Unworthy

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

Last week’s sermon was one of the most difficult I’ve ever had to write. But the Lord was merciful on me this week. Much easier sermon to write. Easy to write… still very convicting. This is a brief series of teachings that Luke combined on the topics of servant leadership and humility. Chapter 17, verse 1:

1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!

As Christians, we should be helping each other overcome temptation. But we are often guilty of tripping each other up.

The religious leaders at that time were especially guilty of this as we have talked about over the past few weeks. But there is a more general warning here to all Christians and especially church leaders who might be guilty of causing spiritual problems for others. And it is a stern warning! Look at verse 2:

2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

That’s a really graphic and absolute form of death! Jesus obviously thinks it is a very serious thing to lead people into temptation.

But sin loves company, doesn’t it. If we can drag other people down with us, it makes us feel less evil somehow. Because we aren’t the only ones doing it. And that’s how you eventually get an entire culture to be OK with sin. Everyone is now doing it! But it started somewhere…

And so, Jesus says in verse 3:

3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,

Notice the repeated emphasis on the danger and seriousness of sin. Jesus commands us to fight! We’ve been talking about this in our men’s study on Wednesdays.

There’s an enemy inside us that hates God and His Word. It never rests and it will destroy us if given the chance.

Notice also that Jesus extends my responsibility beyond myself. I’m responsible for my brothers and sisters as well. He wants me to pay attention to myself, but also to the sins of others in the church.

I feel like I need to provide a clarification here. If this is done from a spirit of self-righteousness, it can hurt people and divide the church. Notice that the command to rebuke my brother’s sin comes AFTER the emphatic command to pay attention to myself!

This is not reckless judgment to make people feel like outcasts. Instead, it is the truth spoken in love to restore the relationship. Jesus commands us to speak up because we need it too. Accountability is a two-way street.

This accountability is also tempered with a second command – to forgive, with this added instruction.

4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Jesus commands forgiveness as many times as it is required. And truth be told, we find this difficult. The more times a person sins against us, the harder it will be to offer forgiveness. It feels a bit like holding your breath under water – longer and longer and longer until you can’t take it anymore.

But if you read these four verses together, the point is that we ought not to think only of ourselves. I am a servant of Jesus and He wants me to serve my fellow believers in humility. With that perspective, forgiveness isn’t about me at all! It’s a gift I am commanded to give people for the kingdom. It’s not about us.

I love the way Ralph Davis summarizes these verses. He says:

“We are often too spineless to rebuke and too resentful to forgive. Jesus requires of us both courage to rebuke and compassion to forgive. He demands both guts and goodness.”

And the disciples were just like us. They knew this was a difficult command. Look how they responded.

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

In other words, we are going to need some supernatural assistance if you want us to do that! I’m not sure we can do this! But Jesus is quick to respond.

6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. He’s teaching something about the nature of faith, but it is not what many Christians assume.

If you read this verse out of context, it sounds like faith is a power-up. Faith is a like a Mario Brothers mushroom we need to find to do great things for God. But that’s the opposite of what Jesus is saying. That’s exactly the kind of misunderstanding he is trying to correct!

The disciples assume they need MORE faith. But faith is not an issue of quantity at all. It is not a great faith that we need. We only need a little faith in a great God. And that’s good news, because we are not people of great faith.

Tom Wright describes faith as a window. If I’m looking through a window at something outside, it doesn’t matter how big the window is. A tree in my front yard would look the same whether I’m looking at it through a six-inch window or a six-foot window.

The power isn’t in my faith, but in the object of my faith.

How does this apply to rebuke and forgiveness? Jesus is teaching us that the power to do what He commanded does not come from me trying harder to do it on my own. Instead, it is a byproduct of the work of God’s Spirit within me and my union with Christ.

This is actually another lesson in humility. Stop thinking about your own ability to keep my commands and instead consider how God has dealt with your sin. He rebuked it, called you to repentance, and offered perfect forgiveness.

And that keeps us from taking the credit when we get it right, which is the point of this final parable.

7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?

8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?

9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

I’m convinced this parable was intended to be funny. We’re supposed to imagine a servant being treated like a king for doing the normal, everyday work he was supposed to do.

Jesus is basically saying, and pardon the reference, “What do you want, a cookie?” You did what you were supposed to do. And this would have produced some uncomfortable laughter among the disciples as they considered his point.

And this is one of the easier parables to explain. Nothing we do for God ever puts Him in our debt. Nothing. That’s not why Christians obey God.

We don’t seek to obey God because we have to, but because we get to.

And Jesus thinks this is something about the hearts of his disciples that he needs to correct. Very often, they demonstrated a concern for their own future. They felt entitled to great things because they were following Jesus.

But Jesus wants them to be humble. He owes them nothing. He owes us nothing.

God’s grace is like sitting in the bleachers watching a baseball game and having a million-dollar ball land in your lap. You did nothing and now you’re rich.

A few weeks ago, Shohei Ohtani became the only baseball player in history to steal 50 bases and hit 50 home runs in a single season. That 50th home run ball was picked up by a man who will get around $2 million dollars at auction. And he did nothing except pick it up. Ohtani did all the work to make it valuable.

This parable is meant to reveal our pride and our own sense of entitlement – the feeling that God owes us something when we “perform well”. He did all the necessary work! I’m a recipient of His grace.

But this parable does something else. The servant does not deserve to be treated like the master. But what if the master chooses to become a servant? What if the master chooses to reward the servant far beyond what he could ever have asked or even imagined? What if the servant contributed almost nothing to the work and still received the reward of a king?

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

There is nothing more humbling for the Christian than the reality of the cross. It is a constant refrain in our lives… I deserve far less than I think I do. But God has given me far more than I could imagine.

And Paul says this MIND is ours in Christ Jesus. What mind? The mindset of a servant. In my struggle against sin, I am a servant of the Lord. In your struggle against sin, I am with you as a servant of the Lord. I’m learning to forgive, because I’m a servant of the Lord.

I already have everything I need to do what Jesus is asking me to do, because He’s a good master and He’s already done everything that was necessary for me. The most deserving gave His life for the least deserving.

My job is to daily pick up the baseball. Pick up His means of grace, earned through Jesus not me, and fight the sin which so easily drags me down. And one day, the temptation will end, and the trumpet will sound. No more tears. No more pain. No more death.