Obey Jesus from the Faith You Have

Right now it’s November and not too cold, but imagine it’s January and two people are making their way across a frozen pond. The first one is my sister. She is an accomplished figure skater and is very comfortable with ice. She can basically moonwalk across the ice with no problem.

The second person is me. I am a terrible ice skater, and being on a frozen pond sounds terrifying to me and as I walk all I can think about is either falling and tearing my ACL or plunging through into the cold water. 

Which one of us falls in through the ice as they make their way across? Here’s the thing. You can’t tell from how they feel. You can only tell based on the strength of the ice. If the ice is two inches thick, my sister’s confidence isn’t going to keep her from falling through and getting hypothermia. If it’s two feet thick, there’s no amount of fear I could have that’s going to melt that ice and cause me to fall through. The ice doesn’t know how afraid I am or how little faith I have in it, it’s either strong enough to hold me or it isn’t. 

I want you to keep that mental image, because in Luke 17 Jesus gives the apostles some commands that are really challenging for them, like forgiving someone for the same sin seven times in the same day. And the apostles respond in a way that we might have some sympathy for: 

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

In other words, we’ll be able to obey that hard command only if we have more faith! Here’s how Jesus responds:

6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

These are words directed to his followers, unlike some of our recent texts where Jesus has been confronting the Pharisees. To believers like you and me, Jesus reassures us by saying: Don’t get so caught up in the size of your faith. Small, weak faith placed in the right object is more than enough. Focus on the object of your faith, not the size of your faith.

The big idea of Luke 17:1-19 is this: Obey Jesus from the faith you have. Like Tim Keller used to say, if you’re on a high cliff and you lose your footing and grab for a branch, what really matters isn’t the level of intellectual certainty you have in the branch you’re grabbing for, what matters is how strong the branch is. Strong faith in a weak branch leads to destruction but even weak faith in a strong branch leads to salvation. Jesus is the strong branch, so obey Jesus from the faith you have. 

How?

We will see that Jesus answers this question in three ways: 1) Pay attention to yourselves (vv.1-4), 2) Embrace duty (vv.7-10), 3) Return with thanksgiving (vv.11-19).  We will consider each of these in turn, beginning with the first: Pay attention to yourselves.

PAY ATTENTION TO YOURSELVES (vv.1-4)

1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Obey Jesus from the faith you have. First, we do that by paying attention to ourselves. Jesus begins this section with a hard word because sin is serious. Instead of tempting one another to sin with our actions, we ought to pay attention to ourselves. How easy is it for us to think lightly about sin? We all know murder is a serious one, but a little tempting my brother to be quarrelsome by saying something that I know is going to set him off, that sounds more like a fun time than something to repent of. Jesus says these words so that would examine our walk and determine not to do anything that would lead another to sin. Jesus raises the stakes here so we would truly understand the seriousness of sin. This is not trite, it’s not a joke, and it sets the stage up for the unexpected way we protect one another from sinning: forgiving.

Listen for the chain of events: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. Even if your brother sins against you seven times in the day, you must forgive him. Sin, rebuke, repentance, forgiveness is the process Jesus gives between brothers (or brothers and sisters). There’s all kinds of sin that happens to us by other people in the world, and the Bible has something to say about that, but for the duration of this sermon I want you to think primarily about sin within the context of your local church community, brothers and sisters here. 

Each of those steps is exceedingly important and they are the way Jesus gives us in this passage to keep us away from temptation. This kind of thing, confronting one another in a healthy and Jesus-honoring way is so rare and so difficult, that you might be thinking you don’t have enough faith to do it. It’s a good thing that Jesus says even if you have just a little faith, if it’s located in the right place then Christ in you can more than handle it. Let’s look at the process in detail.

If you see sin in a brother’s life, you are free to overlook it if it was against you (Proverbs 19:11) or rebuke your brother. Now what does rebuke mean? The image that may come into your mind when you think about rebuking your brother might be one of anger, a finger in the chest, venting, personal animosity, the raising of the voice (or for a different kind of person, the shedding of tears), and more. For a minute, let’s lay that aside and I’d like to give you a few pastoral suggestions on what goes into a simple, godly rebuke.

First, make sure that what your brother did is sin as defined in the Bible. against you. Ask yourself the question, where in the Bible is the command that this brother disobeyed? It is so helpful in situations like this to use Biblical language. For me, it’s easy for me get upset when my feelings get hurt but when I reflect on it, I realize my brother or sister didn’t sin against me, they just hurt my pride and that’s not a sin. But did they: 

• Speak an ungracious word? (Ephesians 4:29)
• Give in to unjust anger? (Colossians 3:8)
• Lie? (Colossians 3:9)

You get the point. Find the transgression in the Bible and if you can’t, consider they might not have actually sinned against you. 

Next, once you’ve done that. Sit down with your brother, read with him Luke 17:3-4 & the Scripture you think he violated, describe specifically how you think he violated it, and ask him if you’re seeing it rightly. Don’t be melodramatic, just tell them what you think they’ve done and ask if they see it the same way. Since you’re dealing with a brother, you have all the reason to expect that this is going to be received with a heart that wants to obey and be restored. They might well say something like, “You’re right. It wasn’t what I intended and I hate that this happened. I’m sorry and I won’t do that again.”

Here’s a hint for if someone tells you that they think you sinned and you’re on the other side of this confrontation: Kindly receive it as an act of love from this brother or sister to you. They don’t want a millstone thrown around their neck. They want to lead you away from temptation to future sin. They want the broken relationship to be restored. Receive it, humbly repent (without feeling like you need to beat yourself up or explain your actions in great detail) and be reconciled. It can really be that simple, even if it’s not easy. 

Finally, If a brother responds to you that way, Jesus says we forgive him. You might be saying, “But what if I don’t want to forgive my brother?” You might even say something like: “I don’t have enough faith to forgive my brother.” Here’s the good news. Even if you have the smallest faith, say the size of a mustard seed, but it’s in the right place, say Christ, you can forgive a brother seven times (or as many times as he has sinned). Forgiveness means you don’t need to bring it up again. Wisdom says it doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for sin, but it means that the rift between brothers is healed.

Obey Jesus from the faith you have, even when it comes to a command as challenging as “forgive.” Sin is serious. We need each other’s help to avoid it. Don’t lead each other into temptation, instead rebuke one another, repent, and forgive.

Now we are going to move on to the second point, humbly embrace duty.

HUMBLY EMBRACE DUTY (vv.7-10)

7 “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’? 8 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’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 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.’”

Obey Jesus from the faith you have. How do you do that? Here Jesus essentially says a servant isn’t due thanks simply for doing what they’re supposed to do. The master isn’t going to bend over backwards with exceeding gratitude for the servant doing their job. Similarly, the servant should embrace their role and not expect to be doted on for doing their job. 

This is challenging for us in two ways, depending on the kind of person you are.

First, many of us have been trained to think, “Isn’t that a little excessive?” upon the servant’s extreme humility. This is partially because we have been raised in a world that tells us that we don’t owe anyone else anything unless it’s something we have voluntarily consented to. Another way of saying this is that we are taught to reject duty (or obligations), instead of humbly embracing it. This shows up in a number of ways in our day to day lives. All human relationships are voluntary contracts that we consent to as long as it works for us, and once it stops working, we’re out. A lot of people think about friendship and church membership this way. Or in the context of work, this looks like doing the bare minimum or “quiet quitting.” In a familiar sense, you might be thinking, “Well I didn’t choose my parents and they’ve wronged me in some serious ways, so I don’t have any obligation to care for them and I won’t.” 

Every one of those examples is an obligation we owe to one another. To our families, our work, and our church. But the ultimate end of this “obligation only by consent” mindset is put on full gross display when it’s applied to the Lord: If I owe nothing to anyone I haven’t voluntarily chosen, then I don’t owe anything to the one who made me, because I didn’t enter this arrangement voluntarily. 

The problem with this line of thinking is that it puts ourselves at the center of our world and that’s where God belongs. God is greater than any human master. He is worthy of all of our glory and honor and power because he created all things (Rev 4:11). We are obligated to live in a way that pleases him. We owe God everything. It’s an obligation we didn’t choose but it’s the truth in light of who God is and who we are. Even our best obedience is only giving back to God what he deserved in the first place.

That’s actually only half of the hard news in this section. The first part is that we owe God everything, but the second part is that God doesn’t owe us anything in return. This hits the second kind of person, who says, “I know I owe God everything, and I’ve been doing my best to obey Jesus from the faith that I have. The least he could possibly do is say ‘thank you!’” Serving God in order to receive thanks from Him is just another way we try to put God in our debt. This accounting also won’t work because in our obedience, we aren’t giving anything to God that we didn’t already owe. So whether you’re the kind of person who more naturally throws off all obligation or whether you try to put God in your debt through your obedience you need to humbly embrace duty. 

Now, if that were the whole story, God would certainly be just. The problem is that we don’t actually give God all the glory He deserves. We think we’re putting God in our debt but we’re offering incomplete obedience and far from a “well done”, we deserve punishment. We have not done all that is our duty. But in Christ, our stories don’t end there. With just a mustard seed of faith, Jesus’ perfect and perpetual obedience is credited to us and we can embrace duty without being led to despair.

In Philippians 2, it says that Jesus took the form of a servant (Phil 2:7) to the point of death, even death on a cross. He is the servant who actually did all that the Father commanded, and instead of thanks he received a gruesome cross so that we could receive a seat at the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). God owes us nothing, and in Christ, he has given everything to us (Romans 8).

As J.C. Ryle puts it, “All that we have, we have received. All that we are we owe to God’s sovereign, distinguishing grace.”

Now let’s take this part of the passage personally. 

If you have been trained to reject duty and obligation, start by naming where you’ve done that. Have you been treating him as someone you can opt into and out of a relationship with? Instead of that, give Him the firstfruits of your time, talent, and treasure.

If you’ve been the dutiful one, I want to encourage you to embrace humility. Watch for resentment, even if it only exists within your heart. Watch for the feeling that God owes you something because of the way you’ve obeyed him. Confess it and then get right back to the good work of pouring yourself to serve the greatest master the world has ever known. 

So obey Jesus from the faith that you have by humbly embracing duty and obligation. Then, just as Jesus does in Luke 17, lift your eyes from the work to the master. Let’s look to point three, return with thanksgiving. 

RETURN WITH THANKSGIVING (vv.11-19)

11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well. Obey Jesus from the faith that you have.

The third and final way we do this is that we return with thanksgiving. In verse 11-19, Jesus tells the story of ten lepers who were cleansed. This isn’t the first time in Luke’s gospel that Jesus cleanses lepers, so I’ll do a brief review and we’ll dial in to what’s unique about this story. 

Leprosy would have meant isolation for these ten men. They were unclean. An unclean person was impure to the point of not being able to enter the temple, participate in worship. This is a big deal. So what do they do with their big problem? They bring it to Jesus, which is the best thing you can do with any problem. There’s something instructive for us even in that: they might not have been faith heroes but they had enough to stand at a distance and ask Jesus for help. Let’s go and do likewise. 

In any case, Jesus sends them to the priests to verify their cleansing (even before it happens) and as they are going, they are miraculously cleansed. All ten, no exceptions. Here’s the surprise: One of the ten turns back, gets on his face, and thanks Jesus. Not only that, this one happens to be a Samaritan. This clues us into the point of this passage. The main idea in this text isn’t about going by faith to Jesus for cleansing, while that’s true. Instead, the point is to by faith respond appropriately when Jesus cleanses you. All ten lepers are cleansed, but only the Samaritan returns with thanksgiving. 

Even if we didn’t have Jesus’ next words we could deduce this just from the details Luke provides, but his sharp response confirms this. Instead of focusing on the one bowing before him he asks another rhetorical question: There’s one here, but where did the other nine go? Aren’t they going to respond appropriately and give thanksgiving as well? Remember what J.C. Ryle says, everything in our lives is a gift from God’s hand. The other nine knew Jesus could help, they even cried out to him to solve their problem and he cleansed them. But they failed to connect the final dot, which is returning to Jesus with praise. Praise is the only appropriate response to Jesus’ work in your life and mine. They received the gift, but they failed to let receiving the gift be the means to an even greater end: praise to God. We actually haven’t done our duty in receiving the gifts that God has for us until we, like the Samaritan leper, with whatever faith we have within us, return to Him in thanksgiving. 

The Samaritan leper was healed of a very serious skin condition and he threw himself on the ground in thanksgiving. In Christ, what we have received is far greater than that: forgiveness of sin and adoption into the family of God. If this man whose leprosy was cured can’t stop praising Jesus, how much more should we devote our entire lives to thanksgiving and praise?

Let’s take this third and final part of the passage personally:

First, recognize the good things in your life, from the smallest joy to eternal life in Christ, as a gift of God. As Paul will later rhetorically ask, “What do you have that you did not receive?” If you’re like me, you are probably blind to the abundance of gracious gifts we’ve been given. 

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.

It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” -C.S. Lewis

Second, once you’ve recognized those good things as a gift, trace them back to the Giver. Those gifts are meant to serve as signposts pointing you back to the one who provided them for you. You actually have not received the gift in its fullest until you have praised God for it.

CONCLUSION

In light of Jesus’ challenging words, the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith, and he affirmed that it’s not the quantity of faith that matters but its object that empowers obedience. So obey Jesus today with the faith you have. Protect your brother by rebuking and forgiving him. Embrace your duty in life, because your master has become a servant. When the Lord blesses you, don’t stop until you have returned to the Lord with thanksgiving like the Samaritan leper. Real faith, weak faith, even small faith goes back to Jesus, so let’s go to him today.