you would turn with me and your Bibles to Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17 and this morning we'll take as our text verses 7 through 10. Luke 17, starting in verse 7. Hear the word of the Lord. 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? Will he not rather say to him, prepare a 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 go to the Lord in prayer. Almighty God, we are blessed to be called your servants. God, if we would be counted among the least member of your household, among the least of your servants, we would be highly favored, consider ourselves to be greatly blessed. And we thank you that in saving us from our sin, you freed us from our service to sin, that we might be servants of Christ and have blessed us indeed. We pray God that this morning you'd help us to understand this truth that you've revealed to us here in Luke 17. Give us clarity and understanding. Give us hearts that are obedient to the truth that we find here. That we might not allow ourselves to become haughty or proud, lifted up above our brothers for anything that we do for you. or to see ourselves or understand the things that we've done as deserving anything from you, putting you in our debt or, God, meriting favor, earning our place among your people or in your kingdom. Keep us humble, we pray, by reminding ourselves that we are unworthy servants at best. And we pray all of this in Christ's name, amen. Well, in the context of our verses, we see that Jesus has just taught his disciples who asked him to increase their faith. He just taught them something about the sufficiency of the faith they have. They want more faith, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's good to seek faith's increase. When we are first saved, many of us Perhaps most of us have just the seed of Christian faith, a weak faith, and we want our faith to grow. We trust in Christ alone, but our trust is just so very weak. It is a small confidence that we have and we want to be full of confidence. We want that trust to be strong and to be beyond all doubt so that we can go through whatever life, whatever ups and downs, all of the ins and outs and ups and downs of life, the difficulties that we face with this confidence in our Lord that we see in some Christians that just seem implacable. They're just just still waters. Life can be, you know, a complete mess, total chaos. And yet there are some Christians who just seem to have such an inner peace and tranquility. And we think, I want that faith. I want that strength of faith, that confidence in the Lord. But what Jesus reminds his disciples of as he responds to their request for for more faith, for a stronger faith, is that the faith you have is enough. If you have faith, it is enough. Because when our faith is genuine, and remember that true faith isn't just about understanding the teaching about Jesus, nor can it be reduced to believing the teaching of Jesus as truth, believing that it is true. It must go beyond both understanding and belief understanding with the mind and believing with the heart to include the act of the will whereby we entrust ourselves into the hands of the Savior. The faith is all of these things, and I won't rehash that, but that's so important to remember. It's not just knowing what the Bible teaches or believing that that's true, but being able to, with your heart and with your will, commit yourself and trust yourself fully into the hands of the Savior. This trust, this confidence in Him and in Him alone, this is genuine faith. And so when our faith is genuine, meaning that we have renounced confidence in our and we've renounced confidence in everything else, and our confidence is only in Christ. When we have this sort of genuine faith in Christ, it doesn't matter whether that faith is strong or whether that faith is weak. It is enough. We're saved. Strong faith, weak faith may play into our experience of the Christian life, but it doesn't play in not one iota to whether we are saved or not. Because that's not dependent upon anything that we do, least of all the strength of our faith, but only in the Christ in whom is our faith. And so if your faith is in Christ, in this sense, then you are saved full stop. It's enough, Jesus says. And Jesus tells them, he tells us that even if we have the smallest conceivable faith, so long as it is genuine faith, then we'll be empowered to do great things for God. You see that in Luke 17, and in verses 5 and 6, especially in verse 6, he says that if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, just the smallest of seeds that you might plant, you know, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. And the mulberry tree, by the way, I didn't bring this out last week, it's not totally relevant, these kinds of facts don't really help our understanding significantly, but this was a tree that had a root system that you could not uproot this thing. It was a real booger to try to uproot a mulberry tree. And so this was considered to be the thing, if it was in the ground, it was gonna be in the ground. And yet, he's saying, even with the smallest degree of faith, you could just say to that tree, be uprooted. And so, you know, this is, of course, an illustration. It is almost comical, but it's powerful of the strength of genuine faith to do good things, to do great things for the Lord. The apostles who first heard these words did not always have strong faith. Jesus once referred to them as you of little faith. But these same men in the book of Acts were said to have turned the world upside down. And we see how they were able to, in the power of the Spirit, boldly, without a care for their own physical well-being or their own lives, preach the gospel and establish the church throughout the world. And so they were said to have turned the world upside down. Genuine faith produces great works. William Carey said, expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. And so you see the connection there between our expectations, our faith in God, how we view Him and what we expect from Him, and then our efforts in obedience. and the things we do in service to his kingdom. And so I take the, I take Jesus' words in verses seven through 10 then as having to do with the outworking of our faith. It's just talked about faith. Now even a little bit can, it makes possible great things in God's kingdom. This has to do with the outworking of our faith and as following up on that idea of doing things for God, When we do things for God, even great things for Him, we need to recall certain important truths. So I hope that your faith, Lord willing you have faith, I pray that you have this genuine faith in God, then what will happen inevitably as you follow Him, as you grow in grace, you will do things for God. They may not seem like big things to you. We shouldn't be the ones to judge the significance, the importance, the eternal consequence of our actions. We just do the things, we take the opportunities that God's put in His providence that He has laid out for us to do, whether it's raising children, whether it's leading a institution. It can be something that may seemingly in the eyes of this world be small and insignificant, or it can be something that gains for us, you know, renown. But we don't judge which of these things is going to be, you know, there are things in the Bible even, I mean, that are recorded for us that seem to be, and throughout history we know that some of the smallest actions have the biggest consequences in history. And we just don't know. We have no way of knowing what God will do with our little efforts. But as we seek to be obedient, we're going to do things for God. And sometimes great things. And we need to be mindful of certain important truths as we do this. We need to recall that it is his power that enables our service, first of all. I'm not a sort of third-party contractor for God. He had to call on the big guns, you know. He had to buzz me up because he knew that I'd be able to do great things for him. I've got this, God. You can, you know, send your thank you note in the mail or something like this. Now even the things we do for God are things which His power enables. So we're even, we are blessed to be used by Him to do the things that we do. We can't take responsibility for these things. It is His power which enables our service. We need to remember also that we belong to Him, having been bought with a price, and are His servants for His glory. And we need to hear and heed these words of Jesus in Luke 17 10. When you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. this morning we'll consider the teaching of Jesus in these verses under two headings. First, if you're taking notes, what is our duty as servants? What is our duty? And secondly, what do we deserve as servants? What is our duty as servants? What do we deserve as his servants? So first of all, what is our duty? Notice that Jesus introduces his teaching with an illustration here in Luke 17 verse 7. So he says, imagine that you have a servant. But the point of this is that we are God's servants. That's his point. We're to then envision ourselves, understanding the illustration, we're to envision ourselves not in the place of the master who has the service, but as the one who has had, who is in the service of another that we call master. We are God's servants. And he's gonna draw out some of the implications of that, but we would do well to reflect for a moment on the simple fact that in becoming Christians, we have become servants. the greatest Christians in the Bible refer to themselves not first of all as leaders of the church, experts in the Bible. Sometimes that's what we find and I sort of am a little wary of this. You know you see certain, a lot of times it's the first Baptist church of some town And then our pastor is Dr. So-and-so, you know, because they got their, not because they practice medicine, by the way, on the side, but because they got their doctorate in theology. And that's fine. I'm all for education. I'm in a degree program right now to get further education. I'm all for continuing all your years, as long as you are alive, to grow in your knowledge of the Lord and in preparing yourself for ministry if you're in ministry. But some people love to, to add those acronyms at the end of their names, all of their certifications and all of their titles, and they love these titles of respect. And there's a great tradition in Baptist churches of actually just calling ourselves brothers, you know. And not by, I've been in Baptist churches where theologians and professionals, doctors and stuff say, when we're in church, now you come to my doctor's office, you come to my seminary classroom, you call me doctor so and so. When we're in church, you call me brother so-and-so. so that there are not titles of distinction within the church. And many of you call me pastor, which is not really a title of respect, necessarily. A pastor's a shepherd. That's not an elevated title. It's just a servant. A minister means servant. And so even, I'm called brother pastor at times, and so these kinds of things are appropriate for ministers. And we see this in the Bible, not Paul, the one who had training under Gamaliel, this expert in the Bible, this leader of the church, preeminent among the churches of the Gentiles, but Paul, a servant. James, a servant. Peter, a servant. And even where they will call themselves or introduce themselves as apostles, first they say, Paul, a servant and an apostle. Yeah, I'm an apostle, but they never forget that first of all, they are as Christians called to be a servant in the house of the Lord. And from the moment we make the confession that all Christians make, Jesus is Lord, we acknowledge that we are not the masters of our own fate, but Jesus is our master and our Lord. We're saying we are now servants of the one who is above us in authority over us. He is Lord. We are not lords of our own life. We're not masters of our own fate. Jesus is our master and our Lord. But the reality is that no one is their own master, not just those who we think, well, now I've confessed that Jesus is Lord, and so I will become the servant of God or I'm made to be a servant in his employ. But the reality is that no one is their own master. Everyone is a servant. And so perhaps this morning you'd know that you're not a Christian. And maybe you're not a Christian for this very reason. You don't want the constraint of being told what to do. You like to think of yourself, think for yourself rather. You like to live life on your own terms and so forth. But the Bible teaches that it is impossible to be independent in this way. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 6.16, Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? So the question isn't are you a servant, but rather whose interest are you serving? And if you are obedient to sin, then you may feel free and independent and so forth, but that is all just a deception. If you are obedient to sin and you're serving the interest of the world and your own flesh, then you have your master. It's not yourself necessarily. It may be your sinful flesh, maybe the world, maybe the devil. The outcome regardless will be misery. And that isn't what's promised to you by those who lead you to believe that you can serve yourself, but that's what will come of it. Make no mistake. Christianity promises to make you a servant of God. Now you can reject that because you don't want to serve Him, but you can't escape the service industry, so to speak. You were made to serve. And if I were you, I wouldn't want to frame it. I would want to frame it not in terms of avoiding service and being my own master, which is an impossibility, but in terms of submitting myself to the most benevolent master. And if you serve your own flesh, and if you serve the world, and if you serve the devil, you are serving a task master, a slave master. And your master will beat you down and will use you and will bring you to a place of misery and ultimately of destruction. If you can't avoid serving the interest of someone or something, why not serve the best and most benevolent master in whose service you will be free. because you were made to serve God. So in serving God, you will know the thrill of doing what you were created to do, being what you were meant to be. So if we are servants of God, as the Bible tells us we are, if we're in Christ, no longer the servants of sin, no longer the servants of the devil, the prince of the power of the air, but we're now servants to the Lord, and we have the best master. and the most benevolent Lord. But what does this mean for how we live our lives? Well it means that it is our duty to obey. Paul says in Titus 2.9, bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. And he's just talking about, in that context, he's talking about If you are literally a servant of an earthly master, this is what's expected of you. But it's expected of all servants. It's what it means to be a servant. Bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters and everything. And then Ephesians 6, 6 Paul tells us that as bond servants of Christ, we should be doing the will of God from the heart. Now notice that in Jesus' illustration in Luke 17, the servant here did what he was commanded. And then Jesus says to us in verse 10, so you also, when you have done all that you were commanded. So in order to understand his further point that we'll come to here in a moment, we need to understand this first, that when we have done all that we are commanded, we have done our duty. So what is our duty? As servants of Christ, our duty is to obey everything that He has commanded us. And think about what the Great Commission tells us in Matthew chapter 28. What are we told to do? Well, of course, we're to make disciples of all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28 verse 20. teaching them to observe, or to obey, all that I have commanded you." That's what it means to be a Christian, to be a servant in Christ's employ, and to do our duty to Him, which is to obey everything that He has commanded us. With His Word as the rule or standard for our obedience, We are to make it our purpose to submit ourselves not only to believe what the Bible teaches, but to do what the Bible commands. So ask yourself this morning, am I a servant of sin? First of all, am I a servant of sin or a servant of Christ? And how do you honestly think your life will turn out if you are living it in rebellion against the creator as a servant of sin? despite what the world tells you. And you know there are false advertising. As we've learned to say in the past five or 10 years, there's such a thing as fake news. And we know there's false advertising. And the world in your heart wants you to believe this, and so you will tell yourself the lie that you can live not for the will of the creator in service to him, but for your own good pleasure. But be honest with yourself for a second. If there is a creator, and if he has made his will known, How do you think it honestly will turn out for you if you live your life in rebellion against his will and disobedience to his commands? And so I would call you this morning and urge you in the strongest term to repent of your sin and call the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and you will enter the service of the best and most benevolent master, a most gracious Lord in whose service you will find rest for your soul. Are you a servant of Christ? How then do you serve him? Do you perhaps need to renew your commitment to obedience this morning? A good servant of Jesus Christ knows his master's word so that in every situation he will know what is his master's will that he might do it. We're not gonna obey God's word perfectly, but we ought to be as Christians, this ought to be our highest ambition to know His will and to do His will for His pleasure, to please Him with our lives, to glorify and honor Him, knowing that we're not going to be able to do it perfectly, counting on the blood of Christ to cover not just our disobedience, but even our woefully insufficient obedience. Nevertheless, this ought to be our ambition. And so perhaps this morning you need to commit yourself to studying God's Word and to make it your sincere aim to keep His Word always. This is the duty of a Christian. Secondly, there's what is our duty as servants? That's foundational. Secondly, what do we deserve? And this is Jesus' main point here. If we understand that faith is going to prompt within us and empower us to good works, even great things for God. And as we commit ourselves to this, we will grow in this way, but we need to have the right perspective. What do we deserve as servants? Now there are some of us here who know our duty, but we're also very aware how poorly a job we do in fulfilling that duty. And I think it's actually a mark of Christian maturity that you, if you're like the rich young ruler, I've kept all of these commandments from my youth. I mean, I may be disobedient, but I don't know how. Probably that's a mark of an immature Christian. Because the more that we know God, and the more that we have a sense of, a good handle on, and we have a kind of a grasp on the holiness and the righteousness of God, and we know the depths of sin that remain within our own hearts, Good grief, we know that on our best days, we've done all too little to please Him. And so we know this, but let's make no bones about it. Some Christians are just lazy Christians. Some Christians neglect their duty. There are people here in this room who, I'm not saying that none of us do enough, but there's some people who are not even making an effort. And maybe you feel the guilt of that. You think, well, I know that I'm not even trying. When I go to the dentist, he asks me, Logan, when's the last time you flossed your teeth? And then I've got to decide whether to tell the truth or not in that moment, because I know that the truth will probably disappoint him. But there have been times when I've gone to the dentist, and don't say this, this is pastoral humility right here. Lately, I just wanna say this so you're not too grossed out. Lately, I've been very good at flossing, okay? I floss as I should. Maybe not daily. It's confession time, though. When I go to the dentist, he says, when's the last time you flossed your teeth? And there have been some times I've gone there and thought, last time I flossed my teeth, you did it six months ago. But you know, some Christians are like this. If I were to ask you, when's the last time you prayed? You'd think, you know, the last time I prayed is when you said, let us pray last Sunday morning. That's the last time I prayed is when I joined you in prayer. And so if that's the case, obviously we need to hear this word about what a Christian's duty is and whose service we're in, who we call Lord, and what that means. How can we call Him Lord and not do what He says? We need to be much in prayer. We need to be diligent in knowing God's word, using whatever means we, to listen to sermons or to read scripture, study, study Bibles, whatever we have to know God's word. Pray earnestly and to be, you know, participate fully in the life of the church so that we can grow. But others are not like this. They're not, others among you are very diligent in your spiritual disciplines. And you're doing, you feel like, well I'm not perfect, but I do make a good effort. I've got certain spiritual disciplines, I'm seeking to grow. And so for you, this is what you need to hear. The word is not, You know you could do more, but on the whole, you're doing a lot. And you know it. And the temptation is spiritual pride. That's the temptation. And you wouldn't maybe say this, but tell me if, for some of you, you don't sometimes feel this. Maybe even think it, but at least you have a sense of this. It creeps into your relationship to God where you think that somehow things ought to be different for you in your case because of your service to God. God, I have served you all this time, all these years. Still to this day, I am diligent in my attendance, in my service, in my giving, in my prayers. I look for opportunities to share Christ. to help out those who are in need, to encourage those who are downtrodden. And God, what have I done to deserve some kind of situation, difficult situation in your life? You know, I'm in need. I'm hurting. And you think, God, what have I done to deserve this? And so we can feel like because we have served God in such a way that maybe we've put him into our debt. Maybe he owes us. If not salvation, he at least ought to look our way every now and then. and just, come on, do us better than he does other people, because we know there are people around us that they don't make the effort that we do. And so for them, of course, they're gonna be, but for us? And we feel this creeps in, this sense of that, you know, at the beginning of our Christian life, we didn't earn our salvation, but at this point, surely we've earned something. Surely we've done something to merit God's favor or that he should think of us and favor us or bless us in some way. And Jesus says very clearly in Luke 17, 10, that we ought to say, rather, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. So when we have obeyed all of Christ's commandments, if that were possible, for you to keep everything that Christ has commanded you, then here's what you can say about that. Not, well God ought to, I'm expecting some blessings now because I've really earned them. But rather, I've only done what was my duty as a servant and nothing more. John Calvin talked about how the Lord promises to crown our obedience in heaven, that there are rewards. And he describes it in terms of crowning, he's just crowning his own work in and through us, essentially is what he says. that when He rewards our obedience, He is rewarding something that His grace, that His power has made possible. So when we've done everything, we realized all I've seen in my life through my obedience is more grace, is more of God's power, of more of something that God enabled, of more of something that God gets credit for. And so the only thing that I ought to respond in terms of when I see my obedience, when I'm thankful to see, and then we can recognize, hey, I'm glad that I am not as I once was, so long as that doesn't fill our hearts with sinful pride. I am so thankful that I am not as consumed by or controlled by sin, and that there's been much growth in godliness, and I can see the things that I do for the Lord, and I'm very thankful, not proud, though. Because when I see that, what I'm thankful for is having a front row seat to God's work in my life. To see something that He is doing, and all I can do is not say, I am a worthy servant. That's my conclusion from all of this, but I am an unworthy servant. All glory goes to the Lord. All glory goes to God. And so in light of this further point that Jesus makes, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. I wonder how many of us need to take some humility with this, a dose of humility. How many of us need to think of ourselves as we ought to think of ourselves? and not with the inflated ego or more highly of ourselves than we ought, but a humility to recognize, you know, I don't deserve anything. Everything in my life from beginning to end is a testament, is a monument to God's mercy and grace. and just to praise Him and to fall back on that realization, when I think of myself, the only thing that that teaches me or tells me, the only thing that that's a monument to is my unworthiness, my unworthiness. And so we ought to say together, we are unworthy servants. We are unworthy servants as we pray together this morning. Father God, we thank you that you have taken an unworthy people and made us to be unworthy servants. God, and yet you have taken us. And that is something. We give you thanks for it. God, that you've made us your own. That we've been bought with a price. That we have been taken from a cruel slavery to sin and Satan. And have been made a servant in your household. You are a most gracious Lord. You're so very tender and kind to us. And we get to serve you. And God, it is our privilege and a great blessing. We pray that you would work in our lives so that we might perform our duty. God, that your spirit within us, even as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that you would be at work within us, both to will and to work for your good pleasure so that we can obey all that you've commanded us. If it were possible to be fully obedient, God, make it so. But God, in such a way that we're not filled with pride but with humility, that we would serve you well as unworthy servants. God, perhaps this morning there's someone here who's not a servant of yours at all. But God is in bondage to sin. We pray that you'd free them from that slavery and make them to be your servant this morning by your grace. We pray that you would grant faith that they might call out to you, that they might be freed And we pray that you would do it for your name's sake, so that in their life from beginning to end, just as in our life from beginning to end, and in all things, you might be preeminent, most gracious. To you be all honor and glory and praise. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen.