UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS: LUKE 17:1-10

1. ‘Now He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to one through whom they come! 2 .It is better for him if a millstone is hung around his neck and he is thrown into the sea, than that he may cause one of these little ones to sin. 3. Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” 5. The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6. But the Lord said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you. 7. Now which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him after he comes in from the field, ‘Come immediately and recline at the table to eat’? 8. On the contrary, will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? 9. He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? 10. So you too, when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’” (NASB)

The human heart is more than willing to be given law as a means for finding increased favor with God. The question the human heart always asks is, “Give me five principles to bring me into closer obedience to God.” Or, as the apostles here ask, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). This august group of men was looking for the key to being able to forgive a brother that has wronged them continually. Like us, the apostles were no doubt looking for the easy answer, that one principle that would give us a heart of forgiveness. When they ask, “Increase our faith,” that is exactly what is behind this question. No doubt they felt the impossibility of this command for in their hearts they knew they could never obey it perfectly. Jesus’ reply is predictably obtuse. “You are right, my dear apostles, faith is the answer. And if you had faith you could take a tree and command it to be thrown into the sea. If you want to obey God you must have faith.” But remember, the apostles wanted their faith increased. Faith to them was something to be developed by human effort. And how does Jesus respond? He says faith is enough, any faith, for faith is like a mustard seed; it either exists or it does not, and when it exists it will grow on its own, like a small seed growing into a tree. The apostles want quantity; Jesus gives them essence. As a believer, says Jesus, you have everything you need. The only thing left to do it nurture it and strengthen it by a variety of means. So in the mind of Jesus faith is not a dissectible virtue. Either one has it or one doesn’t. And for those who have it all things are possible. Yes, even telling a sycamore tree to fly out of the ground and cast itself into the sea. We all know this is hyperbole. The point that Jesus is making is that faith and faith alone can enable one to obey God. Oh, what a powerful thing is faith! But now Jesus, as He often does, turns the conversation in a different direction. Many commentators too easily divorce verses 7-10 from what has gone before in the mustard seed story. But the little word ‘but’ or ‘now’ (δὲ) shows there is a connection between the two parts in the mind of Jesus. The last four verses about the servant laboring for the Master must have something to do with Jesus’ point about faith. The connection is remote but poignant. As He so often does, Jesus gives the disciples a contrast to demonstrate the profound difference between one who lives by faith and one who lives by works. He is aiming at anyone, even an apostle, who may think that pleasing God has something to do with what he does, trying a little harder or doing just a bit more. Perhaps the apostles plea to ‘increase our faith’ reveals in them a me-oriented theology, as if to say, ‘give us something that will enable us to be more holy.’ Here Jesus must step in a give them another illustration that leaves nothing to the imagination. If you are trying to find the key to holiness through doing you are like a servant who works in the field and after he is done for the day he must still come inside and serve the Master. His work is never done. The master never invites him to eat at the table and never even thanks the servant. After doing all this work he is still called ‘an unprofitable servant.’ In giving this illustration, Jesus is again contrasting the simplicity and beauty of faith to the hopeless cycle of frustration that surrounds law. In other words, says Jesus, if you want to please God by doing, you will never get any higher than being a servant and an unprofitable one at that. Under this paradigm you will work and work and work all of your life and at the end you will not have pleased the Master one bit. Obeying commands is simply what you are expected to do. It’s a relationship of debt. But faith bypasses what we must do, to believing what has been done for us already. Faith, any faith, enables you to receive the gift of God as a child, and that gift is the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The law puts us under a strict legal arrangement, as a slave to a master. Faith, however, puts us into the Father’s house as a son and He forever loves us and constantly invites us to His table. So what Jesus is telling the apostles is stunning. As a slave you will work your hands to the bone but you will never please God. It is your duty to obey, nothing more, nothing less. And that obedience never gains you any relationship with God, any favor. Only by exercising simple faith like that of a mustard seed can you have that relationship, that favor. And this every believer in Jesus possesses. The way to pleasing God is to relate to him by faith. All attempts at legal answers, or adopting twelve tips for living, or following certain spiritual methodologies that conform us to a ‘holy‘ standard, demonstrate that one desires to live for Jesus as a slave. If you are to relate to God as a Son, you must rest on His finished work at Calvary and receive it as a child. This is what it means to have the faith of a mustard seed, and if you have that, you have all the faith you will ever need. Yes, faith will be honed and shaped and strengthened over the years by the great Spirit. But faith is never anything more than faith - and it alone saves a soul. So do you want forgive your brother? Believe in the One who has forgiven you. As the Matthew Henry said, and with this we close, “Faith in God's pardoning mercy, will enable us to get over the greatest difficulties in the way of forgiving our brethren.” Believe that Jesus died for your sins and at once the Father will call you in from that field of endless striving and sit you down at His table of sweet delights, and that forever.