Sermon: The Grace of Duty

Scripture Text: Luke 17:1-10

Quotes for Reflection

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus…No one wants to know about your faith or unbelief, your orders are to perform the act of obedience on the spot. Then you will find yourself in the situation where faith becomes possible and where faith exists in the true sense of the world.

J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke
When do men cause others to sin? They do it, beyond doubt, whenever they persecute believers or endeavor to deter them from serving Christ. But this, unfortunately, is not all. Professing Christians do it whenever they bring discredit on their religion by inconsistencies of temperament, of word, or of deed. We do it whenever we make our Christianity unlovely in the eyes of the world by conduct inconsistent with our profession. The world may not understand the doctrines and principles of believers, but they are very keen-sighted about their practice.

Timothy Keller, Forgive
Forgiveness gets down to the bottom of things—to the alienation we feel from God and from ourselves because of our wrongdoing. Jesus was saying: “I want to show you that the deepest need of your nature is for me. Only I can bestow perfect love, new identity, endless comfort, hope, and glory. And the doorway into all of that is to know forgiveness.” It’s time to open that door and walk through it.

Alan Jacobs, “Vengeance”
When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better.

Application Questions

1. How does faith and obedience work together in your mind?

2. Jesus calls for obedience in three areas: temptation, forgiveness, and faith. Which of these, in particular, deserves your attention right now?

3. How can the mentality of an “unworthy servant” change the way you live this week?