Sermons

FILTER BY:

← back to list

Jul 21, 2019

The Thankful Servant

Passage: Luke 17:7-10

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: The Parables of Jesus

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: work, grace, serve, gratitude, labor, reward

It is easy to engage in a transactional relationship with God, serving Him with the expectation that he will “pay” us for our service through personalized blessings. But when these blessings don’t come, our faith gets cracked, revealing an inner frustration with God. This is all the result of us misunderstanding our relationship with God and the motivation for our obedience. We forget that our very lives, every waking breath, is an active gift from God that we have not earned; we forget that the judgement that I actually deserved was paid for by Jesus on the cross; we forget that what Jesus deserved, an intimate relationship with the Father, has been given to me. And when I forget these truths, my obedience to God is “so that” I will be loved, not “because” I have been loved. I need to be freed from thinking that I have to (or am able to) earn God’s blessings, and freed and called to love God and others because I have been loved.

ORDER of WorShip

PRELUDE: Real Genius 

CALL TO WORSHIP: Isaiah 55:1-3

READING: John 15:12-15,17

MUSIC:

PRAYER: Mission of the Church (from The Book of Common Prayer)

ALL: Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through the finished work of your Son. Inspire our witness to Him, that all may know and extend the power of Christ’s forgiveness and the hope of His resurrection; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.  

MESSAGE: The Thankful Servant

CENTRAL TEXT: Luke 17:7-10 

 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” 

ILLUSTRATIONS:

RESPONSE: Communion

BENEDICTION: Philippians 3:7,9-10

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Matthew 20:20-28
  • Matthew 25:23
  • John 13:14-17
  • Romans 11:35
  • James 4:10
  • 1 John 4:19
  • Revelation 19:6-8

MEDIA:

  • 60 Minutes - Humble servant, undeserved celebrity, circumstance led to position
  • Batman Begins - We’re rescued from our disintegrating circumstances by One who has served us and will never give up on us. Leads us to serve others. 
  • Better Call Saul - We slack at work / mission yet still hold up the line and demand full pay. We deserve zero.
  • Breaking Bad - They’re really partners or co-workers. One is just useful to the other. 
  • Earth to Moon - Grateful for the mission and all the help to get there, leads Buzz to humility and the desire to give thanks thru communion
  • Good Help - A satirical look at how we can often treat Jesus like a personal servant. Chasing our needs, running our errands, and laboring for us as if payback for our years of service. We treat others how we first treat Jesus.
  • Home Alone - We enjoy the luxury and provision yet the way we compensate the Help shows our naive (kid like) understanding. 
  • Real Genius - We’re like Kent expecting payback for all our commitment and service.
  • Spiderman - He sacrificed everything for the company...and now he’s out because he’s a liability to the company.
  • Star Trek - He stayed at his post.
  • Toy Story 2 - Risking their lives to rescue Woody, they face hardship (long journey) & adversity (road traffic). Out of fear, the almost turn back (“we tried”) Not wanting to become road kill.
  • Up in Air - Spends his life chasing and laboring for the prize. Not sure (in the end) what to say. 

DISCUSSIONS QUESTIONS:

  1. When have outwardly or inwardly insisted “You owe me?”
    1. When are times it is legitimate to say this? When isn’t it?
  2. Parables are designed to get ONE POINT across. We can look deeper to see what else we can learn, but fundamentally Jesus’ parables are surgically precise. This one is simply telling believers that our behavior doesn’t put God into our debt. When we love sacrificially or resist a temptation, God doesn’t owe us a gold medal or even a participation trophy. We love BECAUSE he first sacrificially loved us in Jesus, not SO THAT we can get a further blessing.
  3. How do I treat God with a “you owe me” mentality?
    1. How does that attitude come out in my real life? (for instance: After I do an especially “good” thing?)
    2. When things aren’t going according to my plan?
    3. After I do a really good job at resisting a “bad” thing?
  4. Does it feel like God is painted as unloving and demanding?
  5. How can we synchronize this portrayal with God also calling us his beloved children and saying “well done, good and faithful servants” (Matt 25:23)
  6. The first and last verse uses the word “servant”. The issue at hand it our relationship with God...that he is above and beyond; fully holy and worthy of every ounce of our lives...and that we are his only because of the infinite Grace he showers on us. That being said, we still have to remember that we truly ARE HIS. His love and acceptance are beyond measure.
  7. Do you lean toward being God’s son / daughter or servant
  8. Whereas God loves us despite our behavior, God loves us too much to leave us wallowing in self centeredness. Rather, he calls us to live out (“duty”) of our new identity. We are called to follow him, to love others. Does this feel like legalism?
  9. To those of us who lean toward moralism, this parable can feed our “just buckle up and do your Christian duty” mentality. How is Jesus saying something so much deeper than this?
  10. To those of us who lean toward “cheap grace” (I’m free and can now live however I want...Jesus will forgive me”), how is Jesus actually trying to free us from our self-centeredness? 

QUOTES:

  • “The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship  - London: SCM Press, 1948/2001), 44.
  • “We can never put God in our debt.” - N.T. Wright
  • “Religious people find God useful. Growing Christians find God beautiful.” - Timothy J. Keller
  • "Anything God does TO you He then intends to do THROUGH you." - Jeff Vanderstelt

BOOKS / ARTICLES

    SERMONS / TALKS: 

    Love Like Christ by Francis Chan 

    1 John 3:16-17

    Serve Others by Jeff Vanderstelt

    Philippians 2 & Matthew 25

    Imitating the Incarnation by Timothy J. Keller

    Philippians 2:3-11