Amen. Today we continue our study in the Word of God in Luke chapter 14, verses 7 to 14. Luke 14, 7 to 14. Now in the last three sessions, the last three Sundays, what we have been studying in the Lord's teaching really amounts to a series of messages. These last three messages, including this one, can be described as a series of four messages on being fit for the Kingdom of God. Being fit for the Kingdom of God. Now, being fit for the Kingdom of God is, of course, of the greatest importance for salvation. The question is, are you fit for God's Kingdom? And if not, how to become fit? How can God make us fit for his Kingdom?
Now, let us read together as we come to this fourth in this series on fitness for the Kingdom. In chapter 14 of Luke, verses 7 to 14. The background of this passage is that the Lord Jesus has been invited to dinner. And of all people, he has been invited by a Pharisee. And the Pharisees were not exactly his greatest friends. And as you will see in the first two verses of chapter 14, that they were watching him closely. And it seems that the intention of inviting him was in order to have him close enough for observation. Sometimes when we are invited for dinner, it is not always with the best intention in the world that we are invited. It is not because they hold us in such high honor that they want to invite us for dinner and go to the expense of giving us a nice meal. But it may just be that they want to put us under the microscope, to have us close enough that they can observe us at first hand. And this is exactly what is happening. The Lord Jesus has been invited to dinner by not exactly his friends, but the party of his enemies, the Pharisees.
And so, first of all, he did something that greatly displeased them at the dinner, as you might well expect. Namely, to heal someone who had a certain disease, a dropsy. And then, at the dinner, the Lord Jesus commences to give them a parable. And this is the parable, from verses 7 to 14. "Now he told the parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor." So there, at the dinner, they looked for the high places of honor. The places which are nearer the host, the more select places, the high table, the places of honor.
And when he noticed that, he is saying to them, "When you are invited by anyone..." Now, when you speak in that way, of course, it is well calculated to offend those people who have taken the high places. "When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast..." At least he doesn't mention this particular banquet, but mentions a marriage feast. "Do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him. And he who invited you both, that is, both you and the more eminent man, will come and say to you, 'Give place to this man.' And then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place." Well, that is the only place you can go, because the other seats are occupied by then. So where else to go but to go where nobody is sitting, the lowest place down there.
"But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go 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." I should mention particularly, of course, that the passive here that the Lord Jesus uses, "to be exalted" or "be humbled," is what is often called the divine passive. That the Lord wants to tell us that God will humble you if you exalt yourself, or he will raise you up if you humble yourself.
Verse 12. He said also to the man who had invited him — some words also to the rich man, this Pharisee who had invited him. This will be sure that he will not be invited back again, to speak thus to the host. "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." Don't go around inviting all your fellow Pharisees and your friends, your relatives, and all the people you usually invite. "I don't see any poor people around here. Next time you invite people, bring in the poor."
Well, what is the Lord Jesus teaching here? You can say that this is not the highest example of diplomacy. It is not the best way to make friends and influence people. At least, it is not a good way to make friends, even if it does influence people, at least in turning against you. Seeing that by this time, those people who had taken the seats of honor had been soundly rebuked, and the host himself had also had his dose. What exactly does the Lord Jesus want to say? Is this some kind of a moralizing teaching? Simply to tell people to be humble, and tell people to be generous? In other words, we have this whole section in the scripture simply to teach us to be humble, to be generous. Well, there is very good to be humble, and very good to be generous. But is that all the Lord wants to say? Is this the essence of the Lord's teaching?
Now take the example. He is not speaking to Christians. He is not speaking to his disciples. Because instruction on humility and generosity might well be addressed to his own disciples, because they are already saved, or in the process of being saved, and so now you tell them how to be better people, better disciples, better Christians. You would expect that if the Lord is speaking to Pharisees who need to be saved, he will not just give them some moral teaching of how to be better people. To encourage them to do more good works, to invite the poor people so they can have some reward in the resurrection. You would expect that if he is speaking to Pharisees, he would be telling them about salvation. How to be fit for the Kingdom of God. How to enter the Kingdom of God. How to be saved. What they don't need is some moral advice. They need more than that. They need much more than moral advice. More than to be told how to be a bit more humble than they are now, how to be a little more generous.
That's what we might have expected. We would have expected rather that the Lord would have said to the Pharisee, "Now this is how you may become fit for the Kingdom of God. This is how to be saved." Isn't that what we would expect? But if you look at the commentaries, they are rather puzzled by this, and they think, well, maybe the Lord was just giving some rebuke, really, to these people. But what does the Lord want to do with rebuking them? Surely what they need is salvation. And the Lord, being the great Savior that he is, that we have just been singing about, would be concerned to show them the path of life, out of love for them, even love for his enemy, rather than just to give them a stinging rebuke.
Well, if that is what we think, of course, that he should be speaking about salvation to them, or the path of eternal life, we are not disappointed. That is in fact exactly what he is doing. But of course, unless we well understand the Lord's teaching, we completely miss the point of this passage. As in fact, unfortunately, so many commentators have done just that. They have missed the point of the passage. And you will be surprised to find how little many commentators have to say on the passage. Because they feel it is just a bit of moral advice. That is completely to fail to understand the Lord's teaching, if I may say so.
We must understand what is the whole background, the whole basis of the Lord's teaching. And this is why I say this is a series concerning the fitness for the Kingdom. There is an internal order, an internal sequence of thought in the Lord's teaching. And only when you get that sequence, when you understand the progression of thought, do you understand it in its context. Our great problem today is that we so poorly understand the teaching on salvation. We think we know it when we don't. That is the problem. We are just like the Pharisees. We think we know what salvation is. They thought they knew. They did not need to be taught about salvation. But nothing was further from the truth. They desperately needed to know the way of salvation, just as Christians today desperately need to know. Because they simply have not understood salvation as the Lord Jesus has expounded it, and as Paul has expounded it.
In order to understand what I am saying to you, and to understand what I mean, let me go back a little to the previous messages so that we can see the sequence of thoughts. We observed that in the Lord's teaching, there are some fundamental principles here concerning salvation. The first of these was the fact that we are forgiven by God's grace. The second of these concerns the fact that when we are forgiven by God's grace, there must follow from that forgiveness — there must follow. It is not optional. It is obligatory. There is an essential, internal connection between this forgiveness that you receive from God and the conduct that must derive from it. We call the first justification, for those who like to use theological terms, and the second sanctification, the usual terms. But I don't want to stop with those terms, because you may not know what they mean. Justification is to be forgiven, God's grace in forgiving you. Sanctification, as taught by scripture, is that conduct, that manner of behavior, which comes out of being forgiven. Which shows that you have been affected by God's grace, that God's grace is effective in you. How do we know God's grace is effective in you? By seeing that your behavior is different.
You see, you can speak of the first one, as God's free gift of salvation to you, like a medicine. He gives you the medicine. It's there available for everyone to take. Let's suppose that this disease of cancer is killing everybody. And God says, "Now here is my free gift to you, which will heal you of cancer. Anyone who takes this medicine will be healed of cancer." That's great. But grace doesn't do anything to you. It doesn't do anything to you until you internalize that grace, until you take the grace. And we have spoken about this before. Grace cannot do anything to you until it comes into your life.
Now, what does the medicine do? The medicine gets into your system. It goes into your bloodstream. It goes and affects the related parts of your body, and is able then to attack the disease once you have taken it into your system. It begins to do something in your life. It begins to affect the hormonal balance, maybe the chemical balance, or the biochemical balance of your body. Things begin to happen inside your body once you take this drug, this medicine, into your life. Then it can do something. Just to accept this medicine in my hand doesn't do anything for me. Did I accept it? Yes, I accepted it. It's here in my hand. And then I stick it in my pocket. It still doesn't do anything for me. To say "I have accepted the free gift of God" means absolutely nothing if, by accepting that free gift, I have simply stuck it in my pocket, put it in my drawer. Did you accept it? Yes, I accepted it. Where do you put it? In the drawer.
Many people accept God's grace rather like that. Did you accept God's grace? Oh, yes, I did. And were you baptized? Oh, yes, I was baptized. I can tell you the day and the date and which pastor baptized me, and which church, and what? Oh, good. The question is not whether you accepted that grace in some form or other. But did you take that grace into your life in such a way that it has become effective in you? It is doing something in you. This is the connection between justification and sanctification, which is so little understood today. It's unbelievable. We think that we are saved by accepting God's grace. The answer to that can be yes or no, depending on what you did with that grace. Whether you have so received that grace into your life that that grace is transforming you. What's the evidence of the transformation? Transformation. Changed conduct. The conduct becomes different.
That's what the Lord Jesus was saying in our first message. You remember when he spoke about the unforgiving servant. That unforgiving servant received forgiveness as a gift. He received it fully. But the gift was never internalized. The gift did not change him. It didn't go into his system. The love of God didn't penetrate his heart and say, "Oh my God, my God, why have you forgiven a wretched person like me that doesn't deserve forgiveness?" And he pondered it. The love of God began to work in his life and change his conduct. And so when somebody else came to him and said, "Please forgive me for the debt I owe you. I owe you $100," the man would have said to him, "$100! My friend." He would have put his arm around him and said, "Forget this. Forgive this. I have just been forgiven a million dollar debt. You think I'm going to take $100 from you, my friend?" Now, had he spoken like that, you would have seen that God's forgiving grace, that the Lord Jesus wants to picture in that parable, has become effectual in his life. It has taken effect. It has changed his heart and his thinking.
But it didn't happen in that person's life. He did receive the free gift, didn't he? Yes. But nothing happened. He refused to forgive the other person. When the other person came and said, "Please forgive me," "There's nothing for you. You go to jail until I get my money back from you." Did he receive God's gift of forgiveness? The answer is yes and no. Yes in the sense that he was forgiven. No in the sense that, like the medicine, he had only put it in his pocket. It didn't go into his system. It didn't change his heart. It didn't change his mind. It changed nothing. He was the same selfish, egotistic, repulsive person that he was before. That can be seen from his conduct as being so unbelievably unforgiving.
So what happened as a result? So he was forgiven? No. No. The forgiveness given to him was withdrawn. That message seems to be lost on most Christians today. They don't seem to have gotten the message. They still think that we can be saved simply by justification, and no matter how I behave, I will still be justified, even if God's grace did not enter into my life and change me. I will still be forgiven. You cannot be more wrong than that. I plead with you clearly to understand this matter. To think like this is completely to fail to understand the Lord's teaching on salvation, and how we become fit for God's Kingdom.
So what is the Lord Jesus teaching in this passage? Do you really think he is simply saying to the Pharisee, "Now, next time when somebody invites you to a wedding feast, make sure you go to a lower seat." Why should the person listen to him? Why should I go to the lower seat? Why should I? I, being the Pharisee that I am, the man of prominence that I am, I will go to the seat that is right for my station and for my place. I mean, I am not going to go to the lowest seat. But anyway, even if I did it, so what? Let's suppose that he did this. Then what of it? Is he then going to be simply doing some good work? By the way, what use is this teaching to us anyway, as it stands here, if we don't understand what the Lord is saying? What use is this teaching? It is absolutely useless as far as you and I are concerned, right?
Well, sure. But look, you have surely been invited to a wedding feast. I mean, various brothers and sisters have been married at various times, and you have been, certainly, to other people's wedding feasts. Now you tell me, how do you take a lower seat? The Chinese wedding, if you have a dinner, you have a round table. Which is the lower seat? Which is the higher seat? How do you apply this teaching? And you know that most places today, when you have a wedding feast, many times your name is placed there. You can't say, "Well, I'm going to take my name and walk down to another seat." And I, frankly, don't know which is the lowest seat. In a round table, it's hard to discover where the lower seat is. This teaching becomes useless to me. That's why I can't do anything with it.
And anyway, how many times in your life will you be invited to a wedding feast? Five times? Six times? In other words, the only time you can use the teaching of the Lord Jesus is about five times in your life, for that one evening. You mean the Lord's whole teaching is simply to be applied for one or two hours, five or six times in our life? The more you think about it, the more useless this teaching is. You can't do anything with it. Even if I want to apply it, in those few occasions in which I am invited to a wedding feast, I can't even find occasion to apply it.
Or let's take the second part, about inviting the poor. How in Canada do you implement this kind of teaching? Now, the poor thing — we go out there this evening, and we are going to walk up and down the street to look for a cripple to invite in for dinner in the church tonight. Or we are going to look for a blind man out there. And the blind man is probably better off than I am in any case, on his social welfare insurance, or whatever he's got. And if he were blind by accident, he probably had a hundred thousand dollars compensation to begin with, that makes him an awful lot richer than most of us in Canada. How do you implement this kind of teaching?
So you look at it and you say, useless. Let's go on to something else. The Lord's teaching is irrelevant. It belongs to another age, or maybe some other part of the world where you go to India, maybe you can apply this. I mean, in India, you might have a lot of blind people. So you grab a few beggars. And so now, let's suppose you do this in India. Supposing you are in India, and then what do you do? It says, "When you give a banquet," in verse 12. How many times do you give a banquet in your lifetime? Very seldom, I should imagine. When do you give a feast? Well, maybe at somebody's wedding. Maybe at your wedding, or maybe at your son's wedding, or your daughter's wedding. You give a banquet, right? So next time you say, "Okay, then at my wedding I will collect the beggars and bring them to my feast, in fulfillment of the Lord's teaching." Well, in Canada, you will have a hard time doing that, as we have already seen. So maybe in order to fulfill this, you should go to India to have your wedding, and then you can have all the beggars, and then you can feel good. "Ah, now I'm going to be rewarded at the resurrection of the just, because at my one feast that I had in my lifetime, I invited the beggars."
So is this kind of teaching for the occasional purpose, when at those rare occasions that you have a feast, a banquet, as it is said here, then you can implement the teaching? If that is the case, this whole passage is useless. We can't do anything with it. And if you are too poor to have a banquet anyway, then this teaching must apply only to the rich. It doesn't apply to the poor, because which of us has feasts? Now you can see that once you analyze it in this way — and I'm sure that if you read this passage at all thoughtfully, these thoughts must have crossed your mind — this kind of teaching is called the occasional teaching of Christ. Namely, it's for those occasional times in your life when you have a feast, or you could say this teaching relates to the few occasions when you will either be invited to a banquet or hold one yourself. Rather impractical, rather useless, isn't it?
Now, if we think in this way, we have really not understood the Lord's teaching. And now when I have explained it like this, you can see why the commentators feel rather embarrassed, because they don't really know what to say about this, what to do with a passage like this. It becomes rather embarrassing, especially if you happen to be the one who has to write the commentary. You sit there at your typewriter, or with a pen in your hand, and you say, "Well, I've got to write a commentary on this, and what exactly do I say?" And so finally you'll give up and decide, well, it's just a general teaching of how to be humble, how to be generous. And how does that fit in? Why is this teaching given to a Pharisee? I don't know. Maybe he particularly deserved some rebuke like this at the time.
Now you can see why to think in this way, to understand the Lord's teaching at all, you cannot just read the passage. You must understand the entire background of the Lord's teaching, and what is he getting at. What is his goal? What's he aiming for? Only when you do this are you in a position to understand the Lord's teaching. The Lord's teaching is difficult until you begin to have the whole depth of the background of what the Lord Jesus came into this world to do. Only then do you understand why he is saying this. And even then, you have to understand the entire basis of his teaching.
Well, having stressed this point quite sufficiently, I hope, we are ready to proceed further. We have seen that there are three points. The first we have already described as justification. The second, as sanctification. But particularly important to understand the Lord's teaching here, you must understand not only the connection of points one and two, justification to sanctification, but points two and three. The third point being judgment. The connection between sanctification and judgment.
Now the church is in trouble enough in failing to understand the connection of points one to two, let alone the connection of two to three. This is what we said the other time: that God will deal with us in the manner in which we deal with others. God will deal with you in the same way that you deal with others. So in the case of the unforgiving servant, the connection of points one to two was that his being forgiven could have led him to forgive. That insofar as he was not forgiving, God dealt with him in the same way, so that he was not forgiven. Is that hard for you to understand? I don't think so. But just think about it a little bit. If you do not forgive others, the Lord Jesus said, as he summed up that parable, neither will you be forgiven. Even though you had been forgiven already, that forgiveness will be withdrawn. If you do not forgive, neither will you be forgiven. That's the connection of two to three.
This is the point here. Your conduct is such that God will base his judgment upon your kind of conduct, your kind of behavior. This is exactly what is said here, verse 11. "For everyone who exalts himself" — that's your conduct — "will be humbled" — that's what God's response to your conduct will be at the judgment. He will bring you down. He will put you to shame. And in the Old Testament, to be put to shame is to be rejected. It is to come under God's condemnation. "But he who humbles himself will be exalted by God." Your conduct will determine God's response to you, either in commendation or condemnation, either in reward or in punishment, whichever it will be. You see, that's the connection of point two to three, of sanctification to judgment, to the judgment to come.
Very important to understand this, brothers and sisters. Very important. Never imagine to yourself that because you are saved, your conduct doesn't matter anymore. That is the current notion in the churches, which is absolutely fatal. To think like this is fatal. If you understand the Lord's teaching, and if you understand Paul's teaching at all, absolutely fatal. God is looking at your conduct. He is looking at your behavior. And he will determine whether or not you are fit for the Kingdom on the basis of your conduct. On the basis of — if you humble yourself, he will exalt you, he will lift you up. If you exalt yourself, he will bring you down at the judgment. Oh yes, that is the point that is brought here. That is what the Lord is saying to these Pharisees who believe themselves to be saved.
That's why he didn't even spend time talking about the connection of one to two. He is talking about the connection of two to three. He is saying, "You think you are saved. You think you are saved, right? But look at your conduct. Look at your conduct. When you come into the feast, you seek the best seat because you want to exalt yourself. And you think you are going to be saved? You really think so? You are theologians. You are religious people. You are Pharisees. But your conduct, my friends, betrays the fact that you won't make it. Why? Because don't you know that those who exalt themselves will be humbled by God at the judgment?" Have you seen all this yet? If not, I am telling you now, that is what the Lord is saying. Your salvation is at stake.
You see, we realize that the Lord is speaking spiritual truth to them. He is not talking just about some moralizing details of how they should improve their conduct. He is telling them that their conduct shows that they are not saved. That unless they change and let God's grace become effective in their life to change them, they will never make it. They will not be fit for the Kingdom of God. And no message, brothers and sisters, is more urgent to the church today than this. Because all these Christians sit snugly and smugly, believing that we are saved, we will make it, our seats are reserved for us. And though we behave most disgracefully, whether at the place of work or in college — or even if we don't behave disgracefully, our behavior is so mediocre that we cannot qualify to be called "light of the world" or "salt of the earth." And that, we saw last week, is exactly what happened: that the salt that loses its savor, the salt which should be salt but doesn't function as salt, will not be fit — it is fit for nothing, the Lord Jesus said. Not fit. It is not fit, certainly, for the Kingdom. In fact, it is fit for nothing. Fit for nothing. The salt that has lost its taste, though it was truly salt. What? But because it has lost its taste, though it still has the appearance of salt, though it is still called salt, it is fit for nothing but to be thrown out, the Lord said, and to be trampled under the foot of men. Brought right down low, right down, trampled under the foot of men. No more use. Finished.
There we are still smugly saying to our children, as the churches are, "We are the elect people." The Lord is saying to these Pharisees, who regarded themselves as the very elect — if there was anybody elect in Israel, it was the Pharisees. They regarded themselves as the spiritual cream of society, as we might regard ourselves as the spiritual cream. And the Lord Jesus is saying here, "Your behavior proves the reverse. You are not only not the cream, you are like salt that has lost its flavor and is fit for nothing but to be cast out." Powerful word. Powerful word. You think this is just some moralizing advice? You would think so if you do not understand the basic principles of the Lord's teaching. There is far more than just telling people to be a little humble, to be a little generous. Oh no.
Now, what is the root of all this? How do we understand the root of this? Is not salvation by faith? Is not salvation by faith? Is it not? Is not salvation the matter of God's grace coming to us and received by faith? Is it a matter of inviting beggars to a feast? Is it a matter of taking a lower seat at a table? You think salvation depends on things like this? Let me give you the surprising answer. The answer to that is yes, my friend. Because Jesus said it, not me. I say, "How can it be?" So salvation is by works? Not at all. You say, "But those are works." You see, today the church plays around with terms like "faith" and "works," faith and works, neither understanding faith nor understanding works. We are fooling around with terms that we don't understand at all. We think that when we have said something about works, we have said something very important theologically, when we don't even know what we are talking about. What are we talking about? The Lord Jesus is telling us that if you have faith, it will be seen in your conduct. Let me see how profound is the Lord's teaching here. You see, you cannot do any of these things from the heart that the Lord is saying here. You cannot do them from the heart unless you are... Thank you.
# The Parable of the Banquet (Part 2)
...but a professed faith, a dead faith that doesn't save anybody. Works is not a dirty word. Saved by works? What are we talking about? We're not saved by works. But works must be the manifestation which is the evidence of our saving faith. And when we speak about Paul, and we quote Paul's words about works, I have heard so much nonsense said about that, it is unbelievable. If one wants to talk about works in Paul, one had better go and study Paul, so one knows what Paul is talking about. When Paul speaks about works, he is very careful to speak about two kinds of works. One are works of the law, and the other are works of faith. And you cannot just speak about works without distinguishing which kind of works you are talking about.
Paul is saying to us, you cannot be saved by works of law. Not just works. You cannot be saved by works of law because you show thereby that you have put your faith, not in Christ, but in the law. And therefore your works are the expression of faith, yes. But faith not in Christ, in the saving work of Christ, but faith in the law. But law will not save you. Law will condemn you. It doesn't save you. But Paul speaks about another kind of works that is absolutely essential to the Christian. In fact, he says, "good works whereunto you were ordained" for this kind of works. These are the works of faith. Faith that works by love. And so many people talk about works, "saved by works." What are they talking about? What works are you talking about? It is almost impossible to discuss with people who use terms in utter ignorance.
The Lord Jesus is precisely speaking about the works of faith. Without those works, you can talk about faith until your mouth is dry, and that faith will not save you one whit. Not one whit will it save you. Because that faith is dead. And dead faith never saves anyone. That is the entire teaching of scripture.
Now then. Look how what the Lord is saying is impossible to do from the heart, unless God's grace has become so effective in your life that it is manifested in a deep faith in God. And this faith in God now expresses itself in true humility and true generosity. What the Lord is saying is that you cannot really be humble, except that God's grace has so changed you, and you have such faith in God, that you can be humble.
You don't believe it? You try and be humble. There is no way you can be humble. True humility comes from the heart. It is not, as I have said before, to be judged by the number of degrees of the curvature of your spine. That is outward. I can go around like this, and people will say, "How humble he is." In fact, I am absolutely arrogant and rude. In fact, there are many people who are unbelievably arrogant, and yet all profess to be so humble. That is Phariseeism. That is hypocrisy. True humility comes from the heart, inside. Never judge a person purely by the angle of his back. A person may stand very straight and be extremely humble too. In fact, I need to stand straighter, and so my posture is very bad. So I've got to put on some straps sometimes, to be a posture improver. So maybe in future you will see me improving. But don't think that when you see my spine less curved, that I have become more arrogant. You would have to judge my arrogance or my humility on some other basis than how straight my spine is.
Let me show you this: true humility comes from the heart, or it doesn't come at all. It is pure outward pretense. You see, you cannot be humble unless you have faith in God. Did you realize that? You cannot be humble. You cannot be truly humble in the way that the Lord Jesus is talking about, unless you have faith — faith in God. How? Quite simply this: why should I take a lower seat? What is the reason the Lord gives? Because you have faith that God will exalt you. You cannot have faith — why do I not dare to be proud? I dare not be proud. The only reason I dare not be proud is because I have faith in God. If you do not have faith in God, what is there to keep you from being proud? Nothing.
In fact, the whole thinking of this world is to assert yourself. So when your company invites you to a banquet, I mean, you don't go down to the lower seat. If you go down to the lower seat in this world, the world will say, "Well, just stay there. Go ahead. If that is not low enough for you, go and sit outside with the servants. That's okay with us." In this world, to succeed, you must assert yourself. You must show that you've got what it takes to get to the top. You've got to show style. When people look at your style, they say, "He's the kind. Next time we're going to appoint the general manager — you think — this is the guy. He's got the style. He's got what it takes." And so you've got to show yourself, show your colors in the world.
When you talk, you've got to show how sharp your tongue is, how quick is your wit. Anybody there to show you a little disrespect, you put him right in his place. That's the way to get respect. I mean, when did you ever get respect by going down and sitting in the lower seat? In the world it doesn't work. People think he's nutty. His religion has got to his brain. In this world, the secret of success is to show that you are successful. So even if you can't afford it, get yourself a nice suit.
People from Hong Kong understand this perfectly. They don't need any teaching from me. They can teach me any day on this. You can't afford a nice car? You get it. If you have to borrow the money. When you arrive in front of the place, you don't want to arrive in some tin can, right, at the door. You are driving up in a Mercedes, in style. And you swing the door open in style. And you step out — very important — in style. And the expression of your face is very important. You don't come to the door and say, "How are you?" Your class is too low. Your expression has to be dignity. Walk like a tiger. I'm sure you've heard that. Walk like a tiger. Even the way you walk — dignity. And you sit down at table, put your hand in a certain way. Relax, but style. It shows that you are used to power. You are used to the high places. You didn't come out of the gutter. You have lived in style all the way. And so, of course, next time they are thinking of a general manager, they think, "Ah, he is the man. He has got it. He has got what it takes. He has got drive. He has got go-go. Yes, dynamic person. Dynamic."
And so you apply the Lord's teaching, and you come in being a humble man. They wipe you out. You want to go down? They will step on your back to climb up. You want to go lower? That is fine with them. They need stepping stones. So you just bow down, and they will step on top of you. That is what I mean: you have got to have faith in order to be humble. True humility has to come out of faith. Otherwise, you are going to do what most Christians do: don't be too proud, don't be too humble. Didn't Aristotle tell us in his ethics that it's the mean, the true thought — we walk in the mean. Not too proud, not too humble. At least I know where I am as a Christian: I have to be a little bit Christian and a little bit practical in the world. I don't want to be trampled down by all these horses. But on the other hand, I still want to look a little bit like a Christian. So the next time I put my arm a little bit more gently like this. And before my face was very hard, but now I put it a little bit softer. The style is still there, but a little bit moderated. Not too extreme. In this way, I still might make it. Even if they don't consider me for general manager, at least for assistant general manager, maybe. You have to take some loss for being a Christian. That's the cost of being a Christian. You've got to take a little bit of cost. Faith — the faith to be a Christian. Tough. Very tough.
You see, you thought being humble is easy. Without true faith that God will exalt you, you dare not do this. You will just be regarded as a fool in this world, a nutcase. You try that at a feast next time and see what happens. You sit down there. Fine. Nobody bothers. You feel more comfortable there. There's always the next guy who will rush to take the seats in the higher place. You have to have faith before you can do this. Now you understand what I mean. This is the work of faith.
Well, let's take the second point. The first deals with social status. The Lord in his teachings touches us at the very root of the things that matter to us. What things matter to you in this world? Social status is one, right? What's the other thing? Money. Money, of course. How you use your money. What does it say here? Generosity. You think you can be generous without faith? I tell you that those who are truly generous — truly generous from the heart, and not just trying to make their conscience a bit eased — are those who are motivated by real faith. They look for their reward where? That's what the Lord says here in verse 14. "You will be repaid." In the last sentence of this parable: "You will be repaid when? At the resurrection of the just." Wow. Resurrection of the just. When is that? I need my pay at the end of the month. Are you going to give me my payback at the resurrection of the just? Now if you don't have faith, how can you implement this kind of teaching? I'm not even sure I'll be resurrected. I don't even have enough faith to believe in the resurrection. And I'm going to get my reward after resurrection, about which I'm not at all sure?
You see, the Lord's teaching is impossible to practice unless you have faith. It says here, "Invite beggars so they can't repay you." Oh, the important thing to us is that we get repaid. I mean, I invite this rich guy in the hope that when he invites me next time, he takes me even to a better meal. So I invest $20 and he invests $40 on me. That's worth it. I got the better of the exchange. I give him a $20 gift and he gives me a $40 gift, and it's worth it. And here he says you don't get any payback until the resurrection. Generosity is okay, but this is ridiculous. I mean, generosity is nice within reason. Sure, drop a few coins in the beggar's bowl and it makes me feel good. I got something out of it. I got a good feeling out of it. That's worth the two dollars or whatever I put in. And when I give some money to Oxfam or Christian Aid or whatever this kind of organization — every time I look at these pictures of these starving kids and I'm stuffing the food into my mouth, it spoils my appetite. So I give $20 and say, "Okay, take the $20." Next time I can enjoy my meal in peace. Why did you give it? Because you just wanted to pay off your conscience. You weren't thinking about reward at the resurrection, were you? When did you ever put some money in the offering and you thought about the reward at the resurrection? Oh, be honest. Come on. Reward at the resurrection? No. Maybe we thought, "If I give a bit more, next time I pay my tax returns I can claim the money, I mean, cut down my tax return. I give less money to the tax man and I've got more money to give to the church. It looks good in church and it looks good in dealing with the tax man." Who thought of the resurrection of the just? Where is our faith at this point? Let's be honest with ourselves. I have to be honest with myself.
And then we say to ourselves very nobly, "You see, when I give I never think of reward. No, no, no. When I give, I give. I mean, who talks about reward? We don't do things for reward. We just give it. That's it. Finish." You see, I'm even better than the Lord's teaching. The Lord's teaching says you're rewarded at the resurrection. I don't even think about the reward. I've even gone beyond the Lord's teaching. I've reached the higher stage. Oh, we are so good at kidding ourselves. Nobody does anything without a motive. Nobody gives a hundred dollars to the Lord's work or to the church without some kind of motive in it. And if we are motivated by faith, then our eye is on God when we give the hundred dollars. We are motivated by faith in him. What is the reward? That we get another hundred dollars at the resurrection of the just? Of course not. What is the reward we are looking for? His love to us. What is the reward going to be? I mean, you get to heaven, you discover that he gives you two gold bars. Now what are you going to do with two gold bars in heaven? Surely the reward you are looking for is God's approval. And you cannot look for such approval unless you love him. And you do not love him unless you have faith.
Now we can see. The Lord's teaching is not just some moralistic advice to the Pharisees. He is telling the Pharisees, "Your conduct betrays the fact that you are not fit for the Kingdom. And your conduct betrays the fact that you don't have faith. You don't have faith. Neither in your social relationships can we see the attitude of faith, because there is no humility there. Nor in your financial relationships is there faith, because you can see that whatever you do, you seek for your return now. This earthly life, this world is all you've got. Because you haven't got faith that you will be in the next world, at least not enough faith. So you are putting your eggs in the basket that is going to hatch some chickens now. You don't worry about the future. You hope that you will make it. You hope you will be in the resurrection. But if not, at least you have got something here and now. You are not dead lost." It takes faith to live in this kind of way.
Now you can see why conduct is so important in the Lord's teaching. Because conduct is the expression of faith. Take the Lord's teaching: if somebody strikes you on one side of the face, you turn the other side. What is that? Moralistic teaching? Well, if you think that that is moralistic teaching, you have missed the Lord's teaching again. You don't understand what he thinks. Nobody can turn the other cheek who doesn't have faith in God. You don't believe it, try it. I'm sure you wouldn't be able to do it. It takes faith. What kind of faith? Faith in God's justice. That's what it takes. That evil will be recompensed by God. God will deal with the matter. I don't have to deal with it. Now if I don't have faith in God, then I will deal with the matter. I've got to settle the score, because who's going to settle the score if I don't settle the score? But only if I have this kind of deep, deep faith in a God who is just, in a God who governs this world and will see that the slightest account will be settled, every small detail will be put in order — that takes great faith to believe. So that if somebody slaps me in the face, I don't have to settle the account, because I have faith that my God will do it. My God will do it. I have no fear of that. That he will forget to settle the account for me, that he is too busy somewhere else. And if you think like this, it shows you again how much faith you have in God.
You see, conduct is the expression of faith, whichever way you turn. And once you realize this, you realize the connection between two and three. The connection between sanctification, conduct, and judgment. Because conduct — and we say it one more time — is the expression of faith.
This then is the heart of the Lord's teaching. You can say that the whole sum of what the Lord is saying here is this. As we close, we can sum it up all in one sentence. And it is simply this: only through a manifest faith — that is, a faith manifested in your daily conduct, in the way you deal in matters of social status, in the way you deal with your finances — only in manifested conduct, this faith, living faith, ongoing faith, the faith in the living God, only there is it manifested. There it is seen. That is why salvation is by faith. Not a faith that is simply in the past tense, but a faith which is present. Faith which is manifested in the way you live your daily life. The just shall live by faith. That's how you live. Not just by a faith that you had once when you made a decision. Faith in the Bible is an ongoing thing, a daily thing, that is manifested in your daily life. The way you think, the way you behave, the way you do things. That is living faith. May God grant that you and I deeply understand that. It is this kind of faith whereby you become, under God's grace, fit for his Kingdom.
Let us be quiet before God in prayer.