SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that has been and will continue to be a distinctive of this church, and I, for one, am grateful for that.
SPEAKER_00: Today we'll be taking a look at Luke 17, verses 1 through 19.
SPEAKER_00: You want to turn there in your Bibles?
SPEAKER_00: As you are doing that, I also want to thank those who joined us online over the last week or so.
SPEAKER_00: We have folks from Florence, Kentucky, not too far up the road.
SPEAKER_00: Folks from Athens, Greece.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder who that might have been.
SPEAKER_00: People from Melbourne, Australia, and people from Nashville, Tennessee, of course.
SPEAKER_00: So today, Luke chapter 17, he has been, we're in the middle of a section of Luke where he's been addressing Pharisees and he's addressing disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Today we'll even see that the subcategory of his disciples, the apostles, respond to him in this passage that we're going to read.
SPEAKER_00: But the point I hope you walk away with today is that when Jesus speaks, his disciples lean in.
SPEAKER_00: They lean forward.
SPEAKER_00: They listen, those who really want to follow him, not only because his words are powerful, but also because they are personal and they are life-changing.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 17 is one of those moments.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't speaking to the crowds here.
SPEAKER_00: As I say, he talks first to the broader group and then to the narrow group of his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: But basically, it's those who have said they want to follow him or express that interest.
SPEAKER_00: So what Jesus says here might not be flashy or sensational, and it's not the kind of content that's going to like trend on, you know, on social media or something, or turn viral in some way.
SPEAKER_00: But it is the kind of teaching that builds the deep foundation of resilient joy, Christ-centered life in the lives of those who follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In these verses, he gives us a portrait of discipleship that's marked by humility, forgiveness, discipleship that is marked by a faith in the proper direction.
SPEAKER_00: In our day and time, we're being sort of programmed to think that it's just faith, almost in faith itself.
SPEAKER_00: Just believe.
SPEAKER_00: As if believing in faith is the end goal for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not the end goal for us.
SPEAKER_00: What he's going to teach us today is that the object of our faith really does matter.
SPEAKER_00: And then he also will be talking about a heart that delights in serving beyond what is simply required.
SPEAKER_00: So, in a surprising turn, we'll also, and we'll break this into two sections, verses 1 through 10 and verses 11 through 19.
SPEAKER_00: The surprising part will be that last section where Jesus moves along the edge of a Samaritan village and encounters a group of men who have been ravaged by the disease of leprosy.
SPEAKER_00: You're probably familiar with this story.
SPEAKER_00: It's recorded only in Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to me that the doctor is the one that kind of kept track of this and found this to be an important story that he wanted to include in his record.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus heals their bodies but also teaches us something even deeper about discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: The true disciples will receive, yes, from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But also as we mature, we will be so overwhelmed with gratitude for what he has done and how we realize more and more as we go through the Christian life and on the pilgrim way, oh my goodness, he has graced me.
SPEAKER_00: I did not deserve this.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a claim on him.
SPEAKER_00: And that really, that miracle and that experience really goes well with some of the teaching part of what we have here in Luke 17.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to highlight four marks or characteristics of those who follow Jesus this morning and close then with an unexpected illustration, which I think is important.
SPEAKER_00: He's not merely telling us here today that we want to believe certain facts about him, though that's important for us to do.
SPEAKER_00: But he's also going to be inviting us to follow him and to be like him in thought, in word, and even in deed as we respond to others.
SPEAKER_00: Before I read the text, will you join me for a prayer for illumination?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, your word is a lamp unto our feet and light unto our path.
SPEAKER_00: You are God and we humbly bow before you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in you are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Open our eyes, that we may see the wisdom of your word.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, open our hearts, that we may see, but also receive instruction from you.
SPEAKER_00: Give us grace that we may understand and in understanding that we may believe.
SPEAKER_00: And in that, and in believing, Lord, that you would grant us the courage to obey and walk in your ways to the glory and honor of your name.
SPEAKER_00: So remember, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He's probably zigzagging back and forth from the north, headed south.
SPEAKER_00: We're not exactly sure which village he's in right here.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see that he's in a specific village, and these specific people come and they want to talk to him.
SPEAKER_00: But the main thing I want to stress is the context in the course of his own life is that he's on his way to Jerusalem to lay down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: He knows he's going to die.
SPEAKER_00: And that his love for you, his love for me, his love for all of the people that are on the ground in that first century has moved him in such a way that he would be willing to do that voluntarily.
SPEAKER_00: So as we look at today's passage, we're going to ask ourselves a question what does it mean to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Here we go, uh verse one of chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: He said to his disciples, it's inevitable that stumbling blocks should come.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations might say, it's inevitable that offenses may come.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations may say, it's inevitable that temptation will come.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what's pretty important right here: woe to him through whom they come.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever Jesus says woe, I think we ought to say woe.
SPEAKER_00: And stop and ask ourselves the question, what is it that's so important to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: That he says, woe.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It would be better for him, the one through whom offenses come, through whom the one stumbling blocks come, and the word is scandalon in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's uh it's the same word for a little stick that would hold up a trap, and it would uh it would be the kind of thing where an animal would go underneath and and you know bounce that stick out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: It would be set a trap and cause the animal to be to be stopped and captured for eating later.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's also the idea of somebody who would trip you up.
SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to be the one through whom offenses or stumbling blocks come in the lives of the people who are around you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not just tripping them up like, watch this, you know, and you trip them physically, and it's kind of a practical joke.
SPEAKER_00: That's not it at all.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about this in terms of the context of your life as a member of society, in your family, in your place of work, in your neighborhood, wherever it might be, online in that neighborhood that you're a part of.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the one through whom offenses come.
SPEAKER_00: It would be better for him, who doesn't, if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, then that it should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
SPEAKER_00: Who are the little ones?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He's certainly being followed by hundreds, if not thousands, of people at the time.
SPEAKER_00: He may be, there may be a collection of little ones literally right here, little children.
SPEAKER_00: That's possible.
SPEAKER_00: He often talked about children.
SPEAKER_00: But he also might be talking about those who are little or new or young in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the cause of those people stopping to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Um you're separating them from God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: It would be better for you, and this is a pretty harsh word, if a rock, a huge rock, a millstone, could have weighed 95, 100 pounds, would be tied around your neck and you'd be thrown into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00: I had used to be a lifeguard.
SPEAKER_00: I could swim and, you know, kind of bring somebody back to you know the shore or to the side of the swimming pool or whatever, if they weighed, you know, a little bit, but I couldn't go very far with that.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me like a 95-pound millstone or greater, if there's a bigger one, would send me right to the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: Don't pass go, don't collect$200, you're at the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's just it.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's saying, be sober about this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't cause one of these little ones to stumble again.
SPEAKER_00: Now the verb form of scandalon, scandalizo, and it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the one that trips others up.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, folks, you are your brother and sister's keeper.
SPEAKER_00: And so am I.
SPEAKER_00: We have the opportunity to influence others.
SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about that as the little ones watch you around your own home?
SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about that as those who are on the edge of faith, looking in?
SPEAKER_00: We ran into so many people like that in the last three weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And we kept thinking to ourselves, oh, is this an opportunity to plant the very first seed?
SPEAKER_00: Or is this one of those seeds that's along the way?
SPEAKER_00: Are we watering?
SPEAKER_00: What's happening here?
SPEAKER_00: How's God using us in each and every moment?
SPEAKER_00: We have to be aware of the fact that our lives, we're here still.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: To be ambassadors for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not to be a hindrance to belief, but to encourage belief.
SPEAKER_00: Be on your guard, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: If your brother sins, rebuke him.
SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting word, too.
SPEAKER_00: And if he repents, forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times a day saying, I repent.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but after the third time, I'm kind of done.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just being honest.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe you mean it after three times.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you're serious after three times.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus calls me to show the kind of grace toward those who I don't think mean it that he's actually been showing to me for years, and I just haven't realized it.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm just not aware of it.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we pray a prayer like this, that we pray every single week, he puts that one conditional clause in there that says, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others who have trespassed.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, measure to me the same amount of mercy and forgiveness that I measure to others, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And you can read that in Matthew chapter 6 a little bit more, but he talks about that over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Very important for us to be agents of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, uh Luke records it this way, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: And the apostles, so now that the 12, the group that are smaller, closer to Jesus, perhaps that other group was a mass number of disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We know he sent out the 12, but he also sent out the 70.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that in the first chapter of the book of Acts, there'll be the 120.
SPEAKER_00: But we also know there have been thousands following him.
SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a broader message there in the first part of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And now the apostles are responding to what Jesus has said, and they're going, well, if you're going to ask us to do that, you know, because the rabbis back then used to say, it's a success if you do forgive somebody three times.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, right here, has in verse 4, he's up the ante by times two plus one, seven times in a day.
SPEAKER_00: And so the apostles are a little baffled by this, and they say, We're going to need more faith for this.
SPEAKER_00: Increase our faith, is what they say.
SPEAKER_00: And then here's Jesus' response in verse six.
SPEAKER_00: If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you.
SPEAKER_00: But which of you, having a servant ploughing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, Come immediately and sit down to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Will he not say to him, Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me until I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink?
SPEAKER_00: He does not thank the servant, because he did the things which were commanded, does he?
SPEAKER_00: So you too, when you do all the things which you are commanded you do to do, don't say, You we we are unworthy, or excuse me, you should say we are unworthy slaves.
SPEAKER_00: We have done only that which we ought to have done.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, don't be just a bare bones believer here.
SPEAKER_00: Just barely doing what is required of you.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a parable about slavery, it's not a parable about the rightness or the wrongness of what we think of, especially in the West, when we think of the word slavery, as it relates to especially the early part of our nation.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and some of the echoes of that that have so stained our nation in so many ways.
SPEAKER_00: But this is about the norms of the way you look toward your master.
SPEAKER_00: Do you serve somebody?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you do, according to Bob Dylan in 1979, you all serve somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Um we all serve somebody.
SPEAKER_00: It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody, is what he says, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: You read the lyrics I did, which I did last night, it's just amazing how many different categories of life in each of those verses.
SPEAKER_00: That's for later.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that at lunch if you would like to.
SPEAKER_00: But back up just a little bit here.
SPEAKER_00: If your faith is just like a mustard seed, which is really, really tiny.
SPEAKER_00: And you say to the, he says, if you if you would say to the mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the seed, it would obey you.
SPEAKER_00: I actually love this kind of thing, especially.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the guy in our neighborhood, I'm one of the few guys that still cuts his own grass.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to be able to say to the dandelion, be uprooted and cast into my neighbor's yard or something.
SPEAKER_00: You never know.
SPEAKER_00: But I would like to be able to say that.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to think that that's that Jesus meant this literally, and that we should all, because as far as I know, down through church history, nobody has said to a mulberry tree, be uprooted and cast into sea.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has said to a mountain, be uprooted and it has actually gone into sea.
SPEAKER_00: So if it isn't about literal, what is it about?
SPEAKER_00: And I think what Jesus is trying to do here is to get it into our heads that it's not about the amount of faith you have contra a lot of modern-day preachers.
SPEAKER_00: You need faith and more faith.
SPEAKER_00: And they've even turned it into a two-syllable word.
SPEAKER_00: Faith! You know, and it's because you don't have enough faith that you don't get what you ask for.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they're telling us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I think, is turn is completely at odds with that view of faith.
SPEAKER_00: For him, it's about the object of your faith, not the amount of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so the point here is that tiny little mustard seed.
SPEAKER_00: You don't, you don't need much at all, actually.
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to receiving God's mercy and forgiveness, just like when we look at the the category of the parable, uh, the parable of the uh prodigal son, which I believe you've studied while we were gone, the the beautiful thing about the story is the the father is watching from the windows.
SPEAKER_00: And the minute he sees a little tuft of dust in the road, and he somehow knows either by the gate of the walk or by just his own heart being so eager for it to be his prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: He gets up, he lifts up, and he runs out to meet.
SPEAKER_00: That's how eager our father is to forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm I don't have an I I don't I don't think that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think his grace is so amazing and wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking, I keep falling back into I have to earn it, or I have to you know gin up a certain amount of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Or I look at others like the elder son, and I want them to perform the way I want them to perform.
SPEAKER_00: And I think I've done enough.
SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm entitled now to the Father's love, and I'm not, and neither are you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why grace is so amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Because he gives it so freely to both the younger and the elder prodigal sons, and to us as well.
SPEAKER_00: All right, this is really beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read the second section, and then I want to make a few points.
SPEAKER_00: It came about that while he was on the way to Jerusalem, that he was passing between Samaria and Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Get this in your head.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, ancient Israel's three parts.
SPEAKER_00: The northern part is Galilee, the Galilee, as it's often called, rich in soil agricultural, um, a little more uh kind of blue-collar in its, you know, the people that live there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so fishermen and and simple folk are up there.
SPEAKER_00: And and they're doing a great job growing crops and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of where Jesus hubbed his uh a lot of his ministry out, Capernaum there on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Then you have Samaria, and then you have Judea where Jerusalem is, and the sort of center of religious authority and and understanding and great teachers and schools and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of pride there.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so a lot of times they would look down on the Jews that come from the simple part of Galilee in their own minds.
SPEAKER_00: There'd be a little intellectual snobbery going on.
SPEAKER_00: But the Samaritans, they hated them.
SPEAKER_00: There was religious and racial bigotry abounding between the Samaritans and the Jews, they just animosity going in both directions.
SPEAKER_00: More than we could possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of us think our country is divided in a lot of ways, and it is, but this was deeper than that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's really interesting that Jesus would be moving between Samaria and Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Um, for Jews to enter the region of the Samaritans would be to make them unclean.
SPEAKER_00: They would often walk all the way around to the east, crossing over the Jordan and go transjordan to be able to get up north so they don't have to get Samaritan dust on their feet and be unclean.
SPEAKER_00: So it came about that while he was on his way to Jerusalem in this journey, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: He entered a certain village and there met him ten leprous men who stood at a distance.
SPEAKER_00: They had to stand at a distance back then.
SPEAKER_00: It was required that they would.
SPEAKER_00: They'd be kicked out immediately once they discovered that they had leprosy.
SPEAKER_00: They'd be kicked out of their home, their family, their job, their town, and they literally had to go off to a leper colony.
SPEAKER_00: Leprosy was a horrible disease.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Hansen's disease in our own day and time.
SPEAKER_00: It's by it by and large, at least in America anyway, it's it's receded, it's it's been, you know, they've figured out uh some of what to do about it.
SPEAKER_00: There's only a few hundred cases in America right now, but there are yet hundreds of thousands of cases around the world, and we need to we need to push that back as best we can.
SPEAKER_00: That's a little parenthetical phrase.
SPEAKER_00: But for right now, just understand, these ten men, if they have advanced leprosy, they might be missing fingers.
SPEAKER_00: They might be, their nose may have been eaten away, their ears may have dropped off, literally.
SPEAKER_00: Their toes.
SPEAKER_00: These guys are in a state of you know, being wrapped in rags that are just gross and oozing, uh, either blood or pus or whatever, and it's just a horrible way to die.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so these men are there, and Jesus met him.
SPEAKER_00: And I love it that Jesus does this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Um He is you have a need, you have brokenness, you have something wrong with you.
SPEAKER_00: He is so eager to draw near to you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you turn to him?
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: And so these guys, he encounters them, and I think this is all a part of his plan, even as he's on his way to lay down his life on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they stood at a distance because they had to.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't required to.
SPEAKER_00: If they came within 150 feet, some people, Jews, would pick up rocks and throw them at the lepers to drive them away because they didn't want to be, uh they didn't want to touch them or be near them even in an airspace kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they raised their voices saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
SPEAKER_00: They'd heard something about him.
SPEAKER_00: They knew his name.
SPEAKER_00: They even called him Master, and in some way, they think he can help them.
SPEAKER_00: And my prayers are sometimes reduced to help as well.
SPEAKER_00: My prayers are sometimes reduced to thank you as well.
SPEAKER_00: I more often say the first and don't say the latter often enough.
SPEAKER_00: And well, that's important here in this particular story as well.
SPEAKER_00: But they are there, um uh they are saying, have mercy.
SPEAKER_00: He saw them, verse 14, he said to them, Go show yourselves to the priest.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if any of them are Jewish, that's kind of like skipping ahead a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Because the proper Old Testament laid-out plan, if you have leprosy, any kind of skin disease at all, actually, and you think you are over it, you're to go show yourself to the priest.
SPEAKER_00: So the command is move in that direction.
SPEAKER_00: And what we aren't told here is that he healed them and then told them to move in that direction.
SPEAKER_00: What we're told here is move in that direction is what he said to them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you guys, but if I think about that disease and How horrible and wretched it is.
SPEAKER_00: And I think about these ten guys.
SPEAKER_00: And they start moving, and along the way, you know, Shlomo all of a sudden has new fingers.
SPEAKER_00: And Aaron all of a sudden has new toes.
SPEAKER_00: And they look up and they see David.
SPEAKER_00: And he's all of a sudden, you know, he's got ears again.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they're beautiful ears.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they're looking at this and they're all starting to be healed as they're going.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe one of them stops and says, I got an idea.
SPEAKER_00: Let's play rock, paper, scissors.
SPEAKER_00: We got fingers again.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they invented rock, paper.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who I don't know where that came from.
SPEAKER_00: Could very well be true.
SPEAKER_00: It's been around a long time.
SPEAKER_00: But it came about that as they were going.
SPEAKER_00: Luke tells us they were cleansed.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you know, you look great.
SPEAKER_00: You look awesome.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't looked this good in years.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of them, when he saw they had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.
SPEAKER_00: He fell on his face at his feet, Jesus' feet, thanking him.
SPEAKER_00: And he, this is, Luke, look at Luke, the Gentile writer.
SPEAKER_00: As far as we know, the only Gentile writer of the New Testament, in the New Testament, right?
SPEAKER_00: Book of Luke, Book of Acts, actually the greatest volume of words that we have is written by, we think, a Gentile guy.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, nine of them, went on.
SPEAKER_00: One of them turns around, goes back, glorifies God with a loud voice, fell on his face, and here's what Luke says.
SPEAKER_00: And he was a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: To a Jew, just as bad as he was a Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe worse.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting that Luke would add that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed, but the nine, where are they?
SPEAKER_00: All of Jesus' questions, in my view, are completely rhetorical.
SPEAKER_00: He knows where they are.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Where are they?
SPEAKER_00: And by extension, for me anyway, I read that and I hear, Where are you, Jim?
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you, Jim, when it comes to having been blessed by his common grace or by his special grace toward me?
SPEAKER_00: Where am I?
SPEAKER_00: Am I just woo-hoo partying and on my way?
SPEAKER_00: Or do I stop and give thanks?
SPEAKER_00: And does it lead my heart to worship?
SPEAKER_00: True disciples.
SPEAKER_00: As they mature and as they grow, the response is different along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, We're none found who turn back to give glory to God except this foreigner.
SPEAKER_00: And he's speaking to the crowd of people that have been following him, largely Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, Rise and go your way to this one man.
SPEAKER_00: Your faith has made you well.
SPEAKER_00: That's really amazing to me.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me give you just a few points on this one.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, what does it mean to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Is the question that we're going to seek to answer along the way here.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples give prayerful thought to the questions.
SPEAKER_00: Am I causing anyone to stumble?
SPEAKER_00: We're agents of grace who do not cause others to stumble.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in the first couple of verses, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 and verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything about my home life?
SPEAKER_00: How about my work ethic?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything about my extended family life or my life as a citizen of this world, and in particular this country or this state or this city?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything about my life that I need to stop and think about as regards the impact my faith has in that realm on others?
SPEAKER_00: When others are looking at me, do they see a person who loves Jesus no matter what, who finds his joy in Jesus, finds all of his fulfillment in Jesus, finds his peace in Jesus, even in the face of cataclysmic events in the world around us, or horrible events in our own personal lives that we're about to face and we don't know about it.
SPEAKER_00: Some that are just around the corner, some with this many people in the room, certainly it's it's a chance, there's a possibility of that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us sitting right here right now will weep this week.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us sitting here right now will scratch our heads and wonder, where are you, God, in this?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is beautiful and wonderful in the way that he reminds us here to be thinking about the testimony, the witness, the impact of the way we respond, not only to life and the offenses that might, temptations that might come, the temptation to unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: I don't trust you, God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you got this one.
SPEAKER_00: Or in our anger, you got this wrong, God.
SPEAKER_00: And people are watching me.
SPEAKER_00: They're watching you, and I think it's important for us to know that stumbling blocks, offenses, something that trips others up as they watch us in our walk with God.
SPEAKER_00: We all know, as Barclay said, the old Scottish preacher, there are certain people in whose company it is easy to be good, and there are also certain people in whose company it is easy for standards to be relaxed.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on, I won't put it on the screen, but he goes on to say there's certain people in whose presence a soiled story would be readily told.
SPEAKER_00: And there are other people to whom no one would dream of telling such a tale.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's convicting to me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian must be the cleansing antiseptic, he says, in any society in which he happens to be.
SPEAKER_00: He must be the person who, by his presence or her presence, defeats corruption and makes it easier for others to believe and trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Those who follow Jesus are spiritually and morally responsible in their relationships, is what we're trying to say here.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it requires watchfulness and a willingness to lay aside our rights, our freedoms, although we're always screaming about those all the time.
SPEAKER_00: This may require us to be inconvenienced or to experience injustices, small and or large, in order that others may see the power of God at work in our lives when things aren't going the way we would have prescribed them to go.
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's in our personal life or in our civil life.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't go my way.
SPEAKER_00: We trust Christ with the outcomes.
SPEAKER_00: He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, what does it mean to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I think it means we become agents of grace who don't want to cause others to stumble.
SPEAKER_00: But secondly, I think followers of Jesus are loving enough to confront and gracious enough to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in verses uh three and four, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Just take a look there.
SPEAKER_00: Um be on your guard.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's it.
SPEAKER_00: Alert! You know, it's like it's like taking the big air horn and going and trying to awaken us because evidently our natural tendency is to fall asleep in the light and to not be thinking about these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus constantly trying to awaken us.
SPEAKER_00: What about the word rebuke there?
SPEAKER_00: Um it's uh epitomal in its in the Greek form, and it's biblical usage.
SPEAKER_00: We often see it attached to the motive of restoration, reconciliation, and sometimes it even includes, if you look it up, it even includes a motive of wanting to honor and love the person that you're working with.
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's interesting I'm in a position for the last 24 years where people don't mind telling me what they don't like.
SPEAKER_00: And I really have tried very hard over the 24 years, and if I haven't done this with you, I ask your forgiveness, I really do.
SPEAKER_00: But I've tried to say that everybody deserves to be heard.
SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody should be given at least 60 seconds or something, you know, to be heard, to be, because they're concerned.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember right there at that door, uh, it's been a number of years ago, but I remember somebody, I've used this illustration before, but I'll use it again.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody came up to me and gave me a whole lot of grief about the way we do communion.
SPEAKER_00: And I I recognize, I've been in a church long enough in my my number of years to realize that different churches do it different ways.
SPEAKER_00: So I heard this person out and I said, Well, how would you do it differently?
SPEAKER_00: And would you be interested in hearing why we do it the way we do it?
SPEAKER_00: And and that has worked out really well with me and that person.
SPEAKER_00: But there was a relationship, so it's a brother, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: So there's a relationship there.
SPEAKER_00: And it took courage for him to come up and talk to me, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I think he knew what the uh intent of my heart would be to hear and to listen to what he has to say and be able to navigate forgiveness if it was necessary, if it had been some kind of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't sin.
SPEAKER_00: Um it wasn't we just chose to do it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Other churches have chosen to do it that way.
SPEAKER_00: It's not right.
SPEAKER_00: One right, one wrong, it's just different.
SPEAKER_00: We just do it differently.
SPEAKER_00: And he he received that and took that really well.
SPEAKER_00: I think in this particular case with verses three and four, if we were to apply it, remember, it's if you're brother, that means there's some relationship, some you you have some um uh right to be heard because of a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: You've earned the right to be heard because of a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you if you don't know somebody at all, please don't think that your spiritual gift of rebuking people is actually something that should come into play.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't taken the time to get to know them and love them and earn the right to be heard, and believe me, I know you might not be heard, no matter if you have taken, it's possible.
SPEAKER_00: People react differently.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't, we we aren't in charge of their response.
SPEAKER_00: We are in charge of how we approach people and the tone with which we approach people.
SPEAKER_00: And if the goal is to honor, to love, to reconcile, to restore that person, to help them see, for instance, the self-destructive nature of their sin or the impact of their sinful ways on their children or on their neighbor or on the community here.
SPEAKER_00: We it we need to have the courage to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00: So followers of Jesus are loving enough to confront and gracious enough to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so relationship, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and not just because, secondly, not just because you don't happen to like the way they do things.
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be clear, crystal clear sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just because you don't like the clothes they wear, it's not just because they are, you know, close talker with bad breath.
SPEAKER_00: That you don't rebuke people for that.
SPEAKER_00: You just move your face away.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's clear sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because you don't like the way they happen to uh do things at work or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's gotta be sin, and it's not always an easy task to sort that out.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal, though, is their highest good.
SPEAKER_00: And Christ, I want to say this Christ is our model and our means in applying this.
SPEAKER_00: How would Jesus approach this person to rebuke them and to also reconcile or forgive them?
SPEAKER_00: That's so important for us to ask those kinds of questions.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how his half-brother, the Apostle James, said it.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers, if one of you would wonder from the truth, and someone should bring him back, remember this whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the writer, author of Proverbs, Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful the kisses of an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Those who want to follow Jesus will be loving enough to influence others whom they love away from sin and toward Christ in whom they can find forgiveness and restoration.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way Bieckner put it.
SPEAKER_00: When somebody you've wronged forgives you, you're spared the dull, self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience.
SPEAKER_00: They they they forgave you.
SPEAKER_00: They did you an amazing favor and they freed you from this guilty.
SPEAKER_00: When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you're spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Have you had a wounded pride before?
SPEAKER_00: For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other's presence.
SPEAKER_00: So be aware of how much you've been forgiven as you consider how much you should forgive.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's really important.
SPEAKER_00: Third, followers of Jesus trust in the object of their faith, not in the size or the amount of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so relax.
SPEAKER_00: The power of God is not limited by your lack of faith.
SPEAKER_00: What he wants you to do is remember the object of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You trust him.
SPEAKER_00: You always turn to him no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: You turn to him for the the outcomes, whether they're large or small, whether it's the world, the craziness in our world, or just the tension, the pressure, the pain, the brokenness in my world or in your world.
SPEAKER_00: We trust him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's trustworthy, man.
SPEAKER_00: He really is.
SPEAKER_00: He literally turned a crucifixion into a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Who else should you trust?
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: He's got this, and he's got you, he's got me, and he's got all my loved ones.
SPEAKER_00: We should trust him.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a great faith you need, said and he writes, faith in a great God.
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I love the way uh the minister of Church of Scotland, having just been over in UK, I loved and treasured this quote when I read it.
SPEAKER_00: This guy's a pastor and a preacher and a poet.
SPEAKER_00: Um, designer of one of the plans some of you use for reading your one-year Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison with eternal realities.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Pastor Ryan who used the illustration of if you take just something as small as a nickel or a quarter or a dime, whatever it is, hold it right up to your eye.
SPEAKER_00: The proximity will blot out the sun, even though the sun is immeasurably bigger than the coin.
SPEAKER_00: It's about proximity.
SPEAKER_00: Draw near to him, disciples who want to be apostles.
SPEAKER_00: What about the last section?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What do we see there as we looked at um uh the the ones that he talked about uh who were servants and what they should expect when they come in, and as well that that last little bit uh about gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh followers of Jesus delight to do more than just their duty.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's exactly what he was trying to point out with the uh master and the servants of the household when he was talking about them.
SPEAKER_00: We believe the gospel for this uh for us, this means that sacrificial love is not just our duty, but it's our delight.
SPEAKER_00: And see, that's only gonna switch in you until you're ready, or when you're ready, I think, to receive the kind of transformation the Holy Spirit can do in your lives.
SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking a lot about delighting in the Word of God lately.
SPEAKER_00: Not just reading it, not just studying it, not just memorizing it, but coming to the place where I delight in it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm as eager to get to my one-year Bible reading as I am to get to a chocolate cake or so many other things I'm so eager about.
SPEAKER_00: But do I really delight?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, man, I missed something this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I didn't get to it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I don't know about you, but I want to, I don't want to just go to a church that feeds me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to a church that makes me more hungry for the word of God and for the God of the Word.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I think that's important for us.
SPEAKER_00: Don't settle for duty when delight is on offer.
SPEAKER_00: A delight to do your will, oh my God.
SPEAKER_00: Your law is within my heart, said the psalmist.
SPEAKER_00: And then that gratitude that's on display in the second half of our section today, I think is so important.
SPEAKER_00: We all stand in need of God's help, all ten of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so if this parable, or this experience, rather, this account represents something that we can learn from.
SPEAKER_00: We are like all ten of them in this regard.
SPEAKER_00: We all need God's help.
SPEAKER_00: If you're coming here thinking that you don't need God's help, I don't know why you're coming here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you are now in the fellowship of the of the needy, you're in the fellowship of the being redeemed, not the ones who are perfected.
SPEAKER_00: You're in the fellowship of the people that need forgiveness, you're in the fellowship of the broken, you're in the fellowship of those who grieve, but with hope.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a beautiful thing, and it's all because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, the majority of us take God's manifold kindnesses for granted.
SPEAKER_00: We're like the nine, we're not like the one, most of the time.
SPEAKER_00: And that's me.
SPEAKER_00: I suggest to you that it's you as well.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not always like the one, but I want to be right now as I'm studying God's word and as the Holy Spirit is speaking to me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be like the one.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be?
SPEAKER_00: That's why this word is preserved for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's on offer for us today.
SPEAKER_00: Have you stopped thanking him?
SPEAKER_00: Please begin now.
SPEAKER_00: Begin.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many things to be thankful for.
SPEAKER_00: That's the other beautiful thing about being around different parts, different cultures and around different parts of the world and all that.
SPEAKER_00: You see things you haven't seen before.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful for that mountain range.
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome and it's beautiful and it overwhelms me and stirs my numinous curiosity so that I want to know God more, the guy that created who made that.
SPEAKER_00: How is that so beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: Why does that move me?
SPEAKER_00: What is it about that that makes me look beyond that and want to say thanks?
SPEAKER_00: And as Lewis says, it's the giving of thanks that completes the experience of astonishment and wonder.
SPEAKER_00: If you have no one to thank, if you're an atheist, a naturalistic atheist, you can be moved by the bigness of the mountains, but it stops there.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you thank on Thanksgiving Day if you don't believe in God at all?
SPEAKER_00: Who is it you're giving thanks for?
SPEAKER_00: Or two.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's really important for us.
SPEAKER_00: And followers of Jesus form a coalition of the grateful who become eager for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: I like that Jesus included that.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that in verse uh 17 and 18 there?
SPEAKER_00: Where then uh where they're not ten cleansed, but the nine, where are they?
SPEAKER_00: Where none found who turned back, and here's the purpose of their turning back, to give glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the parody, that's what we, with our thanksgiving, that's what we ought to be doing is not just, I'm I'm so glad I dodged a bullet, I'm so glad I got this thing or this opportunity or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm so glad and I want to glorify God in this moment for whatever the outcome is.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give him thanks.
SPEAKER_00: We give thanks in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean I'm giving thanks for the bad things that go wrong, but I can give him thanks in all things.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you guys, joy follows gratitude, doesn't precede it, follows gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more joy, down on your knees, up with your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Give more thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's a it's an amazing thing that God has given us the opportunity to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your heart be stopped from giving thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Cry out, yes, for God's help when you need it.
SPEAKER_00: Um and you may have stopped obeying and you need to re-engage with the Lord and respond to Him in faithfulness and trust Him for all outcomes and all these miracles that Jesus performs.
SPEAKER_00: And this one's odd, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Here in the middle of all this teaching to Pharisees, teaching to disciples, teaching to the apostles, speaking to the crowds, here's in the way Luke has ordered the whole thing, here's a here's a little miracle story.
SPEAKER_00: And it's if he goes, let me show you what Jesus did to illustrate all of what I'm teaching, what I've recorded him teaching about.
SPEAKER_00: It's about this.
SPEAKER_00: Have you have you have you become one of the, have you sunk back into becoming one of the nine, or are you eagerly one of the ones?
SPEAKER_00: All right, two quotes, I'll let you go here.
SPEAKER_00: I was think, I love this by Rachel and uh Andrew Wilson.
SPEAKER_00: They're from over in the UK.
SPEAKER_00: I was always inclined to think that God's purposes came about uh through great leaders, unreasonable men taming the world and defying the odds, traveling preachers, justice campaigners, people like that.
SPEAKER_00: Mostly, however, they don't.
SPEAKER_00: They don't what?
SPEAKER_00: God's purposes don't come about through mostly.
SPEAKER_00: They come about through millions of unnamed people doing unheard of things in unnoticeable ways to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Repairing a wall, teaching a classroom of seven-year-olds, sweeping a street, running a business, raising autistic children, fixing a dung gate.
SPEAKER_00: And that's from uh the book this precious couple has written that uh is actually about the fact that God has blessed them and given them two uh special needs children.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're writing their testimony about that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a really powerful book.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's right on that.
SPEAKER_00: Um the Lord is moving in powerful ways, extraordinary ways, through very ordinary people.
SPEAKER_00: People who will never be conference, you know, on the big conference scene or won't have thousands of followers, all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: People who are just doing everyday kinds of work.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how, that's how the glory of God just shines and glimmers across a mountain or in a dark sky.
SPEAKER_00: Let me press you to take the word of God as your rule, the Spirit of God as your guide, the promises of God as your encouragement, and the glory of God as your end.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Father, let us not crowd our spiritual joys into a corner of our hearts, nor our thankful praises into a corner of our prayers, but let us give full scope and vent to both.
SPEAKER_00: Let us live a life that delights in you and in your word.
SPEAKER_00: Let us be frequent and passionate in our thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: May it be pleasant to us, may it transform us to recount the favors and kindnesses that you have shown us, especially those we've received through Christ in whose name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen and Amen.