Grateful Diligence

Scripture: Luke 17:5-10

Luke 17:5–10 NIV

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. 7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ”

10/5/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

World Communion Sunday

Opening Prayer:

God of all the ages,

you have revealed your grace

in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

As we wait patiently on your mercies,

strengthen us to live in your justice,

that with open hearts we may hear

and accomplish your will,

through Christ, who lights the way to life everlasting. Amen.

Grateful Diligence

A Faithful Harvest is a Grateful Harvest

This month, we are turning our attention to the harvest season. If we want to be a faithful church that follows Jesus with all our hearts, we must begin with one essential attitude: gratitude. Gratitude is what keeps our hearts aligned with God. It helps us see more clearly. It gives us the strength to serve Him with joy and focus.

When most people think about power, they think of physical strength, natural talent, intelligence, or material resources. In this world, those are the tools people rely on to accomplish their goals. But in the kingdom of God, power is not found in what we possess. It is found in who we depend on. Power, for a disciple, is not about ability. It is about leverage.

We are not able to do the work God has called us to do on our own. We have never seen the perfect and holy world that God is preparing for us in eternity. Yet we are called to represent that world here and now. We cannot do that by our own strength. But we know the One who can. His name is Jesus. We live by faith in His love, which comes from the Father. We are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit, who works through us and allows us to live with more love, more wisdom, and more strength than we could ever produce on our own.

That is what a faithful servant looks like. They serve diligently, not to earn anything, but because they are grateful for what God allows them to do. That is what Jesus teaches in Luke 17:5 through 10. A servant does not boast in their work. They simply say, “I have only done my duty.” But behind that duty is a heart full of gratitude.

Does that describe your life?

Faithful disciples of Jesus practice gratitude diligently and consistently.

Mustard Seed Faith

One of the signs that a student is close to truly excelling in their craft is when they hit the wall of their own limitation. They can see in their mind what they want to do. They believe in their heart that it is possible. Yet their ability has not caught up. That gap creates frustration. Some people quit at that point and walk away from their calling. But that frustration is not failure. It is often the signal that they are finally ready to grow.

The students who go on to succeed are the ones who choose relationship instead of retreat. They reach out to a teacher they trust and ask for help. That is where growth begins.

When I was in college working on my music degree, I had to take piano lessons. There were only four of us in the class. We took weekly private lessons with the teacher and also met together for group instruction, very similar to the way Jesus taught His disciples. I was the worst piano player in the group. The other three were incredible. I would watch their fingers dance across the keys while I stumbled through basic scales. Even they were being corrected by our teacher who was on a whole different level than any of us. I felt stuck. I spent most of that semester sitting in quiet embarrassment, convinced I would never catch up.

Then I happened to see my tuition bill. I did the math and figured out how much each lesson was costing me. That changed my perspective. I told myself, If I am paying this much to learn, and I am doing my best to practice what I have been assigned, then maybe the problem is not that I am too weak. Maybe the problem is that I am not asking for enough help.

That was the week I walked into the lesson with a new attitude. I opened my music book before the teacher could say a word and pointed straight to the parts I was struggling with. I said, I cannot get this right. Can you help me here? That simple act changed our entire relationship. I was no longer a silent, frustrated student. I became an active one who trusted my teacher enough to ask boldly.

I still graduated as the worst piano player in that group, but I was proud to be counted among them. The fear was gone, and I grew more in that season than I had before because I learned how powerful the right relationship between student and teacher can be.

So when I read in Luke 17 that the disciples came to Jesus and said, Lord, increase our faith, I understand what they were feeling. They had seen enough to know they were not where they needed to be. They wanted to be better. They just did not know how to get there. But they knew who could get them there. They had seen what He had already done in their lives, and they were grateful for it. That gratitude gave them the confidence to come to Him and ask for more.

Faith and Gratitude

Faith, vision, and gratitude are not separate ideas. They feed and strengthen one another. Gratitude remembers what God has already done. Faith asks God to do it again. Vision looks ahead, trusting that God will move even before we see it. When those three work together, we grow spiritually.

I believe Jesus was pleased when His disciples came to Him and said, Lord, increase our faith. That request was not a complaint. It was a sign of growth. Many of the miracles Jesus performed only changed a moment for the crowds who received them. But for the disciples who witnessed them, those miracles changed the entire direction of their lives. They saw where their faith was weak and knew that they wanted to be more than they currently were. They wanted to grow, and they knew exactly who could help them.

But Jesus did not answer with a long lesson plan or a list of ten steps to greater faith. He pointed them to something small. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you have what you need. He did not tell them to look inside themselves for hidden strength. He told them to recognize and be grateful for what little faith they already had. That small seed was enough.

Many voices in our world teach that the power to change comes from within. They claim that greatness is buried somewhere deep inside us, and that the key to success is to find and activate that inner potential. That message sounds encouraging at first, but it is not biblical. Jesus never taught us to put our faith in ourselves. He taught us to put our faith in God. Our wisdom is limited. His is perfect. Our strength runs out. His never does.

That is why I do not believe the mustard seed represents some hidden spark inside of us. A seed is something small and outside of us, that we have been given, and that we place in the ground. We cover it up. We wait. And we trust that God will make it grow according to His will. That is what faith looks like. We take the little that we have been given and we act on it, trusting that God will take care of the rest.

How does that move mulberry bushes and plant them impossibly in the sea? When we come face to face with obstacles that we cannot move in our own strength, and we believe that God wants to lead us through them, we take the next faithful step. Those small acts of obedience, which may seem too weak or too insignificant to matter, are used by God in ways we could never imagine. He weaves them together and makes the impossible possible.

Some of you have seen this in your own life. You faced a situation that seemed impossible, yet God made a way through. At the time, you may not have recognized it as faith. You may have thought it was coincidence. Or perhaps you were not even asking God for help, yet He helped you anyway.

And some of you have been following Jesus with all the diligence you can give, yet still came face to face with a mulberry bush or perhaps a mountain that would not move. In those moments, God asked you to do something that did not make sense. Something small. Something that felt like it would not help at all. And you did it. And somehow, in His time and in His way, God moved whatever was in the way.

Scripture gives us so many examples. Moses obediently held up his staff and the sea parted. Peter obeyed and stepped out of the boat and walked on water. The disciples broke bread just as Jesus commanded them and fed thousands. After Jesus was crucified, they held on to His promise and waited, not knowing how He would return. Every one of them held a mustard seed of faith, and God honored it.

So let me ask you. What are the moments in your life when you had nothing to hold on to except a mustard seed of faith, and a mountain was standing in your way?

Diligent Gratitude

Jesus does not end His lesson on mustard seed faith with celebration. He follows it with a warning. Faith must be nurtured by gratitude, or it will slowly turn into entitlement. When we stop being grateful for what God has already done, we begin to think He and others owe us more. Instead of serving with joy, we start serving with resentment.

I have learned in my life that most organizations, whether businesses, governments, or even churches, stay small when people focus only on what they do. When every person is measuring their own effort, they stop seeing what God and others have already done around them. Gratitude opens our eyes to the bigger picture.

Jesus reminds us that we are all servants. When we return to the master or our master returns home to us, we, as his servants do not expect to be congratulated or waited on. That is not how a grateful heart thinks. That is the mindset of someone who is working only for the weekend, or for retirement, or for recognition. That is what happens when gratitude is missing.

Jesus tells another parable about a vineyard owner who hired workers all throughout the day and paid them all the same amount in the end. Those who worked the longest were angry because they thought they deserved more. They had forgotten that what they received was exactly what they agreed to. Their frustration did not come from injustice. It came from a lack of gratitude. They were jealous of someone else’s blessing.

Scripture is clear that a worker deserves their wages. But no one is owed more because they believe they are more important than someone else. Gratitude keeps our hearts humble. It keeps us in the right relationship with God and with one another. It helps us remember that everything we accomplish is because God has made it possible, not because we are strong enough on our own.

We are always planting mustard seeds. The problem is that when we see mountains move over and over again, we start to believe that we are the ones moving them. When our children or grandchildren grow up strong in life or in faith, it is not because we were perfect parents or grandparents. It is because God is good, and we were faithful to plant the seeds He gave us. When our church grows in number, in depth, and in impact in the community, it is not because we are impressive. It is because God is good, and we have been diligent in planting small seeds year after year.

Planting is only the beginning. Jesus teaches that true faith also waters the seed, protects it, pulls the weeds around it, and cares for it day after day. That work does not always get applause. It is often unseen. But God sees it. And He is the one who brings the growth.

Sometimes the mustard seed is a task or a project that God puts in our hands. It may seem small. It may go unnoticed. Yet it may become the foundation He uses to lift up everything else.

Most often in Scripture, and in our lives, that mustard seed is a person. Someone God has asked us to invest in, to raise up in the faith. Sometimes God even asks us to nurture someone into a faith that surpasses our own. That kind of work requires diligence. And diligence only survives when gratitude is already in place. Gratitude reminds us where the power truly comes from, how often God has made the impossible possible, and how many times His wisdom has guided us when we did not know what to do next.

Grateful Foundations

Today, we are choosing gratitude — and we are choosing it early. Many of us are used to saving gratitude for November, waiting for Thanksgiving to remind us to be thankful. But gratitude is not a holiday. It is the foundation of our faith, and it is the foundation of worship. Gratitude is how we relate to God, so it cannot wait for one month out of the year. It is something we are called to practice every day.

So begin today. Open your eyes and look for something Jesus has already done for you. Name it. Thank Him for it. Then do it again tomorrow. And the next day. Gratitude must become more than a moment or a theme. It must become a daily habit — something so deeply rooted in us that it begins to flow out of our mouths without us even realizing it. Like breathing. Not because it is unintentional, but because it has become foundational.

This month, we have given you daily devotionals to help you build that foundation. Take one with you. Read it. Write in it. Make it part of your routine. And as you do that, expect resistance. Expect the voice of complaint to show up. Expect the old nature to whisper like the Israelites in the wilderness, saying, “Go back. This is too hard.” Do not listen. When that voice rises up, go back to your devotional. Open your Bible. Read a psalm. Let David — who went through every kind of season — teach you how to be grateful again.

And if you cannot find gratitude on your own, reach out. Reach out to a friend. Reach out to us, your church family. Tell someone, “I need help increasing my faith and my gratitude.” Let us share our mustard seeds with you, and you share yours with someone else who is struggling. That is what diligent love looks like. Praying for one another. Encouraging one another. Serving one another.

If we do that — if we practice gratitude together — God will bring the growth. He will move the mountains. And one day, we will look around and realize we are standing in a harvest of faith, surrounded by thousands of reasons to give thanks.

Closing Prayer

Lord, today we ask You to show us the foundation of our lives — the true foundation of our faith. Build that foundation not just on what we say we believe, but on what we know You have done and sealed in our lives through gratitude. Help us this week to be honest with ourselves, honest with one another, and honest before You. When we find ourselves ungrateful or focused only on ourselves, open our eyes to see what You are doing.

We prepare our hearts to come to Your table — to receive yet another blessing that we need but do not deserve. Help us come with the gratitude that You deserve. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

And now let us take a moment to silently confess our sin before the Lord, our God.