Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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.