The Gospel Changes Our Relationships
Luke 17:1-10 ·April 14, 2024· Joel Passmore
Part of: Luke
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So we're in a section of Luke where Jesus is teaching on discipleship. He's teaching his people, this is what it looks like to follow me. These are the things that you need to know. These are some areas of life that you need to recenter on me. It continues today, but it shifts. Because today, he's going to describe how we relate to each other. A lot of other things have been more individual focused, and this one is more about each other. Now, something about Christianity that does not take you long to recognize if you're paying attention is that this is a together thing.
Okay? Oh, how good to be together. Even those who are fairly new to following Jesus see, I don't do this alone. Not only that, I can't do this alone. God saved me personally and individually. I hope he's done the same thing for you, but he didn't leave me there. He brought me into a community, into his body. The redeeming work of God, I'd like to say, it creates a new me and a new we. Both things are new. And those two are connected to each other.
They mutually reinforce each other, build up each other. I gave it some thought this week. I came to the conclusion about my own life. Every pattern of newness in me has come at least in part through Christian community. I couldn't think of a single thing about me being new in Christ that was completely and independently done by myself. Either someone explained something to me from the scriptures, or I watched them do it in their lives, and I learned from it.
Or someone personally challenged me to do it, or I put it into practice in my life alongside them, and we talked about it together. I couldn't think of a single thing about my newness in Christ that has happened completely in a silo. Everything at some point connects with some other Christians. My sanctification is inextricably tied to the body of Christ, to the church. And I bet the same thing can be said of yours.
To enjoy this beautiful work that God does among us and between us, we need to follow the Spirit into the different ways of living, different ways of relating to each other that he calls us to. And that's really what this whole passage is about. It's about relating to one another in a completely new way. A bold way, a challenging way. But if we follow, if we're bold enough and courageous enough in the Lord to follow the Spirit, we see how he bears fruit in us and in our relationships with each other by doing what he tells us to do.
So turn with me to Luke 16. Again, we're talking about discipleship, but not individual discipleship, mutual discipleship, following Jesus together. Luke 17, this is verses 1-10. This is God's word for us today. Let's hear it and respond to it as such. It's up on the screen behind me. It's in your bulletin. And Jesus said to his disciples, 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.
Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him. The apostle said to the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If you had faith like a grain of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. Will any 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?
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? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 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. Let's pray.
God, help us to be humble before your word. To come under the influence, to submit ourselves under the influence of the Spirit, to be changed. And, Lord, give us the courage to not just be hearers of the word, but doers. And then we will see, Lord, I know it, we will see magnificence of the life that you have called us in. We will see fruit beyond our imagination, in us and around us, as we relate to one another in this way. Give us courage, Lord.
Give us faith. Help us rest in you as we listen and seek to obey. And we pray this, Jesus, in your name. The gospel changes our relationships. That's what this passage is about. Those who have received grace from God will give it to others. It's simple, really, except it's not. Simple to understand, but hard to follow through on. Now, Jesus gets straight to the point in this passage. And I know we have explorers in the room, young people, third through fifth graders, middle schoolers, high schoolers.
Think about this, too. Growing up in this kind of living is going to be way different than the people that are around you who don't follow Jesus. It's going to take a lot of courage and relying on Jesus to do these things, but there is a blessing that comes when we live this way. So he starts with the instructions. He gets right to the point. That's what verses one through four are all about. Help others pursue righteousness. There are many, many things in this world, the list is long, of the things that you can't control, no matter how much you want.
You can't change the weather. You can't stop the pollen from falling. You can't eliminate traffic. You can't stop the aging process. And you can't completely avoid temptation. It is all around us. Temptations are sure to come, Jesus says. But there is something that you do have control over, being a source of temptation.
Woe to the one through whom they come. Now that you can control. You can't stop rocks from getting kicked up from cars when you're driving down the interstate and dinging your windshield. But you can stop from throwing rocks.
We all have an influence on each other. All the time. I look back on my life and I know that I have had a bad influence on people at times. I've been told this.
I remember getting my friends in trouble. Yeah, because they listened to me when they shouldn't have. Anyone can tempt anyone else to sin. It can happen between friends, between spouses, between siblings, neighbors, church members. And Jesus is not talking about just the really bold and outrageous sins. This is not just, hey, let's go steal that car. Or let's shoplift together. It's also when we get someone to join us in complaining. Or when we entice them to gossip about someone else.
Or when we covet together. Woe to the one through whom temptation comes. Jesus gives a strong warning in verse 2. It's better to be cast into the sea with a weight around our neck than to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Think about how our society responds when someone is accused and found guilty of corrupting a minor in some way. Right? There is an outrage that rises up in us. And rightly so. Rightly so. The little ones that Jesus is referring to are not just the young in age, but the spiritually young.
You have an influence. Pay attention to yourselves, he says in verse 3. And that's where he makes a turn. Right where he says pay attention to yourselves. He's told us what not to do, and now he tells us what we should do. Okay? So verses 3 and 4, he makes a pivot. Don't lead others into sin. Help them get out of it. That's how verses 3 and 4 are connected to 1 and 2. Don't lead someone into sin. Be a rescuer. Help them get out of the problem that they're in.
Help others pursue righteousness. Now, this is where it starts to get hard. First, if your brother sins, rebuke him. Christ has called his people together, but Christian community is not smooth sailing. Friction and conflict is inevitable. It's going to happen. Sometimes this is just because of different preferences, perspectives, and personalities that are just among us. Sometimes we're different people. Sometimes we don't understand each other.
Sometimes something someone does gets on our nerves. We don't understand it. Many times we just need to practice forbearance with each other. Forbearance just means being gracious in our minds towards them, right? We don't assume bad intentions. When we hear bad intentions coming in our minds, we, you know, we say, no, you know what? No. I don't know what's in their heart. We reject that. We just let things go. Knowing that the other person is probably doing the same thing for me.
Probably happening a lot. People are forbearing with me. So I, too, should forbear with others. So that happens a lot. Jesus is not saying every single thing that comes up you should rebuke. There should be forbearance. But there are times, and you know what I'm talking about, when someone has said or done something that is clearly wrong, and Jesus says that's when we should rebuke them.
Confrontation is something that we avoid at all costs. We don't like getting in people's business, even when we know they've done something wrong. We especially don't like it when they get in our business, even when we've done something wrong. We live with this mutual unspoken agreement among each other. You stay out of my business, and I'll stay out of yours. Y'all know what I'm talking about, right? Let's be honest here. This is how we live. This is how society has trained us to live.
This is how our flesh wants us to live. But what if we took God at his word for a second? What if we believed him that sin is harmful for us and that when it's left unchecked, it can be deadly? What if we believed him? Then how should we act? Last year, a man was driving on I-95 in Florida when he noticed the car in front of him swerving erratically and hitting the center divider. I've got a picture up here. You can barely make it out. You see how he's hugging that center divider?
He was like bumping it, rubbing up against it, driving crazy. The driver right behind him had a choice. He could have tapped the brakes, slowed down, got off the interstate, just kind of watched to see what happened. But he didn't. He sped up. He got even with the car. And he used his car to force this one to stop.
The car was driving erratically, that white car, because the driver was having a stroke. And thanks to that man's intervention, the driver of the white car was saved from crashing his car or from dying of that stroke. Those two men are friends today. Because he didn't pull away. Let me just watch how this unfolds. He stepped in.
Rebuking is a difficult act of love. It is honesty for someone's good. There's a 20th century German pastor and theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote a book called Life Together. It's very good. I'd encourage you to read it. It's not very long. He said this, Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin.
Many years ago, a couple different churches ago, this happened to me. I was on the rotation for the nursery to work in the nursery and I don't remember the details but I just know this. I was going to be out of town or something or I was not going to be at church and I skipped out of the service. I did not let anyone know. I just kind of didn't do it, right? I'm pretty sure I had just become an elder of that church at the time. Well, a couple days later, I got an email from the woman who was overseeing the nursery and it was a rebuke.
It was very clear. It was, Hey, you left us high and dry. We were short-staffed. The woman who was overseeing the nursery that day was really stressed out. She was in tears about this. Like, you're an elder of this church. Why did you do that? That was really unloving and unkind. She called me out. And boy, I tell you what, it got my attention. I heard that rebuke. I called her. I called the woman that she was referring to. I repented and apologized because she was absolutely right.
I just, I blew it off and thought they'll be fine. She could have just, you know what, let that go. But she did me the act of love in telling me, Hey, you let people down. You were a bad example to people. And people's, that the morning in the nursery, it went haywire because of your choice to just be selfish.
I'm really grateful that she did that. Now, the next thing Jesus says is, if he repents. Now, he's speaking to the disciples here as if they are the people that have been sinned against. But we can learn from this as well. We can't miss that there's also a call to repentance here. Repentance is also honesty to acknowledge our wrong and the impact that it had on others. Just like I had to swallow hard and pick up the phone and call those people and say, I'm so sorry that I did that.
That was wrong with me. It's a difficult act of love to repent. But then there's one last step. If he repents, forgive him. Now, Jesus is crystal clear here. If there is repentance, we must forgive.
If you weren't feeling the weight of this yet, you're probably feeling it now. If you're not starting to squirm yet, you probably are now. If you've ever been forgiven, you know how wonderful that feeling is, right? Isn't that right? When you've been forgiven, it's like a weight that is off your shoulders. It's like you can breathe easier. You feel lighter. You feel more joyous. It's liberating to be forgiven. Why? You would think that would be the easiest step for us.
If we know the feeling, why wouldn't we want to give that feeling to someone else? To forgive them. Why is this oftentimes the hardest thing for us to do? I think it's because it feels so good to be right. It feels powerful to be right. And we don't want to give that up. In our current cultural moment, victimhood has social capital.
Right now, if someone is a victim of some wrongdoing, society will listen to them and give them a platform. That's how it works right now. We don't want to give that up. Real forgiveness means not holding the wrong against the person any longer. Whatever power that we think we have, whatever superiority that we are feeling, we let it go. We release it for the good of the other person. To lift them up, to restore them, to give them that feeling of freedom and release from what they've done wrong.
Forgiveness is a sacrificial act of selflessness and that's exactly why it's so hard for us because we don't, selflessness is not hard, hardwired into us. Our flesh resists selflessness at every turn. It takes the Spirit of God working on us for us to do something selfless.
Even if He sins against you seven times in the day. Now that kind of situation makes you wonder, is that repentance even sincere? What is up with you? It's been seven times. You know what? Forget it. I'm not giving you any more.
Now of course we can challenge someone about the sincerity of their repentance if it's going on and on. We can talk about that but ultimately it is God's role to convict them of their sincerity. It's our role to forgive.
Now I think you'll agree with me these are bold instructions for the community of God. They're centered around honesty and graciousness. In my experience God's people are not rebuking, repenting, and forgiving as much as you would expect them to. And I'm including myself there as well. And it's not because we're not sinning against each other very much.
It's because each one of these steps is risky. To rebuke is to risk a relationship. To repent is to risk reputation. To forgive is to risk getting hurt again. But each one is done for the sake of the other person in that relationship. It's risk as service to the other person. Looking at them and saying I'm going to consider you greater than myself. I'm going to take a risk. So much spiritual life happens when we take risks for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of other people.
Now here is the good news. If you have faith in Jesus you already have what you need to do this. And that's what Jesus talks about in the second half of this passage. Here's his main message here in the second half. Remember who you are. Remember who you are. Child of God. The disciples hear all this and they're probably feeling like you are. And like I am. Inadequate. Overwhelmed. Ready to kind of slink back and find an exit. They cry out to Jesus increase our faith.
They think he's asking too much, right? Maybe that's how you're feeling right now. Pastor, this is just too much. I can't possibly do that. If we're going to live like that we've got to have way more faith than we do now. Now Jesus sees a problem with their mindset because they've forgotten who they really are. He says even with a small amount of faith a mustard seed was the tiniest seed in the garden. Even with a tiny amount of, I mean you put it's like a grain of sand if you put it on your fingertip.
Even with a tiny amount of faith you can do amazing things. Verse 6 you can do something crazy huge like tell a mulberry tree to jump into the sea. He's being ridiculous because he's saying look if a small faith can allow us to do that it can certainly enable you to forgive your brother or your sister in Christ.
Why is that? Because what matters more than the size of your faith is who it is attached to. That's the truth. The size of your faith is ultimately irrelevant. It's who it is attached to. Who is your faith in? It's the object of our faith that makes the difference. The object of our faith is not us. Young people I hope the object of your faith is not you and your own ability. The object of your faith is Jesus the perfect one the savior the redeemer the one who came down and did the work for us in our place.
It's not in your work it's in his work. And the work of Jesus is a work of grace. He has brought us into his household and made us his servants. That's why Jesus makes this analogy in verses 7-10. His point there is that servants have an obligation to obey. Their job is to serve their master. Going out to plow doesn't mean they can come down and sit right next to the master immediately and start eating. There's still more work to do. Even if they did everything the master said even if they could possibly do that it doesn't earn them anything.
In verse 10 Jesus says you also when you have done all that you were commanded say we are unworthy servants we have only done what was our duty. Now this is refreshing honesty from Jesus he's keeping it real for us. If you belong to him by repentance and faith you are his servant. Now this might sound demeaning there's a part of you that rises up when you hear that word servant and you're like I'm not a servant but let me tell you that it's good news.
It's good news it's a good thing to be God's servant in fact it is the best thing to be God's servant because on our own we were slaves to sin we were in darkness by ourselves. Think about this if there was a power outage in the entire country the whole US of A was a power outage everyone is in the dark their food is spoiling they haven't taken a hot shower in days they're smelly they're hungry they can't see anything when the sun goes down but there's one house that has power one house in the whole country and therefore that house has light and food and hot water if you knocked on that door and you said I want to come in I need help and the owner said yes come in come in I do have some things for you to do I need you to clean over here I need you to wash the door I need you to clean the bathroom no one in their right mind would say oh you know what never mind I'll go back to my dark house with the rotten food and the cold showers no one would say that right you wouldn't say that you would say okay no problem I'll come in what do you want me to do I'll do it thank you for having me in the house that's why Psalm 84 10 says I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness it's better it's better it's better to be in the house of God as his servant than to be anywhere else and my friends this is something that you and I didn't earn at all we didn't earn our way in the door all that you have from the Lord is given to you as a gift everything
nothing is earned we were brought in by his gracious love and that's what we need to remember in order to extend grace to other people to help them pursue righteousness to follow these bold instructions because we remember the forgiveness that was given to us in Christ by his grace our faith is not in the one who has given us that little boost that we needed we were almost there we just needed a little bit of help to get to God no no our faith is in the one who went down to the depths resuscitated us and brought us up to him our sins were high and they were wide but through faith in Christ we are generously forgiven so why why don't we follow him and generously forgive other people we are servants who found a place in the king's house who are we to hold a sin against someone else when God has held nothing against us anymore friends it comes down to two questions first what do I deserve from God now be careful when you ask yourself that question the word of God says sinners like us deserve no blessing no gift no mercy what we deserve is judgment but then comes the second question what do I get from God through Jesus my Savior you get an identity you get covering over your sin you get righteousness put on you you have been cleansed you've been delivered from sin in our house part of the process of reconciling when there has been wrong with one another as we say Psalm 103 12 to each other as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us that's what
you have been given through Christ you didn't deserve it but you got it through faith in him who did the work he will never bring charges against you again there's no double jeopardy in the kingdom of God he will never bring charges against you again your sins have been dealt with you have a hope and you have a future and all this comes through the object of our faith Jesus that's why a small faith is all it takes I don't know where you are today maybe you feel like all I've got is a mustard seed Lord and that is all it takes if that mustard seed is a mustard seed of faith in the Lord Jesus and not in yourself that's all it takes to do something miraculous and I'm not talking about casting a tree into the sea I'm talking about casting your fear into the sea casting your bitterness into the sea casting your grudges into the sea your resentment into the sea those are the miracles that I'm talking about you can take risks to love and serve others because you have been brought in and praise you because when we knocked on that door and we asked with humble faith if we could come in you said come in come in receive living water receive the bread of life Lord you have given us things to do we are humble unworthy servants Lord all we have is by grace and so Lord as we dwell on these truths these realities that define us would you help us look at other people differently help us Lord to love them in risky ways help us rebuke and repent and forgive whenever you are calling us to that whenever
it's needed Lord for the good of the other person for the good of the community that we're in lead us in these patterns of living Lord we want the gospel to affect not just our own hearts but our relationships and we want to live like this because this is how you create a different kind of community thank you that that's the work that you are about right now in us and among us by the power of the spirit through the risen savior it's in his name we