Luke 17:1-10

Gareth Southgate:

Sought to change men’s England football - culture and mentality

Part of that was preparing for every eventuality - what they would do and how they would respond if they went a goal down early, if they lost a player from red card or injury, if they went to penalties!

Talked about building resilience so that these challenges could be met head on, prepared and ready to face them.

Jesus is seeking to do something similar in these verses.

Remember, he is leading his disciples to Jerusalem. He will die, rise and ascend - leaving them to fulfil the work he has given his people.

In Luke 17:1-10, Jesus is preparing his followers in every age for the reality of daily living for Him.

Just like 90 minutes of international football, following Jesus is never straightforward! There are always challenges, obstacles, surprises, twists and turns.

There are opponents trying to disrupt us, while we’re also fighting against our own sinful nature.

Trouble with English football pre-Southgate is that a lot of it was undisciplined, unprepared, and lacked the resolve needed to overcome challenges in order to win.

And Christians who don’t prepare for what they will face as followers of the Lord Jesus will also struggle.

Because the Lord Jesus assures us that obstacles, temptations, challenges, will come - from others, from ourselves.

So, we need to listen carefully to what he says.

These verses might seem like they contain random bits of teaching chucked together! But Jesus had a reason for saying these things, Luke had a reason for placing them here, and the Holy Spirit has a purpose for this passage of the Word of God for us today.

The first and second parts of teaching seem to deal with the relationships we have with one another - being careful about things that cause others or ourselves to stumble, and then rebuking and forgiving one another.

The third and fourth parts of teaching deem to deal more with our relationship towards God - our faith in him, and our attitude towards him as we serve him.

The first part of teaching prepares us to face challenges as disciples, teaching us to...

WATCH FOR OBSTACLES

Because obstacles will come!

Luke 17:1 NIVUK

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.

Literally, it is impossible that they won’t come!

Jesus has just spoken at length about the destructive power of wealth in chapter 16. That’s just one challenge! One aspect of life that might cause us to stumble.

There will be many others, and what’s more the things that cause disciples to stumble will often come through other people, even other disciples.

To cause someone to stumble is to lead them into sin or into turning away from the Lord altogether.

Hence, the very serious warning that Jesus gives in v2...

Luke 17:2 NIVUK

It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied round their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

The “little ones” are most likely the followers of Jesus in a general sense. It could also mean people like Lazarus in the previous parable - all those cast aside by the Pharisees and scribes: the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable, the sick and so on.

In any case, these little ones are precious to Jesus!

There are two sides to this for believers.

On the one hand, we need to keep ourselves close to the Lord so that we will be able to resist temptations when they come and avoid stumbling into sin or falling away altogether.

Don’t assume that you won’t fall, or that you will be able to handle temptation when it comes. We’re warned elsewhere:

Proverbs 16:18 NIVUK

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

1 Corinthians 10:12 NIVUK

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

Stay strong in your walk, stay close to God and his people, listen carefully to his word and walk in it. Then you will be better prepared to face up to temptations.

On the other hand, we need to love one another enough to not cause each other to sin or stumble.

You might think, “I wouldn’t ever do that!”

Maybe not consciously or deliberately. But part of loving one another means keeping a close watch on how we’re living, how we’re speaking around each other.

We can often tempt others into sin through our actions and words, even if we don’t mean to or are aware of it.

You might be talking about someone else, maybe expressing your opinions, and before you know it you’ve engaged someone else in gossip and slander.

Without realising it, we might show off our wealth, or families, or relationships, or careers, and cause a brother or sister to sin in their hearts with envy and covetousness and bitterness towards the Lord. And so on.

We might not always mean to. Sometimes we will...

Both require us to stay in close fellowship with the Lord.

Our Lord Jesus wants us to watch ourselves (v3) - so that we neither stumble or nor cause others to stumble.

But these temptations will come. Are you ready?

And when temptations come through others, we might need to...

REBUKE AND FORGIVE SIN

There’s debate over whether the “watch yourselves” in v3 belongs with v1-2 or v3-4. Why not both!?

Luke 17:3–4 NIVUK

So watch yourselves. ‘If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying “I repent,” you must forgive them.’

This seems to condense teachings of Jesus from elsewhere into one short unit.

First, we’re facing a situation where someone has sinned against us.

Perhaps they’ve been a cause for our temptation, or even stumbling.

Perhaps they’ve hurt us in some way by their words or actions.

It’s not difficult to imagine this, is it?!

We are, after all, a group of sinners, all with different backgrounds, cultures, languages, experiences, and all with different struggles with different sins!

We’re bound to say or do the wrong thing, and it’s bound to happen frequently.

Or there might be more obvious ways that we’re sinned against.

What do we do with that?

We could just ignore it, and hope it goes away!

Or we could ask: What would GS do? Gareth Southgate. He speaks about learning to have hard but necessary conversations with people - players and staff - for their own good, to bring clarity and to move forward.

And our Lord Jesus wants us to be ready and willing to have difficult but loving conversations that help each other.

That means being prepared to rebuke a brother or sister.

Rebuke is such a harsh-sounding word, isn’t it!? But it doesn’t haven’t to be the Alan Sugar boardroom takedown that it might bring to mind!

There doesn’t have to be shouting or aggressive confrontations.

We can gently point out how we feel we’ve been sinned against by the other person, help them to see how and why, and allow space for them to understand it.

And if they repent and ask for forgiveness, forgive them!!

Even if they continue to sin in the same way, if they continue to repent, if they show that they want to change, then we are to forgive them.

Do we regularly practice this? Or are we too scared, or polite, to truly confront and confess sin? Do you regularly repent?

This is all part of the daily experience of following Jesus: doing as he did, and being willing to rebuke sin and also to forgive when people repent.

I want to say at this point that I think this is different in situations of serious sinful abuse, whether that is domestic violence, sexual abuse, coercive control or other abusive behaviours.

In those circumstances, the Lord Jesus is on the side of the abused and not the abuser. Their sin also needs to be confronted, and indeed we may need to work out a way to forgive them, but forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to let them continue abusing you.

If something like that is happening to you, please get help. Speak to someone you’re most comfortable with, or maybe a member of the safeguarding team (at the moment, Hannah, Claire, Adam or myself), or with Mark or myself, or any of the elders. Help is available.

In all this, we may find ourselves, like the apostles, wondering whether we have enough faith to follow through with avoiding temptation and offering forgiveness!

PRAY FOR GROWING FAITH

It’s like it’s in response to what Jesus has just said about forgiving people multiple times if they sin and then repent, and maybe also the need for constant watchfulness. The apostles blurt out...

Luke 17:5 NIVUK

The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’

This maybe shows us that the demands of kingdom living, of living for Jesus in the community of Jesus, are high. And that it requires great faith in a great God!

Like us, the apostles seemed to feel that their faith was small and weak. But Jesus says that the quantity/size of faith isn’t what’s important...

Luke 17:6 NIVUK

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.

It’s not about the quantity of faith we have but the simple employment of faith - trusting God, his promises, his grace, his goodness, his power, to supply our needs in all situations.

But especially when we’re struggling to live for Jesus daily, battling temptations, stumbling, being sinned against and needing to rebuke and forgive, or when we’re the ones sinning/rebuked and need to repent!

All of that requires that we look away from ourselves and to our Lord Jesus.

Faith in Jesus looks back and forwards. Back to the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection and ascension.

And forward to his return when he will renew all things and usher in his eternal kingdom.

Faith is viewing all of life through the lens of Jesus - his perfect person and his finished work.

If we exercise faith in this way, then we may find that we can face the obstacles and temptations that come to us every day that we follow Jesus in this world.

And so we need to do what the apostles did - pray for faith!

Which means we’re praying for an even greater grasp of the gospel of Jesus, so that we can continue serving him, living and speaking for him.

And then, if we’re really good servants we’ll get extra brownie points and special honour?

Is that right?!

NO! Jesus next says we should...

SERVE AS HUMBLE SERVANTS

And here he tells another parable...

Luke 17:7–10 NIVUK

‘Suppose one of you has a servant ploughing 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”? 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”? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 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.” ’

The setting - a master and a slave - doesn’t sit comfortably with us, and rightly so. Jesus is not endorsing slavery, but using what was sadly an everyday, familiar reality to explain something about our service to him.

The point is that if we grow as believers, in our faith or our service, if we overcome temptation, rebuke a fellow believer and forgive them when they sin against us, or if we repent when rebuked, or do anything else that the Lord requires of us, we shouldn’t expect special treatment or higher honour!

We do not put the Lord in our debt when we serve or obey him. We don’t earn any extra approval from him. We shouldn’t expect to get an easier ride in life or some material benefit.

We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty!

And what a privilege it is to serve our master! What grace and kindness is ours that we get to love and know and follow and obey our Lord Jesus!

He is not a harsh master, but incredibly generous and gracious to us, though we are weak and failing and stumbling.

Gareth Southgate said that he sought to lead the men’s England team with integrity, compassion and generosity, which seems to have led to players respecting him and wanting to follow him.

Brother and sisters, we serve one even greater than Sir Gareth Southgate!!!

Because of his greatness we must serve him with great humility.

We are his “little ones.” Weak, stumbling, easily led astray, continually sinning and repenting.

How great is his patience with us! How great his grace. How great his love that he bears with us and that he helps us be prepared to face obstacles and temptations that come on a daily basis.

Are you ready to face them? Are you prepared for what it means to live for Jesus?

Which of these areas is particularly challenging to you today?

May he grace each of us what we need to watch for obstacles, rebuke and forgive, pray for growing faith, serve as humble servants.

What situations in life require us to be as prepared as possible (e.g. job interviews)? How do you prepare yourself for them? Why is it important to be ready in advance?

Read Luke 17:1-3a. Can you think of a time when you have been caused to stumble? Have you ever been the cause of someone else stumbling?

How can we actively prepare ourselves to face temptations and challenges in our Christian lives?

Why do you think Jesus gives such a strong warning in v2 about those who cause his “little ones” to stumble?

Read Luke 17:3-4. Have you ever needed to rebuke someone for sinning against you? Why do we struggle to do this, and how can we help each other overcome our fears?

How do you feel about forgiving those who have sinned against you? Do you find it easy or difficult, and why?

Read Luke 17:5-6. Why do you think the apostles asked for Jesus to increase their faith? And how should we understand/not understand Jesus’ promise in v6?

Read Luke 17:7-10. How can we ensure that we are serving the Lord with all humility, without expecting special treatment for obedience or service?

Pray that we will be prepared for the various situations described in these verses. Ask the Lord to give us good relationships with one another, so that we can help each other live for Jesus and grow in godliness.

Pray for increased faith and humility as we serve the Lord day to day.