Increase Our Faith!

This morning's topic in Luke 17 is surrounding forgiveness and our willingness and our ability to forgive. And so I want to read to you the text and I want us to jump right in. And so would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke 17 verses 1 through 10. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. He said to his disciples, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him. The apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith. And the Lord said, if you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey you.

Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, come immediately and sit down to eat? But will he not say to him, prepare something for me to eat and properly close yourself and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterwards you may eat and drink? He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, we are unworthy slaves. We have done only that which we ought to have done. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Thank you very much. So I want to work through this text section by section, explaining what's going on here. And so Jesus begins by saying, To terms within this text is Jesus saying that sin is inevitable. That's stumbling blocks are sin. And he says sin is inevitable. Stumbling blocks are inevitable. To believe otherwise would be to cultivate naivety. You have to work to believe something other than that sin is inevitable. Now, it can be difficult to think to grasp that sin is inevitable.

And the reason is because Satan doesn't want us thinking about the inevitability of sin. He actually doesn't want you thinking about that all the time. Which might seem strange because you think, wouldn't he want you thinking about sin because pursuing it and cultivating it and all that sort of stuff all the time. But he actually doesn't want you thinking about the inevitability of sin. And the reason is that if he keeps us from seeing this truth that Jesus puts out for us, that sin is inevitable, then it's not likely that we're going to do anything about sin. The things that we're ignorant of, The things that we don't pay attention to don't change, right? The things that change in our lives are the things that we give our attention to. And so Satan doesn't want you thinking about the fact that sin is inevitable. And it's worth noting that Jesus starts off this discourse by telling his disciples this very thing. Sin is inevitable. Stumbling blocks are inevitable. It's going to happen. It's just a simple truth. And if Jesus wants us to be aware of it, we can reasonably infer that Satan doesn't want us to be aware of it.

Because when we become aware of it, we're much more likely to be motivated to change something about it. When you get tired of the status quo in your life, you just get fed up. I've had enough. Those are the times that you're willing to change. And so Satan works to hide the true nature of what's going on, and thereby he keeps us from being woke. You guys know what woke is? You've heard about being woke? Satan doesn't want you to be woke about the inevitability of sin. That's not what he wants. Because what do woke people do? They act, they speak, they do something. So Satan doesn't want you to be woke about sin and its inevitability. He wants you to be in the dark about it because he doesn't want you to do anything about it. So sin is inevitable. And Jesus warns us not to be the cause of sin, not to be the cause of these stumbling blocks. Now, how is it that we could become a stumbling block? He says, you know,

It's inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to them through whom they come. So he's cautioning us, woe to you, bad things on you, if you're the one who causes stumbling blocks. So how do you become a stumbling block? Well, our actions affect other people. Everything that we say, the things that we do, we have the ability to affect one another. One of the things that I tell parents when they're worried about their kids and the influences of the world and all of this stuff, I tell them, listen, here's the thing. You have more influence on your children than anybody else. You really do. More than I do, more than their teachers do, more than their friends do, you have more influence on them. Now, what you do with it can vary. But parents have...

the most influence on their children above anyone else. And they think they don't. They think, oh, I can't do anything. They've got their friends and they've got this music and they want to dye their hair purple and they want to do this and the other thing. You have more influence as parents than they do, than anyone else does. The question is, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to affect, are you going to work towards having a positive influence or a negative influence? Are you going to be fools and think, I don't want influence. I don't want to. bind up my children and tell them they have to do or can't do or the other thing. No, you're supposed to have influence. You ever hear people say, the older I get, the more I understand my parents, my mom, my dad. I understand why they did what they did, how they did. I understand their failures and their successes. It's all becoming clearer to me. And the reason you recognize that is because you've become like them. For better and for worse, you've become like them. Why?

Because they have influence on you. They are the ones planting seeds in you. All of this is to say, our actions affect other people, either positively or negatively, but there's no getting away from the fact that we affect other people. And so Jesus says, woe to you through whom they come, the stumbling blocks. I don't want you to think that you can live your life and think that what I will do is just not affect other people. That's impossible. It's just impossible. And so Jesus cautions us and says stumbling blocks are inevitable, but woe to him through whom they come. Or you could think of it this way. Have you ever been tempted to sin by someone else and what they've said or what they've done? You ever gotten angry because of something somebody said to you, done to you, said about you, done to you? And we're all like, uh-huh. I say that's because you're affected by them. What's happened is there's come a stumbling block in your way, and it's come through a particular person and a particular set of circumstances.

Every married couple understands this. All the disagreements and all the difficulties you have are stumbling blocks. It's you throwing stumbling blocks in front of the other one. And then they hurl them back at you, and then that's your fight. Sometimes the blocks feel like, well, is that what Allison does to you? That's what he said, so I just... Their small group leader is going to need to talk to them later. And so we've all been tempted by other people. Now, will we go along and say that we have tempted other people to sin? And we would be foolish to say no. Of course we have. Of course we have. With no provocation, we have, in our foolishness and our ignorance and our whatever else, we've been the cause of stumbling blocks. And Jesus warns us. He says, woe to him through whom they come. This is not okay. This is not appropriate. This is not just how life is. It's not without consequence that we would become stumbling, be the source of stumbling blocks to another one.

The disciples, they're to be careful not to tempt Jesus' little ones, his children, to sin. And the reason is because his children are precious to him. In the same way that your children are precious to you. And you would not have someone else tempt them or corrupt them or harm them. You would defend them. And so Jesus says to be on your guard, be careful. Woe to you through whom they come. It would be better for that man to have a millstone tied around his neck. Do you know what a millstone is? You know, we have these wheat grinders, these people who make their own wheat flour. You have these little mills, wheat mills, that sit on your desk and make all kinds of noise and churn out your own handmade personal flour. Well, we didn't always have those. And so before we had those things, people needed flour. What they would have is this giant round disk, and by giant, I mean giant.

Big. This big around. Really thick. Big piece of stone with a big hole in the center of it. And out of that hole would come a big stick sticking up. And attached to that stick would be another stick going sideways. So you've got a wheel sitting on the ground. It's flat. Big pole coming out. Sideways pole going. And on that horizontal pole, there's another big wheel. So wheel on the ground. Wheel sitting on top of that wheel with a big stick through it. You know what you did? You had a man or you had horses or donkeys. tied to that stick, and they would walk in a circle. And that wheel would turn, and it would grind up the grain into flour. That's what a millstone is, okay? So big, giant, heavy rock with a hole in the center. That's the sort of thing that would be better to have tied around our neck than to cause one of Jesus' little ones to stumble. And so you can imagine, without me having to explain to you what would happen if you were cast into the sea with that thing around your neck. These are the terms in which Jesus speaks of the danger.

of causing his little ones to stumble. It's not a small thing. It's a very serious thing. In scripture, we could multiply examples of God's people causing one another to stumble. In 1 Corinthians, you've got meat being sacrificed to idols and saying, we can eat. And the other people saying, I don't have a conscience to eat. No, you can eat. And what is Paul's instruction? His instruction to the strong is, don't stumble your brother. It's better for you not to eat than to stumble your brother. What about communion, again, with Corinthians, when the rich are oppressing the poor and causing them to stumble, coming and eating all their food and getting drunk while the poor go without? Paul says the consequence of you doing this is that some of you have died. Is this not serious temptation that they're willingly and knowingly putting out in front of their brothers? And again, in Galatians, you've got the Judaizers pressing the Gentiles to be circumcised and confusing the gospel of Jesus Christ in their mind saying, no, no, you have to become a Jew first. You have to be circumcised. And what is that but a stumbling block to their brothers? And we could go through scripture and we could keep showing examples of places where this goes on. It's inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but you have to be on guard not to be the cause of them. And so to be aware of that, you first have to acknowledge, one, that it happens all around you and you have the propensity to be,

the man, the one who's causing it. And then in verse three, Jesus exclaims, be on your guard. Now, who's he talking to? That's the question. And the fact is he's talking to both the offender and the offended. They're both supposed to be on their guard. What we've talked about so far is the offender. The offender is supposed to be on his guard, not to offend, not to cause offense, not to become a stumbling block. But the offended is also supposed to be on their guard. And what are they supposed to be on guard against? Well, being offended. If you had people talk or behave, here comes the stumbling block to you and you get offended. I can't believe they said that. I can't believe they think that. I can't believe they did that. I'm offended. Jesus says, be on your guard. If your brother sins, which means causes you to stumble because he put a stumbling block in front of you. If your brother sins, be offended. No, what it says is rebuke him.

If you've been in these sorts of situations, you know this is not the natural inclination. You might be inclined to fight, but you're not inclined to rebuke. It's one thing to fight with somebody because they've offended you. It's another thing to rebuke them because you love them, to straighten them out, to call them to repentance. If you're beyond your guard, if your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, which means he's listened to you, forgive him. So you have to be aware, what's the thing you don't want to do when someone sins against you? You don't want to forgive them. This is the natural way of things. When someone sins against us, their repentance is not natural and our forgiveness is similarly not natural. It's not the way things go. Instead, what we would do is become frustrated or angry. We would withdraw or we would be silent. These are the natural sorts of things that we would do when we take offense or umbrage at something. And yet instead of these, we're instructed by Jesus.

To rebuke our brothers. And then when he repents, which we don't rebuke them, why? Because we just don't think they're going to repent. Who is it that I could go to and say, you know what? This wasn't right. Do we expect anyone to say, you're right, thank you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. If you're like me, this is not how you expect things to go. And the reason I don't expect things to go that way is because that's not how I'm inclined to respond. It doesn't have anything to do with other people. I am tempted when someone comes to me and says, you did this to defend myself or to ignore them or to argue with them or to do anything but say, you're right. Please forgive me. And so going to rebuke our brother is something that's difficult. It's hard. And it's not, rebuking is not, it's an intense word. Like to go and rebuke someone is intense, but it's not without love. To be rebuked is not, to rebuke someone is not to unload on them.

It's not to unburden yourself without any care for self-control. That's not what rebuking means. Rebuke is something that you give to someone that is severe, but is for their good and it's because you love them. It doesn't lack tenderness and it doesn't lack vulnerability. It also doesn't lack authority. But it's not simply a from on high declaration. We're to rebuke our brother and then, if he repents, we're to forgive him. And at that point, The apostles cry out, what do they say to him? Lord, increase our faith. And it seems like a strange thing to say. Increase our faith. He's telling them, sin's going to happen. Don't be the one who causes it. Be on your guard not to cause it. Be on your guard not to withhold forgiveness. And their response to that is, Lord, increase our faith. Now, why would they say that? Well, because they understand how difficult forgiveness is.

They understand that forgiveness is a kindness and a mercy of God. And that it's not something that comes natural to them. It's not something that's in them to do. Have you ever had someone ask you for forgiveness and you just sit there and you're silent and stare at them? I'm sorry, please forgive me. For what? What exactly is it you're sorry for? Oh, maybe I'm the only one. But it's wicked. So the apostles cry out, increase our faith. because they understand the difficulty of Jesus' instruction here. And instead of snickering or scoffing at his instruction the way the Pharisees would, they cry out, Lord, increase our faith. This is a beautiful and an appropriate response to seeing their weakness and their inability to do what Jesus said. You can do two things when Jesus tells you, when you come across the instruction in Scripture, you can despise it and scoff at it like the Pharisees did. You can disregard it.

Or you can recognize your own inability to do it, which takes humility. And when you say, I can't do, Lord, what you've required of me to do, then the appropriate thing is to cry out to him and say, Lord, increase my faith. Give me the grace that I need to do what you've called me to do, to forgive my brother when he sins against me, all day, every day, seven times a day. So long as he repents, give me the grace, give me the faith to forgive him. This isn't the appropriate response when Jesus says something to us that is beyond our capacity because it's a humble response. And it's interesting to note that they understand their weakness is not a lack of knowledge or a lack of maturity, but it's a lack of faith because that's what they pray for. And so as God answers this prayer to increase your faith, one of the ways you'll see that happening is that you'll see yourself growing in forgiveness.

You actually will become more gracious and more quick to forgive as you get older and as you grow in faith. There's plenty of mature people who are not forgiving, not quick to forgive. And yet the godly who cry out and say, Lord, increase my faith that I might do what you've told me I should do. They'll grow in the graces that they pray for because they're growing in faith. And then the Lord said to them, If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey you. Now, that's crazy, right? Here we are talking. Jesus is talking to his disciples and they're going, we can't do it. And Jesus says to them, well, if you had faith like a mustard seed, it sounds like a rebuke. Well, if you only had faith like a mustard seed, you'd be able to tell that tree to go live in the sea and it would do what you said. And does any one of you for a second,

you could tell a tree to do that and it would listen. Is there anyone here who thinks they can do that? You did at one point? You did believe it? Yeah. Did it ever work? No. Okay. So let's press into the text a little further and say, why is it that Jesus said that? Is he grinding them into the ground and saying, if you don't even have the faith the size of a mustard seed? No. That's not what he's doing. What he's saying is, this tiny little amount of faith, the size of a mustard seed, just a tiny little thing, very flavorful, right? You know mustard, very flavorful, little tiny seed. If you had faith this small, something that big could happen. And if something that big can happen, uprooted a tree and put it into the sea, figuratively, right? Because it didn't work for Luis. If something figuratively, that miraculous could happen with such a small amount of faith, could you not also forgive your brother?

If faith that small could uproot a tree and put it into the sea, do you believe that God could give faith sufficient to forgive your brother seven times a day? You know, Philippians 4.13 is a really popular verse, especially in sports. What's Philippians 4.13? Okay. You can forgive your brother who sins against you repeatedly because of the grace and the kindness that God gives to you through Jesus Christ. That's one of all the things you can do through Christ who strengthens you. I don't care so much about whether you can win the game. I care that you can live in peace and unity with your brother and that you can forgive him as many times as he sins against you in the same way that you've been forgiven. Forgiving others and not becoming a stumbling block to them is only possible through the grace and mercy of God, through growing in faith. It's unnatural otherwise. It's impossible otherwise. With man, these sorts of things are impossible. True forgiveness is impossible with you and me apart from

God who makes the impossible possible. Jesus goes on and gives them, he cautions them at the end. And he says, which one of you having a slave plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he has come in from the field, come immediately, sit down and eat. And the implication is none of you would, but this is what you would do instead. You will, but he will not say to him, but 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. And he's saying, who wouldn't say this of their Of the servant. Do your work. You're out in the field doing the work that I've assigned to you. Now you're going to come in and I'm going to have you do the work that I've assigned to you in here. And when you're done with all of that, then you can sit down and eat. He says, which one of you wouldn't conduct yourself that way? And what he's saying is that it's appropriate. That the slave would be expected to do what was required of him. And that he's not...

allowed to come in and do whatever he wants, but rather he has to fulfill his duty, his obligation. He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? So you too, when you have to do all the things which are commanded, you say, we are unworthy slaves. We have done only that which we ought to have done. And so what Jesus is saying here is that forgiveness, while it is a gift and a grace of God, and it's only possible through God's kindness to us, is only what's required of us. What he's cautioning against, remember I said earlier, it takes humility to forgive someone, to confess your sins, to rebuke them, to forgive them. The whole thing is humility. Because it doesn't happen any other way. What he's cautioning them against is taking pride in their humility. Which is really twisted, but happens all the time. Once we figure out that there's something that's good, and something that's pleasing, and it's obedient, then it becomes...

the source of us thinking we're better than other people because look at how we do it. I'm so magnanimous. I'm so kind and gracious. Look at me. You ever said that you were sorry to someone and they wouldn't forgive you? But I don't mean that they wouldn't forgive you like they were mad. I mean that they say things like, no, no, no, it's okay. Or they say, don't worry about it. It's nothing. You hate that. I don't even know what you're talking about. There's a game being played when we do that because forgiveness requires humility. And if you'll think about the times that you have this interaction, you'll go to someone and you'll repent, and they say, oh, don't worry about it. How often will they look you in the eye while they say it? How often will you look someone in the eye while you say it? No, no, no, that's fine, don't worry about it. That is not forgiveness, and that is not humility. That is not what Jesus is talking about here. That is pride, and that's what Jesus is cautioning against. Forgiveness requires humility.

And vulnerability. And you're cautioned against taking pride in it. It's not appropriate when someone sins against you to say, oh, it's no big deal, don't worry about it. Because if they're coming and talking to you about it, it's a big deal to them. It doesn't actually matter if you think it's a big deal. It was a big deal to them. It was on their conscience. And they came to you and said, here's what I've done. I've sinned against heaven and earth. Please forgive me. And for you to dismiss their repentance is to say that they don't need to repent, that they didn't do anything wrong. And the sad thing is most of the time you don't believe that for a second. You're quite aware of what they've done. You're quite offended by it. But you're taking the high road. No, no, no, it's fine. This is not a Christian's way. A Christian's way is to forgive. To look them in the eye and to forgive them. And to not take pride in it. Here's another thing.

Have you ever been offended by somebody doing something or saying something and then you go talk to them and then you find out they had no intention of communicating what you took away? This is a regular thing amongst humans. This happens. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just think about it and you'll figure it out. If you're not sure, ask someone who knows you and they'll say, oh yeah, I remember when you got offended for no reason. You misunderstood what I said or you missed a part of the conversation or whatever. You get all upset at somebody and you think they need to repent when actually what was happening is you're the one who sinned. You're the one who misunderstood, who misinterpreted, who just has an ax to grind with them. You're not more holy for not bringing it up either. Someone sins and you go, I'm not going to bring it up. What I'll say to you is if you truly can look on them with humility and be gracious,

and not be offended, and not hold a grudge, then by all means, let love cover a multitude of sins. That's as it should be. But if the truth is, it's a pebble in your shoe, and it's irritating you, and it's bugging you, and you're upset, you have to say something. But you have to say something with humility, realizing you might have misinterpreted what happened. It might be that you put the rock in your shoe and not them. So forgiveness is incumbent upon us. It's our duty. It's our responsibility. Because we've been forgiven ourselves through the blood of Jesus Christ. And so for us to love others in the same way that we have been loved is nothing more than to do what we ought to do. You don't get a participation award for doing what you're supposed to do. I was telling you about my kids and their schooling, and they are good students and they get good grades.

And what I wish is that they didn't get good grades. Now, it's not because I want them to fail, but I want them to work. And I don't like extra credit, and I don't like being told, oh, go check all the assignments they didn't fill out, and you can send in all the extra paperwork here. You just have to print it out, and they can make up, do the homework. I thought, no, if they didn't do their work when they were supposed to do their work, which was their duty, then they should get the grade that goes along with that. And if it's a zero, then they should get a zero. Now, Kim's laughing because, yeah, you're right. That's right. Because that's not how it works, right? It's like, oh, there's got to be extra credit and there's got to be, well, you can turn in for partial credit. You have to contort yourself into this position because we don't understand duty. To a student, you are here to learn. I get paid to teach.

We're supposed to have an interaction. You're supposed to do what I say. If you don't do what is required of you, your grade will reflect that. That's how it should work because that's how life works. But it doesn't work that way anymore. We think that everyone should get a participation award. You should get points added to your grade for coming to class every time. What? No. Come to class. It's your duty. It's your responsibility to be there. You do not get credit for coming to class. Okay? This is what we don't understand. We don't understand duty. And it's our duty to forgive as we have been forgiven. It's so far from being something to take pride in. It's just shameful if you don't do it. That's it. That's it. And so Jesus cautions the disciples and us to check our pride and keep us from thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Well, I'm just, you know.

I never get offended and I never hold grudges and I never forgive and I never rebuke. Because why? Well, because sin's not inevitable. Well, aren't I a fool then to think all of that? Sin is inevitable. You be careful not to be the one who causes it. And you be careful not to get bitter when someone sins against you, but instead go to them and say, this was inappropriate. This hurt. What happened? And if they tell you and they confess, then you forgive them. And when you forgive them, don't think you're a... one bit better than them when you forgive them. Because you're only doing what's required of you and what's been given to you already. This is our work as Christians, to forgive people and to love them. I could tell you stories, I'm out of time, of how this has happened in my life and how sweet it is and how powerful it is when someone actually forgives you and doesn't hold it over your head anymore. It's the sweetest gift they could ever give you. And we have the responsibility to give that gift to other people when they sin.

And to seek that gift from them when we sin. Let's pray. Father, we love you and we love your word. And we ask for you to increase our faith such that we would be able to forgive and love as you have forgiven us and loved us. Father, we are made in your image. Would you conform us to your image by the power of your Holy Spirit and help us to love our neighbors as ourselves. To provide for them and to care for them and nurture them and bless them. to treat them just as you have treated us. Father, we're not worthy of your kindness, and yet you shower it on us, and so make us vessels of mercy to all around us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.