Untitled Sermon (19)

Scripture Introduction:

I have a really nerdy joke to tell you…it’s dad joke awful. Here goes:

Two men walk into a bar. One man orders H2O. The other says, “I’ll have H2O too.” The second man dies.

H202 is hydrogen peroxide. He didn’t order water, he ordered hydrogen peroxide…drinking a glass of that would not be a good idea.

I tell that horrible joke for a reason. To say that sometimes if you do not get the proper combination of something it is deadly. We are seeing here in Luke 17:1-4 a couple of ways to hijack community. But these go together....kind of like a teeter-totter. To be perfectly balanced both of these things need to be taking place. If you put too much weight on one over the other then it’s not going to be properly balanced.

Maybe that illustration would have worked better and I didn’t have to tell that really nerdy joke.

Here in Luke 17 Jesus is now talking to his disciples. After speaking about the religious leaders of the day and their hypocrisy he, as he often does, now turns to the disciples and gives them a vision of what kingdom life is to be like.

Luke 17:1–4 ESV

And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

What are those two things which must be kept in balance? A culture of forgiveness and a culture of care.

The key verse here is verse 3. “Pay attention to yourselves!” And it goes, I believe with both 1-2 and 3-4. You don’t want to be the guy with a millstone tied around your neck because of your lack of care and you don’t want to be walking in unforgiveness.

My guess is that you’ve likely experienced a community that is out of balance in either of these ways. And it does harm. Though it’s possible to not even realize the harm that it’s doing to yourself or others.

So what we will do this morning is look at both of these and then show what it looks like if they are out of balance, and then in the end show what a faithful Jesus-built community looks like.

I. A community that lacks care

Temptations to sin are sure to come. The Greek there is emphatic—it’s maybe better rendered “It is impossible for scandals, stumbling blocks, occasions for sin not to come”. There is always going to be an opportunity for you to sin—and always going to be an opportunity for you to sin against others. There is always that opportunity. That is what Jesus is saying.

But woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

A millstone was a big stone that was used for grinding grain. Different types, but it really doesn’t matter which one. You tie a big stone around your neck and get thrown in the sea—you’re going to Davey Jones’ Locker. You aren’t coming back up.

Cause one of these little ones to sin. Now…who are the little ones? It could mean literal children. That’s a way that word is used at times. It could also mean just the disciples—Jesus has referred to them already in such terms. “Little flock”. But I’m not confident that this is what he’s saying here because his audience is the disciples. I think what we can see here with the “little ones” is picture in Lazarus, the lost son, the poor, crippled, blind and lame of 14:12-14.

Again it’s the vulnerable. Perhaps even newer believers. Taking someone who is vulnerable and then using them for your own twisted ends. How horrible is that?

It’s what we just saw in Luke with Lazarus and the rich man. Here you have a vulnerable guy. He’s in desperate need. The story lets us see that he’s wounded in some way—because the dogs are licking his sores. Scavengers.

But notice something else of what happens in this story. Look at Luke 16:24. The man is in anguish and he tells Abraham to go get Lazarus and have him eliminate his suffering. Now why does he, the rich man, know Lazarus’ name? Not because they are friends. Not because he cared for him, or because he was humanizing him. No. It’s quite the opposite. It’s clear from this how the rich man viewed Lazarus—as someone to be used to meet his own needs.

What is happening here is that you are using your influence not to create thriving, and growth, and becoming more like Jesus…but using your influence over that person to make them more like your fallen self—to serve yourself—or for some other twisted means.

Think of all the ways we can do this. If I’m to image Christ for someone else and help them grab hold of Jesus. Consider all the ways we can put stumbling blocks in their way.

1) Being a hypocrite without repentance

2) Displaying with my life and lips that things are more precious than Christ

3) Neglect teaching

4) Refuse to pray for them

5) Be silent in times of danger

6) Be aggressive in times of pain

7) Preach moralism instead of the gospel

8) Live in disunity with others

9) Model spiritual independence

10) Help them establish an identity in anything other than Christ.

Again you can extend this out to any disciples. Jesus is using in this entire context really strong speech. This is not the unforgivable sin. You can probably put “without repentance” in all of these. But a disciple realizes that the Christian walk isn’t just me and Jesus. My life with Christ is lived out with others. I’m called to lead others into a growing relationship with Jesus. Causing someone to stumble is more than just drinking a beer in front of them—it’s to woefully neglect them. Neglect discipling people and you are guilty of this one.

That’s the first way to be imbalanced. To neglect care. But the second one is to have a community that is not marked by grace but one that is marked by a lack of forgiveness.

You can see from this prior one that we are going to sin against one another—and probably often. I mean Jesus pretty much said that in 17:1. And so we also need to have communities of forgiveness.

II. A lack of forgiveness

These statements here, I believe are connected to what Jesus has already taught the Pharisees. We’ve already seen these illustrated…the one about caring for others in the rich man and Lazarus. Here I think we see this illustrated in the parable of the lost son—or the lost coin, etc.

Heaven rejoices when lost things come home. And we see it vividly in the story of the prodigal son. He repents. He turns around. He comes home. But what is the response of the religious leader? It is to not forgive. It is to hold on to bitterness. He doesn’t rejoice at repentance.

But what Jesus is saying here to the disciples is—don’t be like that. Rejoice at repentance. Be people of forgiveness.

But we need to talk about this here. I think Luke 17 helps us tremendously to understand the nature of forgiveness.

Let’s talk first about true forgiveness. You can see this really well in Matthew 18. Jesus tells a story about a guy who is owed a ton of money…is forgiven his debt…but then goes out and shakes down his neighbor for the debt that he owes him. It’d be like if the bank called you and said you don’t have to pay on your house mortgage anymore—it’s paid off. Forgiven. And then you go out and shake down your buddy who you loaned $45 because he needed a gallon of gas.

There is so much that we can learn about forgiveness from Matthew 18. We see that true forgiveness is costly. We see that the king who forgave the debt is absorbing the cost.

What does that mean? I’ve found some help from Paul Tripp on this…to really grasp what it means.

You aren’t going to use the debt as future leverage. It’s forgiven. It’s gone.

You won’t bring it up again.

You won’t dwell on it.

To forgive something is to let it go. To cover it. That’s what true forgiveness is. I’m taking the cost of your sin and absorbing it myself. I’m no longer going to hold you to account for this thing. It’s buried. It’s gone. It’s covered.

And we also see from Matthew 18 that not forgiving costs even more. We see the danger of not forgiving. It will cost you your own soul. That’s the point there and it’s similar to here in Luke 17. We need to be people who are forgiving when others sin against us. And we do that because we realize how much we’ve been forgiven ourselves.

But there is something here in Luke 17 that I think is vital. An abusive person…maybe one of those described in the first two verses…is going to love Matthew 18. But he’s not going to quote you Luke 17. And here is why.

When we talk about forgiveness in the Bible there are two different things we are talking about.

Let’s think for a moment about Ephesians 4:32

Ephesians 4:32 ESV

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Let’s take a situation here.

While you are at work, a guy breaks into your home in order to steal money to support his drug addiction, unbeknownst to him your wife and kids are home. To get the money and to not go to prison he murders your family. What is the Christian response to this?

How do we apply Ephesians 4:32? Now let’s add another layer here to help us in our story. Let’s say you go to prison to meet the guy who wrecked your life. And he’s not repentant…at all…he’s glad he killed your family…says he enjoyed it.

Do I say, “It’s okay, I forgive you” without him offering repentance? Is forgiveness primarily an emotion that I have towards someone or is forgiveness primarily an interaction that happens between two parties?” According to the Scriptures can forgiveness happen when there is no reconciliation? Could I say, “You know I forgive that guy in my heart—but I’m not going to be reconciled to him”?

What I’m really asking is this, is forgiveness conditional or unconditional according to the Bible?

If we want to answer this question we need to stop thinking horizontally for just a moment and think vertically. Is God’s forgiveness of us conditional or unconditional?

Now I think we want to say that God’s forgiveness is unconditional. And I get what we mean by that. When we say that, I think, we mean that there isn’t a single person that God won’t forgive. We mean that God offers grace and forgiveness to people not because we are deserving but simply because he is gracious. We are, I believe, meaning something similar to Romans 5:8 and 10 that while we still sinners—still God’s enemies—he died for us.” And so when we say, “forgiveness is unconditional” I think what we mean is something similar to that.

But unless you are a universalist you actually believe that God’s forgiveness is conditional. Let’s look at a few Scriptures:

Matthew 26:28—His blood is poured out for the man for the forgiveness of sins. But who are the many? Who are those who receive this forgiveness of sins? Who get the new covenant blessings? Pretty much all of the NT answers that question but it is those who are “in Christ Jesus”.

Acts 2:38—answers this question. Peter proclaims the gospel and says Jesus is the Messiah. This is the one who we need. This is the new covenant that was promised. They say, “What do we need to do in order to receive this”. And again…if there was a place where we would see something like, “It’s cool, bro. Just chill. You don’t have to do anything. God has already changed his feelings towards you. No need to repent. No need to believe anything. Everyone is going to be okay because God’s forgiveness is unconditional….if you want to find that it’d be here. But what does Peter say, “Repent and believe the gospel, repent and be baptized—be united to Christ….for what….for the forgiveness of sins.”

We see something similar in Acts 10:43 where we see forgiveness is given to everyone who believes. You see if we change this view of what forgiveness means then we end up having to say that redeemed and forgiven people are in hell. Because Colossians 1:14 and Ephesians 1:7 equates forgiveness of sins with redemption. There are no forgiven people in hell, that’s the reason they are there. Forgiveness isn’t just an attitude toward someone. It is so much more. In the Bible when we see that God forgives someone he is also reconciled to someone. We are at peace with God. We are reconciled. We are brought into union with Christ. It isn’t just some sort of emotion that God has towards us.

You see what has happened—and this is going to feel like quibbling over tiny words—we have confused the OFFER of forgiveness with forgiveness itself.

What I mean is this, you can say that there are people in hell who were offered pardon, who were offered grace, who were offered forgiveness, but they never met the condition for it. They were given a Christmas present—oh my, how terribly that cheapens salvation—but they left it under the tree. They didn’t unpack it. What does it mean to unpack it? It means repentance and faith in Christ. That’s what the Bible says.

Consider 1 John 1:9. Do you notice that big IF there? If we confess then we receive full pardon. But notice all the verses around that. If we don’t confess—if we say we have no sin or that we have not sinned then we make God out to be a liar and the truth is not in us. Friends, these verses make absolutely no sense if God’s forgiveness just means some sort of an emotion towards us.

Here is what I’m saying. In the Scriptures the OFFER of forgiveness is unconditional. But actually being forgiven and walking in forgiveness and living in a reconciled relationship with God is conditional. It is conditioned upon your repentance and faith. So what does that mean? It means that no matter who you are or what you have done God offers you pardon, this morning. There is not one single person who will ever be turned out of heaven who has repented and trusted in Christ. You turn to God and ask for forgiveness—you will be given it.

So you take that story earlier of the guy who broke into your house and murdered your family. Well, we’ve done much worse to God. We’ve sinned against Him eternally, numerous times. We are the reason He had to give his own Son. If you have a heart like that man in prison and never ask for pardon. It isn’t okay with you. God isn’t going to then say, “Ah, the death of my Son didn’t mean much anyways. It doesn’t matter that you have rejected that and that you don’t want my forgiveness. I’m going to give it to you anyways”. That’s meaningless drivel. But you can guarantee this morning that though you’ve committed murder a thousand times over or whatever it is that you think is big enough to stand between you and God—it is not. He is a merciful and gracious God. You ask him for pardon, you ask him for forgiveness, you ask Him for grace. You will get it. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Now take that back to Luke 17:3.

So what about our situation earlier? What should I do at that jail cell? I’ve been sinned against so what do I do? I don’t think I can say it really any better than Jay Adams has:

What shall we say then? It is clear that forgiveness—promising another never to bring up his offense again to use it against him—is conditioned on the offender’s willingness to confess it as sin and to seek forgiveness. You are not obligated to forgive an unrepentant sinner, but you are obligated to try to bring him to repentance. All the while you must entertain a genuine hope and willingness to forgive the other and a desire to be reconciled to him or her. Because this biblical teaching runs counter to much teaching in the modern church, it is important to understand it. Such forgiveness is modeled after God’s forgiveness which is unmistakably conditioned on repentance and faith.

So what do you do? You call him to repentance. You want to forgive him. You offer forgiveness. You offer pardon. But you cannot truly grant forgiveness or walk in reconciliation and all those things until this person repents. To do this is not unloving—it is supremely loving. To allow another person to wallow in unrepentant sin is to “nice” them into self-destruction.

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Now what happens if this is messed up in a community? What happens if somebody is in Luke 17:1-2 but they like to emphasize verses 3-4. They call upon you to forgive…you HAVE to forgive me, that’s what the Bible says. And they use that to continue abuse. To stay in that position of power and to keep abusing people. But abusing others will eat you alive. That was one of the arguments that John Newton made in trying to end the slave trade in England. He said doing this is killing us…this isn’t how God created us to treat other humans, and the more we do this the more we ourselves also die inside.

Or what happens if somebody is truly repentant but we aren’t applying Luke 17:3-4? What if we are overtaken with bitterness and a lack of forgiveness? That will rob community as well. That’s kind of a power-grab for the person who has been offended. They are going to make that person pay—keep them in a position of indebtedness. And what we find from Matthew 18 is that this will also be costly. It’s costly to both people. Bitterness will eat you alive. Unforgiveness will eat you alive.

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But what is Jesus outlining here? To make this positive we could see that Jesus is calling upon people to truly care for one another. To work for their thriving and their growth. To truly care for one another. To love each other deeply from the heart. When you see the weak and the vulnerable how you respond says a great deal about you.

Diane Langberg:

Our capacity for being wounded is constant. Sadly, oftentimes our collective response when someone is wounded is to blame them. If they had not done ______ (action), then maybe _______(consequence) would not have happened.

What you do in response to a vulnerable person says what you are like in the presence of unfettered vulnerability. In the kingdom of Jesus what does he do when somebody is vulnerable before Him? He cares for them. He clothes them. He covers them. He loves them. He nurtures them. In fact he took upon vulnerability in order to clothe us in His strength. He protects the vulnerable. He rescues them. That is what the kingdom of Jesus is like.

And that’s why he responds the way he does with repentance as well. Repentance is also a vulnerable position. That lost son was vulnerable when he came back home. And his repentance was met with rejoicing and not shaming. That is the heart of forgiveness....it’s to be connected with the heart of God.