But we still live among a time where there's a lot of slavery that is not seen, human trafficking and so forth. It's still there. But one of the things that has changed in our nation in the last couple hundred years, and in many nations all over the world, is the attitude towards slavery. And we're thankful for that because freedom is a good thing. And the Bible, while it allows for slavery and definitely permits it, we need to be the first to say that the Bible regulates slavery, but it does allow for slavery. It does allow for slavery. It's a very important distinction because slavery is often pointed to in the Bible as being a de facto reason to reject scripture. Of course, people give it very superficial readings when they do that. They don't understand what the Bible is actually saying about how to treat your slaves and what it means to have slaves. The slavery of the Bible isn't always, the slavery that was allowed among God's people was never by kidnapping and man-stealing. That is actually a capital punishment. But slavery is everywhere in the Bible and you have to deal with it. And one of the things to note, first and foremost, is that the entire biblical story can be understood in terms of slavery itself. It is not a coincidence. We read there in Deuteronomy, you were slaves in Egypt, right? They were slaves in Egypt. God handed them over to them. Remember, God created the famine by which the Israelites had to go down to Egypt, and they were there for 400 years. They became slaves there in Egypt because of the fear of Pharaoh, and he enslaved them. And then God came down and he delivered them out with a mighty hand, but he delivered them into his own service. So that the language later in scripture is that Israel, they're the servants, the slaves of God. So they were delivered from the cruel slavery of Egypt and into the slavery unto God. It's one of the things, I'll mention this text a little later. God says to Pharaoh through Moses, let my son go out of Egypt. Israel is my firstborn son. Let him leave that he may go into the wilderness and what? And serve me. Leave him alone from your service. I want him for my service. You cannot understand so many passages of the law and how they work. The tithes, for instance, OK, you can see it is there. It is not something that we just simply offer up just out of the goodness of our hearts. OK, these first fruits, these tithes, they are because this land belongs to God and you are his servants living on the land and you will give to him what belongs to him. and it's couched in terms of service to the Lord, like a tax. So slavery is at the center of the Bible's story. It's everywhere in the Bible's story. And it's here as well. It's here in the parables of Jesus. It's not the only way in which we think of ourselves, but it is an important way. And Jesus believed with his disciples that they had to stop. We don't know why he does this, but they had to stop and clear the record and get it into their minds what they actually are. You're servants of God. You're slaves of God. You need to understand that. It's part of your identity. It's fundamental to your identity. Now, this is a series, a very short series. We're still going to continue in some parables. It's what we've been doing, if you're a guest here. But we're going to make our way through Luke 17 and 18, which contains a number of excellent parables, beautiful, beautiful parables. But it also contains some other teaching. And what is significant about this passage is that it is Jesus, by the time you get to Luke 19, Jesus is approaching Jerusalem. He's on his way up from Jericho to Jerusalem and he makes his triumphant entry. And so Luke 17 and 18 is some teaching of the Lord while he has his face towards Jerusalem. while he has his face towards Jerusalem. And that's appropriate for us in the season of Lent to, as we look towards Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, as we look towards those things for us to prepare as well. There are passages, some of these passages deal with humbling ourselves, like this passage today, there's others. There are passages about prayer and there's passages about being a steadfast disciple, a faithful disciple. So it's really good. It works really well for the season of Lent that we are in as we look towards the cross. What I like to do, as we always do, is just quickly walk through the text and make some observations and then draw out some lessons from it. Okay, now this is an interesting parable. I didn't read the verses before and I didn't read the verses after, but one of the things that is quite interesting about this is it suddenly, it's like parachutes into the middle of the text. It doesn't seem to have any specific connections with what came before or any specific connections with what came after. Jesus is talking generally about discipleship. So it does fit in that regard. But he wasn't talking about being a slave. He wasn't talking about pride and humility. He just suddenly kind of stops and says, look, I need to need to say something to you. And he teaches them this parable. about the servant coming in out of the field, okay? But it is broadly in the context of discipleship. But this is what I know, okay? This is what I know that Jesus knows. Jesus knows this by experience. He knows this in truth. We have to come to learn this about ourselves, is that we all view ourselves as being very precious. He knows that all his disciples have this inclination in their hearts because of their sin nature and because of just simply the weakness of their flesh and their lack of wisdom and insight into what they are, that we have a tendency to view ourselves as being precious disciples. And that when we do things, we believe way too easily that we deserve praise and acclaim and recognition for what we have done. It's a part of the human condition. And when we have done a number of things for the Lord and His service, maybe with right motives, and we stop, we expect to be congratulated. We expect to be thanked. We expect to be recognized. We expect the plaque, maybe we don't expect the plaque to go up on the wall, but we do have an inclination to desire that our everyday service of the Lord would be recognized. and acclaimed and thanked. And I call this being precious, that there is an inclination with us to view ourselves in this way. And this is what Jesus is trying to correct with this parable. And he does this by just simply pointing to what is common in the world at that time, which was the slave and master relationship. And this is what is called in logic an a fortiori, You start with something that is more common, okay, that people can relate to by way of experience, and then you just point to something that is greater and more profound and say, how much more is it true of this relationship? Okay, so I've called it in other parables, we've seen he does this very commonly. He says, look, if this is true down here, where you live here, well, how much more is it true of your relationship to God? How much more is it true of your relationship with God? And so what he does, which is foreign to us, rather foreign to us, is he points to the slave-master relationship. And that's foreign to us by law. Of course, it's not a normal part of experience. We can perhaps understand some of these things by our employer-employee relationship, maybe the parent-child relationship, we can see some of these dynamics. But one of the other reasons why this is a bit foreign to us is that We are very much used to doing things and expecting people to express gratitude like right away. It's just a part of our self-esteem kind of, well, we would just say kind of a precious culture that we live in that has been highly psychologized and can't stand to have our little, you know, our feelings hurt or anything like that that becomes immediately goes to HR and becomes a big deal. Right? So some of this language might be a little bit foreign to us. It might sound like, Jesus, you're kind of being a little bit harsh. But in part, that's because we don't understand the relationship here. So we need to look at this carefully. Jesus teaches with three questions. He just simply asks three questions in a row. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? Three questions, all dealing with the slave master relationship. Okay? And then he finishes with what I would call a trustworthy saying. Now, you know in Paul's pastoral epistles, especially 1 Timothy, he has a number of times when he says to people, this is a trustworthy saying, you need to say this, okay? And they all, in Paul's writings, they all deal with salvation, okay? But Jesus here, he says this, after asking these three questions, and they're rhetorical, in the sense that he doesn't answer them, Your own experience answers them. He says, now say this about yourselves. This is a trustworthy thing for you to be saying, okay? And so let's look at each of these questions just quickly in turn. The first question is an unlikely scenario. Okay, he says this. 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 at table. And of course, of course, the answer is no. That would be very common in their experience to hear that and go, that sounds weird. A master saying to the slave, come in, it's time to come in. We're gonna sit down and have dinner together. And I don't think that means, of course, that masters never ate with their servants, but that is not the norm. That is not the norm. The servant would come in, okay, and, well, this leads to the next question. This is a more likely, so that first one is rhetorical, and everybody who heard that would have recognized, yeah, that's not the way that that goes. That's not how that happens. And the second question says, what would more likely happen? Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly, expect you to be well-dressed, prepared, okay, and serve me while I eat and drink and afterward, you will eat and drink. You understand? This is the more likely scenario. So he's saying, do you recognize this experience? Okay, is this not the more common? The master calls him in and says, it's time for dinner. The master sits down. He changes his clothes. He makes the dinner. He brings him the dinner. The master eats the dinner. And then afterwards, the servant eats his dinner. And of course, in their experience, they would have been like, yeah, that's what happens. That's what happens. I'm told that that's what you're supposed to do with your dogs. Is that right? We never actually followed this very carefully, but they respond very, very quickly. Apparently, they're very heightened awareness in terms of who the alpha is in the house. And one of the ways they recognize that, by instinct, is who eats first. Okay? So you're supposed to eat first and then you go feed your dogs. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but who does that? I don't think we ever thought about that once in our entire life, which might be why our dog was somewhat precious. and maybe a little bit entitled, but apparently that's kind of what you are supposed to do. It communicates something about who the master is and who the servant is, and so that's a very important thing. If you don't understand that, then sometimes some of Jesus' motions of grace are misunderstood. When he gets down and washes his disciples' feet, when then they sit with him at table, we don't understand how much that is gracious and out of the ordinary of what a servant should ever expect. You understand? You have to go back to the norm, what would be expected of a servant. This is normal. And it communicates the rank, the great rank, the difference in rank between them. And then the third question, it just takes the second question and expands it, and expands it. Well, along the same lines, he says, does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? And I have to admit, when I read that, not having reflected on it carefully, my first inclination was, that's a little rude. Jesus, that's a little rude. Don't we want to be a people that are always like, thank you, thank you, polite. We want to be polite with people. and thank them. But one of the things that we don't understand, we use the word thank you somewhat differently than they use the word gratis here, okay? They're using it differently, okay? This Greek word, which we might translate here, does he thank the servant? It's literally does he have Gratitude to the servant gratis to the servant does he have that to the servant it means to thank him. Okay, basically But one of the reasons we don't understand it is because they didn't use that word is just a nicety to you know when you open the door like Thank you for doing that. They didn't use the word that way they use the word more specifically to talk about specific situations that merit a gift of merits some kind of reciprocal action this person has done this kindness to me and it places me in a kind of obligation towards them or at the very least a response of gratitude okay so it was generally reserved for actions that were somewhat out of the ordinary out of the ordinary. Everyday human kindness wasn't what this word was normally used for. But more exceptional acts of kindness, acts that are done from maybe superiors to inferiors, acts that are done of greater kindness, not the everyday actions of people just being polite and kind to one another. So if you get in a time machine and you go back to the ancient world and you open a door for someone and they don't say thank you, Don't get shocked and offended, okay? It's just a part of how their culture has changed. I think it's probably for the better. I don't think that in any way this would condemn our practice of being polite to one another. Someone hands you a cup of water, thank you. Someone does this for you, thank you. There's nothing unbiblical or wrong about that. It's just saying that when this word is used, we have to recognize that it's not used for everyday acts of service that we would just normally expect people to do. Okay? So, three questions. And so far he hasn't said anything about us. So far he hasn't said anything about us. All he's done is say, is this how this goes? Yeah. You think this would happen? Yeah. You think, is this how this happens? Yeah. Right. Yeah. You think he's gonna do that? Yeah. He's got everybody listening to this and going, yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's how that is. Yeah, you're right. But then comes the sword, then comes the dagger to their heart. Why do you expect something different in your relationship to God? Why do you act in such a way that betrays a very different kind of economy of gratitude and thanksgiving towards God? Do you know what you are? And he says, here's a good saying for you, okay? I just want to read this again. So you also, when you have done all that you are commanded, say, we are unworthy servants and have only done what was our duty. That's what you should say. I think that's how you should end every day, saints, T or C. At night, look over what you've done, reflect on it, journal it. Amy's always very faithful. She's doing this for many years. She writes three sentences of what happened that day. Reflect on that, but at the end of that, now, I want her to write, you're an unworthy servant. You've only done your duty. And this is to help us to keep us from being precious. To keep us from viewing ourselves as deserving of great acclaim, merit, award, for only doing our duty. For only fulfilling the simple obligations of that relationship. That's what that relationship is. I want you to notice, just I'm gonna pull that sentence apart in two parts. Just look at this carefully with me. He gives an occasion of the same. I think it's interesting. So when you have done all that you were commanded, that by itself, we might go, who does that? Wow, what a statement of zealous and on fire Christianity, a person who does all that they were commanded. But Jesus simply describes that as something that should be typical of the disciple, that they want to do and seek to do and execute what their Lord has told them to do. Do all that you are commanded. But I just want you to notice this isn't, it isn't so when you have done something for your Lord. So when you have given some tithe money to the Lord. So when you have testified faithfully of your Lord, so when you have honored your father and mother today, he doesn't just pick out one thing. He says, when you've done all that you were told to do, then say this. Do you see that? We're so enamored with ourselves and think so highly of ourselves, when we do a few things in a string, in a row, then we want to say, he says, when you've done it all, you've done your duty, then you say this. And what is it that you say? You say, I am only unworthy servant and have done what was our duty. And I want to note here, Something that's really important. The KJV unfortunately translates this unprofitable. And so for 500 years, 450 years, it's been in people's mind in this imagination. I am only an unprofitable servant. An unprofitable servant. The idea could mean something along the lines, this is a word that, like most words, it can mean a number of things in different contexts. It could have the connotation of being something negative. Like a detriment. Unprofitable is not profitable. It's not good. And that has communicated to people for hundreds of years, this idea that what Jesus is probably saying, what they think Jesus is saying here, is something like, I'm actually, I'm here and I'm serving the Lord. And I'm doing what I am told to do, but actually I'm a miserable, awful, horrible servant. That's not what it's saying, actually. What it is saying is I am only an unworthy servant. What it means is I don't deserve special acclaim or praise. It doesn't mean I'm doing anything wrong. That's the idea. It's not necessarily a negative word, so don't think of it like that. It just simply means not deserving of great praise or acclaim. It can mean different things. But in this context, Jesus isn't rebuking these people because of their sin. There's another parable. It talks about this. You know the parable of the unforgiving servant, where he says that you owe me 10,000 talents. And that, of course, speaks of the great debt of sin that is owed to the master. That's not what this is. This is simply, notice, it's someone who has done everything their master said to do. They've done everything their master has said to do. They're a good servant. And basically what he's saying is, you're still a servant. You just know what you are. It's not heroic. It might be exceptional if you live among a disobedient and slack people. It might be exceptional, but you're simply doing your duty. You are a good servant. That's what you are, a servant. You did your duty. Does that make sense? I like how the Net Bible translates it. I think they're a little licensed with this word, but they break it into four words, actually. But they say, a servant undeserving of special praise. Not precious, okay? In other words. And so that's a trustworthy saying that we should be saying to ourselves every night. And you think, oh, I'm gonna feel really miserable at the end of the night. No, you're not. No, you're not. You shouldn't feel miserable at the end of this to just simply know what you are before God. Because let me tell you what happens then as we get to this. What happens then is you come to realize how unspeakable and unimaginable are these tremendous privileges that you enjoy in the household of God as a servant. For him to call you sons and daughters is unspeakable privilege. But if you don't go down to that base level and understand and regularly remember what you are, You are a servant in the household of the Lord, and yet the Lord serves you, and the Lord is kind to you, and the Lord eats with you. You don't see the grace of those things, and we can begin to presume on his kindness. So I want to just finish with a few points of application. These are short, and I just have here just take-home points to keep us from this kind of presumption. The first one is this. In this parable, are we not to assume that Jesus expects his disciples to carry away from this the expectation that we would fill up our time with duty to the Lord? Fill up our time. As God's servants, we are to fill up our time with our duty. As Matthew Henry says, we ought to make the end of one service the beginning of the next. The end of one service is the beginning of the next service. You are servants of the Lord. And I love that image, the image of the servant coming in from the field, and I would imagine it feels like this. And he probably doesn't show that, but he probably feels tired. I've worked hard today. And is this not the teaching? He says, now change your clothes and get ready for the next thing that you're commanded to do. Move on to the next thing. Your life of service is more than your specific job that you do. You're nine to five. It's more than just ministry responsibilities. You are a servant of the Lord your whole life. 24 hours a day, you're a servant of the Lord. You're to be at His disposal to serve Him. Don't think that when you come home after a long day of work, now the Lord regards your frame, He knows, He's kind to us, He's patient with us, but just know you're still a servant of the Lord as you step in that house. So that's the first thing that I would note. The second thing that I would note is that as God's servants, We are to leave it to our master to give us the comfort of our privilege station. Leave it to him. The servant stands there at attendance of his master and waits until the master says, you may eat. You may eat. OK, that is that is our station in life. We will be greatly blessed in the household of God, and we are greatly blessed. We're blessed all the time. But you should not presume such things in this regard. You should not demand them. Let the Lord give them to you in his own time. He has committed himself on account of his covenant promises to us to bless us greatly. to bless us greatly, but it is not because I worked today, I deserve, it is because being a part of his household is just a wonderful place to be. It's filled with grace, it's filled with covenant blessings, it's filled with glory, but let him bring them to you in his own time. He is the master, he is the master. This doesn't mean we don't cry for a favor. You read through the Psalms, you see someone crying out to the Lord, and often on account of their righteousness. It might sound something like very contrary to what Jesus is saying here. Is David not looking to his own merit? to make an appeal to God. It's different. It is a servant coming to his master and saying, Lord, you know, you know, I have been faithful to you. You know, I'm loyal to you. Deliver me from my persecutor. Deliver me from my persecutor. So we have a basis upon which to cry out. But that is not the same thing as saying to the master, Lord, Lord, you know, I'm loyal to you. I want to eat with you. It's different. Let him bring his privileges to you as he will, as he will. We receive comfort every Lord's Day. One of the most amazing things about this day, this Lord's Day, his day, he rose from the dead on this day. One of the most amazing things about this is that this is a service. Even when I was a kid, we called it a service. It's the Lord's service. It's a wonderfully ambiguous word, isn't it? Because we do serve the Lord. We're going to receive tithes and offerings. That's the product of our work and our labor this week. The work of our hands, we give a portion of that to the Lord. We sing songs of praise. We serve the Lord with our prayers. We serve the Lord with how we speak to one another and our encouragement, and we fulfill our duty here. We serve the Lord, but mostly, brothers and sisters, We are served by the Lord. We are served by the Lord. We receive from him gifts. We receive from him blessing. We receive from him instruction. We receive from him food at his table. We receive from him. But we don't presume on those things. It is a gift of his. It is a gift of his to his servants. So that's the second thing. The third thing that I would just simply note is that as God's servants we are not to compare ourselves with one another in our service one another do you know the reason aside from that just being a recipe for misery because you compare yourself with this person over here and you're like yeah i'm doing all right there's always this person over here that's doing far better Doing far more. There's always a Paul, right? None of us is going to attain to the type of service that Paul did. The apostles couldn't attain to the level of service and sacrifice that he did. He, as close as any mortal could be, came close to saying, I have done all that I was commanded. As close as any mortal outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, okay? But when we compare ourselves with it, we can either become miserable, looking at this person, or we can become proud, looking at this person, and we can do all kinds of things. What are you supposed to look at? Look at your duty. Look at what has been assigned to you to do. I don't have that book here, but one of the things that I think we need to remember is that our obligations before our master are not simply negative commandments. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. We have in the back there all that book that for every household in this congregation, we have this book, Duties of Church Members. You are a part of a covenant body of people. You have obligations to one another. You have obligations to the support of this ministry. You have obligations to the worship of the Lord, obligations with your finances, obligations with your words, obligations with your deeds. When one of us is hurting, the whole body is to hurt. Look to your duty. Do your duty. It's not just don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, and show up at church. It's not it. You have a whole way of life that God expects you to live and to pursue and to do. Do those things. We don't compare us to this guy. He's not doing hardly anything. Look how good I am, right? Don't do that. Look to the Word of God. Look to the teaching, look to God's expectations, His covenant expectations of you to know how to be a faithful servant of Him. Now I want to briefly just deal with, and we'll be closed with this, just two objections, quick objections that might have arisen in your mind as you read this, okay? You might say, you might be saying in your heart, but I'm a child of God. I'm a friend of God. In fact, there was a book written called Slave. John MacArthur wrote a book called Slave. I've heard it's good. I haven't read it. I don't know. But it was interesting. I was looking at the reviews and I knew this was going to happen. I knew this was going to happen. You go down to the reviews and there are all these Evangelicals who say, no, no, I'm a friend of God. Don't tell me I'm a slave of God. No, no, I'm a child of God. Don't tell me I'm a slave of God. And this is the typical evangelical way of saying, I like that verse. It makes me feel good. That's Old Testament or something like that. You know, we just, we have our way of just like paying attention to the things we want to pay attention to. And of course, though, what do we make of it? Look, I'm everybody that has children. I'm we're giving this catechism to you. OK, it's a good catechism. The very first question, what you should be telling as soon as they're about Canaan's age. What are you? What are you? OK, the first question, who are you? I'm a child of God. That is so fundamental to our identity as Christians that we are children of God. God is our father, Jesus himself in many places. In fact, in chapter 18, he's going to stress the point you've been praying to God like he's an unjust judge. You need to think of him as a father. So how do we think of these kinds of things? Wisdom. This is how we deal with all of these kinds of matters. You look at this text and you look at this text. Scripture does not contradict scripture. If this passage says you are a child of God, if this passage says you are a slave of God, Both are true, and it's your job to stop and think of how they're both true, okay? They are both true at the same time. As I said before, this is where I, that passage, in the same sentence, God says to Pharaoh through Moses, he says, let my son go, that he may come and serve me. Let my son go, that he may come and serve me, and not you. And I think Pharaoh would have understood that because in relationship to God, the relationship is not going to be reducible to one image. It can't be. It's not going to be reducible to one symbol. It's going to have multiple symbols. This passage is reminding us of our basic obligations and to humble us and keep us, as I said, from being precious, from thinking too much of ourselves and thinking that our work somehow deserve acclaim, deserve merit, deserve God's. That's the purpose of this passage. Other passages remind us of our sonship, our daughtership, to encourage us, to teach us to pray rightly, to think about God rightly, as kind and generous and caring. So different passages do different things, and you simply have to hold them both in your head at the same time. So that's how I would answer that objection. Another objection would be, surely, surely, Pastor, it is lawful to go home and have some recreation. after a long day. Are you really trying to tell me that I can't go home and you know as Martin Luther said enjoy my sausage and have my beer and he said some other things and I'm not going to repeat here but like is that not good for men to do to go home and and reflect on their day and enjoy their day and unwind from the day and of course I'm going to say to you yeah absolutely God created the world And he did and he created trees of fruit. And he brought to Adam a beautiful woman that Adam burst out into poetry upon seeing her. He created the world with delights. We do not honor the Lord by not enjoying those things. Part of our service to the Lord is rejoicing greatly in the feasts of the church. What does he say to Israel? In the curses, because you did not rejoice greatly, you did not serve me with joy, these curses come upon you. There is a kind of recreating and celebrating and relaxing that is faithful. He gives to his beloved sleep. I serve God by not sleeping. No, that's his gift to you. You serve him by taking what he gives to you. Can you imagine the servant, going back to the imagery of the slave and the master, and the master says, servant, have this. Servant, take this. Servant, you may go to bed now. And the servant's like, no, I shall stand here. That's not receiving. What does Peter say? You will never wash my feet. Receive. Receive the kindness of the Lord. Receive and part of that is creation and all of its bounty. All of it's bounty. I think we're too hard on those poor retired couple that were collecting shells in their retirement on the beach. If you know, you know. It's a famous sermon that was preached and they became the chief illustration in this. This poor couple, they're retired, they're celebrating the beat. I don't know if they were Christians or anything like that, but they're walking on the beach, they're celebrating. We do not worship God aright if we do not get out and enjoy what he has made. We do not give thanks aright if we don't eat and celebrate what he has given to us, his bounty. You're a better servant having said that. Many of us do need to realize that there is a work over here. There is much to be done at home. Much to be done at home. So that's another issue. I don't think, knowing this community, I don't think that's as much the issue. It's not what's going on. But there are very many people that I did my nine to five. Leave me alone. Well, that's not, no. We have other obligations besides our obligations to our boss, okay? Besides our obligations to our boss. Obligations to care for our children. Obligations to see to our household. Obligations to our neighbors. Obligations to our church members. We have other, we have to balance those. We don't try to fit them all in every single day, but we still have those other obligations. So in conclusion, look, this is a passage about mindsets, isn't it? This is a little parable about your mindset. What you think of yourself determines very much how effective you're going to be, whether you're going to be disappointed or not with God's providence to you, with his commands and so forth. But the Bible is filled with very many passages like this that say, what did you expect? What did you think was going to happen? You need to get your mindset straight if you're to be fruitful, if you're to have joy, if you're to have peace in the midst. So let us humble ourselves, let us use this season of Lent to humble ourselves before the Lord that he may exalt us as he sees fit. Amen? Soli Deo Gloria. May God be glorified in the preaching of his good word. Well, now that we've heard from the Lord through his word,