I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17. We'll read verses 7 to 10. Page 876, Luke 17, beginning at verse 7. The section there is titled, Unworthy Servants, Unworthy Servants. Jesus said here in Luke 17 verse 7, will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline a table. Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have done only what was our duty. So far from God's holy word. Dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, We have had in our, you know, home some red level cute lemonade stands in these recent years. Our little girls, you know, desperately wanted to do their lemonade stand and because they were so cute, you know, sometimes I almost felt guilty because I felt like they made too much money on their lemonade stand. whatever you want. And I almost felt guilty, like we're extorting our neighbors. We can't do a lemonade stand. This is like fish in a barrel. It's no good. But the funny part of that on the parent's side of the lemonade stand is teaching your kids about profit, teaching them about what is true profit. Because they're very focused. I'm like, look, I have the jar of money that I made. But they didn't buy the lemonade. We want to sell cookies. And they have no sense of what is actually profit, like did it cost $30 to make $31? They don't have a sense of that. And so a lot of times, yeah, kids, you provided the important material, cuteness. But mom and dad provided everything else. We had to guide you in all your preparations and supply all the materials and basically sit there while you do it because your little kid's near a street. And so it took a lot of effort on mom and dad's part for you to do this business. And then, you know, for the adults in the room, disappointment hits really hard, right? When you find out how much work it is to start a business or to run a business, right? So much effort sometimes for so little profit, so little gain, when especially when you're talking about materials and time and insurance and taxes and setbacks, you know, various setbacks of life. And so, you know, it's tough to be an adult and think about, you know, what's actually profitable work? and what's for fun. So the point of this, however, is not to depress you about life and business and making money or not making money. It's rather to challenge our minds about spiritual profits and merits in the eyes of Christ and in the eyes of the scripture. How did the spiritually mature think about their sacrificial life and what is merit, what is profit in God's sight? the spiritually mature think? And we can't afford to think like children and be infantile in our thinking, right? How does the wise Christian think about their service to Jesus and what attitude will they take towards him as master is important. So believers must, we find, take the attitude of humble servants who labor for a great and worthy master. Those who have received the gift of true faith from God humbly and thankfully bear its fruits as the natural outworking of the gift, as the natural result of God's powerful as master, as the beginning and the end of our faith in Christ. So we're carrying on the thought from this morning about bearing fruit, and now we want to talk about more the latter end of this, the idea of what it merits. First, we need to understand the parable on its own terms. A master with servants in Jesus' day would assign the servants their daily labors, like plowing, very common, like keeping sheep, livestock, and so on, very common. And after doing their normal daily tasks, regular jobs that all the healers would have known about in some shape or form and would not have said, oh, that's a very special task. They would have said, it's a very regular task. After doing all their common labors, the servants didn't receive a special merit badge for the day. Like, wow, you did what was expected of you. You did that common, normal, expected daily task that was not unique. or necessarily impressive in any way, they were expected to do those tasks like every other day, and then to come in, the master would say, wow, this is incredible. You sit down and I'll be the servant and you be the master. I'll feed you. The master instead would say, you finished that part of your task for the day, now serve me or serve me dinner. Dress appropriately. In other words, sort of dress to wait on me, dress like a server, and then have dinner yourselves after me. There was an order of importance there and a normal expectation there. That was the normal expectation on a normal day. Sometimes in my house, my kids will ask me, Dad, what are we doing tomorrow? And I immediately give the not fun answer, work and school. Yeah, well, what about after that? School and work. And it's like we play a game all the time. I'm like, we're not special. We're going to do the work of the week. You're so special to me, my darling, but you're doing school tomorrow. And I'm doing work tomorrow. We're not special. We're special, not special. And that's fine. We have to be OK with that. So keeping this parameter, we can discuss the parable in a way that leads to spiritual wisdom. We have automatic setbacks in our time to overcome because we're very averse. We're very resistant to the language of master and slave or servant. We don't like that language as free Americans. We are prone to think of masters as harsh and wicked. by nature of the thing. And servanthood lies. It's detestable to us because I'm no one's servant. I'm no one's slave. I don't owe anyone anything. And I reject the notion that anyone is above me in importance. So we have this natural gut reaction against this parable before we even started. And it's because we have this mentality today. Everyone is equal. We're all equal. And after all, I have my rights and I have my liberties. In this case, we would be making a big misjudgment of the parable if we bring that slant with us into the parable. It doesn't help us at all to understand what Jesus is really arguing for. In this parable, God is the master. In this parable, we must accept who the master is and his righteousness and his rightful place and our rightful place underneath him in importance and lesser than him in every way, every respect imaginable. We have come to believe that God is worthy, that he is excellent, that he is wise and gracious. a master worthy of worship, a master worthy of respect beyond our understanding. We must worship him. We must love him. We must serve him. He created all things. He sustains all things. He is righteous. We say he is holy, holy, holy. And we are sure, this is the Christian statement I believe, right? I believe, we believe, that every person who completely submits to God as father will be enriched and built up. The more that they love him, the more that they serve him, the more they say, less of me and more of you, my father, my master. They will be blessed. And so servanthood to God as master is beautiful. Sowing to please the spirit, we reap eternal life. That's what it says in Galatians 6.8. So we actually have to flip our rebel spirit over on its head and say to the world, we willingly serve this worthy master. Nothing gives us more joy and satisfaction than to honor him, completely subjecting ourselves to his will. Think of Genesis 2, he created all things. Think of Psalm 18, overwhelming power, the breath of his nostrils blows away the mightiest trees, makes the sea retreat in front of him and bears the bones of the earth open. Think of his power and salvation in Micah 7, for instance. In fact, I'm going to turn to Micah 7. We'll summarize the other two. But I'm going to turn to Micah 7. I'm going to read just a short excerpt there. It says about our God, who is a God like you? Maybe you remember this passage, right? Who is a God like you? Pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance. He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our fathers from of old. So we can talk about God's power. But now here we're talking about his worthy character, his faithfulness, his mercy, his generosity, his compassion. He has it all. So some persons rebel against God, they want no master, they acknowledge no king, but such persons will be embarrassed. at the coming of Jesus. That's what he taught in Luke 23, for instance. They'll ask the mountains to fall on them. They will be completely and utterly undone, because he's the rightful master, the rightful king, the rightful ruler. And he'll rightfully judge them, right, for throwing off that idea, or throwing off that thought that they could rebel against him. So now, to get more specific about the goal of this teaching, think about The well-established pattern of the scripture, right? God is the one who frees us from death and destruction, from slavery to sin. Think Exodus 20. You were slaves in Egypt, but now you're my servants, as it were, in real freedom. You have a real life. So servanthood to God, to us, is freedom, is joy. God delivered you from spiritual death to a new life. Servants of God are truly free. We were dead until he raised us. That is the picture of our salvation. We did not love God. We preached about this last week. We didn't love God. It wasn't so much we loved him. He loved us first. This is how our master acted before we ever got the job, before we were ever serving him. This is how he acted. So in terms of this morning, God did the planting. God started this situation before we could ever talk about our service to him and improving our service to him and bearing a single spiritual fruit, making a single dime of profit, let me put it that way. So now, think about verse 10. I closed my Bible here. Think about verse 10 in Luke 17. It says there, after doing everything that was commanded of us, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. Now we're ready maybe to think about that more clearly. Jesus commanded us to follow him and showed us that to love him is to obey him. The principles and precepts of God, the commands of God are many and they are holy. When we follow God's commandments and precepts, which he's commanded us to do, what should happen next? We should not say, and therefore, I'm better than you, and I'm better than other servants of God, and therefore, God should love me or give me everything I want. We would say instead, which is completely counterintuitive, we would say, we are unprofitable servants. We have only done what was our duty. The fruits of the Christian life don't make us conceited. They don't make us superior. The prophets of our Christian life really aren't technically prophets, are they? God pays the precious blood of Jesus, his son, so that you can be redeemed and be brought in to his household. And then we bear fruit, which is the weightier of the two, right? The precious and priceless blood of Jesus. For me, I'm an unprofitable servant. He pays this overwhelming cost so that I can now live a life of freedom, of patience, and kindness, and goodness, and gentleness, and so on. Could any of these acts of mine, though, could they repay that blood of Jesus? No way, in fact, that would be an insult, right? To think that I would pay him back. I would be thinking like a child, that I was all profit for him, when in fact, Knowing the blood of Jesus, all I can do is humble myself. All I can do is stand in awe and say, I am the servant of a very generous God. I am the unprofitable servant of a God who gives overwhelming riches. purely out of his grace. A lot of Christian pride is born of disregard for this principle, disregard for this parabolic teaching. It goes something like, God should just be thrilled that I showed up. This isn't the first time we've wrestled with this, right? God should just be thrilled that I said some kind things every once in a while. But he is thrilled, but not not in a proud way. God should be overjoyed that I one time forgave somebody. He is thrilled that we forgive. God should be glad that we showed patience or self-control, didn't steal when we could have gotten away with it. He is glad. But then if our attitude is, I did these things, now where's my medal? I did these things, where's my trophy, where's my award? I did these things, God, I deserve from you what comes from your end. Prosperity, for instance. I deserve recognition from others. I deserve the place of honor. I deserve to get my way. I push this button for you, God, and you do this for me. This is where we've gone off the rails as servants, right? Now we're taking this the wrong direction. Properly speaking, all of these things are our job. They're our duty as God's servants. All of these things are expected of us because they are right, because they are normal, because they are fitting for people who are redeemed of God. They aren't merit badges for us to earn. We are reborn for this very purpose, to live this way, to do these things. We are so prone to go astray with pride and selfishness as one of the most likely spoilers of our good works. I do these things for God. And so I'm better than your other servants. These other servants, what are they? But I do for you. I tithe down to the mint and cumin of my garden, Lord. Thank you that I'm not like this moron, this tax collector or sinner next to me. I should be before them. I should be above them. I do these things, God, and so you should do for me the good health that I want, the money that I want, the relationship that I want, the peace and ease of life that I want, the carefree retirement that I want, et cetera, et cetera. I follow the rules. Give me what you owe me. spoils the Christian life. Pump the brakes is what Jesus is warning us in this parable. Hit the brakes. This is human pride. It's like, again, what we studied last week. It's merely human, isn't it, to live this way and to think this way, like the apostle said in 1 Corinthians 3. Aren't you thinking in a merely human way? Instead of a heavenly way, instead of a way of God and his divine sacrifice, we're making ourselves, you know, we're inflating ourselves to be more than servants through the merit of our works. And that's not going to cut it. We don't rise above that level by our own merits. We're even bold enough to presume that we deserve to be business partners with God, co-masters with God instead of servants to the master. That's why he says it makes no sense. You're going to come in and God should serve you as the servant while you recline at the table. Is this what we imagine in our minds we're worthy to receive? because of the merits of our good work. It's proud and dangerous territory. Jesus reminds us, we owe God. God does not owe us. We are obligated to God, but God makes gracious promises to us. He doesn't cut deals with us. You do for me, I do. He makes gracious promises. Purely out of his mercy does he make commitments to us. We're dependent on God for everything, life and breath, everything. God doesn't need us or depend on help from us for a moment. So the parable forces us to grapple with the inequality of our relationship with God. and take an attitude of humility. God allows me to labor in his kingdom. Thank you, Lord. Better to be a doorkeeper in your house than to feast with the wealthy, as it were. God allows me to participate in His plans and in His mission and work in His fields. That humility should be cropping up in all of our reasoning, in all the calculation of our service. And we would do well to develop that humility and thankfulness and then be all the more ready, be all the more urgent in God's service. God wants me to take up my cross and follow Jesus, let not a moment of delay get in between. God wants me to meditate on his word and listen carefully as it's preached. God wants me to be present in worship and particularly participating at his table. He wants me to pray. He wants me to master my tongue. He wants me to guard my eyes from every sin. He wants me to control my body with modesty and purity. How serious are we about doing these things that God has commanded? Would you say that you're very, very serious about them? Well, think about this parable, right? And it will show us something of our serious attitude to God. This scenario is one of normal service, right? Is it your normal to plow in God's fields, to be about his business? or do you do your own pleasure? This is the battle for our hearts and our minds. Are we normally, not just on occasion, but is it our regular, is it our control to be Christ-like, to be about his service, or do we do our own pleasure? Normal to follow him, normal to worship him, Not strange at all to talk about him with others. Not strange at all to pray with him. Not strange at all to be meditating and thinking on his ways. These servants, in the parable, they were faithfully doing that service during the day, and then even into the evening. They served their master dinner before they ate themselves, and that was normal, and only then Did they, were they counted as having completed their normal service? It was their life, really is the point, right? It was their normal, it was their life from morning until night to serve. And that was counted as not profitable. All of that was the starting expectation. Take any of the commandments, right, as an example, to honor parents, for instance. We understand that God wants us to honor authority, but not selectively, you know, and not in a very spotty, you know, electric is on, electric is off, what do we do about these power outages, you know, but honor our parents even when they don't necessarily in themselves deserve or have merited that honor. Can we count this command as the root, you know, that starts to lead us into all kinds of discussion of respect, area authority, respect for church authority, like pastors or elders. We count this as binding when we're dealing with town officials, you know, mid-level officials. We count it as our duty towards our governor, even when he does things that are hard to respect. We count this as true on the national level. Should God be impressed that, you know, we didn't slander our leaders today? This is our duty. Should God be impressed that I didn't shred my parents or talk back to my mom today? He is happy about it. But that is our duty in Christ. What about the Sabbath, right? God isn't stealing my time on the Sabbath. The day belongs to him. Who's the master? Am I the one that reclines while I should be served by God? Is that how I think? My time is my own and God should be thankful that he gets some attention when I'm prepared to give it. Humility would say, it is my privilege, my honor to worship the Lord, to spend the Sabbath day in the peace and in the pursuits of Christ and his righteousness. If my heart is attuned to Jesus, who loved to do the will of the Father, and who sacrificed in that service and made himself nothing, a servant, then I too would rejoice with gratitude in my heart to God in every circumstance. I would be thankful, thankful for my parents, delighting in His Sabbaths. interested in integrity, and not just the surface of his commands, but in the depth of them, the substance of them. Love God in my name, and thank my master for his many benefits. Acknowledge that he is truly wise in what he's commanded me to do, and hasn't shorted me at all in what he provides. I would acknowledge that the master's business is above me, and that it's my privilege to be a part of it. And this is where the mystery of the ages comes into view, because the same Jesus who taught this parable also showed us that we are loved by God before the world was founded. Why should the master, the eternal God, love me before the foundation of the world? But he does. Why should the master give the life of his only true and begotten son for me? But he does. Why should he include me in his business? But now he doesn't just say, here's the command that I've handed down, but Jesus said, I've called you friends. I no longer count you merely as servants, but I've called you friends. Our confession is right. He rewards us too much. We are not at all saying that God isn't pleased when we serve him. He rewards us more than we deserve. We are unprofitable servants, and he pours out his gifts to us. We're overly decorated. He overly loves us when Jesus said, no longer do I call you servants. The servant doesn't know what his master is doing, but I've called you friends. All that I've heard from my father I've made known to you. And what is more, right? If you think of Ephesians one, in love he predestined us for what? For adoption as sons to himself through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. What can we do but rejoice? We're overcompensated. We are overpaid, overblessed, for God's sake, in Jesus Christ. What can we be? Anything? You know, nothing fits but to be humble. Nothing fits but to be grateful. We were empty, and through Jesus' power, we were filled. We were beggars, and now we are rich. We weren't even worthy to participate, and God brings us close in. We are heirs of God, says Romans 8, fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. So we don't think on our deserving. We know what we are. Overwhelmingly enriched, counted now as co-heirs, as fellow sons and daughters. We who were rebels, we who were lost, we who were rebellious. Let's not think on our deserving anymore, but serve. Not think or pretend on our merits, but humble ourselves. Not be dissatisfied or discontent in any way, but joyful. We're brought close, we are well-served, well-fed, well-cared for in Jesus Christ. It's a scandal, it's a scandal. We've only done our duty, and he rewards us richly, amen. Our Father in heaven, Lord, we see this trend throughout the scripture and ratified and true in our lives. that we are unprofitable in our service, and you are overwhelmingly generous in your gifts. We are unprofitable in our service, and you are incredibly kind and compassionate in your salvation. We are unprofitable in our service, and you love us with an overwhelming and incredible love Thank you for sending Jesus, who has caused us now to live in a new relationship to you. Adoption, an inheritance, a kingdom beyond our imagining in its wealth and blessing. These are gifts from you to those whom you have called to your service. Hear our prayer. Make us humble. Make us thankful. Make us fruitful. In Jesus' name, amen.