Unworthy Servants

A disciple serves the Lord with the humble heart of a servant doing his duty, not with an expectation of exaltation. Today, we’re going to conclude a short section of Jesus teaching, where he teaches some pretty deep lessons to his closest disciples. They’ve been challenging, but in in my opinion, this today is the most difficult yet. First he told us to rebuke each other and to endlessly forgive each other when we’ve been wronged. Paul Tripp defines forgiveness as a vertical commitment with God, followed by a horizontal transaction with the offending party. In other words, it’s because I have a commitment to God who graciously forgives me that that gracious forgiveness is the currency that I use to transact with others. Then Jesus told us that our faith is powerful, not because we have a lot of faith, but because God works powerfully through the faith that we have. So if we have Jesus, we have everything we need to see God work powerfully in us and through us. Now, just those two teachings alone, if we were to fully embrace them, fully bring them in and live them out, they would make us into very different sorts of people in this world. And that’s what discipleship with Jesus is. It’s designed to contrast us against the background of a broken world. We should not seem to fit. Okay. If you if you feel like I just don’t really feel like I fit, you’re probably doing it right. We’re not supposed to. If sin saturates everything and it does, then sin is what feels normal. Jesus makes us abnormal with his righteousness, and that’s a good thing. Now, with that in mind, let me take you to a parable that I would guess is going to sound brand new to many of you. Like Jesus just came out with another album. Okay, so is this his new stuff? No, there is no new stuff. This is just a teaching of Jesus that is very rarely shared and discussed in the church. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that even many of you who are strong Bible readers who have certainly read this parable at some point, I’m going to guess that many of you have never really wrestled with it. Jesus is going to tell us a story to explain the kind of attitude that we are to have as servants within God’s household. He’s going to particularly focus on how we see ourselves, and what should we expect from God in return for being obedient and doing what he commands. And the attitude he tells us to have is so wildly out of sync with the attitude that most of us have, and that our culture celebrates and that feels good to us. It’s no wonder that this teaching is not well remembered. We are conditioned in our minds to be praised and rewarded for accomplishments, aren’t we? We accomplish something. You think I’m going to get praised, I’m going to get rewarded for this. And there’s nothing wrong with celebrating accomplishments. But there’s a big difference between receiving praise for a job well done and doing your job well so that you will receive praise. You hear that? You hear the difference there. That’s true everywhere, by the way. That’s true at work. That’s true at home. But nowhere does this shift in attitude and motivation do more damage than in our walk with God. Jesus is going to explain that a disciple serves the Lord with a humble heart of a servant, doing his duty, not with an expectation of exaltation. We’re in Luke chapter 17, verses 7 to 10 today. What I’m going to do is I’m going to read the parable in full, because I want you to feel the full weight of Jesus whole argument, and the weight of the humility that he places on us. And then I’m going to go back and I’m going to explain the story. And then finally, I have five attitude adjustments that we should make from this passage. So here’s the parable. Will anyone 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. You can hear immediately. Why this parable isn’t very popular, can’t you? It just. You just. You could feel it. You’re like, wow, that is that is not something I like to hear. This teaching presents a direct attack on the tightly held, I would might even say, beloved popular idea that we are all autonomous captains of our lives and deserve the praise for everything that we’ve accomplished because of our personal greatness. It’s directly against that idea. Trading that out for a lifetime of being an unworthy servant for most people, no thank you, I’ll pass. This is why we need to pay such close attention to what Jesus is saying here. If you really want to follow Jesus closely, it’s in areas like ...