Servants of God: Luke 17:1-10

As we continue moving through Luke’s gospel, we come to even more challenging teaching that Jesus shares. While the topics of our last few episodes have been challenging, Jesus shifts His focus in this passage and turns His attention onto warning His disciples about things they should be aware of.

This means that as followers and disciples of Jesus living today, we should intuitively pay attention to what Jesus wants His people to know.

Our passage for this episode is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 17, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1:

¹ Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. ² It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. ³ So watch yourselves.

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. ⁴ Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

Let’s pause reading here briefly, because Jesus has just shared some powerful ideas. So far in our passage, Jesus has warned the disciples about things coming that will cause people to stumble, and Jesus specifically warns that those people who bring stumbling blocks into our paths would be better off having never been born.

Jesus is not advocating the death penalty for anyone who disagrees with Him. Instead, Jesus is emphasizing how God values and desires for His people to protect those who are new to the faith. Just like it is child abuse if a parent were to throw their toddler into the deep end of a pool to teach them how to swim, it is spiritual abuse to take a new believer and toss them into the deep end of spiritual debates and issues.

However, forgiveness should be one of the key identifying attributes of God’s people. If other people sin against us, we are allowed to rebuke them, which basically means to tell them that what they did was wrong. If they accept our rebuke and apologize, we are told to forgive them. We are told to forgive others even if they repeatedly sin against us and continue coming back.

This is a huge challenge for us. What Jesus describes sounds impossible. However, what Jesus describes is exactly what God is like – and Jesus is describing exactly what we would want God to be like as well. When we sin against God and then turn away from our sin, we would want God to be ready and willing to forgive us. Even if we are horrible at obeying God and staying out of trouble, we would want God to always be willing to accept us back when we earnestly come back to Him.

God desires for His people to reflect His character, and in verse 5, sensing how big of a challenge this is, we read that:

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

⁶ He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

⁷ “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? ⁸ Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? ⁹ Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? ¹⁰ So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

In this passage, and specifically in Jesus’ reply to the disciples asking Jesus to increase their faith, Jesus shares the powerful idea that faith isn’t as big of a deal as we might think it is. The disciples want Jesus to increase their faith, and Jesus replies that the tiniest amount of faith is needed for extraordinary miracles.

Instead of faith being the big piece of His response, Jesus instead emphasizes a different character attribute, which is obedience. Jesus illustrates the attitude that disciples and followers of Jesus should have. We should model the attitude of mature servants.

The attitude we have towards God says a lot about our character. If our attitude towards God says that God owes us something, or that we deserve to get repaid for what we have done for Him, then we are acting immature.

There are people outside of the church who think that the only reason people choose to follow Jesus is because of the rewards God offers. There are those who think that Christianity is a scam where the rewards we are promised are only given after our lives end, specifically after there is no turning back.

However, this is an immature way of viewing life – especially our spiritual life.

The first realization we all must have on the path from immaturity to maturity is that the world does not revolve around us. An immature person acts as though everything in life centers around them, while a mature person understands that life is a bigger picture and that the world revolves around things much bigger than a single person.

With this in mind, we see Jesus’ challenge for His followers. While an immature disciple might demand or expect a reward for every little thing they do for God, a mature disciple understands that a life of service in all that is asked of us leads to its own reward.

In the big picture of a spiritually mature mind, we have already been given way more than we could ever repay, and because of this, our response to God should always be one of humble gratitude. Verse 10 summarizes this by saying, “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

At the very least, God has given us breath and we cannot repay this gift. At the very greatest, God gave us Jesus who in turn offers us His life in exchange for ours. Jesus’ life is eternal life, and Jesus offers His life to us in exchange for our sinful lives that deserve death. Jesus takes our sin-filled lives and He nails them to the cross, while we get to experience the life Jesus deserved.

Nothing we can ever do, say, or give can repay God for everything He has already blessed us with. Instead of living an immature spiritual life looking for immediate blessings and rewards for every act of obedience, determine today to live a spiritually mature life that sees our lives of service as the best way to show gratitude and thanks to a God who has already given us everything!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to live a life of obedience as your way of saying thank you to God for everything He has already blessed you with. If you have been living a spiritually immature life, determine today to change your focus and to understand that life is bigger than our perspective at any given moment. Choose to see yourself in the huge picture of eternity and as a tiny person in the grand story of Jesus called “HisStory”.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and study, discover who God is and what He is like. Discover how our relationship with God today can extend into eternity when we place our hope, faith, trust, and belief in Jesus and what He did for us on the cross!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!