Unworthy Servants

Our scripture reading this morning is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, verses 7 through 10.

Luke 17:7–10

I'd encourage you to turn there as I read it.

And if you're if you don't have a Bible with you, there should be one located there in that little shelf right in front of you in the pew.

And you can find the scripture passage on page 876.

And every week it is our joy, almost every week, to give away Bibles.

And if you're here and you don't own a copy of the Bible for yourself, I want to encourage you to take that Bible there that's in the pew that you're looking at right now, to take it home with you.

Write your name in it, keep it as your own to read and to study, and then each week come back and we will study it together and examine God's word.

So you can find the scripture on page 876, Luke chapter 17, verses 7 through 10.

Luke 17:7–10

Will any one of you who has a servant ploughing 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.

Thus ends the reading of God's word.

Bankrupt.

Even when we hear the word bankrupt, we have an emotional reaction to the word.

In fact, uh, over the last several years, uh, that word has uh been used more than I'm sure people would ever like to.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, we saw that uh the entire city of Detroit declared bankruptcy.

Jerry Bridges in his book, Transforming Grace, writes these words.

He says the word has a dreadful ring to it.

In fact, more than a word, it's an expression.

It means failure, insolvency, inability to pay one's debts, perhaps financial ruin.

Even in our lax and permissive society, being bankrupt still conveys some degree of disgrace and shame.

Can you imagine a boy bragging to his buddies that his father had just compared just declared bankruptcy?

In the moral realm, he writes, the word bankrupt has an even more disparaging connotation.

To say a person is morally bankrupt is to say he or she is completely devoid of any decent moral qualities.

He says in our thinking, it's like comparing somebody to Adolf Hitler.

It's just about the worst thing you can say about a person.

But then he goes on to say this.

Now you may have never thought of it this way, but you are bankrupt.

You and I, and every person in the world are spiritually bankrupt.

In fact, every person who has ever lived except Jesus Christ, regardless of his or her moral or religious state, has been spiritually bankrupt.

In Romans chapter 3, verses 10 through 12, it says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

Romans 3:10–12

No one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they have become worthless, no one does good, not even one.

Isaiah the prophet in the Old Testament wrote this, We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away.

The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is good news for the bankrupt.

It is good news for those who are spiritually bankrupt and at the end of their resources, at the end of their rope, at the end of their line, when they realize they have nothing to offer, nothing to give, that they are poor, that they're in poverty.

Because the good news of Jesus Christ is that we are forgiven and come into right relationship with God, not on the basis of what we do, not on the basis of what we have, but by sheer grace alone, by God's mercy and grace that we're saved.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that we had a debt that we could not pay, and Jesus Christ took the paid, the penalty for the payment that we deserve upon himself, and he paid it in full on the cross.

The Bible says it is a free gift of God through Jesus Christ.

It says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, not as a result of your effort, so that no one may boast, so that we have no bragging, no boasting in anything that we have done, anything that we do, anything that we have.

It is all from beginning to end by God's grace through the work of Jesus Christ.

Our relationship with God is not based on our works, it's not based on our performance, it's not based on our effort, it's not based on our merit.

It is completely and entirely a free gift of God's grace.

Jerry Bridges notes this there's many different kinds of bankruptcy, but there's at least two that most of us are familiar with, chapter 7 and chapter 11.

And historically, chapter 11 dealt with what could be called temporary bankruptcy.

He notes this option is chosen by a basically healthy company that, given time, can work through their financial problems.

He says chapter 7 is for a company that has reached the end of its financial rope.

It's not only deeply in debt, it has no future as a viable business.

It is forced to liquidate its assets and pay off its creditors often by as little as 10 cents on the dollar.

And so the question I have for you this morning is when you came to Christ, what kind of bankruptcy did you declare?

Bridges notes this.

He says, We would say that we filed for permanent bankruptcy.

However, I think most of us actually declare temporary bankruptcy.

Having trusted Christ alone for our salvation, we have subtly and unconsciously reverted to a works relationship with God in our Christian life.

We recognize that our best efforts can't get us to heaven, but we do think they earn God's blessing in our daily lives.

This morning we're going to take a very roundabout way of looking at what Jesus is saying here in Luke chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

We're going to consider several truths about the gospel and then at the end see how they come to bear and what Jesus is talking to his disciples and what God is saying to us today.

Looking at the Christian life through the lens of grace, that it begins by grace, it ends by grace, but the whole, the totality of the Christian life from beginning to end is all of grace.

And I think sometimes, as Bridges notes, we get it wrong.

And we think in some way that God's relationship with us today is based on our performance, is based on our merit, is based on what we earn from God.

So I want us to think a little bit about salvation, about what it means to come to Christ, and about sanctification, about the Christian life we live as we grow in our relationship with God.

And so let me give some definitions, and then I want us to think about how they come to bear in this discussion of grace and merit.

So let me give you some definitions of salvation, of sanctification, and glorification.

These are three theological concepts.

All of them at some level, even if we may not know the terms, are familiar with the concepts.

Salvation, as we've already talked about, is provided by God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He died to pay the full penalty for our sins, thereby providing a way for a just God to forgive us.

Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross and he said it is finished, he said the debt is paid in full.

The full debt for all of our sin was placed upon Christ, and he absorbed the full wrath of God that we deserve, so that there is no wrath or anger towards those who are in Christ.

Jesus paid a hundred percent of the wrath and the punishment that we deserve.

But more than that, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, fulfilling all of the Father's righteous requirements.

And what's amazing is not only did Jesus pay the penalty for our sins, but his righteousness, the righteousness of the perfect, sinless Son of God, was credited to our account, so that when we stand before God, we are both forgiven and declared righteous.

We are declared not guilty, but more than that, when God sees us, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ so that we have his righteousness in full, and that is the only basis on which we can stand before God.

It is a hundred percent Jesus Christ's righteousness and zero ours.

It's not 90% Jesus and 10% ours or 75 and 25.

It is a hundred percent the righteousness of Christ, and on that basis alone, we stand before God justified.

The process of sanctification, it's a fancy way of saying the process of our practical spiritual growth.

When we came to Christ, God had set a goal for us to be like Jesus.

That he is going to conform us to the image of his son.

That's what the Bible says, Romans 8.29, that he has set a goal for us so that as we live this Christian life, that God has a plan for us and a desire for us and an intention for us to be more like Jesus in our thoughts, in our attitudes, in our actions, in our responses, in our behavior, in our relationships, God has set a goal for us to be like Christ.

And by his grace and by the working of his Holy Spirit, we're enabled to move towards this goal.

And so that's the process of spiritual growth, the practical growth of the Christian life as we are more and more conformed to the image of Christ in our lives.

That's God's intention for each one of us when he saved us.

But more than that, God has a final goal, and that's the goal that's often called glorification.

And that's really the end of our sanctification.

It's the end of the process where we will be made perfect either through our death and the laying aside of this body tainted by sin, or else when Christ returns, and we who are alive will be transformed so that we will be like Him when we see Him.

And ultimately, our glorification will end when we have received our resurrected bodies, and our final goal is to live in God's presence in the new heavens and the new earth for all of eternity, beholding God face to face.

But here's a question that we have.

We know that salvation is by grace alone, and we get that.

We understand it's not our works, it's not our effort, it's not our merit.

And we understand that glorification is all of God.

It is what He does for us in transforming us and removing sin fully and finally and completely from our lives.

But sometimes we don't understand how is this Christian life all of grace?

How is our practical growth all of grace?

Well, what is grace?

Now, the the standard definition is grace is unmerited favor.

In other words, there is nothing that we can do, there is nothing that we have done, there is nothing that we can give to merit or earn God's favor.

That it is God's sheer undeserved favor upon sinners who are unworthy.

Think about it in your own lives.

We didn't come to Christ because we were better than other people, and we didn't come to Christ because we were more worthy than other people, and we didn't come to Christ because we were smarter than other people.

God placed his favor upon us through his own mercy and grace.

It is undeserved favor.

One man described God's grace as God's riches at Christ's expense.

All of the riches of God of heaven and glory and a relationship with him and new life and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, God's riches at Christ's expense.

Another said it's like the hand of a beggar reaching up for the gift of a king.

There is nothing that the beggar has, nothing that the beggar can give.

All he can do is open his hand and receive the gift that the king is giving.

God is the one who brought us to himself.

He transformed our dead hearts into one that would respond to him, and we come to faith in him by grace alone.

Well, what are some of the results of receiving salvation?

And I'm just going to name a couple.

There are many, but I want to highlight two.

And then see the implications of that.

First of all, the Bible says that when somebody comes to Christ, when we have faith in Christ, that we are justified, and as I've already mentioned, that we're forgiven because the debt is paid in full by Christ.

There's no debt left to pay.

For our sins, all of the debt has already been paid for by Christ.

You know, oftentimes we slip into a false idea that there's something that we have to do in order for God to forgive us.

When we recognize our sin, we repent and we ask for forgiveness, but there's nothing that we have to do in order to earn or merit that forgiveness.

Because the debt has been paid in full.

So that our standing today before God isn't because we're in church and we read our Bibles this morning and we had a good prayer time and maybe we listened to Christian radio on the way.

Our standing before God isn't the behavior that we do and the performance that we have.

Our standing before God isn't because we're better than the person sitting next to us.

Although you all look to the who is sitting next to you.

That isn't why we are accepted by God.

We are accepted by God only because of the righteousness of Christ.

By that alone.

Not our performance, not our work, not our effort, not how good we are or how hard we try.

That is not why God accepts you.

That is not why he loves you.

That is not why he looks upon his favor upon you.

It is because of the goodness and mercy of his grace.

Not only that, we're adopted into God's family.

In John chapter 1, verses 12 and 13, it says, But to all who did receive him, to uh who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

John 1:12

Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

That we have become God's children.

The beloved disciple John writes in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1, he says, See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God, and so we are.

1 John 3:1

That God has lavished his love upon us as his children.

Well, what does this mean for you and me?

What are the implications of this for the Christian life?

It means that you have been accepted by God, that you are no longer an orphan, but you are his child.

You are a child of the king through faith in Jesus Christ, that you have been adopted into his family, and all the rights and privileges of a child of God are conferred upon you in Christ Jesus.

This morning in my reading, I was reading in Mark chapter 10, and in thinking about this sermon and this passage, something caught my eye that I might have overlooked otherwise, but a very familiar uh incident in the life of Jesus in Mark chapter 10, verses 15 and 16.

Mark 10 · chapter mention Mark 10:15

In Mark chapter 10, they were, if you remember, they were bringing children to Jesus.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Verse 13, Mark 10, 13.

And they were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them.

And the disciples rebuked them.

But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the little children come to me.

Do not hinder them, for such belongs the kingdom of God.

Now, in that culture, children had no rights.

Children were pretty much ignored.

And like our culture, where children take a center stage in our thinking and our attitude, uh, in that culture, children were uh pretty much disregarded.

They were cared for and loved by their parents, but they had no rights, they had no status, they had no acceptance as far as being able to uh point to themselves and something in themselves that makes them worthy of being accepted by the larger culture.

And so Jesus says, Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

And then look at verse 16.

It says, And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

And I would submit to you that that is an illustration of each one of us when we came to Christ in faith.

That when you came to Christ in faith, he took you into his arms and he blessed you, and he held you, and he has never stopped looking at you as the object of his love, affection, grace, and mercy.

When I was thinking about that in light of this sermon, one of the things that struck me, uh, God doesn't have any favorite children.

God doesn't have any favorite children.

Sometimes we look at others and maybe we think, boy, I'm such a mess, and I look at all of my life, and I look at other people, and they have it so much so much more together than me.

They're further down the road, they know their Bibles better, they're they're they've been a Christian longer than me.

And we begin to think that God has favorite children.

But God looks at each one of us through the lens of his grace, through the cross, and Jesus Christ.

And we all stand loved and accepted by God in Christ.

It's often been said, but it's worth repeating, that nothing we do can make God love you any more than he does right now because his love for you.

Is perfect.

And nothing that you do can make him love you any less.

Because his love for you is perfect.

Because you are in Christ.

God rejoices over you and delights in you.

Our standing before God is always only by his grace.

It is never by our merit, never by our performance.

We're always only accepted because we are in Christ.

A hundred percent of our right standing is because of Christ's merit, not our own.

Well, how does this work out then in our Christian growth?

How does this work out in our sanctification?

Now, clearly, God wants us to grow and become more like Christ.

Reading through the New Testament, it becomes very clear there's there's imperatives and there's commands, there are admonitions, there's uh challenges to put off sin, to put on in practical ways the Lord Jesus Christ.

He wants us to grow in our character, he wants us to grow in our obedience.

So the Bible is replete with exhortation and commands to obedience.

In fact, rightly understood, the moral law is nothing more than a reflection of the character of God and a guide to how we should live.

Because it tells us who Christ is in his character.

But here's where our confusion comes in.

Our spiritual growth is God's work and our work.

Our spiritual growth is God's work and our work.

Practical righteousness takes our effort as well as God's power.

We don't grow by relying on our own strength, and that was the mistake that the Galatian church made.

If you remember in Galatians chapter 3, it says in verse 3, are you so foolish?

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

In a similar way, we can begin to think that our growth is through our own strength.

We need to try really hard and do more.

I was reading recently and it made this observation, a study that was taken in about 2005 or 2006, asked evangelicals, those who would profess salvation by grace through faith alone, and they were taking a poll and they said, uh, how many believe, this was the essence of the question, that the statement God helps those who help themselves is in the Bible.

The majority of evangelical Christians who answered that question said, yes, that statement is found in the pages of the Bible.

I think most of us here would recognize that that isn't found in the Bible.

But I think sometimes we live our Christian lives as if it is.

I think sometimes we live our Christian lives as if God helps those who help themselves.

What we need to realize is that God's love through the gospel motivates us, and God's spirit empowers us to live the Christian life.

The motivation for the Christian life is the gospel, is God's grace and his mercy, his love for you.

And it's God's Spirit that empowers you to live the Christian life.

If you have your Bible with you, I want you to turn to Colossians chapter 1, verse 29 for just a moment.

Colossians 1:29

Colossians chapter 1, it's really one of the most amazing verses in the Bible.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

One of the most amazing verses in the Bible talking about the Christian life.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 29.

Colossians 1:29

The Apostle Paul is talking about his ministry.

He's talking about him proclaiming the gospel and prayer and all of these different things.

And look at what he says in verse 29.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 29.

Colossians 1:29

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Now notice what he says there.

He says, For this I toil.

The word toil there is a word that uh it talks about uh about uh fatigue and labor.

It's a word that is exerting ourselves, that we are toiling.

It's it's talking about this fatigue.

And the word there for struggle is a word that we might even recognize in our English.

It comes from the Greek word agonizomai or agonized, and it was a word that was used for athletics of an athlete that was striving and straining towards the goal.

And so Paul says the Christian life is effort, that he toils, there are things that he does, that he struggles, that he strives towards the goal.

It isn't a passive exercise in the Christian life.

However, and here is the key to everything that we're talking about this morning.

However, none of it is in his own strength.

None of it is in his own power.

Look at what he says.

He says, with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.

In other words, Paul does not rely on himself at all and his own strength.

He relies on the power of the Holy Spirit living in him.

He relies upon God's grace.

In essence, this is what Paul is saying.

He's saying, God, I can't do it alone, but you can in me and through me.

I need your strength.

I need your grace.

I need the power of the Holy Spirit in my life.

It is never by my might or by my power, it is by your spirit alone.

It is only by your grace, not my works.

I am weak, but you are strong.

Give me the strength to do what you have called me to do.

I rely upon you and your grace, your strength alone.

And that is the cry of the Christian heart.

That's the cry of the mature believer who understands grace and understands our spiritual bankruptcy in and of ourselves, even to live the Christian life.

It is all casting ourselves upon God's grace and his strength to move forward.

And this is the difference between merit and reward, the difference between merit and grace.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, you know, Dave, the time's almost up, and you haven't even talked about Luke yet.

But I have.

You'll see.

Let me explain merit, and then we're gonna look, turn back to Luke chapter 17, understand what Jesus is saying here.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

Merit is something earned, it is something that we do that results in a payment.

If I go to work, it is reasonable and right for me to expect a paycheck at the end of the week.

Uh so we we understand that we are receiving our payment for what we have done.

We have worked, we get paid, we earned it, it is owed to us, it is our right, we merited it by our own efforts.

I did my job, I did what I was supposed to do, so I have a right to be paid.

Listen to how C.S.

Lewis describes the Christian life and mere Christianity.

He says this He says, if you devoted every moment of your life exclusively to his service, you could not give him anything that was not, in a sense, his own already.

So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like.

It is like a small child going to its father and saying, Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.

Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present.

It is all very nice and proper.

But only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

When a man has made these two discoveries, God can really get to work.

It is after this that real life begins.

The man is awake now.

So all of the Christian life is by God's grace.

He gives us his grace so that we might glorify him.

But every moment that we rely upon his grace, in one sense, you can say that we are more in debt to grace.

So that at the end of our lives, everything that we have done that has been pleasing to God and glorifying him has been by his grace alone.

He is, as is said, he's sixpence, but none the richer.

But it is all grace from beginning to end when we rely upon him.

And if we rely on ourselves, it's of no value.

It's not pleasing to him.

And so we rely in the Christian life upon God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit.

But what's amazing is that even though it's all from God, and it's all God's grace, God is pleased to reward us even though we haven't earned it.

And we don't deserve it.

Okay, now turn back to Luke chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

Because Jesus is pointing here to the attitude of our hearts as we walk with Christ.

Well, of any of you who has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep say to him when he was coming to 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 afterwards you will eat and drink?

In other words, imagine if you went to a restaurant and you had a waiter or a waitress that was serving you, and the waiter, waitress, you're there with your family, and the waitress comes and as you sit down, she plops down next to you and says, You know what?

I've been working all day.

I'm really tired.

I want some food.

Well, you would look at that waitress and say, No, you're just doing what you've been called to do.

This is your responsibility.

This was uh what you have been given.

And so he says, No, would he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly, 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?

In other words, the attitude of the servant is one of recognizing that he owes everything, all of his allegiance, all of his life, to the service of his master.

And so nothing that he does merits special reward.

There is nothing that he does that isn't already his responsibility to do because he is a servant of his master.

So he has no right to demand anything, he has no right to claim anything.

At the end of the day, he is only doing what he was called to do.

And this is what Jesus says at the end here.

He says, 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.

So what Jesus is saying is the attitude of our Christian life, the attitude of our hearts is to say, God, you don't owe me anything.

It's not as if because I woke up this morning and I'm here instead of at home, that somehow I have earned favor by you, that I merit something from you, and now you have a contractual obligation to do something for me.

Everything that we do is by his grace.

But here's the amazing thing: even though God doesn't owe us anything, and everything that we have is by his grace, God still chooses to reward us.

But he rewards us not on the basis of what we've done and not in proportion to what we've done.

He lavishes his grace on the undeserving.

Think of what he says in Luke chapter 12, verses 35 through 37.

Luke 12:35–37

He said, Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.

They're only doing what they were supposed to be doing, they were just awake and being servants.

But he says, Truly I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.

When we get to heaven and when we stand before God, and God says, Well done, good and faithful servant.

He says that not on the basis of our merit, but on the basis of his grace.

And when he lavishes upon us his goodness and mercy for all of eternity, it isn't because it was owed to us, it is because it was freely given in Christ.

And so the totality of the Christian life is all of grace.

And so we never come to God expecting that he owes us.

But because he is our loving, gracious, heavenly Father, we can come to him based on his grace and say, God, I have nothing to merit your goodness, but you are a good God who has been gracious to me.

And so on that basis alone, I come.

Let's pray.

Father, it's so hard for us to move away from thinking that our relationship with you is based on our effort, and that only when we work you respond.

But you are gracious and merciful, and you give us not what we deserve, and you give us what we don't deserve.

And more than that, you lavish your grace upon us in Christ.

And Father, I pray for us that we will recognize that all of the Christian life is by your grace, and from beginning to end, it is not our works, not our efforts, not our strength, but it is your grace and your grace alone.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.