Please turn in your copies of God's Word to the Gospel of Luke, and here we are in chapter 14, Luke chapter 14. And we are met with a familiar scene that we've seen on play or played out a number of times before, at least in the beginning. This is God's word. One Sabbath, when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 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? And they could not reply to these things. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 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. 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 lower place. 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. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. He said also to the man who had invited him, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the cripples, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing upon his preached word. Our Lord, we thank you for your word to us even this morning through our Lord Jesus Christ and as we see the behavior and the sins and flaws of the Pharisees, and we see our own hearts, we know that we are not so far removed. We are removed by thousands of years, but not so much in terms of our struggle with sin. And so, Lord, would you do for us that which Christ so graciously was doing for the Pharisees there? Use your word to change us, to shape us, to give us even the mind of Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Our passage today all takes place around a lunchtime table on the Sabbath day. And as you know, every culture around the world has their own table practices. They have their own standard for what is polite and what is good etiquette when one has dinner. Children, these are the kinds of things that your parents teach you when they say things like elbows off the table, keep your mouth closed when you're chewing food, don't talk with your mouth full, say excuse me after you burp, don't forget to wipe your face of its food. And your parents hope that when they take you out to eat or when they go to someone's house for dinner that you'll remember at least some of these table manners. Well, in our passage, we find Jesus once again at another meal in the home of a Pharisee. However, as we're about to find out, this is not a kind and friendly show of hospitality. No, the Pharisees have prepared for Jesus what they think is a very elaborate and sure to succeed trap to catch Jesus right in the act of breaking the Sabbath law. However, Jesus sees right through it and instead of ignoring or avoiding their snare, he uses the moment to challenge their pride. Jesus challenges their mealtime practices of always desiring and taking for themselves a seat of honor. And yet we must not mistake Jesus' message as a mere lesson in table manners. The key word that we find in our passage that Luke tells us is that word parable. The word parable alerts us to the fact that Jesus is speaking to something far more important and significant than where one sits at a table or whether one's elbows are on the table or not. No, this word parable signals to us that Jesus is speaking about the kingdom of heaven. All of Jesus' parables are about the kingdom. They are never just clever or quaint, down-to-earth illustrations of some good moral principle. Jesus here is not teaching the Pharisees how to have good table manners when they go to someone's house for dinner. No, instead, what Jesus is doing through this parable is he's turning upside down the very way that the Pharisees think and act, and how they understand their status and their self-worth. He says, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. And beloved, isn't this as counterintuitive for us as it was for the Pharisees sitting around the table in Jesus' day? Because like the Pharisees, we are so often preoccupied with self and with the things that we think we deserve, comparing ourselves to others and feeling entitled to more and better. We so often think that unless we exalt ourselves before God and before others that we'll lose out. Christ shows us how God will humble the proud, but exalt the humble. In other words, it is the humble and contrite heart, the heart that knows that one is a sinner before God and in need of his grace. This is the heart that God delights in, and such humble faith is the way of his kingdom. Well, this morning, let's consider these three points in our passage. First, the pride that Jesus rebukes. Second, the humility that Christ exalts. And third, the love that Christ blesses. And as we hear his word, let us humble ourselves before his word, remembering the promise from James 4. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Well, first we see the pride that Christ rebukes. Well, as this section opens, we see that it is the Sabbath day, and Jesus has been invited to dine with some Pharisees. You see, for the first century Jews, the best meal of the week, the meal that they looked forward to all week long, was this meal after the Sabbath day service, when they'd get together and have this special meal and be able to have fellowship and feast and maybe talk about the sermon. And so this is what they looked forward to all week, this special meal. And this is what Jesus has been invited to. Luke tells us that the host of the feast is a ruler of the synagogue, or sorry, a ruler of the Pharisees. And as a ruler, this is a man who has power, he's distinguished among this particular group of Pharisees. But it's clear that this man didn't invite Jesus over to his house for a meal out of the goodness of his heart, or even to ask follow-up questions about the sermon. No, it's more a case that he wants to have roast pastor for dinner. And we've seen this kind of scene unfold several times already, and it never, or I should say it always results in conflict, and this meal is no exception. Luke tells us immediately at the end of verse one, they were watching him carefully. The term for watching carefully really means to watch lurkingly, or to watch in a way that's sinister. They're carefully eyeing what Jesus is about to do. Well, why are they watching Jesus so sinisterly? Why are they watching him lurkingly? Well, it's because they've set a trap for Jesus and they're hoping he'll fall for it. Well, the plot thickens in verse two when Luke reveals with words of awe and surprise, and behold, so this is a surprise, and behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. Sitting at this table with Jesus and with these Pharisees is a very, very sick man. Now this term, dropsy, is a medical term. It's a term that's not used so much anymore. It's a little bit antiquated. But it refers to edema, which is the swelling of the body due to excess fluid. So dropsy is not a disease in and of itself, rather it's a symptom, it's an indication that something worse is going on with the body. So it's something apparently that often accompanies congestive heart failure or kidney disease. Now, one sees this man here and with Luke we are surprised. Because the Pharisees don't exactly have the most positive track record when it comes to showing compassion for the sick and the suffering. No, they want nothing to do with the sick because sick people very obviously must be terrible sinners because why would God in his sovereignty allow someone to undergo sickness or poverty, it must be because they've sinned in some way. So immediately we're as surprised as Luke is that this man is sitting at this table. On top of that, in this culture, meals were designed to enhance one's own reputation. So if you were having a meal, you wouldn't invite just anybody, you'd invite the people that would make you look good. Oh wow, did you hear that they had them over for lunch? That's how meals operated at this time in the ancient world. And so very clearly, this is all a very elaborate trap to set Jesus up in order to fail. And again, this is no surprise. Luke told us in chapter 11, verse 54, that the Pharisees were lying in wait for Jesus in order to try to trap him. So the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus. They're hoping that Jesus will break the laws of the Sabbath, or at least the law of the Sabbath as they interpret it, and then they'll have something to charge him with. This, of course, is something they've been trying to do for chapters and chapters and not with much success. And these Pharisees, are they not a vivid example of what pride looks like? Legalistic pride seeks to find fault in others. This is what legalists love to do, to trap other people in transgressions so that they can condemn those people and then feel better about themselves and feel far more spiritual than others. This is what the Pharisees are doing. In their pride, they want Jesus to sin. They want him to fail. They don't want him to do well or to do something good. They want him to sin so that they'll have a reason to justify their hatred for him. Such is pride and legalism. Well, Jesus, always knowing the heart of man, knows that this is very clearly a trap In verse three, notice the very interesting way Luke tells us what Jesus said. He says that Jesus responded to the lawyers and the Pharisees. What's interesting about this is that the lawyers and the Pharisees up until this point have said nothing. It's like they've all come into the room and they've all taken their places and all the Pharisees are kind of eyeing each other and rubbing their hands, waiting for something to happen. They haven't said anything yet. And yet, this is their point. They're waiting for Jesus to put his foot in it or to fall for their elaborate plan. Well, Jesus, knowing that this is a trap, responds to the trap. And what he does is he turns to these men who are Bible experts and the seminary professors of their day, and he asks them whether it's lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Now, no doubt these men have opinions on these things. They've probably written books and papers and given talks on how you shouldn't do this sort of thing. And yet, we're told that they remain silent. So they're sticking with the plan, let's just let Jesus walk into our trap and then we'll respond. So they say nothing to Jesus. Well, at this point, Jesus continues to do what he is planning to do, and he goes ahead and he heals the man. And then we're told he sends the man away. This is further evidence that the man really wasn't there as a guest. He was there as a foil to try to catch Jesus. Still, the Pharisees say nothing. And so in verse five, Jesus presses his previous point with another question. He asks, 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? Remember their thing from a previous passage was, Jesus, can't you wait until Sunday? Can't you wait a couple of days? What's the rush? Jesus says, which of you would not immediately respond with care and love to save your son, even your work animal? Well, again, they remain silent. This time, it's probably not so much part of the plan. It's because there's really nothing they can say. Would they deny? No, no, I'd leave my son in the pit. Well, that doesn't look great. And if they affirm that they would, well, then they're affirming Jesus' position. So this time, they're the ones who've fallen into the trap that they've tried to lay for Jesus. Well, in this opening section of this mealtime scene, we see Jesus challenging and really rebuking the pride, the hypocrisy, and the legalism of the Pharisees. And of course, if you've been with us, and most of you have, throughout our preaching and through the Gospel of Luke, these are themes that have come up again and again. And here in our passage, we have these same themes, but perhaps from another angle. amazing when you think about what these men are trying to do. These men are the lawyers, the pastors, the spiritual leaders, the seminary professors of their day. These are the men who, more than anyone else, claim to uphold the law of God, uphold the Sabbath. And yet, when the Lord of the Sabbath himself The very God who gave them this day as a gift is literally at their table, reclining a table with them. Their goal is to try to trap him. Their goal is to try to make him sin. This is how full of pride that these men are, that they think that they are better keepers of the law than God incarnate. Not only that, but in their pride, We see how these men have taken a day that was given as a gift for God's people, and they've turned it into a ritualistic, legalistic thing. What was supposed to be a day for their own rest, for their edification, and for mercy towards others, they have turned into a stick by which others are measured, and if they don't measure up, beaten with that stick. Can we ever be guilty of this? Yes, we can. Yes, we can. And we know it. We do this whenever we are more concerned about how others spend their Lord's Day. We do this if we ever are finding ourselves watching others lurkingly, like the Pharisees, almost hoping that this person will slip up so that then we can accuse them and we can feel better about our own practices and religiosity. But oh beloved, how this attitude of pride and legalism completely misses who God is, who Christ is, and even the day that he's given us that in the New Covenant we observe as the Lord's day. You see, the Pharisees fail to understand the very purpose of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was never simply about these ritualistic practices and do's and don'ts. The Sabbath always existed in order to point Israel to that rest that would be one for them. Even as these laws and stipulations were appended to the Sabbath in the Old Covenant as a way by which they would inherit the land, it was always to point forward. to that new heavenly land, which would be won for them by the perfect King and the true Israel, the true Son of God. And now we, in the new covenant, have this gift more fully realized in the Lord's day. And it is imperative that we not make this same mistake. The Lord's Day has not been given to us as a law that we are to keep in order to earn life, or merit standing before God, or even to exalt ourselves before our brothers and sisters. The Lord's Day is not given as a stick by which we are to measure others' spirituality and beat them with it. That's how the Pharisees treated it. And that's what Jesus, page after page, chapter after chapter, gospel after gospel, condemns. Instead, the Lord's Day is a picture of the in-breaking of the heavenly life to come. It is a picture of the joyous, joyous and glorious rest that has been won for us by Christ, that we will know more fully in the new heavens and the new earth, but one that we can know even now. Is the Lord's day a joy for you? Is it? If it's not, why not? As you present it to others, as you interact with others, as you ask others how they've spent their day, do you ask to encourage this joy of the day? Or is there a little Pharisee in you? Well, let us never, in pride, misuse the law of God. Let us never mistreat the people of God. Instead, let us look to Christ every day of the week, and especially on the Lord's Day. Let us be reminded to rest in Him because of the rest won by Him. So there's the pride that Christ rebukes. Secondly then, there's the humility that Christ exalts. So at this point, the man who has been swollen with water, like a balloon, has been healed and sent away by Jesus. However, ironically, the room is still filled with swollen men, men who are swollen not with water, but with pride. And ironically, initially, they were the ones watching Jesus to see what he would do and to judge him. Well, now the tables have turned, haven't they, as Jesus is watching and judging them, as Luke tells us. Now he told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor. As Jesus is sitting at this table having sent this one man away, he looks around and he notices how even as they moved to their places, they moved with a fever, a feverish desire for glory and status and honor. Each one trying to outdo the other in receiving honor. And so while the one man was healed of his physical dropsy, they have a far more dangerous and deadly case of spiritual dropsy. They are swollen with a love of self. And so in order to cure them of their dropsy, he tells this parable. He tells them, 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. 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. But when you were 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." Now, the first thing to note is that our Lord's recommendation and counsel goes against the standard practice of the day. He says that when you go to a banquet, you should choose the worst seat of all. Now, this goes contrary to the thinking of the day because In Jesus' day, banquets and feasts were all about social hierarchy. Where you were seated was an indicator of your status, of your worth, and how others thought of you. So when you went to a banquet, there would have been some kind of seating chart, whether verbal or written, that laid out very clearly who was your superior and who was your inferior. And so if you could maybe inch your chair a little bit closer to the host of the feast, you would be in a place of more honor. But Jesus gives the opposite advice. He says, if you take the highest spot, the best spot with the most honor, you're sure to be moved lower. But if you take the lower spot, well, maybe then someone will move you higher. Now, at first we read this, and it seems like kind of screwed, kind of cunning advice, you know, for a good way to maybe appear humble by taking the lower seat, but really to get exalted. However, in verse 11, Jesus gives us the principle that explains the parable. He says in verse 11, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. With this explanation of the parable, we realize that Jesus is not talking about social etiquette at parties at all. The purpose of parables is to teach us about the kingdom, And thus, this parable is not really about table manners or where one sits. This isn't shrewd advice to ultimately, you know, to take a lower seat that will ultimately get you higher in the party. Rather, Jesus is showing us the way God works in salvation. At God's table, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Well, this line and this truth represents a constant theme that we see throughout all of scripture. It is that the Lord saves those who have a broken and contrite heart. Those who are humble to the dust, God will raise up. But those who are proud and haughty, those who are arrogant, will be brought low. We read this earlier when we read Hannah's prayer or song to the Lord when she says, the Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. In the New Testament, the mother of our Lord echoes Hannah's song when she sings about how God in his mercy has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate." And so what this truth teaches us is that one's place in God's kingdom is not secured through self-exaltation. This is exactly what the Pharisees were trying to do. The Pharisees used the law of God to say, look at me, look at how righteous I am, look how better I am than other people. They tried to use the law to establish their own righteousness and standing in the kingdom of God. But Jesus says, no, you have it completely backwards. The law does not establish your righteousness. Rather, it serves to establish and confirm your condemnation. The law serves to show that you are a sinner. And here, as this scene so clearly shows, the Pharisees are not the true keepers of the Sabbath day. Those who think that they can earn a place at God's table by their works will be shown on the last day that all of their righteous deeds were in fact filthy rags. Those who think that they can work and by their own work merit God's approval demonstrate by that very desire that they do not have it. But those who realize that they are nothing, who humble themselves as sinners, Christ says, it is these who God will exalt with his favor and his grace. And we need this same reminder because we struggle with the same sin of false humility and with pride and self-exaltation. Now, probably for most of us, there is very little temptation to go to a party and try to kind of suss out which is the greatest seat of honor. And that's not because we don't struggle with the sin of self-exaltation. It's because our dinner parties don't work that way. There usually isn't a clear seating plan in terms of who has more honor and who has less. And so we are very much removed in time from these sorts of sins, but we're not removed at all from the sin itself. No, this sin of self-exaltation manifests itself just as much in our own hearts, does it not? Whether it's in boasting in our accomplishments, or it's finding our status and worth in the things of this life, the vehicles we drive, the clothes that we wear, the house that we live in, the neighborhood we occupy, or even our job and occupation. Sometimes people lie in order to cover inconvenient truths so as to maintain a status before others. This is the way of the world. Every modern psychological system and self-help philosophy tells us that this is the right thing to do. Your problem, your greatest problem, isn't that you think too much of yourself. It's that you think too little of yourself. It's that you have low self-esteem. And so in order to increase that, you need to prop yourself up. You need to assert yourself more. You need to boast and lie and do whatever it takes to exalt yourself. But we all know from experience to live for the praise and exaltation of man is not true freedom. It is not living our best life. Rather, it is a cruel and wicked form of slavery. And that's what makes Christianity and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ so radically different from everything else. Instead of self-exaltation, Christianity is about humiliation. It's about humbling ourselves before God as guilty sinners and nothing more, and then allowing Him to raise us through Christ. You might say that the irony of the gospel is that we get right with God not by presenting Him with our best deeds or making these incredible promises to Him. Rather, the irony, the mystery of the gospel is that sinners like us are exalted by Christ after we first go to Him as beggars, saying, Lord, I bring nothing with me but my own sin. It's like Simon Peter, earlier in Luke's gospel, after he witnesses Jesus' miracle in the boat with all of the fish, and finally, Peter has it. For the whole start of the miracle, Simon Peter's like, why should we put our nets here and there? What are you talking about, Jesus? You're not a fisherman. And then by the end of it all, after he sees the glory and the majesty of Christ, he falls on his knees in this boat and says, Lord, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner. the mystery of the gospel, the grace of the gospel, is that this is the petition that the Lord hears. Lord, have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. And if you do not know Christ this morning, and you're here and you would like to know Christ, and you want to know how, it's this. It's by going to him on your knees. It's by confessing your sins. It's by saying, Lord, I'm a sinner, have mercy. And it's trusting in the promise of the God who raises up the humble and lowly of heart. And even our humility and our faith is not in itself a work. No, because it's trusting and it's resting in the works of another, the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. So go to him with this humble heart. For those of us who do know Christ, May we never forget, may we never forget that our standing in God is all of grace. And if we truly know the grace that God has for us in Christ, then we know that we have nothing to be proud of. And so let us not seek to exalt ourselves in the eyes of man. Let us not live for his praise, the praise of man, but instead let us seek the exaltation that comes through Christ our Lord. As Simon Peter, even many days after that time in the boat, would go on to say, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so at the proper time he may exalt you. Well, there's the pride that Christ rebukes, the humility that Christ exalts. And third, we see the love that Christ blesses. Well, after his parable, Jesus then turns directly to the host of the dinner and tells him, When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." Now Jesus, of course, is using hyperbole here. He's exaggerating in order to get his point across. Jesus is not telling us that we can't have dinner with our families or our friends or maybe even someone over a certain income bracket. That's not what Jesus is saying at all. Rather, what Jesus is challenging is the culture of reciprocity. that is attached to dinner parties at this time. Again, as I've mentioned in different ways already, in Jesus' day, social gatherings and hosting parties and banquets was really a way to advance yourself socially. you would invite people to your dinner parties in the hopes that they would then invite you to their dinner party. You would invite them and give them a place of honor and give them a good meal, and then you'd hope that they would do the same for you. They would scratch, you'd scratch their back, they would scratch yours. In other words, people in Jesus' day weren't typically hosting these banquets out of love for others, but rather out of self-interest, out of a culture of reciprocity. What does that word reciprocity mean? Well, children, imagine that your brother or sister has something that you really, really want. Maybe they got a really cool toy for Christmas or for their birthday, and they just won't put it down. There's never a minute where that toy is by itself, and you really want to play with that toy. And so you know that you've got to come up with some way to get that toy for yourself. And so you think to yourself, well, if I'm really nice to them, maybe they'll give me a turn. So you think of ways to be really nice to them. You run and you get them a glass of water, even though they haven't asked for one. You run back and you get two or three ice cubes when they say they'd like it colder. Maybe you look at the chore chart and you see it's their day to clean the kitchen counters, and you decide you do that for them. And you go and tell them you did that. And then as a result, they say, wow, you've been so kind to me, my brother and my sister. And then they let you play with the toy. And so you get the toy, and you also look very good in the process. Well, when you do that, even though your actions are nice, your motivations are not very nice, right? You're doing those things not because you love them, but because you want something from them. That is reciprocity. It's saying, I'll do this nice thing for this other person, but as long as I'm fairly sure that they'll return the favor for me, I'll give to this person so long as I get a return on investment. Yeah, maybe what I give them is money and what they return to me is not money, but at the very least, I expect praise and honor and such. And Jesus points out that this is not the way of love in the kingdom. But so often we find in our own hearts treating others this way, don't we? As though they were simply a means to our ends. I think as Christians especially, I think it's easy for us to be nice, but in such a way to hide those darker, sinful motivations. We can so easily find ourselves using others and even serving them for what we think they can do for us in return. In that way, we are just a bunch of Templetons. Now, children, I know that you know who Templeton is, so the previous illustration was for you. This one is for your parents. Templeton, of course, is that rat in the book Charlotte's Web. Templeton is a rather greedy, selfish, and lazy rat, who at times will help Charlotte and Wilbur, but only when he is assured that there will be food in it for him. And so anytime the other animals of the barnyard ask for his help, he always replies, what's in it for me? You need my help? Well, what's in it for me? He'll only help if he gets something out of it. And Jesus' point in this third section is very simple. He's saying, don't be a Templeton. Don't be a Templeton. Don't serve others only because of what you think you'll get out of it. Instead, love and serve those who you know can give you nothing in return. Love without strings attached. Well, this can be hard for us, can't it? You know, it's hard to love when your brother or sister is being unlovely. It's easy perhaps to love maybe a spouse when they've just given you a bouquet of flowers or to love a classmate after they've shared their candy with you. It's easy to love in those moments. It's very hard to love. when the other person is somewhat unlovely. We feel that to love in those situations would be foolish, that we would be on the bad end of the deal, that we'd be getting the short end of the stick. We fear we would get taken advantage of and we don't like that feeling. But that's where we need to hear Christ's words and have him redirect our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions. To give without return may feel like we're losing out. It feels like we're getting a raw deal. But what does Christ say? His words always matter, far more than what you or I feel or think about a particular situation. His words are this, in verse 14, do this and you will be blessed. Jesus pronounces divine blessing upon this humble love that looks first to the interests of others. Jesus says in verse 14, do this and you won't be worse off if they cannot repay you. No, he says, you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. Well, how is it that we are blessed? as we love those who cannot repay us, as we exalt those who we know can return no benefit of status to ourselves. He tells us how, when he says, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. This resurrection of the just, of course, is a reference to the resurrection on the last day. That is the day when Christ will return and all who are united to Christ will be raised, their bodies and souls will be reunited in a glorified state. And we will be exalted and we will be glorified. This is what we look forward to. This is the believer's great hope. And this is the right kind of exaltation for us to desire and anticipate. Not the exaltation that comes through self, but the exaltation that will come through Christ. And thus, You can pour yourself out now. You can take the worst seat at the proverbial table. You can love the unlovely. You can give without promise of repayment because you have the promise of God himself doing this for you. You have the promise of God exalting you at the end of this life. Therefore, you don't have to live with social anxiety, always worried of what others will think of you, always afraid that you need to exalt yourself in every moment. No, you can let those opportunities pass you by. You don't need to boast in your works or efforts or accomplishments. You don't have to elbow your way to the front of every line. Instead, you can take the lower seat and you can love without reciprocity. And dear Christian, You can do this, you can do this, because isn't this what Christ has already done for you? Is this not how God through Christ has treated you? God has done this very same thing for you in showing you a love that you can never, ever repay. Our works can never earn a place at His table. Through exaltation, self-exaltation, we are only shown to be poor and wretched sinners. But as we approach Him in humility, He freely invites us to eat with Him, even in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus Christ is very God of very God, and yet he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. If anyone deserved the place of highest honor at any table, It is the Lord Jesus Christ. He deserved the place of highest honor, and yet he chose the most scandalous place of all when he was placed upon the cruel Roman cross. He became low for us. He came to earth not to love those who could repay him with love. No, he came to the unlovable, to the unlovely, and he chose the worst seat of all as he bore the curse of our sin. so that by his love, we might receive life. By his death and resurrection, he has secured our resurrection and thus also our exaltation. And now because of the work of Christ for us and his ongoing work in us, we are freed from our spiritual dropsy. We can make use of God's law without pride, knowing that his law is a good gift. We can walk humbly before the Lord rather than exalting ourselves. And we can love without reciprocity, all because of Christ's love for us without any reciprocity. And in the sure hope of our resurrection and exaltation, we can look longingly towards that day when before, in Paul's words, the highly exalted one, Every knee will bow in heaven and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the one who is highly exalted, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask that you would work in each of our hearts, convicting us of the sins that we see in the Pharisees, but also as we examine ourselves more closely, see in our own hearts. Would you, Lord, forgive us of these sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness, and would you, Lord, make us more like Christ? We ask that we would decrease and he would increase to the praise and exaltation of his great name. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.