Let us turn in our Bibles today
to Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17, and I'm going
to read the first 10 verses of this chapter. 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, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
Take heed to yourselves, if thy brother trespass against thee,
rebuke him. And if he repent, forgive him. And 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. And the apostle
said unto the Lord, increase our faith. And the Lord said,
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 thee. But which of you, having
a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by
and by, when he has come from the field, go and set down to
meet? 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. 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. In these 10 verses, I see three
parts. And I want to speak to us from
each of these three parts. And I trust that our combined
prayer today would be that God the Holy Spirit would help us
and bless us as we look at this part of his inspired word for
our good, that we might learn, that we might grow in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have three, what I
believe, very useful lessons for us from these verses. First,
a certain thing. a certain thing. The Lord Jesus
Christ said unto his disciples, it is impossible but that offenses
will come. A certain thing, offenses will
come. The Lord Jesus declares, in other
words, it cannot but happen that offenses will come. The Lord
Jesus Christ never tried to deceive or hide the truth from those
who would be his followers, those who would be his disciples. He
never tried to cover up or give the wrong impression that to
be a follower of him would be an easy life, an easy road. From the very beginning, he said
we must take up our cross and follow. We live in a world that
is much different than the one in which God created Adam and
Eve and placed them in. We live in a world which is a
fallen world, a world in which sin has entered, a world in which
sin has entered into all of us. And so, as our Lord said, offenses
will come. A certain thing, offenses will
come. In our text, we have our Lord's
12 disciples, but they, like all believers, like you and I
today, we live in a world which is under the curse because of
Adam's transgression. And we live among people like
ourselves who are fallen. And even though God has saved
us by His grace, those of us who know Him today, we know that
sin still remains in us. Offenses will come. I mean, you just put it down.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, offenses will come. It is impossible,
but that offenses will come." This word that is here translated
offenses, it's also translated in other verses by these words,
an occasion to fall or a stumbling block. It is certain that offenses
will come And in the light of this truth, you notice the Lord
Jesus Christ, he pronounces first a woe and then a warning. First a woe and then a warning. A woe upon any man who puts a
stumbling block, who is an occasion of stumbling anyone who offends
one of these little ones. Now, what does he mean by these
little ones? Well, the two parallel passages
in Matthew and Mark both tell us he's speaking of believers. When a person first comes to
know the Lord Jesus Christ, when God reveals himself to a person,
we are born again. And Peter refers to a person
who is born again of the Spirit of God as babes. He wrote, as
newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word. And also John,
he speaks of little children, as infants even. I want you to
notice with me, if you will, in 1 John chapter 2. In 1 John chapter 2 and verse 10, the apostle wrote, he that loveth
his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion of
stumbling in him. A believer, a child of God who
abides in the light. then he will not put an occasion
of stumbling before another believer. Here in 1 John, I want you to
notice that in verse 10, or verse 12 rather, he said, I write unto
you little children. Now that word means an infant,
an infant. I emphasize this point that When
a person is saved, they're not full grown. We're not full grown. We're born into the kingdom of
God as babes. But notice what John says, I
write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven
you for his namesake. But then I write unto you fathers
because you have known him, that is from the beginning, I write
unto you young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.
I write unto you little children. Now, this word, which is translated
little children, is different from that one in verse 12. The
one in verse 12 will always speak of an infant. The one here in
this verse speaks of a child that is older in age. The point being, that we have
infants, we have those who have increased in knowledge and grace,
we have young men who've increased more, and we have fathers. We
have growth in grace. But all, no matter which category
a person is in, if he's an infant, if he's a young man, if he's
a child, or if he's a father, We all have our sins forgiven
us for the same reason, for Christ's sake. That's the only reason
anyone ever has their sins forgiven. It's for Christ's sake, for what
Christ has done, for who Christ is, for where Christ is today. Your sins are forgiven you because
the scripture here says, for Christ's sake, his name's sake.
But we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord. When the Lord was
restoring Peter, we saw this earlier in the Bible class, when
the Lord asked him, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? One
time he asked him, or he told him, rather, feed my sheep. Another
time he told him, feed my lambs. Now, lambs are sheep, aren't
they? Yes. different ages of sheep. And the same thing is true of
believers, of God's children. Woe, our Lord said, woe unto
anyone who would put an occasion of stumbling, cause an offense
to another believer. You know, we have Christian liberty.
And we have the privilege of exercising that Christian liberty
that God has given us, but not at the expense of offending another
brother or sister in the Lord. We don't have that liberty. We
have liberty, yes, that some Christians may not have. But
none of us have liberty to do things and to act in such a way
that we offend other believers. And you can see how our Lord,
he tells that it would be better for a person to have a millstone
hanged around his neck and cast into the sea. than to offend
one of these little ones that believe in him. He pronounces
here a woe, woe. Offenses will come, but we should
do everything in our power by the grace of God not to cause
a brother or sister to be offended. The second thing we see here
is a warning. Take heed to yourselves. Take
heed to yourselves. If a brother, another Christian
trespasses against you, offends you, then what are you to do? Get on Facebook and spread it? Use social media to lambast the
person who has offended you? Or keep it in your heart and
let it fester? Is that what we are to do? No. If someone, a brother, offends
you, you are a believer, and a brother offends you, a sister
offends you, then tell them. Tell them. And if they repent,
then forgive them. Forgive them. Tell them in private. The passage in Matthew. goes
into a little more detail about this, but you go to the brother
or sister in private and speak to them. But you don't publicly
do this. And when a believer asks for
your forgiveness, then you forgive them. Now, Matthew tells us Peter,
as usual, he was impulsive, wasn't he? That was his personality. And we all have different personalities,
don't we? God has made us what we are. Peter said, well, how many times?
Seven times? Oh, he thought he was really
doing something. If my brother offends me and
I I speak to him and he repents and he does that. If I forgive
him seven times, I've really done something, haven't I? And
our Lord said, no, seven times 70. In other words, an unlimited
amount of time, or times rather, if your brother offends you and
repents and forgive him. Now God's people, God's children,
we know something about forgiveness, don't we? We rejoice in forgiveness. That the Lord God, how many times
have we offended Him? How many times have we sinned
against God? We don't even know. I remember
reading in Augustus Toplady's works one time, he tried to calculate
the number of sins that we may have committed against God. He
took just so many, a small number, really, one day, and then began
to multiply that, say it was 10 times in a day, that's 3,650
in a year, and He just went on with that. How many times have
we offended God, sinned against God, and yet He hasn't forgiven
us just one time, but every time that we repent. We're familiar with forgiveness. We rejoice in forgiveness. And
when a brother or sister offends us and they repent, then we forgive. There's something wrong, bad
wrong, when anyone who claims to be a child of God cannot forgive
another believer who asks for forgiveness. There's something
wrong. There's something bad wrong.
We've been forgiven much. We should be allowed to forgive
others much. Now the second thing that I see
in these verses is a simple prayer. First, a certain thing. Offenses are going to come. Preacher
may offend you. And I've always said this, I
don't want to offend anyone to whom I preach by my personality
or the way I am. If the gospel offends you, that's
your problem. That's your problem. But I don't
want to be offensive in the sense of trying to offend people. That's
easy to do. But offenses are going to come,
even among God's children. And you know, Paul had to caution
the church at Corinth. Evidently, they had offenses
there in that church, one against the other, and they were even
going outside of the church to the law, to the civil authorities,
and bringing a lawsuit against another believer. How wrong that
is. So let's recognize this certainty. Offenses are going to come, but
God has given us a remedy. He's given us a remedy. He's
given us the record of how we are to deal with offenses and
let us do it. The second thing I see here is
a very simple prayer in verses five and six. And the apostle
said unto the Lord, increase our faith. You know, we don't
have a prayer book. Like some churches, some Christian
denominations, they've had prayer books and they've had fights
over their prayer books, you know. They didn't pray extemporaneously
like we do. We have the freedom to bow our
heads and call upon God and tell him our needs and praise him. But they had to have their prayers
written out for them so they could read them. We don't have
a prayer book like that, but we do have a prayer book. The
Bible. The Bible is our prayer book,
isn't it? And as we read the word of God,
we see how we are to pray. We see certain things that we
are to ask of the Lord. And this is certainly one that
we all should pray. Increase our faith. Increase
our faith. There's some things I'd like
to point out about this prayer. First of all, increase our faith. Number one, the author of faith. The apostles, they asked the
Lord Jesus to increase their faith. They didn't go to the
Pharisees. They didn't turn to the Sanhedrin,
the ruling religious body among the Jews, to ask that they would
increase their faith. But they turned and they asked
the one who is the giver of faith. Scripture says in Hebrews 12
and verse 2, looking unto Jesus who's the author and finisher
of our faith. Faith is a gift. The author of
faith is the Lord Jesus. The apostle Paul said, for by
grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. The
faith with which you lay hold upon Christ is a gift of God. In another epistle, he reminded
believers that all men have not faith. Faith is God's gift, his
sovereign gift to his elect people. Faith is a gift of God. And that
not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. Now men are saved through
faith. If you're here this morning and
you are saved, you are saved through faith. By grace, yes,
but through faith. One writer said, faith is the
tongue that begs pardon, the hand that receives it, the eye
which sees it, but it is not the price that buys it. Faith,
faith, what is it? Grace through faith we are saved. It's the tongue that begs for
pardon. It's the hand that receives pardon. It's the eye that sees it. But faith is not the price which
buys it. People sometimes I think are
maybe confused about this or they misunderstand when we talk
about being saved by faith. Faith, and you must believe,
must be your faith. No one else can believe for you.
You must believe for yourself. Now it is a gift, I understand
that. But no one can believe for you. But think about this, faith did
not die for you. Faith did not shed its blood
for you. No, Christ did that. Christ is
the Savior. But yet men must believe, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Faith is
a grace. If you look in Galatians chapter
five, you see that it is named among the fruit of the Spirit,
just like love and joy and peace. One reason that God chose faith,
no doubt, as the means by which we lay hold upon Christ, by which
He becomes ours and we are His, by which we are joined unto Him
and union with Him, is because, as Paul writes in Romans 4, now
listen, therefore it is of faith that It is a faith that in order that
it might be by grace. It might be by grace. Salvation
is by grace through faith. And God has chosen faith because
it's a receiving grace. And in this way, God receives
all the glory. Faith is a receiving grace. You
receive Christ as your Lord and Savior. And he receives all the
glory for your salvation. A second thing about faith, the
importance of faith. Is faith important? Absolutely. Absolutely. The scripture says
in Hebrews 11 and verse six, without faith, without faith,
it is impossible. To please Him, that is to please
God, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and
that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Think about this. If you're here
this morning without faith, that means you're without Christ. You're without Christ. And that
means you're without hope. And that means you're on your
way to hell if you're here this morning without faith in Christ. Without faith, you're without
Christ, you're without hope. When a person is without faith
in Christ, then you cannot pray right. Oh, you can pray. I'm sure you do. But if you're
without Christ, you can't pray right because you can only go
to God through Christ, who is the one mediator between you
and God. A person without faith is without
Christ, so cannot pray right. And did you know a person without
faith is without Christ, cannot praise right. Oh, you say preacher. You may have gone too far here.
You mean a person without Christ cannot praise God? No, no. The only way that your praise
will be accepted by God is that it be offered through Christ. Let's see if we can find that
over here in Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13, now verse
15, we read, by him, that is by Christ, by him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips,
giving thanks to his name. We should continually be thanking
the Lord, praising the Lord for His goodness and His mercy unto
us, those of us who know Him today, but we offer the sacrifice
of praise through Him. It must be through Christ, through
His merit. You see, even our praise. Sin
is even mixed with our praise. We're not perfect. We're perfect
in Christ, but we're not perfect, are we? And even our praise. Even our tears must be washed
in the blood of Christ. Even our repentance must be washed
in the blood of Christ. Without faith, without Christ,
without prayer, without praise. And when a person is without
faith in Christ, he will not benefit from the ministry of
the word. We benefit through the preaching
of the gospel when we trust in Christ, when we believe in him. So first of all, the author of
faith is Christ. The importance of faith, without
it we cannot please God, and that is faith in Christ. And
number three, the action of faith. The action of faith. Faith is
an active grace. It's an active grace. Paul wrote
to the Galatians and his whole letter is pretty much based on
how men are justified by faith without works. But then he tells
us that it is a faith that worketh by love. It's not a dead faith. It's not a dead faith. It's a
living faith to a living Savior. And true faith works by love. It increases. Faith increases
by diet and by action. It does. It increases. We've
already seen that. That we have babes. And we have
young men, and we have fathers, faith grows, faith increases. And it increases by dying. When
a baby comes into this world, they must be fed. If they're
going to grow, they must be fed. And our faith, likewise, must
be fed. And what feeds our faith? The
Word of God. The Word of God. Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. When we neglect
to read the Word of God, when we neglect to hear the Word of
God preached and taught, we're not going to grow. Our faith
is not going to grow. And we're going to be troubled
with doubts and fears and things that we should outgrow, really. Be strong in faith, giving glory
to God. You know, our Lord spoke about
Small faith, and weak faith, and great faith. And I want you
to look with me in Matthew chapter 15. Here's a woman, and I point
us to this because our Lord recognized and confessed that she had great
faith. Great, a woman great is our faith. And no one would have expected
her to have faith, period. But God gave it to her. God has
his people scattered all over the world. This woman, she wasn't
a Jew. She was a Syrophoenician woman.
Here in Matthew chapter 15, beginning with verse 21, the scripture
says, and Jesus went thence and departed into the coast of Tyre
and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan
came out of the same coast. cried unto him, saying, Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David. My daughter is grievously
vexed with the devil. But he answered her not a word.
And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for
she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am
not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then
came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, Help me. But he answered and said, it
is not me to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs.
And she said, truth, Lord. Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs
which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and
said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. I noticed what great faith enabled
this woman to do. First, great faith enabled her
to overcome the Lord's silence. She cried, but He didn't answer. Sometimes you feel that way,
don't you? You cry unto the Lord, you pray
unto the Lord, and it just seems like He doesn't hear. Great faith
overcame the Lord's silence, first of all. Second, I see that
great faith would not be put off by the Lord's disciples. No. They said, send her away. She's a bother to us. She troubles
us. She's crying after us. Great
faith would not be put off by the conduct of these disciples. You see one of his disciples,
a believer, maybe a preacher, maybe a deacon, maybe a Sunday
school teacher, and it just destroys your faith, something you see
in them. Listen, faith, we're not trusting in the preacher.
We're not trusting in a deacon or the Sunday school teacher.
We're trusting in Christ. Our faith is in him, and we'll
never find any cause To leave him, oh yeah, you'll see a lot
of flaws in men because they're just like you are. We're all
the same. No, she overcame silence. She would not be put off by the
disciples. And when turned away, what did
she do? She worshiped. And you know that
word worship here, it means she fell down. She prostrated herself
before the Lord. recognizing who he was, who he
is, and who she was. And then I thought she caught
hold of a thread, a thread the Lord threw out.
You know, if you're, say, drowning, you're out in a lake and you're
going down for the third time and someone throws a life preserver
out to you, You hope that that rope that that thing is tied
onto is a big rope, a strong rope. But if someone threw a
life preserver out to you and it was tied onto a thread, just
like you ladies use when you're mending clothes or sewing on
buttons, a thread. That's all this woman had, a
thread. But I tell you what, she grabbed
hold of it. She grabbed hold of it. Truth,
Lord. It's not me to take the children's
bread and cast it to the dogs. But Lord, even the dogs eat the
crumbs. Great is our faith. Great is
our faith. And let me close with a timely
parable back in our text here in Luke chapter 17, a timely
parable. First we saw a certainty, then
we saw a very simple prayer, and now a timely parable. I say it's timely because it's
always needed. We always need it, to remind
us, those of God's children, we always need this parable to
remind us of who we are and what we are. We tend to forget that,
who we are. Look at the parable, verse seven. 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. 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? Well, of
course not. So likewise you. When you shall
have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are
unprofitable servants. We've done that which was our
duty to do. We always need to be reminded
of who we are. I'm talking about God's children.
Who are we? We are the Lord's servants. We are the Lord's servants. If
we're his people, we are his servants. And what must our priority
be? It must be to serve Him first. Serve Him first and ourselves
second. Too many believers try to fit
the Lord into their schedule. Now that's just so. They try
to fit the Lord into their schedule And after they do everything
that is their priority, if they have some time left over, they'll
fit the Lord in. No, no. We are His servants. That's who we are. And what we
are to do is to place Him first. I want to close this morning
with the comments of a Bible teacher back on days But he said
this, talking about all believers, preachers and what he calls, well, private believers, every
private, preachers and every private believer. Their conduct,
our conduct, my conduct, your conduct. Our conduct should be
like the plow man in our Lord's parable. Now, plowing is not
easy work. It's laborious work. I doubt
if any of us in here know anything about plowing much, especially
as they plowed in those days with an oxen. But it's hard work. The conduct, our conduct, should
be like the plowman. The employment of the ministers
of the word lies in reading, prayer, meditation, and study. In preaching the word and administering
the ordinances and in performing other duties of their office.
Now that's me. That's my work. That's my priority. Reading the word, praying, meditation,
study, preaching the word, administering the ordinances, and other duties
of a pastor. Now, and every private believer
has business to do which lies in the exercise of grace as a
work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope. and in
the discharge of duty with regard to themselves, in their families,
the church, and the world. And these servants should be
continually employed. And when one work is done, another
is to be taken in hand. Saints should always be believing,
hoping, waiting, loving, and doing one good work or another.
as preaching or praying, reading, hearing, doing acts of benevolence
and charity. And God and Christ are to be
served by them in the first place, and then themselves. God and
Christ are to be served in the first place, just like in our
Lord's parable here. Here's a man as a servant. He'd been out there working.
I mean, he comes in, his clothes are wet with sweat. He'd been
out there plowing, and our Lord says, well, does the master,
does he say, well, hey, sit down there. Sit there and let me gird
myself. Let me put an apron on and I'm
going to feed you. No, he doesn't do that. What
he does, he tells his servant, you gird yourself and take care
of me first. And then second, your needs are
going to be met. And the purpose of that parable
has to be, as our Lord said, so likewise you, when you have
done all those things which are commanded you. Have we ever done
that? Have any of us done all things
perfectly that are commanded us as we should? But if you have,
if you have, then this is what you should say. We are unprofitable
servants. That's all we are. Unprofitable
servants. We've only done that which was
commanded us. What a lesson. What a lesson
in that parable. We need to know who we are and
what we are to do. We're going to sing a hymn before
we're dismissed this morning.