Read Luke 14:15-24

How many excuses can we find not to serve God?

In Jesus’ day, it was customary to issue an invitation days or weeks in advance. Then on the appointed day, when the meal was ready, a messenger came to personally call the guest. These last-minute cancellations were unpardonable breaches of etiquette. Whoever heard of waiting until after the purchase to inspect property or important farm animals? The man with the new bride might have had some excuse, but even that is rather weak.

The man giving the feast in Jesus’ story is obviously God. Jesus turns the excuses into symbols illustrating three areas of life. The real estate stands for our possessions and investments. The oxen illustrate technology and means of livelihood. The marriage exemplifies our self-centered comfort and preoccupation with sex and marriage. Is there anything wrong with possessions, making a living, or having a family life? Of course not. Our problem is leaving God out.

This brings Jesus to His central point, the rejection of their Messiah by the Jews (v. 24). Jesus makes it clear that the call of God to repentance and salvation is universal to Jew and Gentile alike. The human wreckage drafted from the city streets may symbolize nonobservant Jews who essentially had no religion. Can we see the swarm of country bumpkins as Gentiles and the wider world beyond the narrow religious arrogance of the Pharisees?

Read Luke 14:1-14

Do you think Jesus’ host and his friends brought this sick man into the dining room as a calculated means of placing Jesus in an awkward position?

In response, Jesus asked two questions, one theological, one personal. “Does the Law allow healing on the Sabbath?” asked Jesus. Getting no answer, He pursues the matter by asking, “If your son or your ox fell into a well on the Sabbath day, wouldn’t you rescue him?” Again, none of the learned and socially prominent guests answered.

Why? If they said healing on the Sabbath was not permitted, they would have condemned themselves, for these scholars knew very well that the Jewish Law was to be tempered with mercy. If they said healing was permitted, then they could not have criticized Jesus.

Jesus wasn’t through. At the risk of being an obnoxious guest, Jesus outlines the unfortunate results of exalting yourself. Humble kindness to the poor and the handicapped brings blessing into your life, He teaches. It’s better than just being nice to someone who can repay you.

This was a new idea to Jesus’ hearers. Over and over in His ministry Jesus taught His new way: kindness to the weak, practical help to the poor, forgiveness for those who wrong us. Why? Because God is willing to forgive you of your sins if we will repent and ask. The least we can do is pass along that compassion to others.

Read Luke 13:31-35

Do you ever pray for the place where you live?

Jesus displays two qualities here: Yearning love over a city committing suicide, and courage in the face of real danger.

Jesus’ friends are telling the truth. Herod really does mean to kill Jesus. He will not tolerate any perceived rival. Jesus serenely asks His friends to tell Herod to mind his own business. Jesus will keep His timetable uninfluenced by anyone. He takes the occasion to express to His hearers His aching love over Jerusalem. Jesus longed to save the city from destruction, but its people would not accept Him and the deliverance He offered.

Jesus saw suffering in Jerusalem’s future. Some 40 years after Jesus spoke, in 70 A.D., the Romans invaded Jerusalem, reducing it to rubble. Even the Temple, the center of Jewish life, came down crash upon crash in the breathless terrors of that day. Its people, poor motherless chicks, scattered over the world.

Like rebellious children, the Jewish nation had to learn the hard way. Jesus knew that Jerusalem’s day of grace was about to end. He could have prevented it. But the people of Jerusalem would not let Him.

What will we let Jesus do for us? Not by accident does the Holy Spirit inspire Luke to recount Jesus’ mournful warning immediately after His teaching about the narrow door. Our personal destruction finally comes if we do not let Jesus deliver us.

Read Luke 13:22-30

So what else is new?

Once in a Bible study small group discussion, we went around the circle answering the question, “When you were a child, did you believe that only persons from your church’s denomination would be saved?” The answers were unanimous. All of us had somehow gotten that erroneous idea as children.

Jesus gives a warning for every church member, no matter what your church preference: Am I following Christian forms without ever having truly known Jesus as personal savior? Personifying God as the owner of the house, Jesus warns that it is possible to act in God’s name, go through the motions of church activity, be well-respected persons in the community (v. 26) and yet never have a real relationship with God. We can be baptized, confirmed, and join the church all with no change of heart.

Like the rich man who could see Lazarus the beggar safe in heaven, but was unable to get any message to him (Luke 16:23-26), these good church members will see the patriarchs, prophets, and just plain folks from all over the world gather for the bridal supper of the Lamb. But they will be denied any part in it (vv. 28-29).

Confident of God’s forgiving grace, but aware of His power to judge truly based on His full knowledge of what is really in our hearts, let us ask ourselves Dr. Francis Schaeffer’s question, “How Should We Then Live?”