Wait… Who Am I Again?

We've been in several different passages all over God's word the last several

weeks, just different things going on in preparation for what I think some of

you have been waiting for.

We are getting ready next Sunday to start a sermon series through the book of Jonah.

It's going to be called Jonah, the Prodigal Prophet of a Gracious God.

Now, next week is a fifth Sunday, so next Sunday is going to look way different

than normal, but we are starting a sermon series next Sunday.

So make sure you're here for that as we go through the book of Jonah.

But I am excited for what's coming today.

I'm just humbled to be able to get to do this. And so I just actually just want

to start with prayer because I don't think the topic today's easy. So let's pray.

Holy Spirit, right now, we really need you to not only take the truth that's

in this word from our God on high,

from you, but to break past all of our cultural barriers, all of the roadblocks

that we put up in our minds,

and penetrate the deepest places of our hearts with your truth.

So right now, as I just offer myself for your work among all of us here,

I don't want to rely more on my notes than I do you.

And so I just pray that your Holy Spirit would move in ways that I can't even

explain. You've already confirmed

just through things this morning that this is the word for the day.

So just be pleased to bless us.

Speak, Lord. We're listening.

Praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

So did you know that when you were reborn as a new believer in Christ,

you probably know this, that you were given a totally new identity card?

That you got a new identity? Actually, I would say it's probably more like your true identity.

And so I wanna do real quick, what I wanna do is let's do a group project, a group think tank.

We're going to fill in the blank as to what we are when we say, I am blank.

As a new Christian, don't just throw some random stuff in there that you got

from Fox News this morning, right?

I don't know why Fox News. Throw in what you get from God's word when you say,

I am blank. So start throwing them out. Let's go.

Part of our identity as new creatures in Christ. What do we got?

Wow. Maybe one at a time.

What was that? I am saved. What? I am redeemed. Blessed. I'm a child of God. What?

Forgiven. I am loved. I love it.

I am reconciled, grateful. I am free.

I am justified. We can keep going. We can do this all day. The list is crazy long, isn't it?

It's amazing who we get to be in Christ.

And one of the works that God absolutely wants to do in you is to help you learn

what your identity is and how to live in it.

God wants to persuade you of who you are and how to walk in who you are.

Can you ask yourself this question?

What would change in your life if you truly believed that you were all that

God says you You are in Christ.

What would change about the way you live? If you became fully convinced of everything

that God says about who you are now that you are in Christ,

your life would radically change. How would your walk with God change?

Oh man, you wouldn't feel so guilty when you run into his throne room because

you know his grace has already covered everything.

What about your relationship with everybody else? man, I know I wasn't made

for my wife. In other words, she completes me.

I know God completes me, which frees her up to be relieved of that duty.

And therefore I can love her free.

Everything changes in every dynamic when you become persuaded of and walk in

the full identity that God has made for you.

But one of the things that I've noticed, and this year makes 20 years of following Jesus in my life.

Yeah, this summer, June. Goodness, I'm old.

Amen. One of the things that I've noticed as I've walked with Jesus with many

different groups of people who love Jesus,

one of the things I found out is that there are certain groups who like to emphasize

certain parts of your identity in Christ to the neglect or to the silence of the other parts.

So you'll have certain groups who emphasize the dutiful obedience of your identity

to God, but neglect that you're a son or a daughter.

But you'll also have certain groups that emphasize that you are a saint,

that you're sanctified, but not emphasize the fact that you're a branch.

Right? We just say about it, I'm the branch. Nobody likes to be called a branch

because what do you think?

Well, that's all I do, right? We have different groups that emphasize certain things.

Like we love to emphasize that I'm a member of a chosen race,

a royal priesthood of God, but then also I'm in process and I have a lot that needs to change in me.

We have, rightly so, groups that will say, I am free.

Like, that's part of our identity. You are now free in Christ. You're no longer that.

But then you also tend to neglect the truth that you were bought with a price, right?

None of these are diametrically opposed to the other. None of these clash.

All of them are a part of who you are in Christ.

And the best thing that we can set ourselves to do is to accept and receive

everything that God has said that we are.

Not to say, I'll pick and choose this part and neglect this part.

I'll say, oh, I really like that because that makes me feel better,

but I'm not going to talk about this one.

Well, this morning, we're gonna talk about one of those that we don't talk about

because none of y'all mentioned it.

And we don't often like to talk about it because I think it's unpopular.

I think there's some confusion about it too, but there's one part of our identity

as followers of Christ that we're going to explore this morning.

That is the only part of our identity that Jesus gives us in direct response

to his disciples asking, increase our faith.

We'll get to the passage, but the story is the disciples hear something and

they say, man, increase our faith. and what Jesus tells them is a part of who they are in him.

And the very thing that he says that they need to think of themselves as,

something that will increase their faith is that they are unworthy servants.

And all of you shuddered. Wait a minute. Go ahead and get your Bibles and turn to Luke 17.

Luke chapter 17. This passage has kept me up many nights, Not just this past

Luke 17 · chapter mention

week But I've been reflecting on this for a year now And it's become somewhat of a theme verse for me.

A key part of my identity that I have no problem accepting.

In the context of this passage, we have at the beginning of like,

or just actually in Luke 16, we have Jesus talking with Pharisees and they're

bickering, they're making fun of, they're mocking, they're doing all these things.

And then Jesus starts to tell them the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, right?

And that is directly towards the disciples, sorry, towards the Pharisees.

But then we see Jesus turn to his disciples in the beginning of chapter 17.

So the Pharisees I think are still present, but it was oftentimes when a rabbi

would take a moment to pause conversations with crowds and do a teachable moment with his disciples.

And so this seems like to be one of those moments in Luke 17.

So Jesus turns to his disciples, reading in verse one.

He said to his disciples, offenses will certainly come.

Offenses meaning traps or stumbling blocks, but woe to the one through whom they come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were

thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Be on your guard, disciples. If your brother sins, rebuke him.

And if he repents, forgive him.

And if he sins against you seven times in a day, I feel like we were just talking

about this a few minutes ago, and comes back to you seven times saying, I repent, you must what?

Forgive him. Pause there. Imagine that.

Imagine being told that you need to forgive the same person for the same offense,

seven times in the same day,

simply because they come up to you and say, I'm repent.

I know I did wrong and I'm sorry.

How many times are you supposed to offer forgiveness in that instance?

Seven times. Every time he comes.

That's hard. Especially for, what if it's the same thing seven times?

I stole your wallet. Oh, here it is back. I stole your wallet again.

Oh, here's it back. Oh, seven times in a row.

I forgive you. I forgive you. Like, what? That is hard.

Now, stealing your wallet's not as maybe offensive to some of you,

but maybe it gets a little bit more personal.

Maybe there's words that are said that are absolutely demeaning and just wreck you.

Maybe it's the person you are living with, like your spouse,

and you just have a bad day.

Offer forgiveness every time they come and say, I repent.

That's hard. And guess what the disciples do?

They aren't the SEAL Team 6 of Christians. They're not like,

oh, that's easy. I'll do it.

They see this and they're thinking the same thing.

What Jesus, are you serious? Look at what they say in verse five.

The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith.

Give us greater faith, add to our faith, help us to believe more.

We need to, if we're gonna do this, God, we need greater faith.

And boy, are they right.

Increase our faith, add to it. Now here's the irony.

Jesus gives us the parable of the faith like a mustard seed.

The disciples asked, make our faith bigger, increase our faith, add to it, grow it.

And Jesus is like, it's not about the size of your faith.

Look at this. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed.

You can say to this mulberry tree, this 35 foot tree, hey, uproot yourself and

go plant yourself in the sea and it will obey you.

So we have Jesus telling the disciples that it's not that you need greater faith.

It's not that you need larger faith that your faith needs to be added to.

He's saying that there's faith this big, as small as the smallest thing that

they could probably relate to, can do impossible things.

Why? Because ultimately it's not our faith that accomplishes it,

it's our God who accomplishes it.

So we have this dynamic where Jesus just gave his disciples something really

hard. They want greater faith.

Jesus says, oh, trust me, even little faith can do impossible things.

And then this is where we get to our main text. Jesus is still in the dialogue

of saying, when the disciples ask, increase our faith.

This is what he says in verse 7.

Which one of you, having a servant, tending sheep or plowing,

will say to him when he comes in from the field, come at once and sit down to eat?

Instead, will he not tell him, prepare something for me to eat,

get ready, and serve me while I eat and drink? Later, you can eat and drink.

Does he thank that servant because he did what was commanded?

Pause there. Now, I want to just say on the out front that this is not Jesus endorsing slavery.

That's not what's happening here. Jesus is taking an example from a culturally

relevant circumstance in the day where servants were hired out to illustrate this point.

And he illustrates it using this relationship between a master and a servant.

And he basically says, hey, can you imagine that?

Like, could you imagine a master saying to a servant who's coming in from the

field, hey, I've got dinner ready for you.

Come and sit and eat and I'll serve and wait on you.

And what's the disciples response to that?

No, we can't imagine that. Masters wouldn't do that for their servants.

Servants would be told, go make me a sandwich.

Oh, Lord. I don't know if that was Holy Spirit, lads.

Go make me a meal. Now, this servant is apparently both tending to outdoor responsibilities

and indoor responsibilities. They're pretty equipped and ready.

But the whole point of that illustration is no, we can't imagine that.

No, that just seems outrageous. A master would not serve the servant.

The servant would continue to serve the master. That's what's typical.

A servant comes in from the field of tending to the flock or plowing for the

harvest or whatever, or for the planting.

And then they would come in and then they would be expected to continue to work

to serve and get the meal of the master ready.

And then they would tend into their own needs.

The master gets served first.

Then Jesus asks another imaginative question in that same example.

Verse 9, does the master thank that servant because he did what he was commanded?

And what's the disciples' response?

No. I mean, that's not in the text, but the obvious implication is no, No.

There wouldn't be thanksgiving to that servant who was just simply doing what they were told to do.

All of this gets brought into the disciples' relationship with Jesus when he

says this in verse 10. Take a look.

In the same way. In the same way, when you, he's talking about his disciples, a.k.a.

Us as well, when you have done all that you were commanded, you should say,

we are unworthy servants.

We've only done our duty.

That is a claim to our identity.

That is integral to who we know ourselves to be as followers of Christ.

Now, let me ask this. Have you seen a coffee mug with this verse quoted on it?

You find those at Hobby Lobby lately?

Amazon? If you find one, let me know because I'm kind of curious.

I don't think that people celebrate that too much.

I don't think I've ever seen somebody get it tattooed across their chest.

Unworthy servant. I'm thinking, eh, eh.

Not very popular. Now, some of your translations might say something like worthless

servants or unprofitable servants.

Let me kind of explain a little bit of that because I think there's significant

differences in what we're talking about here.

The Greek words, douloi, akreoi.

Douloi is slave or servant. Akreoi is a composition word, whereas a means not,

and the second word is useful, not useful.

In other words, meaning unprofitable, meaning useless servants.

And here's the problem. This word, akreoi, only appears here in Luke 17,

and then in the other instance, it's Matthew 25.

And that's in the parable of the talents.

Jesus gives 10 talents to one servant, five to another, and then one to the

third. And what does the third one do?

Bury it. And then when the master comes back, he presents, hey,

I knew you to be this. So here you are. I kept it safe.

And then in Matthew 25, Jesus, the master says, throw this unprofitable,

unuseful servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, here's the thing. In the context of this parable, of this example of a servant who was useful,

who was out in the fields serving the master's purposes, tending to the flock

or taking care of the harvest fields.

And then they come in and they prepare a meal. There's uses there.

So there's translations that have understood this word to mean not just necessarily

worthless, but unworthy, meaning undeserving,

meaning we don't deserve thanks for the things that we're supposed to be already doing anyways.

Carry this meaning that we're not deserving of praise because we're just servants of the one who is.

Now, I want to make sure you're clear on this. This is not your pastor telling you this.

This is not some televangelist telling you this. This is not some YouTube theologian telling you this.

What color are these words? They're in red.

This is Jesus telling his disciples, when you've done the things that I've told

you to do, say of yourselves, we are just unworthy servants.

We've only done our duty. Now, I want to ask, what's going on in your heart right now?

Do you feel pushback on this? You don't have to acknowledge this,

like you don't have to answer out loud.

Your heart probably doesn't like hearing something that doesn't sound so great about you and about me.

We are unworthy servants.

How's your heart feel about that? Now, it's true about those who are in Christ,

regardless of how you feel, because truth doesn't subject itself to your feelings,

though feelings might help reveal what you believe is true.

Let me ask you this question.

Why is it hard for us to think of ourselves as unworthy servants of God,

but easy for us to accept that we're sons and daughters of God?

Which one's more outrageous?

Think about it. Both are true, but it's easier for you to accept and warmer,

obviously it feels better.

I'm a son and daughter of God and we can easily swallow that pill.

Oh, but when we're told that we are unworthy servants, we're only doing our

duties when we walk in obedience to King Jesus, that one doesn't sit well.

That one's harder to swallow.

That doesn't make sense to me. Praise God, both are true, but one of those is

way more outrageous than the others.

What makes more sense? We have a God who has angel armies at his beck and call.

We have a God who sits on a throne of glory. We have a God who has created all

nations and all peoples.

And he invites us in to serve his purposes?

In Romans, we're told to confess with our mouths that Jesus is what?

Lord. Greek word kurios.

Translated, master.

Of servants like you and me.

In fact, in Matthew 20, 26, Jesus himself said, if any of you would want to

be great among you, you must be a servant to all.

So while you should, and yes, very much so celebrate that we are sons and daughters

of the living God, that we have been adopted in as children of the Most High King,

we also just as equally should stand in amazement that you and I have been brought

in from serving the tyrants of Satan and sin,

and we have been set free to serve our God.

And the price that bought us from the tyrants of Satan and sin was the blood

of Jesus, and he welcomes us in to his throne room so that we can be available

for his purposes in this world.

I think a lot of us might struggle with this idea of being a servant of God,

of an unworthy servant of God, undeserving of gratitude or praise for the things that we do for him.

I think that's in part because we might be fearful. We don't like to serve anybody but ourselves.

But that's what's different about radical Christianity. I would say also just

simply true Christianity.

We trust our Father's heart. We trust our Master's hand and will gladly serve

Him in His purposes. We are willing to do anything He commands.

In fact, Jesus is the one who said Himself, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

So we are to do what we're commanded to gladly.

And guess kind of what's in this text is that we're not to do it for any praise

that we're going to get from anyone, including the master.

We don't do the things that we do so that others will thank us.

How are you doing on that? I know I don't do well on that.

Sometimes we withhold service if we haven't been thanked for the last time we served them, right?

Or is that just me? Okay. Jesus is saying that we as his followers ought to

have a place in how we think about our relationship with God.

Among the many beautiful things that we are, part of the beauty of it is that

we are unworthy servants.

We're only doing our duty. And guess what that's in context of?

Forgiving seven times on the same day, the same offense to the same person.

Can you imagine somebody actually doing that? Like, you know,

the conversation that would follow up with that,

like if I'm having a counseling session and the person's telling me about something

that happened seven times in the same day with the same person and they're offering

forgiveness seven times because the person came back and asked for forgiveness

seven times, I'd be like, wow,

you're an inspiration. I love what you do.

And that person's response ought to be, no, no, I'm just, I'm doing what my master told me to do.

I don't need praise. I don't deserve praise. I'm just his servant.

So when we do the things that we know that we've been told to do in God's word,

when we go out to the fields and work in the harvest of evangelism,

or we go to the pastures and tend to the flocks and discipleship efforts,

and we come back in, should we expect the father?

Should we expect our master to throw a dance party, kill the fattened calf,

and bring out the royal robe of righteousness for you?

No, we're not to expect that.

We're to just simply serve because we know we have an obligation to our master

who bought us at a price that we could not afford.

We are only unworthy servants, undeserving, and we're only doing our duty.

We're only doing what's required of us.

The big challenging question to ask this morning.

In your walk with God, who is serving who?

Who is serving who?

Brothers and sisters, God has already served you.

He is even now serving you, and there will come a day when he will face-to-face serve you.

And that should, oh, that feels so strange, so scandalous that God himself,

you know, the commander of angel armies, the one who deserves all glory and

honor and praise, the one who can speak and a whole planetary system comes into existence.

And he says that he's going to set himself to serving us when we see him?

If you don't know where that is, go ahead and flip over to Luke 12. Luke 12.

Jesus is giving exhortations about being ready. Look at verse 35.

He's telling his disciples, be ready for service and have your lamps lit.

You are to be like people waiting for their master to return and from the wedding

banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once.

Blessed will be those servants the master finds alert. When he comes,

truly I tell you, he will get ready.

He will have them recline at the table and then he will come and serve them. That's outrageous.

That's the scandal of the gospel. That we have a God that has set himself to

be willing to even offer a crumb from the master's table, let alone a whole

banquet meal where he anoints our head with oil and our cups are overflowing.

This is outrageous.

And it's the gospel. We have a God who is serving you, has served you.

He offered his son on a cross for your greatest needs.

And then we see this of what's coming. So we know definitely he's serving you,

as outrageous as that is.

So why is it so outrageous to think, well, am I serving him?

Am I serving him? Who's serving who?

Well, I know he's serving me as undeserved as I am. Am I serving him?

Am I serving him without expecting him to exalt me for it?

Am I serving him without expecting him to kill the fattened calf for it?

Am I serving him without expecting our God or anyone else to applause me as

I come in from the fields?

If that's the case, then you serve not with true intent of love for your father.

You are serving with true intent of love for self.

And God needs to kill that.

Because that will clog you up.

As we talk about all of this, if this just seems too out of place,

if this seems too strange, too random for us to be like, well,

I don't know if I can accept myself as a servant of God.

I know I'll be a son and a daughter, which is crazy outrageous anyways.

Then one question I would ask you is, did you come to a bare minimum Christianity

where at the bare minimum, God God has served us.

He has saved us. He has done everything for us.

And that's all you need to do. That's all you need to worry about.

That's all you need to confess. That's all you need to think about.

It doesn't have to change anything about your life. It's just the bare minimum of the good news.

We don't just simply come to Jesus for all of his benefits.

What if there's a group of people called Waynesboro FM Church who came to Jesus

because they were tired of serving their old masters of sin, Satan, and self.

Realize that that road leads to destruction and it doesn't profit.

And we realize, no, serving God is the greatest pleasure, brings the greatest

joy, amounts to the greatest worth of eternal things.

Like what if that's part of the gospel that we preach too?

The good news that you don't have to be enslaved to those tyrants anymore.

You get to serve the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious,

who's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

You know, Romans 8, 12, Paul says, So then, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation.

So then, brothers and sisters, we have a debt. So then, brothers and sisters,

we have a duty not to the flesh, to living according to the flesh.

No, we have an obligation to serve the King, to live for the King,

to call Jesus master and offer him our lives.

And I promise you, I promise you, when you embrace this, when you add this into

the long list of who you are now in Christ,

no harvest field will be too far away for you to go and serve in.

No flock will be too messy for you to go and tend to as a shepherd.

In the harvest fields of evangelism, when you're sent out and you go serve,

or in the pasture fields of the flock, when you tend to and care for other sheep

and you're loving on them.

Here's what you're going to find when you are willing to go out and serve in

those ways, not because you're trying to get something out of it,

but because you know it's an obligation, because it's your duty to our master

who's called us to obey his commands.

When you come in from those fields, not expecting to be served,

but saying, all right, God, what's next for me and how I can serve you.

What you will find is a God who says, come away with me for a while and sit with me and enjoy me.

And let me, let me tend to you. Let me feed you with my food.

Let me care for you. You're going to find him that way.

And then he'll say, all right, here's what's next. Go.

And it's your gladness to say, master, I'll do what you say. I'm an unworthy sir.

Can we be one of few churches that are willing to humble ourselves into that

posture as well as enjoy everything else that we are in Christ.

Can we please be that? We have a God who is willing to open the table and welcome

us into it and then call us and send us out to go work in his fields,

right? And we will gladly obey.

And so to navigate the complexity of God's gracious, outrageous serving of his own servants,

coupled with the fact that we're told to think of ourselves as unworthy servants,

what we have a responsibility for is to cultivate within us this attitude of humble,

dutiful obedience in Luke 17.

And then in Luke 12, we get a glimpse of God's outrageous grace.

Cultivate the attitude of humble, dutiful service to our master.

And as you press into that reality more deeply in your life,

you're going to find that the grace of God is going to grow in its magnitude

so that you see God serving you and you can say, God would welcome us in and serve us.

We're just doing what we're told to be doing. How amazing is this?

So, if we start calling each other unworthy servants, don't take offense to it, okay?

We're just telling you who you are according to who Christ said.

Did I ruffle too many feathers? Are your toes okay?

Silence means I'm going to say, yeah, you're good. some of you have not been

serving the Lord with your life.

Some of you have been kind of walking in this bare minimum Christianity.

Is today going to be the day when you repent and you say, God bought me with a price.

I will glorify God with my body.

I will serve him for the rest of my days.

Maybe that's you and you just need to take some time right now to pray in a

way of repentance, saying, God, I'm sorry, I've set my priorities as my Lord.

I haven't set you as mine.

If you would at this time, just spend time with your master in that kind of posture of prayer,

maybe you have adopted this in your identity and you just want to see it more

fleshed out, ask him to do it right now.

Pray prayers of, you are worthy, Lord, and I am unworthy.

You are the Lord. I am your servant.

Lord God, we always give you praise for your word, but even this morning,

Jesus's words are so precious,

and we thank you that you have given them to us so that we can be changed,

so that we can know what's really true about who we are because of all that Jesus is.

And so I pray right now for my brothers and sisters here, your adopted sons and daughters.

God, as part of who we are, because of all that you are, we are understanding

that we are unworthy servants, and we only want to do our duty.

We only want to do what we're obligated to do, what you've told us to do.

And boy, do we need your help.

Pray that you would help us to learn how to walk in this identity as unworthy servants,

not deserving praise, not deserving thanks, because we're only doing the things

that we do in obedience to you because it's our obligation. It's our duty.

And God, I know that we can get this all confused and wrapped up in the salvation part of it.

God, we know that we don't serve you because we need to be saved.

We serve you because we have been saved. You have saved us from the tyrants.

You've saved us from the reign and dominion of sin, Satan, and death.

And now we are free to serve you. So would you help us to serve you as your unworthy servants?

Because we want to do all that you've asked us to do, because you are our king.

You are our master. And we will give you praise.

We ask all of this in Jesus' powerful name. Amen.

Real quick, choir practice follows this. There's also, for those who are hosting

block parties, there's going to be a meeting down there in the classroom.

The rest of you, if you would please stand. I have a prayer of benediction.

I'd love to pray over you in light of all of this.

And if any of you have any questions or concerns about this,

feel free to come talk to me. And if there's anything that we can be praying

over you for prayer, care, or healing, intercession, come.

I'd love to pray over you as well. We can have some shepherds up here as well,

ready to intercede. But here's the prayer from 1 Corinthians 15, 58.

It says this, Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast,

immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord

your labor is never in vain.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Love you guys, you unworthy servants. Have a blessed day.