What Sin Will do

Luke 14:1-24 - Riley Boggs

During my time in college I had the opportunity to go to Canada for a short-term mission trip. We specifically went to a smaller town outside of Calgary and partnered with a church plant to help them in various ways. It was a great trip, and I could tell you all sorts of things about it, but the point of the story is actually just about what happened on the last day. On the day we were set to leave, I woke up, and walked to the window to look at the mountains in the distance, as I had done every morning we had been there. But as I pulled back the curtain and looked out, my eyes couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing, or rather what I wasn’t seeing. What I didn’t know was that there was a significant wildfire nearby that had caused the entire region to be filled with smoke.

Now I had lived in New Mexico for a summer and had experienced some wildfire smoke before, but this was different. The smoke was so thick that I literally could not see anything. My vision was limited to what seemed like only 50 feet. I distinctly remember looking out the window during the drive Calgary airport, and out the window of the plane as we took off, and being able to see absolutely nothing. My vision was entirely blocked by the smoke. I even remember looking at the sun and it had become just this small red dot in the sky.

Sin, in a lot of ways, is like wildfire smoke. It can hinder and block you in ways you never even thought possible. You can be right in the middle of something amazing, like the city of Calgary, but sin will keep you from seeing any of it at all. The difference, of course, is that while smoke comes from the outside, sin comes from the inside, which makes it much more dangerous. And even worse, we can perceive when smoke is blocking us, while sin can creep in and leave us unknowingly hindered. A lot of times we don’t even realize that sin is distorting and our vision and understanding of things. We just assume that we are seeing the world rightly, while the reality is that our vision of what is true has been entirely blocked by the clouds of sin that have rolled in. And that is what makes sin so incredibly dangerous.

In our passage this morning, we see Jesus deal with the results of a life filled with sin. Jesus is invited to a Sabbath dinner party by a ruler of the Pharisees, and while He is there, He begins to show them what their sin is causing them to do. Now He doesn’t specifically say, “this is what your sin has led to”, but there is a clear underlying theme that conveys that. And that theme is that the Pharisees were, as we have seen, hard-hearted towards Jesus. They liked to put on the appearance of holiness, but never actually dealt with their sin. They were hypocrites. And of course Jesus knows all of this, and so He takes this opportunity at the dinner party to point this out to them.

So, this morning, the way I want to approach this text is by showing you 3 things that sin will make you do. I want to first define it, just so we are all on the same page. Sin is any lack of conformity to, or transgression of, what God has commanded. That is playing off of the Westminster shorter catechism. Secondly, I want to be clear, before we even get to our first point, that when I say, “Sin makes you do something”, I don’t mean that sin ties our hands and makes us do or not do certain things. No, what I mean by this is that when you have unaddressed sin, it will lead you to these things. Sin doesn’t take your hand and make you punch someone, but unaddressed sin in your heart can lead you to a place where you think that is an okay thing to do. So just keep that in mind as we work through these.

Luke starts off by telling us, in verse 1, that as Jesus was at this dinner party, all the many Pharisees were watching Him carefully. No doubt they were trying to find a place to accuse Him and trap Him, as they typically did. And Luke tells us that there was a man there who had dropsy. This would have been a medical condition that would have caused this man’s body to retain a lot of excess fluid, making him very painfully swollen. Now the text doesn’t tell us that the Pharisees had this man paraded before Jesus in order to test Him, but the way that it reads, it almost seems like that is the case. But regardless, Jesus sees this man, and asks the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” Neither the Pharisees nor lawyers responded to this question.

So Jesus took the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Then He turns back to the lawyers and Pharisees and asks them 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?” And again, the Pharisees and lawyers have no response.

From this story, I think we are to see this. Our first point…

1.) Sin makes you irrational (vv.1-6)

When Jesus asks them whether or not it is lawful for Him to heal on the Sabbath, there is a reason that the lawyers and Pharisees don’t answer, and that is because they know that it is in fact lawful. And it’s the same reason that they don’t answer when He asks them if they would help their son or an ox that had fallen in a well on the Sabbath. They don’t answer because the answer is, “Of course we would help them out.” See this is exactly what Jesus is trying to show, or expose. The idea that the lawyers and Pharisees would try to trap and condemn Jesus for healing on the Sabbath is an irrational thing. Why would they not want this person to be healed? Why would they go out of their way to try and trap Jesus with the law on an issue that the law doesn’t forbid? There isn’t a rational answer to either one of these questions, which is precisely what Jesus is showing. Sin makes you irrational.

Often times when we hear of incredibly wicked actions, we try to make sense of it. You’ll read a headline about someone doing all these utterly despicable things and you’ll begin to think in your head, “What on Earth could possible cause someone to do something like this? How could someone get to the point where that happens?” We’ll sit there and try to rationalize it. We’ll say, “Well maybe they were hurt in the past” or “They were struggling mental health.” Both of those can be true, and likely are true in that case. But at the same time, I think we need to be careful in trying to fully rationalize evil acts like this. The truth is, when someone has a life that is saturated in sin, they do not act rational. They love evil and hate that which is good. They are blinded to the truth. The things that they might do, don’t make sense. They might, like the Pharisees, become angry at the sight of a man being healed.

Instead of us trying to rationalize evil actions, I think we should instead be reminded of just how destructive sin can be in our own lives. Sin, by its very nature, is a corrupting thing. When left untreated, it takes root deep within us, and will, undoubtedly, find an avenue to act. And eventually, when left untreated long enough, it will lead you to do things that you had never even imagined yourself doing. Things that right now seem very irrational can seem perfectly reasonable when you allow sin to take root in your hearts and minds.

Very rarely does a husband wake up one morning and decide that today he wants to throw his family away for an inappropriate relationship. But what happens is that slowly over time things that are sin, are dismissed. And as the conscience is seared, and the unthinkable becomes the place where the mind drifts, then in just a short time, the most unreasonable thing takes place. That is how sin works.

What we need to do is treat sin like the hostile threat that it is. We need to think of sin like an intruder to your home. You lock the doors and have an alarm system, that’s your preventative measures. But then you also know that it’s possible for an intruder to get through those things, and you want to be prepared, so you have a plan on how you are going to address an intruder if they make their way in. And how would you treat an intruder to your home at 3AM? Are you going to casually walk through your house, calling out, “Hey is there anything I can help you with?” No, you are going to take actions. You are going to quickly and firmly and strategically address the intruder. You are going to protect yourself and your family.

So it is with sin. Don’t let it walk through your home and settle in. Set up preventative measures, and then when it does find its way into your heart and mind, address it quickly and firmly. And remember that the longer you allow it to stay, the more likely you are to begin to make the unreasonable thing seem reasonable. Such is the corrupting nature of sin. The Pharisees did this and it is the first thing that Jesus exposes them for.

The second thing Jesus points out can be seen in verses 7 to 11. In these verses Jesus tells a parable about a wedding feast. And in verse 7 Luke adds that Jesus tells this parable particularly because of how the people at this dinner party had chosen to their seats. What He says is that when you are show up to a wedding feast, what you ought to do is sit in a place of lesser honor, leaving the place of higher honor empty. And He gives 2 reasons for this. First, if you sit in the place of higher honor and then someone comes who is more deserving of it than you are, then it will be shameful to be reseated where you truly belong. Secondly, if you sit in a place of lower honor and it turns out that you are the most deserving of the higher honor, then you will be called to move up, and it will be a great thing to be exalted in such a way. That’s the parable of the wedding feast.

Then He tells starts another parable in verses 12-14, and specifically tells it to the one who has hosted the dinner party that He is at. He tells this parable to Him concerning how He chose to invite the people that He invited. He says that if you’re hosting a party of banquet, you shouldn’t just invite your well-to-do friends so that they might return the favor to you when they host their own. Rather, what you should do is invite those who would never be able to return to the favor in that way. The poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. He says do this and you will be blessed, and you will be repaid, not on Earth, but at the resurrection of the just.

Now both of these parables are directed at those present at the current time and both, I think, are revealing the truth about the sin of the Pharisees. Our second point…

2.) Sin makes you selfish (vv.7-14)

Because the lawyers and Pharisees were living in unrepentant sin, they lived their lives very selfishly. When they showed up to the dinner party, many of them just assumed that they were the most deserving of the highest places of honor. They had a lot of pride. They thought very well of themselves and very little of others. Not only that, but even when they hosted dinners and banquets themselves, they intentionally invited those who they thought would do something for them. They were very self-serving even in how they did things for others in this way. They always had their best interest in mind.

This is what happens when we allow neglect to fight against sin. Sin makes you selfish. It does this because sin redirects the worship that should be going to God, to yourself. Instead of saying that God is worthy and deserving, you act as if you yourself are worthy and deserving. Sin makes yourself your own idol. This is why those who outright reject God are often very vain people. Eternity is on their heart, and they are drawn to worship something, so they choose to worship themselves. This is exactly what the lawyers and Pharisees had done. As they reject Jesus and refuse to worship Him, their own view of self begins to rise and rise, until they are themselves their own little gods who others must bow down to.

I knew that I lived selfishly before I was married, but man, when I got married, I realized how selfish I really was. And then, once I thought I had made a little headway in the 5 years we’ve been married, we had Thomas, and I realized that I was still far more selfish than I knew. Both of these things, marriage and parenthood, are very sanctifying acts. They force you to live more selflessly than you might want to, because you are responsible for the care of someone other than yourself. And what I’ve noticed, and I’m sure many of you all have as well, is that when I harbor sinful things, like bitterness or anxiety, I become incredibly selfish in these areas. All of sudden my family’s needs become second class citizens to my needs. All of sudden my desires and feelings are the most important thing, and everyone ought to recognize that. Now in the moment we often don’t have the foresight and clarity to realize it, but it’s true, nonetheless. When sin is left unchecked, selfishness is often right around the corner.

Now it can be difficult to live entirely selfless in this life, especially if you forget verses 11 and 14. Both of these are statements that Jesus uses to remind them of why their selfishness is revealing a deeper truth about their unbelief. Namely, they have rejected the very truth of God that He has revealed and that Jesus has been teaching. Look at these statements with me. In verse 11 Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Then verse 14, “For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” In both of these, what Jesus is saying, is that selfishness is an outward result of sin, and unrepentant sin keeps you out of heaven. In other words, those who repent of their sin and fight pride, are those who know Christ and will be exalted on the day that the Lord returns.

Listen, Jesus will, undoubtedly, make all of your self-sacrifice worth it when He comes for you. Every time you rightly choose to fulfill someone else needs above your own, the Lord sees that, and He will honors that. He will exalt the humble on the day that He returns, at the resurrection of the just.

And no better place can we see an example of all of this than in the person and work of Jesus. Jesus was and is a perfect man. Jesus was and is God. And yet, while on Earth, He never elevated Himself above others. Though He rightly could have ensured that at every turn He was elevated to the highest place, He chose to humbly serve along the way. He denied sin. He completely submitted to the Father. And as they beat Him and ridiculed Him, He never once reviled back. Of course He could of, in that moment, decided to crush them all. But He didn’t. He submitted and served, even to the point of death on the cross. Then He rose from the grave, ascended to heaven, and took His rightful place at the right hand of God, to reign as King.

Let this be a reminder to you that as you deny sin and pursue selfless, God will be sure to exalt you in due time. Until then, flee from sin and live like Jesus.

The last section we are going to look at is verses 15-24. Now these verses, I think, show just how blinded by sin the Pharisees really were. When Jesus says, in verse 14, the phrase, “the resurrection of the just”, it prompts someone at the table with Jesus to say, in verse 15, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” In other words, they seemingly have no clue that Jesus has been talking about their sin and their unbelief, and still think that they are the goods guys in the parables that Jesus has been telling.

So, Jesus hears this and responds by continuing on with this banquet parable. He says that there was a man who decided to throw a really great banquet and invited lots of people. And in this time, since there isn’t a sophisticated and quick mail system or Facebook event pages, what would happen is that the banquet would be announced, people would say they would or wouldn’t come. Then the person hosting the party would get an idea of how many people to prepare for, get everything ready accordingly, and then send out a servant to let those who planned attend know they can come. So that’s what happens here in our text, except something happens. As the servant goes out and begins to tell people that the banquet is ready, everyone who had previously said yes, now has an excuse. The first person says they bought a field, and they need to go see it. The second person says they bought 5 yoke of oxen and needs to go examine them. And the third person says he was just married and cannot make it either. Now in the context of each of these, none of these reasons are valid. I won’t go into the details of each of them, but the reason that Jesus is using these specifically is because they aren’t good reasons to not attend a banquet you said you were going to attend.

What I think Jesus is trying show the Pharisees, and us, is this. Our third point…

3.) Sin makes you lose perspective (vv.15-24)

The guests in this story who had said that they would attend, but are now making lousy excuses is unbelieving Israel. More specifically, it’s the Pharisees. See Israelites, the Jewish people, had said over and over again that they believed the promise. They believed that God would deliver them, and they were ready for the Messiah to come. They had made plans to attend the banquet. But, when the Jesus, the servant, came and declared that all was ready, just follow Him, they denied Him. They made excuse after excuse about why Jesus wasn’t the Messiah and refused to go where they had long said they would go. See when the person around the dinner table blurts out, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God”, Jesus heard that and says, “Yes, that is true. But lawyers and Pharisees, that will not be you, because you have refused your invitation.

The question, or one of the questions, is why? Why would they reject Jesus, the promised Messiah who had come to deliver them? Well the reason is because they were living in sin, and it made them lose perspective. That’s what sin does. Like the smoke I mentioned earlier, it blinds and distorts, and ultimately causes you to never see the truth that is standing right in front of you.

When sin is left to do what sin does, it will, without doubt, cause you to lose perspective as to what is true and what is good. Sin causes us to think that obedience isn’t worthwhile. It will make you think that good things are bad for you, and bad things are good for you. It will make you think that there are only 2 choices. To sin and be happy, or to not sin and be miserable. But all of this is simply the blinding nature of sin that makes us lose perspective. The reason that the lawyers and Pharisees can deny the Messiah that they have waited for is because of one major thing: Their sin. And Jesus says in verse 24, that because of this, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. In other words, their sin has caused them to miss Jesus, and miss the Kingdom.

Now there is one part of this story that I haven’t mentioned yet, verses 21-23. And I have intentionally done this so that we can end on a bit of a lighter note. So we have this image of all these people giving the servant lousy excuses, saying that they cannot come to the banquet. The servant hears all of this and returns to the host of the banquet and tells him what has happened. He tells him that all the people who said they would come, aren’t coming.

Well, the man had prepared a banquet and is not going to let it go to waste. He tells the servant this, starting in verse 21. “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” Then the servant responds and says, “Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.” So the host says, “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Now I think that if we continue on with this as it applies to unbelieving Israel and Pharisees, then I think each of these groups of people refer to specific other groups. I think those within the city who are then invited, but are poor and crippled and blind and lame, are those within Israel, during this time, who will in fact accept the Messiah, despite their nation in general rejecting Jesus. Then the second group, those outside of the city, among the highways and hedges, are the Gentiles who are now included in God’s plan for salvation. Those outside of Israel, like us, who believe.

But no matter the specifics, the point is clear. It is irrelevant how many reject Jesus, God’s banquet will be filled. God, from eternity past, had a plan of salvation that included a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. A plan of salvation that was not contingent upon the belief of arrogant Pharisees to come to fruition. No, it was and is a plan of salvation that will be fulfilled, in it’s entirely. As Jesus reveals Himself to people and as they turn from their sin and believe Him, one-by-one, they are added to the unchangeable guest list for eternity.

This is the glorious news we call the Gospel. Though sin makes us irrational and selfish, and causes us to lose perspective, we have One who is greater than our sin. We have One who defeated sin, took our sin, forgives of our sin, and helps us to daily fight against sin. We have Jesus. And because we have Him, and because we are in Him, we are destined for a Kingdom, a banquet, that is far greater than we can imagine.

The call of the text this morning is flee from sin and flee to Christ. John Owen famously said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” He’s right. And what that means is that we must continually seek our sanctification, our walk in holiness, so that we might be conformed more and more to the image of Christ. And when we fail, like we will, daily, don’t linger there, but be quick to confess it to the Lord and receive the endless mercy and grace that He willingly and delightfully pours out on us. Amen.