Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Luke. Luke chapter 17. Luke 17. I'd like to look at the first
10 verses of this 17th chapter. And I'll look at starting in
verse 1, but our Lord summed up what we're about to consider
with these words, verse 10, he said, so likewise. Well, there's
something that he said before this to come to this conclusion. So likewise ye, when you shall
have done all those things which are commanded you say, we are
unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our
duty to do. You have done all these things,
all those things which are commanded. You say we are useless, good for nothing. That's what
unprofitable means. We've done that which was our
obligation, our necessity, our debt, our duty. Now, We realize that every believer
is a bond slave. He's a willing servant. He's a willing servant, made
willing, not by himself. No man ever born in Adam ever
said, you know, I think I'm just going to, I want to follow the
Lord. Why do you say that Marvin? Because
the scripture says in Psalm 14, No man seeks after God. No man. You know, we just can't give
ourselves any credit, can we, Neil? We just don't have anything
to say. What are we gonna say? None, there's none good. But
every man called out of darkness, every woman called out of the
darkness of sin and unbelief has been made willing in the
day of God's power, gave them a new heart. to want to do, they
want to, they want to. Didn't want to before, but they
do after he gives them a new heart. The scripture says, Paul,
in Romans 1, 1, Paul, a servant, a servant. Every believer is
just, that's a name, a title of endearment. Who are you? I'm
a servant, a servant. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle. He said, I'm a servant first.
The Lord made me to be an apostle, separated under the gospel of
God. Jude 1.1, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of
James, preserved in Jesus Christ and called. That's what he said.
So God's people, called out of the darkness of sin and unbelief,
are servants. We're servants. Bound to duty,
to duty. Bound to do what we do, not for
salvation. If the Lord has given us salvation
because of what we've done, then that's salvation by works. We
did something for it, and it's not. Saved by grace, by grace,
through faith. That means that's how we know
it. Our faith didn't save us. For by grace are you saved through
the gift of grace, of faith. That's how you know it. A lot
of works. Why? We boast. We'd have something
to boast about. Well, I said before, I didn't
do much, but you gotta admit, at least I'm a preacher. No. No, by grace are you saved through
faith and not of yourself. gift of God. I told you what
old Don Fortner said to me, I'll never forget this Lord willing.
He said, do all you can for the glory of Christ. Do all you can
for the good and comfort of God's people and don't put any confidence
in it whatsoever. So God's people are called in
their whole strength and time is to be in service to him. We serve the Lord. do what we
do. We're not our own. We're not
at our own disposal. Rather, we're at the master's.
You know, you fellas, women, you got a job. When you clock
in whatever time you clock in, you know who you owe? Whoever's
paying you, whoever's writing your check, you owe them. You
give them eight hours, give them eight hours of work. Don't be
looking, trying to slip around over here and say, you know,
I can get by with five and a half. I can make it look like eight.
You're a thief. You're a thief. We're all like
that. We're all, you know, we're servants
called to duty. And the realization that we're
not our own. We're bought with a price, the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are his servants
for his glory and for the good of his people. Whenever the Lord
stopped Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Now this guy's
a Pharisee. I mean, Pharisees, they, I mean,
some of the most upstanding people you're gonna find. I mean, they
really were upstanding people. I mean, they wouldn't, you didn't
have to lock your doors at night with a Pharisee around. You know,
uh-uh, he cared too much for the praises of men. You're not
gonna try to do, you know, uh-uh. But scripture said God Almighty
stopped that Pharisee. Stopped him on the road to Damascus.
Arrested him in heart. And you know what, first thing
Saul of Tarsus said, Lord, what's a good way to start? Lord, what
wilt thou have me to do? The Lord graciously answered
him, arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what
thou must do. You know, the Lord calls his
people. He said, well, I don't do anything. Marvin's a preacher, so I know
what he did. Well, Gary, you know, this one, this one, this
one. No, everybody's got a ministry.
You think, you think, you'd be wondering, I don't know what
I do. I'm telling you, we're all bound to duty. Do you ever
pray for one another? Thank God for that. I'm so thankful
to have somebody pray for me, Fred. I'm thankful that God gives
somebody a heart to pray for this needy sinner. But we're
all, we're servants, we're servants. Here you are, servants of the
Most High God. What'd you do? Why'd you come
here today? I wanna hear what God has to say. I wanna hear
what the Lord has to say. That's why I'm here. So these
words of our Lord that he's gonna speak to them, let's consider
what brought him to say that last verse. So likewise. Look what he said in chapter
17, verse one and two. Then said he unto the disciples,
it is impossible, but that offenses will come. But woe unto him through
whom they come. It were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea,
and that he should offend one of these little ones. Now let
me tell you who he's talking about on these little ones. You're talking about his people,
little children. That's what, as you all become
as a little child, just submissive. You know, you ever notice how
a child, a child believes their parents. They believe them. They,
you know, they're trusting, they're trusting. Unless you become as
a little child. He says, it's impossible that
offenses, that snares and stumbling blocks and traps It's impossible,
but their offenses will come. They're going to come. The scripture
says, he said in John 17, when he was praying for his people,
he said, they're in the world. They're not of it. They hated
me, he said in John 15. They hated me for they hated
you. He said, you're going to be hated of all men. Why? Because
of what you believe. He said, well, no, no. For what
you believe. Why? Because we believe God's
God. and that God rules and we don't. That's the heart of it. Who gets the glory? Who gets
the glory for it? It's impossible, but that offenses
will come, but woe. I looked that word up, alas. Oh my, woe. Woe. Paul said, woe is unto me if
I don't preach the gospel. God called me to preach the gospel.
Woe, woe unto him. for whom they come, it were better
for him that a millstone hanged about his neck. The mighty scripture
declares that this world that hates God's people, offensive
to God's people, said it'd be better that a millstone hanged about
his neck, cast him to sea, and dropped him straight to the bottom
of the ocean. It'd be better, it'd be better if he'd never
been born, that he should offend one of these little ones, that
he should entice one of my own. Robert Hawker said this, he said,
if the carnal part of mankind considered the ungodly act of
offending the Lord's own, if they realized what they were
doing, He said they'd reconsider if they realized it. Zechariah,
Zechariah's next to the last book of the Old Testament. Zechariah
chapter two says this, concerning the people of God. Zechariah,
Zechariah 2.8 says this, for thus saith the Lord of hosts,
after the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled
you. For he that toucheth you toucheth
the apple of his eye. You know, you take somebody that
you love, they're yours, they're yours. You know, you might deal
with them a certain way, your kids, but if somebody else does,
they've overstepped their bounds. You don't do that. God said,
woe is unto them. that offend one of these little
ones. So after his instruction, he's telling them, he said, now
listen, let me tell you something, there's gonna be offenses coming.
You're gonna be hated, you're gonna be hated. They're gonna
talk about you, talk about you behind your back, say things
that are not true. But he said, I tell you, I tell
you, war was under them. I'll take care of that. But then
he gives some instruction in verse three, on through verse
nine and then comes to that conclusion and I'll be brief here. He says
in verse three, he said, take heed to yourself. And he just
told them, he said, now listen, offenses are coming. It's impossible
that they're not gonna come. They're gonna come, they're gonna
come. But through those that they come through, through the
ones that, you know, are the offenders, it'd be better for
them if they were in the bottom of the ocean. that they offend
you, but they're gonna come. But then he tells them, he said,
now you take heed to yourself. Take heed to yourself. Guard,
be on guard. Beware, attend to yourself. Take heed to yourself. If I,
brother, trespass against thee, rebuke him. And if he repent,
forgive him. Now they're gonna come, they're
gonna come. Fences are gonna come. But he said, if a brother
trespasses against you, if he misses the mark, we're humans,
we're human beings. If he sins, misses a mark, rebuke
him, reprove him. If he repent, forgive him, forgive
him. Here's the Lord warning his disciples,
don't be taken back if a brother errs. or trespassage, but rather,
forgive him. Forgive him for Christ's sake.
Forgive him for the harmony of the assembly and the glory of
the gospel. Let peace be established. If somebody says something, does
something, and they're, you know, then tell them. Tell them, you
know, kindly, and rebuke him. I mean, don't holler at him and
stuff like that, but rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him.
Forgive him. It's over, it's over. Verse four,
if he trespass against thee seven times in a day and seven times
in a day turn again to thee saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive
him. Now if the case be that a brother
continues to trespass and does it time after time after time
and each time seeks forgiveness, We're just gonna fly in the face
of our flesh right here, I can tell you right now. Forgive him
for the same reasons given before. Forgive him for Christ's sake.
You see, I don't see how in the world that anybody could offend
someone that is a brother to them, a friend to them. I don't
see how in the world they can do it and do it, here it says
seven times, it's just multiple times. In a day? You do that
in a day, and every time you do it, seven times in a day,
turn again to thee and say, I repent, I'm sorry. And he truly is sorry.
What did the Lord say to do? Thou shalt forgive him. You say,
I don't see how in the world that that's possible. It's going
to start wearing on me. Okay, well, let me just change
the scene just for a second. How about us against the Lord? Is there anybody in here that's
offended more than one time in a day? Possibly 7D, 7D, times
seven. Here's the spirit of what he's
saying. This is us, y'all. This is us. Here we are, frail creatures
of the dust. We need to consider our failings.
And he's talking, he said, now this is how, I'm telling you,
I'm gonna tell you something. You take heed to yourself, verse
three. Take heed to yourself and consider yourself. Somebody
said, well, they offended me. They just offended me. Well,
I've offended the Lord, too. And I need forgiveness. And I'm
telling you, when a believer offends the Lord, and he knows
it. As sometimes, I'll admit, there's things that we do ignorantly,
okay. But I'm gonna tell you something. By and large, you
know it. You know it. You know disrespectful thoughts
that you have, attitudes, we know it. And Lord, forgive me
for that. I'm so sorry. Have mercy. We should be making every effort
to cover the faults of our brethren. not aggravating those faults. Why? Listen, 1 Corinthians 6. Turn with me there. 1 Corinthians
6. I want you to look at this. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 to
20. We need to be making every effort
to cover the faults of our brother, our sister, and not aggravating
those faults. Why? 1 Corinthians 6, 19. What? Know you not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have
of God, and you're not your own? You're bought with a price. Therefore
glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Had a dear brother tell me one
time that he instructed his child this way. They'd grown up, started
dating and stuff. I want you to remember whose
you are and who you represent. I want you to remember that.
That's what the Lord said. If a brother offends you, forgive
him. If he does it seven times a day
and seven times a day he repents, forgive him. Beloved, we're the
property of the Lord. We're the Lord's property. Chosen
by the Father before the foundation of the world in Christ. Christ
has borne the guilt of His people at Calvary, paid their debt. The Spirit of God has called
them out of spiritual darkness and unbelief in regenerating
grace. Can not the Lord do with His
own as He will? He said, you take heed now. You
take heed. This is how He's instructing us. Then He says in verse 5,
And the apostles, back in Luke 17, I'm sorry. Luke 17, verse
five. And the apostles said unto him,
Lord, increase our faith. Listen, I can understand why
they said that. I mean, boy, I'm telling you, we all wear
our feelings on our shoulder. Man, I'm telling you, you offend
me once, and we get by that one right here, but you do it a second
time in one day? But seven times? Again, it means
multiple times, and the Lord said, you forgive them. You forgive
them. That's where they said, Lord.
Here's the heart, the desire, the request of a believer. One
that's willing to admit his frailty, knowing that the faith he possesses
is the gift of God, is the token of God's favor toward him in
Christ Jesus and he knows something of his deficiency to be able
to believe the Lord as he ought. And he longs to submit himself
unto the Lord. When the Lord said in verse four,
if a brother offends you seven times and he repents seven times,
you forgive him seven times. Lord, help me. Lord, increase
our faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. is that heart, it's that gift,
that realization of our hope in Him. Faith. It's a gift. We're not born with it. It's
given unto you to believe. Hebrews 11, 6, He that cometh
to God must believe that He is and that He's a rewarder of them
that diligently seek Him. So, faith. That's a, it's a gift,
it's a grace. Faith, that divinely given grace
by which the needy sinner lays hold and believes on the Lord
Jesus Christ. By faith, we find some hope and
some peace and some comfort in time of need. And obviously,
faith grows, because they said, Lord, increase our faith. The
Lord spoke to his disciples one day, and he said, oh, you have
little faith. Remember that Syro-Phoenician woman, the woman of Canaan? Came
and begged him. My daughter's got a devil. He
said, well, it's not meat that I should give the children's
bread to dogs. She was a dog. She was from a
country cursed of God. Here she was, a Canaanite-ish
woman. It's not right for me to give
a children's bread to dogs. She said, Lord, you're right.
I'm a dog. I'm yours. Dogs eat crumbs that
fall from the master's table, and he said, oh, woman, great
is your faith. Little faith, great faith, weak
faith. Oh, Lord, increase our faith.
We don't believe as we ought. First Corinthians 12, 31 says,
covet earnestly the best gifts, and how we need to have our faith
increased. Look at verse six. If you had faith as a grain of
mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamine tree, be thou plucked
up by the root and be thou planted in the sea and it should obey
you. You know what he just did? He
just showed us how little faith we have. The things that he just said
concerning forgiveness, We have to believe God to do that. I
don't have a strength of power to do that. That's beyond my
ability. He said, I'm gonna give you an
example. If you did have faith, as a grain of mustard seed, and
you know that's little, that's a little bitty thing. If you
did have that, you could say to this sycamine tree, be uprooted. And it would do it. You know,
my question is, Lord, do I believe you at all? Do I have any faith? Lord, when we consider that which
the Lord has revealed, the smallest measure of faith would do that
which is, in our minds, is impossible. You can't speak to a tree and
tell a tree to be uprooted and get cast into the ocean. The
Lord said if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you
could. The Lord increased our faith. How we need to ask him
for forgiveness. And then our Lord asked a question
to these servants. These are his servants, his disciples. He asked a question to tenderly
and graciously and needfully teach them something of themselves.
He's gonna teach them something about Pride. Pride. Oh, we've got that. He says in
verses seven to nine, which of you having a servant, now he's
given them instruction. They're his servants. And he's
given them instruction about forgiveness and lack of faith.
Now which of you having a servant, plowing or feeding cattle, will
say unto him by and by when he's come from the field, go and sit
down to meet? Which of you will say to one
of your servants that you got him, you hired him, and he's
out there working in the field, and he comes, which of you will
say to your servant when he comes in from the field, now you go
down and sit down, let me get you, let the master get you something
to eat? Which of you? Verse 8, And will
not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and
gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken, and
afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant,
because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not,
or I don't think so. I don't think so. What he was
saying here is that the Lord is giving an example of the truth
of servitude, of service, of the bond slaves to their master,
the attitude, the willing and thankful attitude of the servant
unto the one that provides everything for him. The servants, you know,
they, everything needed, the master took care of it. He'd
give them something to eat, give them a place to stay, give them
some clothes, everything, it was there. So here's the master
telling them, he said, now this, I want you to take heed to yourself,
verse three. Take heed. Concerning forgiveness, concerning
faith, concerning believing me, believing me. He gave them that
example. Which of you, you know, here
we are, we're servants of the Lord. Let me read this last verse
again and I'll wrap this up, Lord willing. So likewise ye, when you shall have done all
these things which commanded you just like those ones that
was out in the field that was out there working and they come
in when you shall have done all these things which commanded
you say we are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our
duty to do the Lord was telling them whenever they you know when
you're when you're commanded you take heed yourself you servants
that have a place of of servitude. We're in the kingdom of God.
This is the Lord's kingdom. And we labor. We're laboring
in this kingdom. He said, whenever you come in,
is the master, is the Lord Jesus Christ going to say to us, now
you sit down because you deserve it? No. He said, no, you're called
to service. And as our call to service is
our duty, that's our duty. He said, you do what you do because
of love toward him. And what we're taught is that
in our service, whenever we're called, whatever we're doing,
I'm sitting here preaching. And in this field of preaching,
I've been called to study, to seek the Lord, ask his direction,
ask his blessing, whatever the service is, whenever we come
in, we recognize that our Lord is the one to whom we do service.
It's our duty. In myself, I am an unprofitable
servant. I'm useless in myself. I have
nothing of worth in myself. But do you want to know what
my pay is? What my, my, gift is to be able to serve him, is
to serve him. That is my pay. That's my duty,
but it's my pay to be able to come to the end of a day. We come to end the day. Glenda
and I, each day we come to the end of the day. I want to read
some scripture. Thank the Lord that I can read
some scripture. Thank the Lord that I can start
this day, end this day with you. Lord, If it's the end of this
day or if it's the end of my life, our pay will be that we
are his servants. That is our pay. We have him. Who are you, Paul? I'm a servant.
Paul, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jude, who are you? I'm
a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's your wages? I'm a servant. All that he is, he is to me. We have an inheritance. What
is it? It's the inheritance of God,
joint heirs with Christ. May God bless us and realize
we're called to duty. May we do so as unto the Lord
for his glory in our