Sermon for Trinity 17, 2024
Luke 14:1–11 • Rev. William Gleason
Our Collect of the Day gets at the heart of God's word to us this morning. “O Lord, we implore You, grant Your people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow You, the only God.” That's a good prayer. We may say it’s a prayer in response to Paul’s words in the epistle: “I ... urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” That manner of walking is what it means to follow the only true God with pure hearts and minds. And for that we absolutely need God's grace.
Of course, you know, as well as I, our hearts and minds are not pure. Quite the contrary, they are polluted with sin. An inbred sin that produces all manner of outward sins. And it’s all those outward sins that trip us up in our Christian walk and cause us to fall.
Chief amongst those outward sins is pride. That's pretty much the consensus of the church fathers, too. St. Augustine summed it up when he said pride was the original sin of man and led to The Fall and all its horrible consequences. Picking up from that, Martin Luther said, “Pride is the mother of all heresies; indeed, as both sacred and profane history testifies, it is the source of all sin and ruin.” The Bible is full of passages that speak of pride’s destructive nature: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace.” (Prov. 11:2) “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov. 16:18) Our Lord Jesus listed pride as one of the many evils that come from the hearts of men. And I do not think there is any irony in the fact that one of the most socially destructive perversions in our world marches under the rainbow banner of “pride.”
Now, not all pride is sinful. It may carry a positive sense of respect and confidence in someone, such as a child or another loved one. St. Paul spoke proudly of the Christians in Corinth. In 2 Cor. he wrote, “I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together … I have great pride in you…I am overflowing with joy.” (7:3-4) And I confess, I have a great deal of pride in a wonderful church and school in Hamel, Illinois.
Pride becomes sinful when it is self-focused and self-elevating to the point of excluding God and his word from your daily walk. If God and his word is not a part of your daily routine, check yourself. It may be due to an overinflated sense of self-importance. In Psalm 10:4, King David nailed it when he wrote, “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek [the Lord]; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’” That was the original Sin, of Satan and of Adam and Eve. And if you ever listen to an atheist trying to defend his unbelief, especially in the face of the overwhelming evidence of a good and gracious Creator, it always boils down to a question of his pride. In the end, he just arrogantly and defiantly refuses to bend his knee before almighty God.
Christians are not immune from the sin of pride, either. Whereas the atheist denies God’s existence, the Christian acknowledges his Creator. It's God's word that is his problem. Whenever you see a Christian, layman or clergyman, who is not “walking in a manner worthy of the gospel,” his unchristian behavior almost always hinges on the Scriptures, on the Word of God. He's either misinterpreting it to justify himself or, more likely, he's ignoring it. The atheist may think, “There is no God;” but the haughty Christian thinks, “Did God really say that?”
Satan’s temptations always appeal to your pride to entice your flesh and to subvert God's word. If you, dear Christian, ever find yourself dismissing God's word as unimportant, carelessly living in some sin, and then think “Oh, I'm good; it doesn't matter;” then repent! For it does matter! The salvation of your soul is at risk.
That kind of pride was on display in the gospel. The Pharisees were being hypocritical when they justified work on the Sabbath that helped them but condemned the deeds of others. But it was their puffed-up pride that kept them from simply asking, “What does God say? What is His intent with the Commandment?” In a similar setting in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus asked them plainly, “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath?” But there, as here, the Pharisees were silent, too proud to admit what they knew to be true. To every proud spirit Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
When He says, “Whoever exalts himself,” he's means those who think too highly of themselves and too little of God. Such people are called sinners. And pride, just like every other sin, condemns us to God's wrath.
And yet, out of His patience and love He does not condemn us. But he does humble us. God pulls us off the proud seats of honor we choose for ourselves, calling us to a penitent life before Him. He holds up His Holy Law before our hearts and minds that justly condemns our self-righteousness and against which we cannot stand before Him. But with that, He also makes us walk down paths of painful trials and humbling tests to kill our prideful flesh; to kill the old man in us that fights tooth and nail to stay alive.
If you are going through a time of trial right now, or anytime, and you're wondering what’s happening, almost assuredly it is your heavenly Father disciplining you and calling you to repentance, to love you and to draw you closer to Him. Hebrews 12:5-6 apply here, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.” In other words, He’s putting a cross on you for good reason: to crucify the proud Pharisee in you that exalts himself above Christ. Let us not complain about the burdens God places upon us; they are a part of the humble walk to which we are called as Christians. Rather, let us say, “God have mercy on me the sinner.”
In fact, when God crushes your arrogance with the cross, rejoice! For He’s reminding you of two crucial things: first, the wages of our sin, which is death; and we must always be reminded of that because we don’t want to hear it. But more importantly, he's pointing you to the cost of your redemption. The cross of Christ is the ultimate sign of God’s humbling of humanity. On the cross, He crucified the pride of all people when He sent His Son to bear our sins in His body. The meaning of the parable in our Gospel is found in Jesus, who humbled Himself before God for you. Christ Jesus, the holy and righteous King of heaven and earth, was humbly born, lived a humble, obedient life under His Father, and went most humbly to the cross. All this to suffer the punishment for our sins of self-righteousness, carnal pride, and stubborn unbelief.
When you begin your Christian walk from the foot of the cross, kneeling before the crucified Savior, pleading for mercy and forgiveness in the agony of Calvary’s tree, then you are making a most humble confession; one truly worthy of your calling in Christ. And those whom God humbles by the cross, He exalts with the only declaration that can purify your heart and your mind: Rise up, your sins are forgiven you. Go in peace.
And so forgiven we go, walking in a “manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” May God give to each of us His grace and Spirit so that we may walk in such a manner; to withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow Him…the only God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
