EPISODE 36 Luke Chapter 14 ”Motivations Matter” for Share The Word

Welcome to Share the Word. If you've been listening for a while, we welcome you back, and we thank you for being a loyal listener. As we've said many times before, we know that there are many programs out there, but Share the Word is a systematic presentation of the big ideas in the New Testament chapter by chapter. So let's get started as Paul brings out the big idea in Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. Motivations matter.

There are several things we could discuss today from chapter 14, but I'm going to focus on the issue of our motivations. The book of Proverbs, a book of wisdom in the Old Testament, says in one place, All a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, it says about the Word of God, that is the Bible, that it is alive and powerful, and just as a very sharp sword can slice into a person's body, the Word of God can slice deep into a person's soul and spirit, even discerning the thoughts and intentions of their heart, our real motivations. So when I come to a chapter like this one and listen to some of the things Jesus said about this, it forces me to get real about my motivations. It causes me to ask difficult questions of myself, and that's an important exercise for any follower of Jesus to do.

We're told many times in the New Testament, one way or another, that we should judge ourselves so that we will not have to one day be judged. Did you know that Christians are going to be evaluated by Christ one day at a situation often referred to as the Bema Seat Judgment? It's going to largely revolve around our motivations. That is, not just what we have done with our lives since we became followers of Jesus, but more importantly, why we did it or didn't do it. And that gets directly to our motivations. If you're a Christian already and have committed your life to following Jesus, it might surprise you that I mention a judgment is ahead for us.

You might be thinking, Wait, I thought there was no judgment for those of us who have trusted Christ. I thought that he saved us from the penalty of our sins so that we will never have to answer for them, never be punished for them. You were just talking about that last episode, Paul. You're right, I was. You understood me correctly. For believers, our place in heaven, what Jesus has been calling the kingdom of God, is secure because he has done everything necessary to secure it for us.

Salvation is a free gift if we will only recognize our need and respond in faith to what the Savior has done. Our sins have been forgiven. That's all true. That doesn't mean there will never be a time of evaluation for believers, a time when we will be called on to give an account for what we have done with our lives since we became followers of Jesus. And as we'll see today, importantly, why we did it. There will be such an accounting.

No, it won't be about deciding our eternal destiny. That's already decided when we came to Christ and claimed him as our Savior and leader. It will be about deciding our role in God's kingdom, and it will be about rewards or lack of rewards based on our faithfulness and fruitfulness as followers of Christ. We'll learn a lot more about that from the parables of Jesus, as well as from later doctrinal writings in the New Testament, like First and Second Corinthians. Stay with Share the Word because you're going to learn everything important the New Testament has to say as we work systematically through these inspired writings. But today, I want to focus on the question of motivations, why we do what we do.

One of our real problem motivations is pride. Jesus, who was God on earth in human form, was humble. Anyone ever had the right to act in a prideful, look-at-me way, it was certainly Jesus, but he didn't act that way. So on one particular day, it was a Sabbath day again, Jesus was again invited to the home of a prominent Pharisee. Remember, the Pharisees were this sect of conservative religious leaders that were zealously committed to keeping the Old Testament laws and traditions. They weren't all bad people.

Some were sincerely trying to honor God and do the right things, but there was a very strong undercurrent of we're holier than you that ran through that group. Luke was told how on that occasion, those invited to this prominent man's home for dinner that day—it was after a wedding, it sounds like—people were jostling to get the best seats at the wedding feast. Compare the scene to a wedding reception you may have been to, where there is usually a head table where most important people, to the bride and groom, sit, and then other tables nearby for close friends and relatives, and then tables in the back where the folks sit who, you know, you had to invite to your wedding for some reason, like your boss at work or your cousins from New Jersey, people that you aren't that close to, but you have to invite.

Well, on this occasion, there were no assigned seats apparently, but those invited wanted to get as close as possible to the head table, to be seated close to the prominent host and his guests of honor, the bride and the groom probably. So Jesus noticed how people were maneuvering for the best seats and probably chuckled to himself watching them. It's likely Jesus was invited specifically because of his notoriety. His reputation is kind of a celebrity. He was seated near the host, I'm sure. That's likely.

But perhaps someone else, anxious to have a place of honor for themselves, had taken that seat already or tried to. Maybe that's what prompted Jesus to say what he did to this gathering. Ting, ting, ting. Quiet, everyone. Now for a word from our special guest. You've all heard of Jesus of Nazareth.

When Jesus was given the opportunity to speak, this is what he said. When someone invites you to a wedding feast, don't take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. And then the host who invited both of you will come to you and say, Give this person your seat. Humiliated, you will then have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when the host comes, he will say to you, Friend, move up here to a better place. Then you will be honored in the presence of everyone there.

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. I think we all know what social climbers are, people who desperately want to seem important or famous, or who believe they deserve more honor and attention than they get, so they push themselves forward. I guess that's not a new phenomenon, because that's just what Jesus is describing here. He said at this dinner where invited guests had been jostling for the best seats, Don't do that. How embarrassing it's going to be when the host has to ask you to move down because somebody he wants to honor arrives after you and needs that seat. And at that point, there will be nothing left but the worst seats in the house, with the people who no one really wanted to invite.

How much better to take one of the least prominent seats and then have the host say, No, no, no, you come up here to a place of honor that I've saved for you. Tell me, what motivation would put someone in that socially awkward situation? A wrong kind of pride? The weird need to exalt yourself, to be noticed, to be admired or envied? Are you familiar with the Old Testament proverb that says there are six things the Lord hates, yes, seven that are detestable to Him? The very first one: haughty eyes, or your translation might say a haughty look.

Haughty means an attitude of superiority, of I'm better than you, more important than you, like the B-list Hollywood actress that asks, Don't you know who I am? with her nose pointed in the air at the hostess who told her there's going to be a wait at the restaurant. How much better if she would have waited in line with all the regular commoners until a table was ready, and then have someone later recognize her and say, Oh, aren't you so-and-so from such-and-such a show? Why didn't you say something? Here, we have a special VIP table for you. I'm pretty sure Jesus' implication is that this dynamic has more significant consequences in God's eyes than where we might sit at a wedding reception or whether we could skip the wait line at a restaurant.

When He says here, Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted, it is the same truth He has spoken already when He said, Many who are first will be last, and the last first. He is revealing one important criteria that Christians will be evaluated over when we are evaluated before Christ. It's one which we who claim to be His followers and His servants should think long and hard about. Do we do what we do for the recognition? Do we love too much the accolades? Do we feel we are kind of indispensable?

Do we internally revel in the admiration of others, or why do we really do what we do? Jesus taught His followers elsewhere that if our motivations are wrong, even if we are doing good things, all the rewards we're ever going to get are the recognitions and rewards that we get here. While on the contrary, those who give even a thirsty person a drink of water because they actually care, God notices that and will reward them one day in heaven. It makes me stop and think. I wonder how many of the people we've looked up to in the Christian world did what they did too much of the time because they loved the applause and the honor they received from it, while people we never even heard of or noticed were doing good in Jesus' name because they truly cared. We don't know, but the God who discerns the thoughts and intents of our hearts, He knows.

And on the day in heaven when rewards are given out to servants of Christ, who we are going to be astounded, I think, at what we witness then. Who is applauded most loudly then by the Lord and the angels of heaven, and who are given the places of honor in His coming kingdom, and who are not? This is very serious food for thought, for self-evaluation. Another parable in this chapter was also about people who were invited to a banquet. This is at verses 15 through 23. But they begged off with one excuse after another, which led the host to tell his servants, Go out and invite the poor and the blind and the crippled to be my guests.

And if that doesn't fill our banquet hall, go out into the roadways and the country lanes and invite whoever until it's full. This is a metaphor for how Israel in the first century largely rejected the invitation of Christ when he was among them during his public ministry, and how God would subsequently invite into his kingdom instead all kinds of unexpected people, people like you and me. The fact that the Jewish nation and their leaders rejected Jesus as their Messiah when he was here 2,000 years ago threw open the door to all of us. And again, Luke is emphasizing this theme in his gospel, that Jesus came to be the Savior for the whole world, that his kingdom is now open to all who will believe and turn their lives toward following him, no matter where we are from.

But returning to today's big idea about motivations, let's think for a few moments about the uncomfortable words Jesus said in the last part of this chapter. As I've already mentioned, once Jesus turned south away from Galilee and toward Judea, he was really moving deliberately toward the climax of his ministry, toward his ultimate purpose, and that was the cross, where he would make an atonement for the world's sin. There were still a lot of people following him around for the spectacle because of his celebrity. But in these verses, beginning at verse 25, he sternly challenges them to rethink their motives for why they were. It actually sounds troubling that Jesus turned to the crowd and said, If you don't love and trust me more than anything and anyone else, you're not fit to be my disciples.

The word translated hate in the English language here in verse 26, at least in some translations, is certainly to be understood comparatively. God doesn't want anyone to hate their family, quite the opposite. But the point of emphasis is, in comparison to our loyalty to Jesus, our loyalty to anything and anyone else should not hold a candle. Some of those listening to him that day had in fact already been rejected by their families, left their businesses and their prior lives to fully follow him. But most were just along for a bit to see what might happen next. They weren't committed believers and followers of Jesus, and he knew that.

That's why he says here, Realize if you really want to be my disciple, you will need to take up your cross and follow me. Jesus was fully aware of his own destiny, and he was saying to those around him that day in the crowd, Don't expect that being my disciple is easy or somehow going to be immediately rewarding for you. It won't be. Count the cost. He challenged them that way. There could be a great cost required in following me.

Are you ready to pay that cost if required? This serious challenge coming from Jesus should also cause us, who view ourselves as Jesus followers, to evaluate our motives. And it should also cause those of us who share the gospel and challenge people to become followers of Christ to consider how we communicate that invitation. Later, on Jesus' journey toward the ugly end of his public life in Israel, when the crowds of the curious and the hangers-on who expected they might gain something from following him, like an office or money or power or whatever, by latching on to him. And when all of that had faded, after he had told his twelve closest disciples several times how it would all end for him, he then asked them, Are you going to desert me now as well? Peter spoke up for those few left and said, Lord, to whom would we go?

You alone have the words of eternal life. That's the right answer. Our motivation for following Christ should never be about what we might get out of it in terms of material rewards or an easier life or some other such thing, which I sometimes, unfortunately, hear people get promised, because none of that might happen. It might become costly, even dangerous, as it did for Jesus' first disciples, and as it has for some who hear this lesson in other parts of the world today. The right motive for following Jesus is because he is the Son of God, who loved us enough to come out of heaven to suffer and die to save us. To follow him because there's no one else like him, no one else worthy of following.

We should follow him because he alone one day will be crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So he alone is worthy of our absolute devotion and loyalty. I've had to give up some things to pursue Christ and his calling on my life. I honestly would tell you I haven't always made the right choices about that either. Some of you listening today may have given up much, much more. Some of those who heard Jesus on that day Luke is telling us about ended up giving their very lives.

If you've become convinced that Jesus is who he claimed to be, who those first disciples who were with him became convinced he was, the call to follow him is no light matter. It's a call to cast your lot with him, come what may. To give him your allegiance above anything and anyone else. Nothing less is worthy of calling ourselves his disciples. These challenging words from Jesus, who was in a very serious mood this day, should cause each of us to carefully consider our motivations for saying we are his followers. Are we ready to pay any price that might require?

There are benefits to following Christ, the greatest of which is the assurance of knowing we belong to him and knowing that heaven is our destiny. And there will be more beyond that for those who have served him well with sincere hearts and pure motives. But I'm honest enough to, with Jesus, tell you that following him and seeking to please him may not seem like it's paying off for you here and now. It could well produce some negative reactions and costly consequences. It may cause pain and loss for some people. But remember, keep this in mind.

Jesus promises that anything we give up or lose in this lifetime because of pursuing him and serving him, he will more than make up to us in the next, when his kingdom dawns. So if you choose to follow him and you want to join his team, do it for the right reasons, having fully counted the cost. Do it because he loved you enough to give you his life. Do it because he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the only one worthy of our absolute trust and allegiance. Do it because he alone, as Peter says, has the words of eternal life. Remember, motivations matter.

I'm glad we know for certain Jesus' true disciples understood and rose to that challenge. How do we know that? Well, because after his resurrection. When he put the Great Commission to them to share the good news of who he was and what he had done with the whole world, they dedicated their lives to doing that. They didn't do it because there was something in it for them, that's for sure. The apostles of Christ were hounded, persecuted.

Most of them actually gave up their lives. They were hated. They were threatened. So why would Peter keep following Christ and sharing the good news until one day they crucified him upside down in Rome? Why would Paul travel thousands of miles on foot sharing the good news, planting Christian communities throughout the Roman world, even though he was beaten and imprisoned time after time in place after place? They finally had to behead him to shut him up.

The early Christians didn't follow Christ because anything was in it for them. They followed and obeyed him because they knew he was the way, the truth, and the life. No self-serving motivations could explain their actions. That's one reason, by the way, I know they were certain of what they had witnessed and what they have passed on to us in the New Testament. The only motivation that explains their lives subsequently, adequately, the sacrifices they made, is a total belief in Christ and in the urgency of sharing his gospel. They understood the risks.

They counted the costs, and they still believed and obeyed Jesus and changed their world through the power of the gospel, even though at great personal cost. When the day Jesus evaluates and rewards believers comes, I want to be among them, like them, who not only helped expand his kingdom, but who followed Jesus for all the right reasons. Because motivations matter. Thanks, Paul. You know, as many times as I've listened to each episode, there are still things that I pick up every time I listen again. And by the way, check out our archive at sharetheword.org.

Share the Word podcast began in September of 2023, and our goal is to see it shared around the world. If you have friends and family outside of the U.S., please help us connect with them. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.