Nitty Gritty Discipleship
Introduction: I was thinking about preaching in blue jeans, a work shirt and my Wells-Lamont gloves this morning because our passage is one where we are going to get dirty. But I wasn’t sure how that would come across.
Let’s look together at Luke, chapter 17, beginning in verse 1. As you turn there, let’s go to the land of make-believe and imagine that I’m wearing my working clothes and that you are, too. We need to approach this text with a willingness to let Jesus speak to where we live.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
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.
“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?
“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.'”
This passage is the sequel to a number of passages in Luke’s gospel where Jesus lays out what being a disciple looks like in real life. In chapter 6, he called his disciples to a radically different value system. In Chapter 9, He said that discipleship meant carrying a cross and being willing to die for sake of the kingdom. In chapter 14, he said that discipleship involved complete self-denial.
The first call Jesus makes to his disciples here is a call to …
Careful living to keep others from stumbling
When Jesus says, “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come…,” he is not making general statements about the condition of the world. His exhortation at the beginning of verse 3 to watch yourselves shows us that he is getting personal. That he is meddling in the lives of the disciples, the church, and in our lives.
Jesus is saying watch how you live, because how you live may cause others to stumble and sin. He then warns us that there will be consequences. He doesn’t state what the consequences will be. He implies they will not be good. He does this by saying that being thrown off the Poplar Street Bridge in concrete Keds will be better than what is in store.
The focus of Jesus’ concern is people he refers to as “little ones.” Given how Jesus uses the term “little ones” in other discourses (Matt 10:42, 18:6-14), he may be referring to at least three kinds of people: children, new believers who are young in their faith, and people seeking to be believers. Each of these kinds of people are particularly susceptible to being affected by the sinful actions of other believers.
One young man once told me that the reason why he rejected Christianity was his parents. Growing up, his mom and dad always made a big deal about church, but they argued all the way to te church and again on the way home. So he came to the conclusion that this was all a scam. Children process everything we say and do, and all the Sunday School in the world cannot counter parents whose walk doesn’t live up to their talk.
New believers are a fragile lot. Paul refers to an infant stage in our faith where we can be tossed around from one doctrine to another like a ship in a storm (Ephesians 4:14). Since their knowledge of the Scriptures is so little, believers young in their faith have no grid to discern truth from error. They can stumble into the sin of legalism or follow some false teaching easily.
People who are genuine seekers after truth about God often stumble because of the inconsistent life of Christians. The inconsistency is not so much the problem, but inconsistency coupled with a judgmental attitude toward others. A lack of authenticity that tries to cover up the inconsistencies drives our seeking friends crazy.
Jesus may have more people in mind, but I believe he at least has these three. These people don’t realize that their stumbling about Jesus is because of the sins of those who are following Jesus. Given how Jesus opened up his heart about lost sheep, lost coins and lost sons, that may be the source for his strong words against those of us who would cause little ones to stumble.
One of the things that comes with spiritual maturity is the realization that sin is still a problem. It exists in the church. One brother sins against another. We like to pretend that it isn’t a problem and hope that it just goes away on its own, but Jesus isn’t as naive. He is a realist and calls his disciples to a life of …
Gracious forgiveness to repentant brothers and sisters
The closer the community, the greater likelihood that our lives will be affected adversely by the sin of brothers and sisters in Christ. My sins against Carol or my children hurt them more than they hurt you because of the closeness of our fellowship. Your roommate’s sin against you hurts you more often than those who don’t share the same apartment with you. The guy who shows up late for your small group each week doesn’t affect me, because he is in your small group, not mine.
Jesus outlines a process to follow when we experience the pain, the hurt and the frustration caused by the sinful actions or attitudes of a brother or sister in Christ. It is a difficult process, which is why we are figurately wearing working jeans this morning, but there is no other way. The first step in the process belongs to the person who has been sinned against.
Jesus says it is your responsibility to go to the other person and confront him. Rebuke him for his sin against you. Rebuking here is not vengeful prophetic-like finger pointing, but rather loving admonishment with the hope that repentance will take place so that your relationship can return to normal.
We have to be careful what we call sin. Sometimes we are hurt because people are different. Or we are hurt by others because they do not meet our expectations. Sometimes, instead of assuming sin, we may start by asking our brother or sister in Christ to help us understand why they did what they did.
Taking this step to confront and rebuke is so important to the Body. We have to learn how to do this. I had this crazy professor at Trinity that I really liked because he was passionate about truth. Every day he began class as a mild- mannered lecturer but usually by the end, he would be on a roll and be transformed into this crazed truth teller. He would be up on his toes, contorting his body in all sorts of ways to make his point with sweat and saliva going in all directions. When this happened, you really took great notes.
One day in a lecture on Genesis 3, he was discussing how God could not see Adam hiding in the garden. As I sat in the back, I could tell he was reaching a crescendo, so I took out my pen and began writing feverishly as he said:
We must stop teaching this like a children’s flannel graph lesson: “Yoo-hoo, Adam. Yoo-hoo, Eve. Come out, come out wherever you are.” The reason God cannot see Adam is because Adam has sinned. Sin wrecks everything!
Confronting our brother or sister when we have been sinned against is important because sin wrecks everything. We cannot underestimate the effects of sin in the body of Christ. Instead of agape love, brothers and sisters relate in anger and bitterness. Instead of unity and community, we have competition and isolation. Instead of spiritual power, we are impotent in our ministry to the world. Missionaries leave the field. Marriages break apart. People stop talking to each other. This is not God’s will.
We have to do it. We have to stop assuming the person understands that our verbal and non-verbal jabs are our way of telling them they have hurt us. We have to stop just talking to our friends about the other person and eventually talk to the person. We have to take the risk and tell them that we’ve been hurt by their action or attitude.
Being confronted by a brother or sister isn’t any fun either. Earlier this year, a woman called me seeking the reasons why the church handled a situation in a particular way. As I tried to explain things to her, I found myself getting so frustrated because she wasn’t understanding me. So I tried a little harder. She still didn’t understand. I tried harder still. She finally got it. But that was not all she got. A day or two later, the person called me back and told me how I had made her feel in that conversation. As she began recounting the conversation quite accurately, there was no doubt that the bloody glove was fitting.
My initial response to her recounting was not pretty. In my spirit I was instantly self-protective. My mind was racing thinking up ways to put a different spin on the conversation so that it seemed like her view of things was skewed. My ideas were qualifying me for a position as a presidential advisor. But I was also hearing the quiet tugging of the Holy Spirit as well. “McFly. McFly, is anybody in there? No matter what color the wrapping is, the package still smells like sin. Surrender, you idiot, preserve the relationship.”
Let’s become people who are open to allowing our friends, our spouses or our children to confront us when we have hurt them, knowingly or unknowingly. Let’s resist the temptation of bringing up all the other person’s sins and using our pain to protect ourselves. Let’s become people who crucify our pride for the sake of the body of Christ and the Kingdom of God.
Jesus assumes there will be repentance. He assumes tremendous maturity, because he doesn’t tell us what to do if there is no repentance. Jesus does say that when repentance happens, we are to forgive our brothers and sisters.
What does forgiveness look like in the blue jean world where we live? Our model for forgiveness is Jesus. In Colossians 3:13, Paul exhorts the church this way: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Our forgiveness of a sister will need to look a lot like Jesus’ forgiveness of us.
Jesus voluntarily paid your debt to him by suffering on a cross. Sin has an eternal price. His brokenness, his pain, his shed blood became the payment for your sins and mine. We sinners cannot begin to pay back the price of our sins. Forgiveness means we voluntarily pay out of our own pain and brokenness the debt that our brother has incurred because of his sin.
Jesus voluntarily gave up his right to get even with us. Once he paid the debt of our sin, he refused to force us to pay for the debt again. Forgiveness means we give up our right to get even. We relieve the brother from paying the debt. We refuse to use guilt or to withhold love to force someone to pay what has already been paid.
Jesus no longer holds us in condemnation. Jesus does not forget our sin, rather he chooses not to remember it or to use it against us. When we are in Christ, we are no longer condemned. Forgiveness means we no longer hold a person’s sins against them. We no longer bring up the past offense and use it against them.
Jesus adds that we do not keep a record of wrongs. Look at verse 4 again: “If he sins against you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent, forgive him.” Forgiveness means that we do not keep a record of wrongs. When the person sins against us again but in a different way, and then does it again in a different way, and again in a different way. And repents each time. Each time, we pay the debt, we relieve them of the debt, and we remove the sentence of condemnation against them. Thankfully, seven times is not a daily threshold. Otherwise, I would be in deep weeds. Just as Jesus is gracious with each new sin we bring to him, so we are to be graciously forgiving of one another.
Let me ask you something. Do you have a sentence of condemnation out on a brother or sister in Christ who has sinned against you? It could be your roommate, your husband, your mom, your accountability partner. You will know that you do if just the thought of them brings you immediately back to the moment when they said the hurtful words or acted disrespectfully toward you. Don’t leave them in their ignorance. Pray that by this time next year, God will give you the courage to reconcile with them. It is a good thing that we are wearing blue jeans. Larry Crabb calls a passage like this one, “bloody truth” because it is about real life.
In verses 5-10 the focus of Jesus’ teaching shifts from our lives with one another to our life with God. It is prompted by the apostles making an urgent, spur of the moment request. At first, I thought the apostles were being their bumbling selves and changing the subject on Jesus. But I’ve come to the conclusion that their response was wonderfully authentic. As they hear Jesus lay out the costs of discipleship, they look at themselves and just shake their heads. No way. It is impossible to live this way. I don’t have it in me. It’s impossible to live such a holy life that my life doesn’t cause someone to trip. It is too difficult to confront people who have hurt me. It is too difficult to tackle my pride and admit that I’m at fault. So in verse 5 we read, “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Their request is a pretty common one. Have you ever wished for more faith? If I only had more faith, then I could do X or Y. Jesus uses their request to call them not to greater faith but to a …
Small faith focused on a big God
Jesus completely sidesteps their request in verse 6, saying “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.” Jesus is not encouraging them to do miraculous kinds of yard work, although, it would come in handy to use faith to move a maple tree that is a little close to my deck. Jesus’ point is to teach us that the quantity of faith is not the issue. The issue is the focus of our faith. If you have even a small amount of faith in a very big God, then the impossible is doable.
Our understanding cannot begin to grow without personally reading and meditating on God’s Word. Without the Bible, our notions about God will always be just that, our notions. I always cringe when I hear someone on the radio say that the Bible has more to say about finances than any other topic. It drives me nuts because the Scriptures aren’t about holy financial planning but about God. It is revelation about him! As you read the Word in your home or office, ask this question, “What does this tell me about God?” As our notions about God are transformed by the truth about God, our puny little faith in that big God will empower us to live out our calling as disciples.
As long as the disciples changed the topic, Jesus dwells a little longer on their life with God, in particular, how they should view themselves in regard to their service for him. Serving God sounds very spiritual but serving God with the right heart may be the most difficult of spiritual disciplines. It is difficult because in most cases our service to God is done in the context of other people and the problem is the people. Gordon MacDonald once wrote, “You know you are being a servant, when people begin treating you like one.” Let me say that again. “You know you are being a servant when people begin treating you like one.” Serving God is not easy because people will treat you like a servant, their personal servant. When that starts, all kinds of things happen in our spirit.
Now I know that I am talking to a church full of servants. I know that you know that I know what goes on in your head and your heart as you serve. I know that sometimes what goes on inside that little heart of ours is not very pretty, is it?
It is a good thing we are wearing blue jeans, because Jesus gives us a corrective to those thoughts and attitudes in the last four verses. This time Jesus calls us to …
Humble service rendered to a worthy God
Jesus asks the disciples three hypothetical questions concerning the disciples’ use of servants. House servants were common in the ancient world. Though we are not accustomed to the idea, as we work through each of Jesus’ questions, it would be helpful for us to have in our minds people who serve us day to day—our employees, the trash guys, or the person who checks out our groceries at Schnucks.
To be an unworthy servant means that there is no intrinsic value we add to the work of the master through our own abilities, our own worth. There is no thought like, “Boy, God is sure lucky to have me on the team.”
In verse 7 Jesus asks his first question: “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? When the person at Schnucks finishes checking your groceries, do you invite them over to eat with you? Jesus asks the question knowing that the answer is negative. His point is that a servant is not given special treatment just because they complete their assigned task.
So it is in our service to the Lord. One of the dangers of service is getting into the mindset that since I did this for God, He ought to do something for me. Being a servant of God does not obligate God to keep us from tragedy, or give us a better house, or whatever. When we serve the Lord, we are not to do it in the expectation of receiving some divine perks or privileges. If we do, that is religion. God doesn’t work that way. God’s not into religion.
Jesus’ next question is in verse 8: “Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’?” In the disciple’s mind the obvious answer is “yes, of course. If there is still work to do, put the servant to work.” The servant is to continue working as long as there is work to be done.
Jesus’ third question is in verse 9: “Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?” How many of us gave a special Christmas gift to the guys who pick up our trash each week? Maybe a few of us, but in reality not many. Why didn’t we? Because that is their job.
So it is in our service to the Lord. God does not make a big deal about you and me serving. Someday he will, but right now he doesn’t. Using my gifts and my time in the body and reaching out to my neighbors in the hopes of sharing a verbal witness with them is exactly what we have been told to do. God doesn’t stop and say “Thank you, you are so important. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Jesus summarizes what our attitude should be in verse 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.'”
Servants in the ancient Near East were regarded as human tools. Tools are instruments that are picked up, used for a time for specific purposes and then put aside until needed again. When Paul introduced himself in the first verse of his letter to the Roman church, he began this way: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle ….” Paul identifies himself first not by title but by identity—Paul, the human tool of Jesus.
Before the World Wrestling Federation got big, we had a show on Channel 11 called Wrestling at the Chase. I watched it all the time. It’s real, you know. One wrestler who was a regular was a guy named Dick the Bruiser. The Bruiser’s main weapon was a move called the back breaker. He would lift a guy over his head and then drop him down on his knee and the guy would writhe in pain on the mat. It’s real, you know.
Jesus shares this last part because he wants to break the back of his servants. He wants to break the back of self-seeking, self-glorifying, self-sufficient, self-centered servants so that our service is humbly given to a worthy God. We are human tools in the hands of the living God serving as a teacher, a youth leader, a deacon, or an elder. He is not impressed with our titles, our degrees or our exalted sense of self.
This would have been a good blue jeans day.
Tags:
Forgiveness
Faith