Let's open again this morning to the Gospel of Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14, we'll read the first 14 verses and we'll title the message today, Love, Humility, and Selfless Service. Love, Humility, and Selfless Service. So Luke chapter 14 starting in verse one. And it came to pass as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day that they watched him. And behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And Jesus, answering, spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? And they held their peace. And he took him and healed him and let him go. And he answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer him again to these things. And he put forth a parable to them which were bidden when he remarked how they chose out the chief rooms, saying unto them, when thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him. And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, give this man place, and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room, that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say to thee, Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meet with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Then said He also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. love, humility, and selfless service. In this passage, what we want to look at this morning is that Jesus exposes the sins of selfishness and pride. He commends humility and even gives instruction for how to practice pure-hearted love. So Jesus exposes selfishness and pride. He commends humility and gives instruction for how to practice pure-hearted love, but we also want to note today that Jesus is the example, the motivation, and the strength for loving service and humility. What I kind of hope happens is that, in a loving way, that your selfishness and pride is just really exposed before your eyes. And if you think I'm being mean, then imagine me having to wrestle with this passage for several days this week. Okay? So that's what we hope the Holy Spirit will do, will expose to you your selfishness and your pride, not for the purpose of crushing you, but for the purpose of looking at the One, the very One who's teaching us in this passage is the One who has saved His people from selfishness and pride, and is teaching us to learn to live like He lived, and He's the strength, and He's the example, and He's the motivation. He's the motivation. So, the scene is, and my voice and my allergies are giving me trouble today, so forgive me. The scene is at the house of one of the chief Pharisees on the Sabbath day to have a meal. So probably they've already gone to synagogue worship, and Jesus has been invited to the chief Pharisee's house, and they're all sitting, well, they're about to sit there and eat, and it just so happens, oh, and by the way, and they're watching him. I don't want to make a long point of this, but just to know what your Savior endured, is that can you imagine that you are constantly under surveillance? by people who are out to get you. I mean, any move that you make, any errant slip of the tongue that you may say will be magnified, it will be made much of. So what kind of pressure that our Savior endured that he's, and he is, listen, Jesus is the rightful judge of all the earth. Okay, so we're talking about later Him humbling Himself. Jesus is the rightful judge of all the earth, and yet He subjects Himself to these so-called judges looking for something in Him that they may find fault within Him. So that's the scene, that's the setting. And there's a certain man there which had the drop seat. Probably, is it, I meant to ask Myrna for the pronunciation, Adema, is that the right pronunciation, Adema? So, it's this swelling because there's excess fluid in the body cavity and in the tissues, and it's obviously all very visible in the arms and in the legs, and so it had to be visible in this man. He's not blind, he's not possessed with a demon, as sometimes was happening with Jesus healing people, but there's this obvious physical affliction. And this man is just swollen, obviously very visibly, and he's right there in the midst. And so, and the Pharisees, some commentators think we don't know that they brought this man here just to trap Jesus. But we don't know that, but I'm sure they're watching, we know they're watching. He tends to heal people, that's what he usually does. And so the Pharisees, we won't go over all the Sabbath things, we've done that before in Luke, but the Sabbath was a covenant sign for Israel. And so God had given to Israel special, special rules about the Sabbath. And the Pharisees, as you know, added many rules to those rules. And so one of the rules that they had was, is that you can't heal anybody. You can't, like, I guess a doctor can't work unless it's life-threatening on the Sabbath. That makes all the sense in the world, doesn't it? Here's a poor man who's swollen, probably very painful. They said, now we've got Jesus. They're watching him. So Jesus takes the offensive, He knows what they're thinking because He's God, and He says, hey guys, is it okay to heal on the Sabbath? Is it lawful to heal? Is it okay to do good on the Sabbath? Is it okay to do good on this day that's a covenant sign between God and Israel? Is it okay to do good or should we not do good? Should we hold off from healing? And they just don't have a thing in the world to say. And so Jesus heals the man and he lets him go and then he asks a piercing question. How many of you guys have a donkey or an ox? and it falls into a pit, and on a Sabbath day, you'll get your donkey, you'll get your ox out of the pit. And they all said, of course, nobody denies it. Everybody would have done that. Why? Isn't that piercing? They would have been willing to make a Sabbath exception if it helped their bottom line. Because an ox and a donkey was not a pet, that was a for-profit animal. That was an animal that served you, that was part of your assets. And so we'll make a Sabbath exception if my donkey falls into the pit, come on guys, let's go get him, give me some help. But this man here, who's got this physical affliction, oh no, don't heal him. What are we seeing here? Jesus is exposing the wretched sin of selfishness. Jesus is exposing within them this blindness of sin and a graceless heart. A graceless heart, a heart that is stuck upon itself and its own ways. So that which is valuable to them, they would serve. But what was the problem? The man was not valuable to them. Their bottom line would have been more valuable to them than this man. We are born into this world, we are born into this world stuck on ourselves and serving ourselves. We are, we're born to this world stuck on ourselves and serving ourselves. We are born in this world living as if we are the master of our own dominion. And life is, this world is our dominion and it should be going all the way that serves me and my comforts, my value, my success, and what have you. What do we see in Jesus? We see the exact opposite. We see Jesus moved with compassion and His whole life, His whole life, the one who's exposing the sin, His whole life is one where He Himself has laid His glory of heaven aside. He himself has put his own prerogatives aside for the purpose of coming with compassion and selfless service to minister to sinful human beings in their need. Our greatest need, of course, was the forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins. Now, how many times, maybe even this week, looking back this past week, Have you maybe had an opportunity to serve? It might have been very, very basic. It all starts at home, doesn't it? Maybe you've had a very, very basic opportunity, but you flinched at it, you grumbled at it, you denied it because it didn't serve you, it wasn't for your benefit. We probably all are guilty of that multiple times, even just this past week. The one who's exposing this sin, listen to grace, the one who's exposing this sin, is the one who has come into the world to save us from our selfishness. To die on the cross, to redeem us from... I was thinking about this when we sang the hymn, "'Twas He, my soul, that sent His Son to die for crimes which Thou hast done.'" And I thought about what the text is going to talk about, our selfishness and our pride. And to think of all those times where Christ, where all the times where I have committed acts of selfishness or refused to do something from a selfish service, and Christ died for all of those sins and all those iniquities. And here's part of salvation as well. Not just to forgive us, but Jesus, listen believer, Jesus is at work by his spirit within you and I to teach us how to love more like he loves. to teach us how to love more like He loves. So His loving us is for the purpose of cleansing, forgiving, and justifying us, and transforming us to where we will resemble Him more and more as we walk in love. Well, then we go, and it's all tied together. Selfishness, pride, it's all tied together. So we go next to humility. So Jesus says, heal the man, and they can't answer Him a word. He's still in the same scene. He puts forth a parable to those who were invited to the dinner. And notice that he was marking out, he was noticing in his mind how they chose the chief rooms. And when it says rooms, it's really the chief seats. They're looking for the best seats in the house. And then Jesus gives us advice. Hey, when you're invited to a wedding, let's say. Don't put yourself in the highest seat, the most prestigious elite social status seat. Unless somebody that's more honorable than you, they're more elite. They come and the person who's invited you to the wedding has to say, hey, sir, you need to go to the back of the line. And then you'll be ashamed. But rather, go in there and find the lowest spot. Don't be promoting yourself. And then what's going to happen is that he who invited you to the wedding, he's going to come and say, hey, friend, go up higher. Go get a better seat. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Now let me say clearly, Jesus here is not merely teaching a lesson on nice manners, okay? This goes way deeper than that. Jesus is not teaching about wedding etiquette. It's not what he's teaching about. It may involve that, right? But it's not teaching that. Here's what Jesus is getting at an issue of the heart. Jesus is getting at an issue of the soul. And let me say something clearly, and this is not the only time in Luke that Jesus says, whosoever exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. Let me say something clearly. When God saves someone, He does not save them apart from giving them humility. You can't be saved unless you have humility before God. And of course, God produces that, God provides that. I didn't say perfect humility because there's going to be plenty of conviction for us as believers later on as we go. But listen, the ones who exalt themselves before God, the self-righteous, which were the Pharisees, those who were trusting their own Sabbath-keeping, those who saw themselves as superior to all of the lowly rabble, Jesus says, you're in trouble. If you keep living a life where you're exalting yourself, God's gonna bring you low. But those who come before God, what does Jesus say in the Beatitudes? Those who are poor in spirit. Those who mourn over their sins. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus says, hey, come up friend, sit up higher. Sit up higher because those who are humble before God, God will exalt. He will exalt. So to give a little bit of setting, cultural setting to this, just in reading about it, it's so interesting. At these dinners, at these dinner parties, it was usually, they say, in a U-shaped fashion. That's how the seating was, in a U-shaped fashion. And in the center seat, that was the best seat. That was the seat of the host. And all of the, and this is just a big elite, superior, superior already thing. And I've seen this in India. It's really comical at weddings and different social events. It's a big social thing of where you get to sit. People are jockeying for position. It's almost comical. It is comical to watch. But the best seats in the house were close to the host. He's in the center, get as close as you can. And so notice that Jesus was marking how they were choosing out the chief seats. And it is funny to think about. We don't know exactly. You know, where people trying to do it subtly, you know, kind of like walking over here and say, Oh, Mr. Host, I wanted to talk to you about the weather. And maybe that'll, you know, be a way that you can get up closer to the, to the top seat. Oh, give me a hug. Thank you for having me. Not for the purpose of greeting the guy, because you wanted to be seen. The guy wanted to be as close as he could to the top. Again, this is more than just about etiquette. This is about a position of the soul. You and I can all go to a wedding and act polite, okay? We can all go to a dinner and not ask for seconds, thinking, I hope they'll hurry. Hey, kid, ask for seconds, you know, so maybe they'll ask me for seconds. No. You can do all of that and your life still be one where I'm seeking the top. I want the best seat. It's all about me. So let's think about this humility and pride for a moment. I want to drill down a little deeper in this because it's so important, and Scripture puts such emphasis upon it. Now, I don't mean to insult even one person here today, not even one, but I'm including myself with you in this, is that today we are in a room with a whole bunch of pride. Sinful pride, okay? And I'm not exempting myself from it. we're in a room with a whole bunch of pride. And by the mercies of the Lord, as we've looked at Christ as our Savior, and he's working to shape us and form us, but all of our lives, we are going to wrestle with this wretched, wretched sin of pride. We will. And it comes in different shapes, different forms, and different symptoms. So it's obvious the kind of pride that where Jesus is talking about here, this self-promotion, this self-elevating. I'm the first. I've got to be first. Now, kids, you might get tested on this one when we have the dinner line here in a moment, right? I've got to be first. We chuckle at that, but a lot of people live life that way in all of life. I'm first. It's my agenda, right? Like, this day needs to go how I want it to go, OK? I've got a schedule and a plan. This is my day. I wonder if I'm driving in anybody's neighborhood on that one, right? That's for us adults. Promotion of self, elevating self. I want to be first. I deserve recognition around here, okay? I deserve some recognition. And you know what happens when we give in to pride? Guess what happens? Whoever gets in the way, whoever gets in the way is in trouble, aren't they? So then we begin to look down upon them. Anybody in my way, I look down upon them. She doesn't know how to run a household, some mom might say, right? She doesn't have a clue, bless her heart. Or that guy at work, he's like, oh, that poor guy. I look with disdain at my coworker, he just makes so many mistakes. I'm probably the smartest guy here, you know? If the company didn't have me, they'd be in trouble. All these ways that sinful pride manifests itself, it manifests itself. I bet nobody in this church is as dedicated as I am, right? I bet nobody gives sacrificially like I give. I wish everybody prayed like me, you know? Sinful pride, sinful pride. Here's an example of it, a symptom of it, when someone's overly concerned with their image and how they appear to others. So let me just say this, if you don't brush your teeth and you don't brush your hair, you need to be concerned about your image to some degree, right? I'm talking about overly concerned, like everything rests on, you know, you ladies, I can't go out of the house at all unless I'm just perfect. Probably being overly concerned with my image. and how I appear before others, what they think of me is really important, how I come across. I've got to have people's respect and admiration and overdoing of that to make it very, very practical. Are you someone who you would never, never admit sin struggles to fellow church members? Would never admit. Oh, you might admit, yeah, I'm flawed and we all need to do better. But you would never admit some embarrassing sin struggle, because they would think worse of me, because I would look bad. I would certainly not tell a pastor because he might think that, you know, he just... Listen, let me just say this clearly. Let me say this clearly. We want to have an atmosphere in this church, an atmosphere of grace and truth. of grace and truth. And that means that we can speak the truth to each other about our own struggles with sin. And then there is grace that we're not condemning, but we're going to speak truth to help us grow in grace and war and wrestle against sin. Rather than wearing a religious mask and just faking as if we're all in great shape and we never have any sin struggles, that's not God's way to do church. James 5 says, confess your faults one to another, pray for each other that you may be healed. It doesn't mean you tell everybody everything, but you can have people in the church you trust who are there to help you and you can pour out your heart to. It's a great gift that God gives to us. Are you one who, in the same line that you're slow to admit wrong in your relationships, you're slow to confess sin, you're slow to ask forgiveness, slow to ask forgiveness. I've, this is so true, any marriage, any marriage that's gonna be healthy has to be a marriage that's generous and forgiveness. Because you have two sinners under the same roof. And so that to be healthy, there has to be incredible generosity and forgiveness. And there has to be an open transparency to confess your flaws to each other. What is all this? There's either pride or it's humility. Listen, this stuff hurts, doesn't it? Because it's hard. It's hard to admit our wrongs. It's hard to be transparent sometimes. It's like what I say, it's like surgery. It hurts, but it's cleansing and it's healing. It's healing. Maybe are you one that gravitates towards comparison? How do I measure up against him or her? And if you measure up well, wow, you feel great. And if you don't measure up so well in your mind, you're just crushed. Why? Because there's too much emphasis just on you, on me, on self, on self. Are you really good? Here's another one. Really good at subtly dropping in pieces of conversation just to let people know how successful you've been, who you know, how impressive your accomplishments have been. Another example of pride is resisting God-ordained authority and being disrespectful of it. Our culture is just fine with that, just so you know. Our world, our culture is just fine with resisting God-ordained authority. And we as believers should not follow in the same line. Whatever that authority may be, it's an example of humility to submit ourselves to that for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake. Another example of pride is a lack of service. Do you always wait for somebody else to serve, right? Or are you always too busy to serve, always waiting for someone else? Well, humility is gonna say, I am happy to be a servant. I treasure the opportunity to resemble Jesus in some way to serve, even when it does cost me, even when, and it will cost us, even when it is very difficult. Now, I feel like the air just got sucked out of this room as I talked about all those, right? And I hope what that is is the Lord is doing a little heart surgery in us, a little heart surgery in us to prod us and to poke us, not to crush us, but for our healing, for our healing. Let me give you some encouragement, a warning and some encouragement. Look in 1 Peter 5. As I said, the scripture goes on and on about this truth. 1 Peter 5. Look at these words. Now remember, this is all in the context of Jesus saying, look, whoever exalts himself will be abased. He that humbles himself will be exalted. 1 Peter 5.5, he says, likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, get this expression, and be clothed with humility. We all came out of the house today, we got some clothes on, didn't we? Thankfully. He says, just like when you get up in the morning and you dress yourself, figure out what you're going to wear, Be clothed with humility. Be sure to put that garment on. That's an internal garment, an internal thing. Put on the grace of humility. Here's why. For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time. Now listen, humility is a big deal before God. It's a big deal. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. God has a long history, a long track record of humbling the obnoxiously proud in the scriptures. We talked about one Wednesday night was Pharaoh there in Egypt. Pharaoh was filled with pride. Pharaoh had a high, high view of himself. He had a high view of himself. And so he said, who is Jehovah that I should obey him? He's not calling the shots around here. I'm calling the shots. And what happened? This perpetual, hardened, dug-in pride, God humbled that proud Pharaoh. He humbled him with the plague of the frogs, and he humbled him with the lice, and all those we talked about Wednesday night. And finally, he humbled him by destroying him and all of his mighty army in the Red Sea. And there was Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon in Daniel chapter 4. And Nebuchadnezzar was an amazing emperor, an incredibly successful empire, and he was filled with pride. He said, look at all this that I've made. Look at my glory. Look at my accomplishments. Look at the great things that I've done. He was so impressed with himself. And God humbled that man to where he was mentally deranged for a time till he finally came to his senses and says, I'm low and he's high. God is high and I'm low. Another one that God humbled was Saul of Tarsus, who we know as the Apostle Paul. And his pride was a spiritual pride of self-righteousness. He was impressed with what he knew. He was impressed what he thought were good deeds that he'd done. And so his standing before God was not a standing of humility, but of pride. I'm a really good man, way better than these non-Pharisees. And God in salvation brought him to humility to where he said, Lord, what do you want me to do? where Jesus was in the driver's seat and not Paul, and Paul said, all of that past religiosity, I count that but dunk, he said in Philippians 3, because I found the righteousness of Christ that really matters, and my boast is not in myself, but it is in Christ. So God has a, he has a track record, he has a track record of humbling the proud. Let me just say this, here's what the world is gonna tell you, okay, you are amazing, You can do anything you want to do. You can decide who you want to be. You can call all the shots for all of your life, and you just need to celebrate yourself because you are something. Now, let me just say this. Let me give some perspective. In one sense, you are something because you're made in the image of God. Every person here is a human soul made in God's image. And so God's made you valuable. God's given each of you talents and gifts and abilities and experiences. So you shouldn't go around hating yourself. That's not what humility is. Humility is not, oh, I'm just terrible. Oh, I'm ugly. Oh, I'm awful. No, you're made in the image of God. You have worth and you have value. But that worth and value is not given to you for you to exalt yourself, but for you to bring glory to the one who made you. That's what it's for. So humility is not, I hate me, I'm terrible. Humility is, wow, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. God has given me gifts and talents. I don't know all they are, but he's made me who that I am. And so my looks, my physical stature, all those things, my talents, my gifts, I'm more inclined to math, that was God's gift. That's not me, that's a hypothetical. I'm more inclined to languages and history and language arts. That is me. That's God's gift. So it's not given to me for me to put myself on a pedestal, but for me to put Christ on a pedestal. God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble. So how can we grow in humility? Well, we need to do this. Psalm 115.1, not unto us, O Lord, Not to us, but to thy name give glory for your mercy and for your truth's sake. In other words, we need to walk around saying, God, you're more important than I am. That's a very simple statement, but so true. Lord, you have the preeminence. Not for my glory, Lord. You're to be glorified. Your agenda is to be first. Life is not about me getting my way all the time and me having all that I want, Lord. It's about me bringing glory and honor to your name. So listen, if you're writing this down, a key to humility is number one, seeing the greatness and glory of God. That's the key. Seeing the greatness and glory of God. When you see the majesty of who He is, this God that we sang about, holy, holy, holy, the angels veil their faces before you. The last couple of Bible studies, we've been talking about the power of God. Power belongs to God. He uses His power in accordance with His nature. Nobody can stop His power and all of His works bring glory to His name. and nobody can stop his power or check it or restrain it, hold it back, none of that. You see some of those aspects of God's character and the response should be, wow, glory to you, wow, let me get my rightful place. Let me get my rightful place before you. But if we don't see the glory of God, we're probably looking at ourselves. And so we will elevate ourselves and our hearts and our minds whether we realize it or not. Another key to humility is what we learned last week. We can call it the Mephibosheth effect, if you want to use a big word. Remember Mephibosheth? It's grace. It's seeing grace. What was the response of Mephibosheth? Remember now, he's from the family of the king's enemy. He's lame on his feet. He's living way out in the pasture-less area. He's in a wilderness. He's in terrible shape. and by no act of his own, he has all of his land, his grandfather's land restored. So he's made a rich man. He's made to be treated like one of the king's sons. He's incredibly blessed. What's his response? King, who am I that you should look upon such a dead dog as I am? Who am I, Lord? You've been so good to me. Listen, the response to grace is, You died, again, grace. You died for crimes that I have done. You sent your son to die for my sins. Thank you, God. It's not about me. It's not about me elevating myself. I'm happy to serve, Lord. I want to serve, because you've been so gracious to me. So Lord, it's not about me showing off. And then if you maybe do a good job at work or in school or on the ball field or whatever, Lord, I want to give you the glory for that. It came from you. I want you to be praised. Maybe I do have more knowledge than some of the people of the church, but I don't want to use that to flaunt myself. I want to use that to serve and to bless. We can go on and on, on and on with all of those things. Lord, comparison's not important. It doesn't matter in the view of grace and the view of who that you are. That's not the goal. The goal is for all of us to run together, following hard after Christ, rejoicing in his mercies to us and building each other up. along the way. Lord, me being on top is not more important. Grace has taught me that. You need to be on top. To you be the glory. To you be the glory. So seeing the glory of God, being affected by grace, which of course leads to gratitude, you're filled with gratitude, filled with thanksgiving to the Lord, filled with praises to Him for His mercies. Let me tell you the gospel again. Let me tell you the gospel again. We already told you once about selfishness. Here's the good news of the gospel. That the Lord Jesus Christ, the pure, spotless lamb of God, who has no stain, no flaw, no blemish, he has come to this earth to die to save us from our pride. Isn't that wonderful? Like today, if I just had to tell you, look guys, humility is really great and pride's terrible, get with it. Get with it. I would leave as depressed as you would. There's no power there. You know what the law does? The law just tells you the problem. Grace tells you the solution to the problem and gives you the power to grow in it. Christ has come. He has come to slay our pride, and that means he's come to forgive us and cleanse us of it and to slay its power in our lives. We're gonna struggle with pride till the day that we die, but listen, we no longer have to be slaves to it. You can wake up tomorrow and you can say, Lord, today, Romans 6 tells me to reckon myself to be dead to sin. I'm going to reckon myself today to be dead to pride because you have broken the power of it in my life. And we're going to have slip ups and falls all along the way, but Christ has come to save us from our pride, the good news of the gospel. Look in Matthew 20. Not only do we see him as the one who has come to save us from our pride, but he also is the preeminent, the perfect example of humility. So in Matthew 20, this is the scene where James and John's mother comes to Jesus, remember, and she's asking for the top spots for her sons and his kingdom. So pride, we got to get first, the first seats, the top spots. And I won't read it all, but Jesus says, look, this is not how it's gonna be in my kingdom, okay? You guys have got it flipped upside down. He says in verse 25, Jesus called them unto him and said, you know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you, my disciples. It's not gonna be that way in my kingdom, he says. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, your servant. I want to be great. I want to be great. Start serving and then serve some more and do it with joy like Jesus did. Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant even as, and he promotes himself as the preeminent example of this, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. Jesus is like, I'm the preeminent example. The Son of God, He lays aside the glory of heaven. He comes to a sinful earth. He veils His glory. As Philippians 2 says, He made Himself of no reputation. He made Himself subject even to things like what we saw earlier in the chapter of people trying to be His judge when He's the judge of all the earth. He put up with all that. He humbled Himself to be a servant. Don't you know it would have been fully appropriate? I mean, completely appropriate. for Jesus Christ to receive the royal treatment while he was here. I'm talking about living in a palace, eating caviar, having the whole nine yards, having the best, they didn't have cars, but the best chariot, best entourage, bodyguard, you name it, man. Fully appropriate. He's the son of God. That would have been a step down for him. That's not what he had. He came in poverty. He came in obscurity. He came not among the elites, and He came to serve. And remember what He did the night that He was taken away? This is when He washes the disciples' feet. And they were like, what? No. This is not culturally right. You're the master. You're the teacher. No. He says, no, this is how it is. Here's the reality. This should help us be humble in serving. We are saved by a humble servant. We've been saved by a humble servant. And as followers of a humble servant, we're supposed to follow him. We're supposed to imitate him. We're supposed to walk in those footsteps. He's the example. He's the motivation. And he's the strength behind it. Let me tell you, you cannot. This has been impressed upon me lately. You can know all the stuff you ought to do, but you can't do it on your own. We can't do that. That's why we ought to be people who are falling at the throne of grace constantly. Lord, I need grace for this. And the one who's teaching us is the one who's willing to provide it to us. He's willing to provide it to us. So if you're taking notes, I want you to write something down, and if you're not, do it up here, because this needs to go home with us, okay? So maybe all the things that I talked about, pride and humility, maybe there's another one the Lord brought to your mind in your life. But what are one or two ways specifically in your life that you need to slay pride and grow in humility? I thought about some of mine. Don't don't leave this in the pew. Please don't. Please don't leave this in the pew. What are one or two ways that you need to take with you to slay pride and to grow in humility? God will give grace to the humble. He gives grace to the humble. He'll resist the proud. Look back in the Gospel of Luke, and the lesson just continues right on. If that wasn't enough, the Lord just keeps stacking it on. He said, after he does this, he talks to people who are seeking the chief spots, those who are invited to the dinner. Well, then he talks to the guy who put on the dinner in verse 12. Then said he also to him that bade him, the man who invited him to the dinner. When thou makest a dinner, this is Luke 14, 12, when thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee. They can't repay you. For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. So a lesson on selfless serving here. So just to rest assured, I don't believe that Jesus here is intending to teach us we cannot have family reunions, okay? Or that you can't have rich neighbors over, because there's nothing inherently wrong with being rich. What's he saying? See, probably what was going on in part of that culture was, if I invite this person who increases my social status, they might invite me back, and that will just keep on elevating me and keep me in the limelight, keep me on the front track. So it wasn't really about, I want to serve you, I want to minister to you, come in my home and let us spend time together. I enjoy your company and your fellowship. That wasn't what it was about. How can I increase my social status? How can I do something that's an act of service in order to really boost my own self up? The fact that Jesus even has to teach this stuff just shows how sinful the humanity really is. Because we do stuff like that. We can even do a quote, unquote, good thing. And the motive really is about ourself, ourselves. So Jesus says, look, when you have a dinner, you don't just invite the rich folks, your friends, your brothers, your family, because they'll probably repay the favor. And then it's just you about doing it for the favor. Then he said something shocking, especially shocking to that culture. Hey, man, next time you put on a feast, go find a bunch of blind guys. Find a bunch of people who are not attractive. They're lame. They're maimed. They don't have a limb, maybe. Call a bunch of poor guys, believe me, they will not increase your social status. Their clothes won't be as good as yours. They'll probably have some bad smells. And it'll probably be kind of embarrassing at the dinner because they don't have manners and they'll probably be gorging themselves. But do that, do that. You know why? Because they can't repay you. But you'll be blessed. And guess what? They can't repay you. But there's another repayment. you'll get rewarded at the resurrection of the just. We'll get to that in a moment. Now, before we jump into the instruction, can we just take a step back for a moment and realize that Jesus has already done basically what he's told us to do? He's already done that. Jesus came to this world. He came to this world, and it was a bunch of physically, literally blind, maimed, crippled, poor, But every one of us are that way spiritually. Jesus came to a bunch of spiritual cripples, a bunch of Mephibosheths, lame on our feet, in a mess, broken with sin, corrupt in iniquity, smelly and dirty before a holy God. And Jesus came and said, come to my feast. Come to my feast, come into my family. And he's brought a people who are smelly and dirty and poor and maimed and blind and saved us and cleansed us and washed us like Mephibosheth and said, come, sit at my table, be one of my sons and my daughters. And did he do that so that we could in proportion return the favor? Now he gets something out of us, but as somebody said, Jesus gets a whole lot less out of us than he puts into us. You think you could ever repay Jesus? Like fully repay Him? Say, well, we're settled up. Listen, listen. The grace is so profound, all right? The love is so deep. The mercy is so abundant. Y'all, you know it. It's beyond what I can say. Like the Queen of Sheba with Solomon, the half hasn't been told that if you were to live to be 253 years old, and none of us want to live that long, but if you were to live that long, and you were to be the most dedicated follower of Christ, and you would serve for every one of those days with all of your heart, and you fight your sins, and you serve others, and you're faithful in the house of God for all that long, You would not have begun to repay Jesus the debt of grace. Ever. We can never repay Him. Ever repay Him. So He is done. He has done for us essentially what He's telling the man who put on the feast. But we're to walk in those footsteps, aren't we? What's the lesson? The lesson is, out of love, out of humility, out of a pure heart, go serve and minister in Jesus' name, even if it means nothing in return for you. Even if it doesn't increase your social status or your bottom line or this, even if it's messy and smelly and dirty and not always pleasant, go, get out of yourself and serve in Jesus' name. I think I've told you all about this before, but this is one of the, a high blessing in my life. So there was a man that he was just at the end of his life, the Lord converted him in the last few years, and he was a member there at Grace Chapel, and my dad would give him rides around. There'd be a few times where my dad couldn't do it, so he asked me to do it. And this Richard Holmes, he's gone to be with Jesus. He was not an attractive person, okay, if I can just put it bluntly. Because of his own foolish way of living, abuse of his body, he had had a stroke, and so he was paralyzed on one side, and he had this little walker, His pants are always falling down, and he doesn't live very clean. He's just kind of dirty. He's got false teeth. And you take him to the doctor wherever we go, and it wasn't like people say, wow, look at that guy with him. Timothy, he's a really impressive person. No, it wasn't that. He didn't increase my social status. He typically left my car a little dirtier than it was previously. And he'd want to go out to eat lunch sometimes, and it wasn't pleasant to eat with him. I'll just say it wasn't very pleasant. but I wouldn't give anything for those experiences, not a thing. You know why? Because I don't know if I've ever felt to be more like Jesus when I did that, seriously. I felt like if anything's walking the footsteps of Jesus, it's this, because this is what Jesus has done for me. This is what he's done for me. There wasn't a whole lot in return, but isn't that walking the footsteps of Jesus? Isn't that walking in his ways? Let's make this practical, young people and adults, Is there somebody in your social circle, kids in a school group or on a sports team or in the neighborhood or at church even that seems alone, that may not seem very attractive or cool or increase your cool factor as they say? Is there someone like that? Adults, is there somebody in the neighborhood or at work or wherever that They're not really, maybe they're kind of loud and nobody really likes to be around them. Not very pleasant. Again, it wouldn't make you impressive to go spend time with them. Is there anybody like that? You might say, well, who will notice? Or it might make me look weird. God will notice. God will notice. That looks like what Jesus has done. That looks like what Jesus has done. There was a, there was a picture that I saw that was really touching that some of the kids went to the conference Salt and Light out in Texas last weekend. And somebody sent a picture of a young man who's, I think, 15, 16 years old. He's strong. He's handsome. And he was sitting at a table conversing with a young, about his age, a young man who's a dwarf. He's a dwarf. It was a beautiful picture because here's somebody who's attractive and has the cool factor, if you will, and here's somebody who just, wow, they just stick out. And yet there's care and there's concern. What about it? What about it? Are we willing to walk in the footsteps of Jesus? Now think about this. Verse 14's amazing because it gets us out of the perspective that we're usually in. You will be blessed, Jesus says, verse 14. You'll be blessed, for they can't repay you. They can't recompense you. But you will be repaid. You will be rewarded. You will be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. Now, we talk about rewards in heaven, rewards of resurrection. Listen, always know it's always rewards of grace, you know. Always, always of grace. But Jesus is telling us something here. There may be an acts of service in this life. There won't be a lot of outward blessing that you receive. You might say, man, I put way more into that thing than I got out of it. And that's okay, that's okay. Because there's gonna be at the resurrection, the Lord's gonna honor some folks. He's gonna honor some folks who weren't doing it for themselves, who were doing it just out of pure hearted love, like the Savior who had loved them, like the Savior who loved them. You look at Jesus all throughout, all throughout this Gospel of Luke, all the Gospels, but we've been in this one, and you see one move with compassion. You see one willing to get his hands dirty. You see one going to those who no one else would go to because of purehearted love and of grace. And I'm just gonna tell you, that moves me, and it also convicts me, recognize that, Timothy, you got a long way to go with that. You got a lot of growing to do with that. I bet that's probably true for all of us, isn't it? So let's think about it. Let's think about it. Love, humility, selfless service. I've already given you the humility test, but is there somebody in your social circle that you say, you know what? Maybe it's uncomfortable. Maybe I'll put myself out there a little bit and minister. Maybe it's somebody at church that you don't talk to much. Say, I need to get to know them. I need to show them love. There may not be, but maybe there is in your circle. Maybe God will bring one in your circle in days to come that you can say, I want to be like Christ to them. I need to be like Christ to them. Who and how will you serve this week? Needs to start at home, doesn't it? So for those of us with families, husbands, how will you serve your wives and children this week? Even if it means nothing in return. Even if there's not even a thank you. Wives, how will you minister to your family this week? Even if there's more complaining than Thanksgiving that comes back at you. Others, how will you serve this week? Will you do it for Jesus' sake? Will you do it for Him? Will you do it with a heart remembering He has done so much for me I could never repay Him? I was the cripple. I was the blind. I was the lame. I was the unattractive. And He poured out more grace on me than I could ever begin to repay. And so now I want to walk in His footsteps of the One who has redeemed me and saved me. May God bless us to so be moved at what Jesus has done for us. And may He keep teaching us to love like he does and to walk in humility. Let's pray.