Now I want to direct your attention
back to the book of Luke, Luke chapter 17. Last week I began
in this chapter concerning this subject, forgiveness, faith,
and service. And I want to pick back up with
that. Today specifically we are going to deal with Verses 6-10
concerning the subject of the unprofitable servant. Unprofitable
servant. In keeping with his theme, forgiveness,
faith, and service. The unprofitable servant. That's
the kind of service that a child of God is engaged in, and we'll
see what that means. But let me just read the passage
in its context here and go back over it. He first began, our
Lord, talking to his disciples. He first began talking about
offenses. He says, Then said he, verse
1, unto the disciples, It is impossible, or it is inevitable,
but that offenses will come. But woe unto him through whom
they come. In other words, the offenses are going to come. Let's
pray to God that we're not the instrument that bring those offenses. He says, it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into
the sea than that he should offend one of these little ones. That's
a believer. The little ones are every believer,
mature believers, young believers, and all in between. They're little
ones to God. That's what we are. his sheep,
the sheep of his pasture, his children were called in the scripture.
And those offenses, remember that word offense there is the
word for stumbling block. Remember, it's like a stick that
they put in a trap, a bait stick they used to trap an animal and
catch him up. And what he's talking about is
those who would come into the church and throw a stumbling
block in the way of a believer's walk, the walk of faith. This
is serious business. This is not just little issues
here. These are not just personality
issues. These are things that cause a
believer, for a time, to look away from Christ. To look away
from the assurance and peace and comfort and the motivation
that he has by the grace of God in Christ. These are things that
divide believers. These offenses. These stumbling
blocks. And they're serious. These are
major things. And then he says in verse three,
and he begins talking about forgiveness. Now, he says, take heed to yourselves.
Be careful. Be wary here. If thy brother
trespass against thee, that trespasses, he crosses the line. Rebuke him. And that means bring it to his
attention. And if he repent, forgive him. We're forgiven by
God unconditionally in Christ, but not without restitution.
Christ had to pay the price. It's free and unconditional to
us. We didn't work for it, couldn't
work for it. Sinful for us to even try to
work for it, the scripture says. But there had to be justice satisfied
by the blood of Christ. We're forgiven because God is
faithful and just to forgive us through the blood of Christ.
were accepted in the Beloved. And we have in Him all of salvation,
even the forgiveness of sins. But when it comes to our relationship
with one another and our fellowship, in this matter of trespassing
against one another, there needs to be repentance. It's not earning
our forgiveness. We're to be ready to forgive.
But there has to be repentance. Because that's grace. You know,
repentance is the gift of God, not only initially when we are
born again by the Spirit and come to faith in Christ in repentance
of dead works, but it's a continual thing, isn't it? We have to repent
every day, don't we? If we're honest. Lord, forgive
me. Lord, and come to each other
when we've trespassed against each other. Now, these trespasses
here, again, they're not the little perks that we have. Somebody makes a statement, an
off-color statement, or an off-hand remark, and you walk away. I
wonder what he meant by that. That's not what that's talking
about. If that was it, my soul, we wouldn't have time to do anything
but repent. I mean, think about it. This is talking about things
that hinder a believer in our walk, in our fellowship. These
are major things now. You may not like my shirt and
my tie this morning, but don't come up to me and repent of that.
I don't care if you like it or not. I put it on because I liked
it, see. But that's not what I'm talking
about, see. This is what the Lord meant. Look at verse 4.
He says, "...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." That's big stuff there now. That's impossible
for the flesh to do. And that's then the apostles,
verse 5 says, "...the apostles said unto the Lord, increase
our faith." And he tells them, he says, well now, your problem
is not how much faith you have. Now again, we all want our faith
to be increased. Faith grows. Faith grows. We grow in grace and in knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This faith is the gift of God,
you see, but here's the reality of faith. It's not the amount
of faith you had. He says in verse 6, the Lord
said, if you had faith as a grain of a 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." So that's
not the amount of faith. You know, people worry about
that. They sit around fretting, but do I have enough faith? And
I always ask this question, enough for what? Because you see, it's
not the amount of faith you have, it's who's your faith in? That's the issue. Who's the object
of your faith? You see, if my faith is in Christ,
I know that faith is the gift of God. It's not of works. It's
the gift of God. And I know that faith is enough
because Christ is enough. There's the key. Is your Savior
enough? That's the issue. You see, most
people worry so much about the amount of their faith because
they've got a small Savior, a powerless Savior, one who can't do anything
except what they let Him do. And if you've got a Savior who
won't do anything for you except what you let Him do, then you
need to sit there and worry about how much faith you have. But
I'll tell you something, you've got a counterfeit Savior. You
know, when those blind men came to the Lord and said, Lord, heal
us, He said, do you believe? Enough. That's not what He said,
but He said, do you believe I am able? You believe I'm able to
do this? And they said, we believe. See,
I know he's able. I know I'm not able. I know you're
not able. But he's able. Paul said, I know
whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that what? He is able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. He's
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto the Father
by him. You see, my faith is not in my faith. My faith is
in his ability. His faithfulness is in Christ. So it's not how much faith we
have, it's in whom, the object of our faith. Christ and Him
crucified and risen again. That's the forgiveness of my
sins right there. Christ died and arose from the
dead and I'm forgiven. That's my righteousness before
God. Christ died, was buried and raised again. And I stand
before God complete. That's my life because when He
died, I died. When He was buried, I was buried.
When He arose again, I arose again. I'm in Him. He's my representative,
my substitute, my surety, my kinsman, redeemer. We go on and
on and on. He's my life because it's from
Him that the Holy Spirit comes and gives life, spiritual life
in the new birth. I stand before you as a born-again
person. Because Christ died and sent
his spirit to give me life. Life from the dead. And then
secondly, it's not how much faith you have, but it's obedience.
And you say, well, what does that mean? Well, you know, you
can talk about your faith. You can stand around and talk
about how much you believe, how little you believe. But here's
what the scripture says. It doesn't say sit around. When
it talks about forgiving a brother, or a sister in Christ, forgiving
one another. It doesn't talk about how much
faith or how little faith you have. You know what it says?
Just do it. Just do it. You say, well, I
don't feel like doing it. It doesn't matter how you feel.
In fact, you're really never going to feel like doing it,
because this isn't about feelings. This is about believing the Word
of God. As I asked this question last
week, how much faith do you need to forgive a brother or sister
in Christ? I'll tell you how much faith
you need. You need as much faith to forgive a brother or sister
in Christ as it takes to believe that God has forgiven you in
Christ. That's how much it takes. Now,
if you've got a measuring stick for that, I'd like to see it,
but I don't believe there's one that exists. That's not on a
scale. You can't weigh that on a scale.
It's simply do it. You forgive. You say, well, I
believe God. Well, if you believe God, you'll
forgive a brother or sister in Christ. And if you don't believe
God, you won't. That's simply it. It has to do
with faith that works by love. It has to do with faith that
evidences itself in obedience. obedience to God, not because
you feel like it, not because the circumstances are right or
wrong, but because God says to do it. And from there he launches
in, verse 7, to the issue of the unprofitable servant. Listen
to what he says here, verse 7. But which of you, having a servant
plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him, by and by, when
he is come from the field, go and sit down to meet? Now, the
issue there is as if this is a reward for your work. You're
a servant. You've done your work. He says
in verse 8, And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith
I may sub. He's your servant. And gird thyself,
and serve me. When he girds himself, you see,
that's the work of a servant. And serve me till I have eaten
and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink. This is
the way it is for a servant. And he says in verse 9, doth
he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded
him? I trow not, I think not, I think
not. That would be ridiculous, that's
what the Lord is saying. Here a man has a servant, this
servant has his duties, and he says in verse 10, so likewise,
or in the same way, you, 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. Here's a man, he's got a servant.
This servant has certain duties, certain responsibilities that
he's given as a servant. And he does those things. And
what does the master do? Well, I'm glad you did what you
were supposed to do. I'm going to reward you for it.
Sounds like a lot of preachers today, doesn't it? Now, I'm going
to tell you something. You all know what I think about
the earned reward system that is popular today in so-called
Christianity. I don't think anything of it.
It's not scriptural. But this is just one of the many
verses that puts that heresy to rest. And I'll show you what
I mean. Now, Brother Joe read from James
chapter 2. And a lot of people, when they
read the book of James, you know, they get all out of kilter because
they don't understand what James is saying there about a man being
justified by works. Because we know, we know that
the Bible and other places said that it's impossible for a sinner
to be justified before God by his works. Well, it's like any
other passage of scripture. You've got to find out who's
talking, who they're talking to, what they're talking about.
You can't lift passages of Scripture out of their context and set
them over here and make them, you know, make them say something
they're not saying out of their context. What's James talking
about? First of all, James is speaking, writing, by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, to the church, to Jewish believers mainly, but
to all believers, all those who are already justified before
God. He's not talking about how a
sinner is justified before a holy God. He's talking about the justification
of our faith before men. And it would go like this. Now,
you claim, and I claim, to believe the gospel. I claim to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ as my only hope, my only Savior. I
claim that I love Him. I don't love Him as I ought to.
I don't love Him perfectly. I'm ashamed of my love. I know
my love is not what it ought to be, but I can tell you honestly,
before God and men, I do love him. I do love him. Now, prove
it. That's what James is saying.
Prove it. You men, do you love your wives?
Prove it. You married them. You take care
of them. You treat them right. That's love. If you walk off
and never see them again, and then still claim you love them?
Now, does that make any sense to you? No. You love your children. You wives love your husband.
See, that's what James is talking about. You say you love Christ. Do your works evidence your love
for Christ? Is your faith justified? Or is
it a sham profession? That's what James is talking
about. And that's what the Lord's talking about here. You claim
to be forgiven. I claim to be forgiven freely.
I didn't deserve it and didn't earn it. Any of the forgiveness
that I have before God, I didn't earn it and I didn't deserve
it. It's nothing I merited before God. And the Bible teaches that
the evidence of having been forgiven, one of the evidences, is having
a forgiving spirit. That's what it says. And then
he proves that by the unprofitable servant. Now, I tell you what,
because this is what every man by nature, even believers, has
a problem with. You see, when we do what we're
supposed to do, we think we deserve a reward. You take these fellows
who talk about, well, he's working hard for the Lord. He's going
to get a mansion in heaven. And this other fellow, you know,
he may show up for church, you know, once a month. He's going
to live out in a shack. You don't know what an unprofitable
servant is, my friend. You don't know. I read in Romans
chapter 12 about our reasonable service. Let me show you what
our reasonable service is. Now, when we come to the unprofitable
servant issue here, this is an illustration of the kind of faith
that truly believes and serves God. Number one is faith that's
guided by God's Word. That's what faith is, it's believing
what God says. It's not just believing what
you want hard enough to get it. Somebody says, well, do you want
to be healed? Well, if you believe hard enough, it'll happen. No,
that's not what the Scripture teaches. We know God is the God
of all healing, and He sometimes heals, He sometimes withholds
healing. It has nothing to do with how much faith you have
in that issue. Faith believes God's Word. beginning
with the gospel. How does God save a sinner? Not
by works, but by His grace. God doesn't save me, God doesn't
keep me, God doesn't reward me, and God will not glorify me based
on my works. You know what the foundation
and the rock of that whole blessedness is? It's Christ and Him crucified
and risen again. God will save me, keep me, bless
me, reward me, and glorify me because of what Christ accomplished
at Calvary. In the shedding of His blood,
in the establishment of righteousness. That's what God's grace is. At
no time before salvation, at no time after salvation, do I
deserve or earn what God has given me. Can you grab hold of
that? Now listen to that, even now,
Debbie asked me, I said, how long have you been preaching
the gospel? What, it was about 30 years, I guess now. I still,
not based on one sermon I preached or all the sermons together that
I preached, I still cannot look up to God and say, now I finally
deserve the salvation that you've given me. Can't do it. I cannot
look up to God and say, now, finally, now that I'm in my 30th
year and preached all those sermons, which, by the way, I don't mind
any of you all going back and hearing, preached all those sermons,
now I've finally earned my reward. Not so. Haven't earned a bit
of it. Don't deserve any of it, now
or forever. It's all Christ. and Him crucified
and risen again. That's what God's Word says.
And then God's Word says a lot more. It says, forgive the brother
that trespasses against you. I'm forgiven, and I ought to
have a spirit of forgiveness. It may not feel like it. It has
nothing to do. God says it. Secondly, it's faith
that works by love and grace and gratitude. It's not trying
to earn your way into God's favor. It's not trying to deserve it
by your works. It's faith that works and obeys
and serves not to be saved, not to be rewarded by meritorious
efforts, but it's faith that works by love and grace and gratitude. Thank you, Lord. We're going
to study tonight in 2 Samuel 7, David's prayer of thanksgiving.
And David starts off with all the blessings that God gave King
David. You know how he starts off? He said, Lord, who am I? Who am I that you've done this
to, that you've given all these blessings to? I don't deserve
them, haven't earned them. I'm a sinner saved by the grace
of God. And David began to serve God,
not to be saved, but because he already was. Not to earn his
reward, but because God had already rewarded him fully in Christ.
He that spared not his own son, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? If you have Christ, you have
all things. The Bible says we're blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's all spiritual blessings
in Christ. You think about this whole issue
of salvation and how people think about it. This is the service
of faith that he's talking about. And I want you to look at this.
Look at verse 10. Let's start there in this issue of seeing
what he's saying here. Do you notice there in verse
10, this statement, he says, So likewise ye, when you shall
have done all those things which are commanded you. Do you realize
what that's saying? Now, who among us, first of all,
would would be so bold and self-righteous as to stand up and say, well,
Lord, I've done all those things which you've commanded me to
do. I hope none of you. And if there is anybody in this
audience today who would be so bold as to say that, I'm telling
you, friend, you are deceiving yourself. There was a lawyer
one time that came to the Lord and said, Lord, which is the
greatest commandment? And he told him, it's recorded
in the book of Mark, chapter 12, he said, he said, thou shalt
have no other gods before you. And he said, he said, love God
perfectly. Love God with all your heart,
soul, mind, strength. That means perfect love. And
love your neighbor as yourself. He said, on this hangs all the
commandments. Right there. That's the summation of all the
commandments. Now, if you would claim that
you've done all those things which are commanded you, you
would have to say, from the cradle on up, that you've loved God
perfectly, without any thought of self-love or selfishness. And notice now, when Christ put
it to the test about love, loving your neighbor, you'd love your
neighbor as yourself. There's two times he really put
that to the test. And he said this, he said, now
the Pharisees, they're good about picking and choosing their neighbors.
He says, love your neighbor. Well, as long as I can pick and
choose my neighbors, that's an easy task. But Christ said, take
it this far, love your enemies. Now, who's your enemy? Well,
think about the one that would do you the most harm. And the Bible commands you to
love that person as yourself. Well, that's a convicting commandment,
isn't it? That puts me in my place. How
about you? And then the Lord told a rich young man who came
to him. He said, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? This is a man who was trying
to be saved by his works, by keeping the commandments. And
the Lord said, well, keep the commandments. And the fellow
said, well, which one? And he started out on the second
table of the law, which has to do with love to your neighbor.
And the fellow said, well, I've done that from my youth up. And
he said, well, let's put it to the test. Go sell everything
you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me. The fellow
walked away, for he had much, much things, much riches. If you really love your neighbors
yourself, if you think you do, then here's God's command to
you. Go sell everything you have, walk away from it, and follow
him. Make yourself poor that somebody else may be rich. Where
does that put me? Where does that put you? Listen
to it again, Luke 17, 10. So likewise, when you shall have
done all those things which are commanded, you say, we haven't
done all those things which are commanded us. None of us keep
these commandments. So as to say, we've done all
those things which are commanded us. That's why we need Christ. That's why I need salvation by
grace. And you do too. That's why salvation
cannot be conditioned on me. It has to be conditioned on one
who truly did all things that were commanded him to do, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I always do the will
of my Father. He kept the law perfectly. The
Bible says Christ is the end of the law, the fulfillment of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. That's
why I have no righteousness before God but Christ. And even after we're saved, after
we're born again, the Holy Spirit does not enable us to keep the
law perfectly. We're in a warfare then, warfare
of the flesh and the spirit. And we have to fight to forgive
one another. We have to fight to love one
another because we have selfishness still contaminating our best
efforts to love. We have to contend with the flesh,
sin within us. And it contaminates everything
we do, everything we think, everything we say, so that at any time we
have to look up and say, God, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That's why we need mercy. But
if we could, for the sake of argument, if we could do all
those things which were commanded us, what would we have to say?
Lord, look at me. Give me the pen. Put my name
on the keys. Lord, name a building after me. Give me the... No, we'd have
to say we are yet, look at it, we are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our
duty to do. And what he's saying there is
if we could say we've done all those things that were committed,
we'd still have to say, We don't deserve, and we haven't earned
anything from God. We've just done our duty. We've
just given God what we owe Him, which is love and obedience. What he's saying here in this
testimony of the unprofitable servant is this. We cannot put
God into debt to us. Turn to Romans chapter 4. God is never going to put Himself
or allow us to put Him in a position where He is in debt to us. Now when He saves us, we're put
into a position where we're eternally in debt to Him. And I'll show
you that in a moment. But look at verse 1 of Romans
chapter 4. He says, What shall we say then of Abraham, our father,
as pertaining to the flesh hath found? That's Abraham according
to his works and his heritage. For if Abraham were justified,
made right with God by works, he hath whereof to glory, to
boast, but not before God now. He says, For what saith the Scripture?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Abraham had a righteousness, but it wasn't one he worked for.
It wasn't one he earned. It was one that was given to
him freely, accounted to him, that's what that word means,
counted to him, charged to him, imputed to him, through the Lord
Jesus Christ by promise. Because you see, Christ had not
come in Abraham's day, but he was coming. And it was accounted
to Abraham, like all the other Old Testament believers, by promise. God promised it. And he says
in verse 4, Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned, accounted
of grace, but of debt. Now if you work for it, if you've
earned it and you deserve it, it's not grace, it's debt, it's
what God owes you. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth him God. Now he's talking about
for salvation here. James talks about works, but
not for salvation. James is talking about works
because of salvation. You see the difference? It's
like Ephesians 2 and verse 10. Remember what he says? For we
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Not because of good works, but
unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them. In other words, the good works are the fruit
of the gift already freely given. They're the fruit of life, the
fruit of salvation. That's what James is talking
about. But Paul is talking about here. Now, Abraham, to him that
worketh not, he means trying to earn salvation. Trying to
earn your reward from God, trying to put God in debt to you, he
says, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly. God justifies
the ungodly. The ungodly don't deserve anything
but death. The ungodly don't deserve anything
but damnation. But God justifies the ungodly,
how? By grace, through faith in Christ. And He said His faith, what is
His faith? Christ, in Him crucified, is counted, imputed for righteousness. You see that? That's what the
unprofitable servant is teaching us, that you cannot ever put
God in a position where He's in debt to you. This unprofitable
servant is simply a matter of realizing and admitting That
this is not false humility or some defeavist attitude saying,
I can't do anything if I can't do it perfectly. Well, you can't
do anything perfectly. I can't. Christ did everything
perfectly. Somebody says, well, I can't
serve God because I can't serve Him perfectly. You can serve
God by faith in Christ. Or since I don't earn anything
from God, I won't serve Him at all. Well, what does James say
in James 2.14? Faith without works is dead. You don't believe
God. You say, well, I can't forgive.
Yes, you can. I can, too. You believe God? It's realizing and admitting
that we're forever in God's debt and understanding that our work
for Him is never done. Now, listen to me. Make this
distinction. We who are saved by grace do
not owe a legal debt to God's law and justice. We do not owe
a legal debt to God's law and justice. That has already been
fully paid at the cross of Calvary by Christ. That's fully paid. Jesus paid
it all. All to Him I owe. All the debt
I owe. Sin had left the crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. But let me tell you something.
We eternally owe God a debt of love that will never be paid. Never be paid. It'll never be paid. Again, you
husbands, when did you stop loving your wives? You wives, when did
you stop loving your husbands? You see, realizing that to be
a servant of Christ, a willing, loving bond slave of Christ,
you know what a bond slave is. Back in Exodus 25, the law of
bond slavery was issued for it. What happened? A man who ran
a debt to a creditor, and he couldn't pay his debt, so he'd
go to work, for the creditor for, what, seven years, I believe
it was. And at the end of the seven years, the law said, go
free. But, what if during that seven
year period of time, this man realized that his master loved
him, and he loved his master, and he wanted to stay the master's
servant? Not to pay the debt now, but
because the debt has already been paid. And they take him
and they bore a hole in his ear with an awl, and that was the
mark of a willing, loving bondsman. They knew when you saw that hole,
and most scholars say they put a ring in it, and they said when
you see somebody serving a master at that time, you knew that that
servant wasn't serving because he owed a debt. He was serving
because he loved his master. And that's what Christianity,
my friend, that's what Christian service, That's what Christian
obedience, that's what faith that works by love is all about.
You're not serving to pay a debt, you're serving because the debt's
already been paid. Not by you, not by me, but by
Christ on the cross. And the unprofitable servant,
he's really not unprofitable in the sense that we think about
it. We get much profit from what Christ did, but we get no profit
from what we earn, or what we deserve. And you know, here's
the thing about it. When God brings us to see our
sinfulness and our natural deservedness of damnation based on our best
efforts, and blesses us with a saving view of the glory of
Christ and His blood and His righteousness, His cross, and
gives us life from the Spirit and shows us what we have in
Christ, the riches of the fullness of His grace, You know what we
realized then? That being a slave, a bond slave
to Christ, is the most exalted position for us. Christ said it in Matthew 19.30,
He said, Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall
be first. He's not talking about a reversal
position there. He's simply saying that when
God elevates me to a bond slave of Christ, I've reached the highest
position that a sinner saved by grace can reach. John the Baptist realized it.
He said, I must decrease. Christ must increase. But we
do and will forever owe God a debt of love. It'll never be paid.
This is why the Bible emphasizes that it is not what we do for
God, but what God has done for us in Christ. I want you to turn
to Romans 12. I want to conclude with this.
Romans chapter 12. He mentions here our reasonable
service. Listen to this. Verse 1. 1st
Paul begins with the urgency. of reasonable service. He said,
I beseech you, I beg you, I urge you. And he says, I beseech you,
therefore, there's the foundation of service. That's the word of
God. That therefore, somebody said that's one of the biggest
therefores in the Bible, because it includes Romans 1 through
Romans 11. What did God said up to this
point? He laid the foundation of grace, grace, grace, grace,
grace, saved by grace. Not by works. Justified by the
imputed righteousness of Christ. Not by anything else. Washed
in His blood. Grace. Mercy. Therefore, based
on that, brethren, here's the fellowship of service. This is
a family. A spiritual family. And he says, by the mercies of
God. There's the motivation of service. It's not to earn salvation. It's because God has been merciful
to a sinner like me. God be merciful. by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice." That's
your whole person. That's your mind, your affections,
your will, your hands, your eyes, your ears, everything. Living
sacrifice. That sounds like a contradiction.
When you sacrifice something, you kill it. But here's a living
sacrifice. Well, we are dead in Christ. We died with Him. Dead to the
law, the Scripture says. That means we don't owe the law
a debt of justice. It's already been paid. We don't
owe the law any responsibility as to attaining or maintaining
salvation. That's already been done. So
we're living sacrifices. We died with Christ, but we're
made alive in Christ. He arose again. He sent his Spirit
to make us alive. Holy, acceptable unto God. We're holy in Christ, we're acceptable
in the Beloved, but our desire is to be like Him. David said,
I'll be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. Acceptable unto
God, and he said, that's your reasonable service. Now that
word reasonable, it pertains to reason, obviously. It's really
the word, we get our English word logic from it. Logic. It's only logical. Anything else
is illogical. Listen. It's reason and logic
here, but not sinful reasoning and sinful logic of fallen men
who seek to know God by their intellectual prowess. It's reasoning
and logic based on God's Word, beginning with His Word of grace
in Christ in the Gospel. He said in Isaiah 118, Come now
and let us what? Reason together. Though your
sins be as scarlet, they'll be as white as snow. Though they
be red like crimson, they'll be as wool. How is that possible?
Through Christ. He can wash my sins away. Behold the Lamb of God, John
the Baptist said, who bareth away the sins of the world. Jesus
Christ came into the world to save His people from their sins.
He makes us righteous in Him. That's how. But this is your
reasonable service. Now, reasonable service is the
service of grace that comes from faith in Christ and true repentance
and a heart established with grace. That's reasonable. Reasonable
service is obedience guided not by human logic and selfishness
and ritual and legal compulsion, feeling or mercenary promise
of earned reward, but by God's Word, heard and understood and
believed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Reasonable service
is the only thing truly reasonable for sinners who've been truly
and freely blessed of God in Christ. Think about it. If you're in debt today, in this
world, and you're having a hard time getting out of debt, paying
off the debt, Somebody come along and went to the bank or wherever
you owe the money and paid your debt in full said put it on my
account It's paid in full When it only be reasonable for you
to thank them Be unreasonable for you not to
wouldn't be a logical fact I Could be right down sinful Wouldn't
it for you not to thank them? Well, you thank the Lord if you're
saved by the grace of God. Now, how do you thank him? Not
just by looking up in the air and saying, thank you. But you do it in service, that's
how you thank. Service directed for his glory,
and this is reasonable because it redounds to his glory. Let
your light so shine before men that they may see your good works
and do what? Glorify your father, which is
in heaven. That light is not your works. It's not my works
or my service. That light is Christ, the gospel,
how God saves me. And from that comes the works. And they are motivated by that
grace which redounds to the glory of God and not the praise of
me or of you. You see the difference? You know
what? The best thing that we can be
is an unprofitable servant. That's the best thing we can
be. That's the highest position. than a sinner saved by grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ can attain.