

The question is, how does he do that? 

He does it through stories like this. He gives us such a view of his goodness and mercy and greatness that we want to come back to him.

We assume this story is about the younger brother, who ruined his life, then realized his sin and repented of it. Or we assume it’s about the older brother, who expected reward for good behavior and didn’t get it. But in reality, this parable isn’t about either brother.

This story is about the father.

Jesus tells this story to let the Pharisees see that the Father is so good, he welcomes the utterly sinful on the basis of who they are, not what they do.

And he tells this story to let the utterly sinful see that the Father is so good, he bestows his love on them despite how much they deserve the opposite. Because even before they come to him, he already knows his children, and he is drawing them to himself, and getting ready to celebrate their return.

Jesus tells this story to help us see how insanely, wonderfully good the Father is.

So the call of this text, to all of us, is very simple: see the goodness of your Father, and come home to him. 

If you are counting on your behavior to receive God’s approval—if you see yourself as a servant trying to earn payment from the Master who has given you commands—this parable calls you to realize you have misunderstood your relationship with your Father; and it calls you to repent of that. 

We might look down on the older son, thinking if we were in his position we’d react differently. But this misunderstanding of our relationship with God can show up in very subtle ways.

For example: 

• Do you have a tendency to think that if you don’t obey God’s commandments, he may not answer your prayers? 

• Do you tend to think that your suffering might somehow be punishment for things you have done? 

• Are you frustrated with other Christians who just can’t quite seem to get their act together? 

• Do you obey the Bible’s commands says because you’re afraid God will punish you if you don’t? 

• Are you hesitant to pray after you’ve sinned?

All of these are signs that we see our heavenly Father the same way the elder son saw his father.

So if that is us, this parable calls us to repent. To see that God is not a Master who is simply working toward behavior modification in his servants, merely seeking adherence to rules; he is a Father who celebrates his children who trust in his love. This parable calls us to see how good our Father is, and to respond to his goodness by obeying him—not because we’re afraid he’ll punish us if we don’t, but because we know our Father and want to be like him.

And the same is true on the other side. You may not be a Christian this morning, or you may be a Christian who has wandered far from God. You may be living in rebellion against him, in rejection of the life he created all of us to live.

If that is you, this parable is calling you to the same thing: in this parable, Jesus is calling you to see the goodness of your Father, and come home to him. Repent of your sin—not because you’re afraid of punishment if you don’t, but because God wants you to be where he is. Because he created you to glorify him by finding your fullest joy in him. Because he loves seeing lost children found, loves seeing dead children come to life.

Think what the younger son must have realized when he saw how his father celebrated him. Before, he was returning with the simple hope that he might find food, and a roof over his head. But when he saw how emotionally his father reacted to his return, how profoundly happy he was to see his son come home, he would have finally understood that all this time his father wasn’t waiting for him to “grow up and act better”; he was waiting for him to come home and be his son.

Parents, you’ll understand this: don’t we act like this with our kids? 

We don’t feed and clothe our children…if they obey us. 

We feed and clothe our kids because they’re our kids, and we love them, and they need us.

In Jesus Christ, God has done everything you couldn’t do. He provides the righteousness he requires of you; he provides freedom from his wrath; and he gives us such a view of his goodness and mercy that once we see him as he is, we want to live like him.

So see how good your Father is, brothers and sisters. Know your Father’s love for you, and respond to his love by becoming like him, and living joyfully as his children.

Luke 14.25-35

three conditions

(Luke 14.25-35)

It’s been a strange couple of weeks: we were supposed to start back in Luke two weeks ago, and on Saturday evening my wife and daughter both came down with a pretty nasty stomach flu. So very last minute I called my friend Gethin Jones, who was kind enough to replace me on Sunday morning. 

Paul was meant to preach the week after (so last week), and he knew he’d be unavailable today, so rather than mix everything up, we decided to let him preach what he’d prepared and then come back to the text I should have preached on two weeks ago, today; and then next week we’ll follow on after the text Paul preached last week. (It’ll all make sense, I promise.)

So let’s remember the context a bit. In the text just before this one—which we saw two months ago—we saw Jesus at a dinner party filled with Pharisees (the guys who hated him more than anyone). At this dinner party, he gave them a series of teachings on pride and humility.

The context of today’s text is a little different. Luke says that Jesus is no longer at the dinner party, and that he is surrounded by large crowds. These crowds are not like the Pharisees. There are certainly some Pharisees in the crowd (there always were), but there were also many people in the crowd who are following Jesus because they genuinely want to be his disciples.

As we’ve seen before, Jesus is pretty hard on the Pharisees (because for the most part, they’re hypocrites who want to kill him). What’s sometimes surprising is that Jesus can also be pretty hard on his disciples—not in terms of criticism, but in terms of what he expects of them. 

There are, Jesus says, conditions to being his disciple. 

And the bar for these conditions is unbelievably high.

One important thing to do, when preaching through the Bible, is to be reminded of the context in which these words were first spoken—how would these people following Jesus have heard what he is saying here? And as I was preparing this text I realized something: they would have heard it the same way we’re hearing it now. 

What’s great about this text is that what they would have felt upon hearing this back then, and what we feel upon reading it now, is pretty much the same, because the human condition hasn’t changed in the last 2,000 years. These people had families too; they had hopes and dreams too; they had temptations too. The details may look slightly different, but the fundamental nature of these conditions is the same.

Jesus is going to give three conditions to be his disciples, and these conditions are not cultural in nature. He’s giving conditions that go right to the heart of what it means to be human.

Condition 1: You must love him more than the most important people in your life (v. 26).

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

This is a reality that makes a lot of people really uncomfortable. We talk about the grace of God in Christ being totally free. And that is true: it is God who saves us, from beginning to end. We can’t work to obtain it, we can do nothing to contribute to it. 

But God saves us so that a series of very important things might happen in us, and he intends for those things to happen. The first thing that happens is that God opens our eyes to make us see the gospel as the truth, and not fiction. 

He opens our eyes to such an extent that we can no longer ignore the gospel, but are compelled to accept it. 

And he opens our eyes, not just to the truth of the gospel, but to the beauty of the gospel. He opens our eyes, not just to the reality of who he is, but to why he is wonderful. He opens our eyes to see him as marvelous, and when we see something as wonderful, we think it’s wonderful.

Think of the Grand Canyon. You can hear about the Grand Canyon as much as you want. You can know how it was formed, and even see pictures of what it looks like. You can hear it spoken of so much that you might assume the real thing couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. 

But when you actually go there, and see the real thing with your own eyes (and not through an Instagram filter), it never disappoints. You look out at that scene, and your breath is taken away. You see for yourself how wonderful it is, and you feel that wonder acutely.

When you see something as wonderful, you feel it as wonderful.

When you see something as beautiful, you admire its beauty.

When you see something as truly lovely, you love it.

That’s what happens when God saves us. He opens our eyes to see not only his existence, but his beauty, his goodness, his worth. 

To say it another way—to know God is to love God.

Now, if you’ve been in this church for a while, this isn’t news to you. We talk about this all the time. And many of us—everyone here, I hope—has experienced this in one way or another. We know what it is to be changed by God, and to love God for what he’s done for us.

But let’s be honest: that love is something we struggle to maintain. That love is something that gets easily snuffed out. It can be because of bad things that weigh us down, or good things that distract us; but our love for God is something that all of us, at some point or another, struggle to keep up.

And despite our best intentions, the reality of that struggle makes us settle. It makes us settle into the idea that our love for God is something that will always be at this level, but no higher—that this might be as good as it gets. 

What Jesus says here should dissuade us of that.

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

This phrase he uses is an idiomatic expression—obviously, as we see elsewhere in the Bible, God doesn’t want us to literally hate our families. It’s an expression which means “to love less than—” whoever does not love me MORE THAN his own father and mother and wife and children cannot be my disciple. Jesus intends for us to love him more than our parents. More than our husbands. Our wives. Our brothers and sisters. Our kids. Our __________.

In the end, who goes in that ___________ doesn’t matter—he’s talking about those people who are most important to us. 

Take what you feel for that person, whoever it is—take your affection for them, your devotion to them, your commitment to them… Your love for Jesus is meant to be greater than all that. 

And Jesus goes even further—he says not only should we love him more than the most important people to us; we should love him more than even our own lives.

Condition 2: You must be ready to give everything up (v. 27-33).

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. 

Let’s work backwards here. Verses 27 and 33 are like bookends to everything that comes in between. They’re two ways of stating the same thing.

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

This is similar to what he said before about hating your family—he doesn’t mean that Christians should reject their families and get rid of all their earthly possessions and go live like monks in a convent; we see this abundantly in other teachings he gives on how to use the material possessions we have.

He’s saying we should be so ready to give it all up that it’s as if we’ve already lost it. 

I hope you see how fair Jesus is being here. He wants every one of his disciples to know exactly what they’re getting into. 

And that’s what the parables in v. 28-32 are getting at. In the first one (v. 28-30), he talks about someone building a tower. This person—if he’s smart—will count up how much it will cost to build it (how much material he’ll need, how much manpower he’ll need) and make sure he has what he needs to make it happen. If he doesn’t count up the cost of the project, he’ll get started and be unable to finish. 

The second parable (v. 31-32) is of a king about to go to war, who sits down to examine his troops and make sure he can win, before he goes out. If he can’t win, he’s better off surrendering, or compromising for peace, rather than see his entire army wiped out.

To put it succinctly: it’s better not to start than to start and not finish. 

People come to Jesus for all kinds of reasons other than the right one—because they think he’ll make their life better, because they think he’ll make all their dreams come true… Then they start living the Christian life and realize that it’s not going the way they thought it would, and they think, Well this Jesus sure is a fraud! The end result is even worse—they’re not only indifferent to the gospel; they actively think it’s a lie.

But Jesus is very honest with his potential disciples. He’s telling these people that they might well lose everything if they follow him, and they need to be okay with that.

And in the other bookend (v. 27), we see just how far the “everything” they might lose extends.

V. 27:  

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

This was a shocking thing to say, and it still is. 

People wear crosses around their necks, and they wear them with no hesitation, because little gold crosses are pretty. 

If they really thought about what they were wearing, they may be a little more reticent. 

Imagine if, instead of a cross, it was a guillotine. A little gold guillotine. 

If you saw someone walking around with a guillotine around her neck, you’d wonder if there wasn’t something slightly twisted about this person—because a guillotine isn’t fashionable. It’s an instrument of death. 

And even a guillotine is a far more humane instrument of death than the cross; at least the guillotine was instantaneous. Death on a cross took hours. You died of very slow suffocation on a cross. Crucifixion was such a horrendous way to die that Roman citizens wouldn’t even mention a cross in polite company.

Jesus shocks them with this image so they can feel just how far discipleship will take them. They may not literally be crucified like he was; but taking up your cross meant a surrender of everything you are. Everything you think; everything you believe; everything you want.

You see, Jesus’s ultimate goal here is not to create martyrs (even if some Christians will die for their faith—it happens all the time). 

His goal is to make disciples who are totally free to do the will of God. It’s okay (and inevitable) to have our own ideas and opinions and desires. But often these things will hold us back, preventing us from doing what God calls us to do. 

If more than anything else, we want to have a family with 2.5 kids and a nice house in the suburbs with a garden, what will our reaction be if God calls us to leave everything and go to a hole-in-the-wall town to plant a church? 

If getting married is of primary importance to us, how devastated will we be if God plans for us to be single the rest of our lives? 

If we have our own ideas of what it means to be happy and to find pleasure in this world, how can we ever hope to obey God when he calls us to put our sin to death—sin which does indeed bring us pleasure (even if that pleasure is temporary and dangerous for us)?

Our own ideas and goals and desires may well cause us to rush into things we shouldn’t do; to ignore clear calls from God to do something we don’t want to do; to give in to temptation when we should resist it. 

Or at the very least, even if we manage to obey the letter of God’s law, if we keep holding on to our own ideas of what our lives should be, our obedience becomes a bittersweet affair, something we do through gritted teeth, and with no joy at all, but rather resentment and anger against him for making us do it.

Jesus doesn’t want that. He wants us to be free from anything which will make obedience harder than it should be. He wants us to be free to obey without hesitation, free to go wherever God would have us. He wants us to be so free that even if it’s a question of choosing between our faith and our lives, the choice will be easy, and joyful.

The disciple of Christ must be ready to lose the people he loves the most, the things that belong to him, and even everything he is, to follow him.

Condition 3: You must persevere in usefulness (v. 34-35).

Lastly, Jesus adds this slightly perplexing conclusion:  

34 “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 

I’ve never encountered salt that has lost its taste, but I can imagine it. You take salt with no taste and add it to your mashed potatoes, and what do you get? Gritty mashed potatoes. 

Unsalty salt is of no use, he says. It does nothing for your food; it does nothing for the ground; it doesn’t even serve to fertilize. And once it’s lost its flavor, nothing can bring it back.

Jesus’s followers should be “salty.” Good salt gives flavor; it takes something ordinary and bland and makes it good again. Jesus’s followers should have an air of difference about them, something that people may not be able to put their finger on, but they can immediately sense. Why? 

Jesus has already told us why—our lives are different because everything we do is shaped by the simple fact that we love Jesus more than anything or anyone else, that we are ready to leave everything behind to take up our cross and follow him. That is how a Christian keeps his or her “flavor.” 

And that’s why this is a third condition to being his disciple, because if we don’t live like this, Jesus says, we’re of no use for the kingdom.

We may understand what it might mean to persevere in good works; to persevere in service; to persevere in doing things. But anyone can tell the difference between someone who acts out of duty, and someone who acts out of delight. 

This is why my wife hates Valentine’s Day—she doesn’t want me to give her flowers or show her I love her in some other way simply because it’s February 14th. She wants the things I do for her to come out of the simple fact that I love her, that I delight in her, and that I just can’t help myself.

Jesus’s followers will have something discernibly different about them, and that “something different” is the simple fact that everything they do, they do because they love Jesus more than anything else, and simply can’t help themselves.

But that’s a conundrum too, because who can decide to live like that? Who can manufacture love? Who can make themselves love someone?

The answer, of course, is no one. We can’t do this. We can’t make ourselves love God more than anything! As the saying goes, the heart wants what the heart wants. 

This happens over and over again in the gospels: Jesus calls us to do things that we cannot do ourselves, that are out of our power as long as we are sinners living on this broken earth.

So what do we do?

The Gospel and the Conditions

You may wonder why we so often come back to the gospel—why every week, I essentially preach the same sermon, over and over. We do this, in part, because the gospel is the only way to make sense of the Bible’s impossible commandments.

Case in point—he gives us conditions to be his disciples, conditions we couldn’t possibly hope to meet ourselves. 

Condition 1: You must love him more than the most important people in your life. 

We can’t do this—but Jesus did this. He loved the Father more than his own family. 

Matthew 12.46-50:

46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” 

At that point in time, what was most important to him was ministering to the people who had gathered to him, because that was his Father’s will at that time. In Jesus’s list of priorities, his Father’s will came first, and those most important to him came second.

Condition 2: You must be ready to lose everything.

Jesus did this. He literally took up his cross, and surrendered his own will over to his Father’s; he gave himself to accomplish his Father’s will. 

John 5.19:  

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

And Luke 22.42, when he is praying in the garden before his death:  

Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.

Jesus’s own life was always humbly submitted to the will of his Father. He literally died on the cross, because he knew what his Father willed for him, and so his Father’s will took priority.

Condition 3: You must persevere in usefulness.

Jesus did this too. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming that because Jesus is God, he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have to persevere—that perseverance in obedience, and obeying for the right reason, were somewhat automatic for him. 

While being God certainly enabled him to persevere, Jesus still had to do it. And he did.

Hebrews 5.8-9:  

8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him...

Jesus always knew how he could best be "salt” in any given situation. Jesus’s obedience to the Father’s will was assured, but it was not automatic. He always obeyed, and he obeyed for the right reasons.

He did what we could not do.

You see, Jesus fulfilled the conditions of discipleship, these three conditions we couldn’t fulfill on our own. And he did it for two reasons. 

Firstly, he fulfilled the conditions for us, to fill the gap between what we are and what we should be. Jesus fulfilled these conditions for us—when he died to take our sins and gave us his perfect life, Jesus’s obedience became our obedience. Or, to put it another way, when Jesus fulfilled the conditions of discipleship for us, God declared that we had fulfilled those conditions, in him.

And secondly, Jesus fulfilled the conditions of discipleship to give us confidence that because he has done these things, he can lead us into them. Because he lived the life we should have lived, and came out on the other side of the resurrection vindicated and pure, he is able to bring us where he is.

Because he loved God more than his loved ones, he can through his Spirit help us love him that much.

Because he was ready to lose everything for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12.2), he is able to show us the joy set before us, that we may be willing and able to let go of what we want in favor of what God wants for us.

And because he persevered to death on the cross, he is able to take us by the hand and walk with us, giving us what we need to persevere until the end as well.

Jesus did what we couldn’t do; so God has given us his perfect obedience, and the assurance that in Christ, we can follow in Christ’s footsteps.

One Final Question

Now, there is one more question we have to answer before we finish, a question I’m sure not many of you would admit to asking, but that some of you must be asking anyway, especially if you are a new believer, or if you’re not a Christian.

 If Jesus calls us to love him more than those people we love the most, if Jesus calls us to give up everything we are to follow him… How is that good news?

Take a step back and look at it objectively. Taken at face value, it sounds as if the conditions Jesus gives for following him basically all amount to this: “To be my disciple, you must be willing to be absolutely miserable for the rest of your life.” 

How can that possibly be good news?

The conditions Jesus gives are good news when we remember why he gives them. Yes, sometimes life will be hard, and God will call us to go places we may feel reluctant to go, and do things we may feel reluctant to do. 

But his disciples are happy to do it, because through these conditions, they get to follow him. They get to know him. They get to see him, and talk with him, and enjoy him. 

Jesus is not just a man; he is not just a wise teacher. He is God—he is perfect love, perfect grace, perfect goodness, perfect justice, perfect power, perfect wisdom, incarnate. He is the goal of every good desire; he is the object of every righteous affection; he is the fulfillment of every good dream.

The disciples of Christ are happy to take up their cross and follow him because they know that at the end of this road, they will get to see the One they love, the One who created them, and they will get to see their love for him increase exponentially, and without end. They know that at the end of this road, they will get to enjoy their Savior forever, and feast on never-ending pleasures at his right hand (cf. Ps. 16.11).

I have two kids, and I love my kids more than anything. And Jesus says I should love him more than I love them. Rather than seeing that as unrealistic or ridiculous, look at it from another angle. If I would be right to love someone more than my kids, how wonderful must that person be? How worthwhile must that person be, if he is worth loving more than the people and the things we love more than anything else in this world?

All of these conditions for following Jesus are good news for his disciples, because it means they get to follow the only One who is absolutely worth following. And when they know who he is, and what he is like, and all they have in him, there is nowhere they’d rather be.

So pray, brothers and sisters. Pray that God would help you persevere in usefulness by obeying his commands. Pray that God would help you willingly let go of your own desires, your own ideas of your so-called self-determining free will, and take up your cross and follow him.

And above all—the thing that will make all the rest possible—pray that God would help you love Jesus more than anyone or anything else.

Pray to see him as he is, and to love him for who he is. Pray that God would expand your heart, and direct that expanded capacity towards a fierce love for your Savior, which will drive you to follow him. Because despite whatever we may lose, as the old song says, “There’s no better place on earth than the road that leads to heaven,” because on that road, we get to walk with Jesus.