17:1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin1 are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!2 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.23 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Increase Our Faith
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
Unworthy Servants
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant3 plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly,4 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;5 we have only done what was our duty.’”
Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers,6 who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”7
Footnotes
[1]17:1Greek Stumbling blocks [2]17:2Greek stumble [3]17:7Or bondservant; also verse 9 [4]17:8Greek gird yourself [5]17:10Or bondservants [6]17:12Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 [7]17:19Or has saved you
17:1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin1 are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!2 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.23 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Increase Our Faith
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
Unworthy Servants
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant3 plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly,4 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;5 we have only done what was our duty.’”
Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers,6 who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”7
Footnotes
[1]17:1Greek Stumbling blocks [2]17:2Greek stumble [3]17:7Or bondservant; also verse 9 [4]17:8Greek gird yourself [5]17:10Or bondservants [6]17:12Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 [7]17:19Or has saved you
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
I invite you to open your bibles to Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17, which, I hope to go through most, if not all, of this chapter. Begin reading in verse 1. Jesus said to his disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to 1 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.
Joel Brooks:
Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you 7 times in the day and turns to you 7 times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. The apostles said to the lord, increase our faith.
Joel Brooks:
And the Lord said, if he had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table. 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. Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?
Joel Brooks:
So also when you have done all that you were commanded, say we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee and he entered a village. He was met by 10 lepers, who stood at a distance and lifting up their voices saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest.
Joel Brooks:
And as they went, they were cleansed. And then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus's feet and giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. And then Jesus answered, we're not 10 cleansed. Where are the 9?
Joel Brooks:
Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that you would speak to us now, as we open up your word.
Joel Brooks:
May it bear fruit in our hearts. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away, and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:
The night that Jesus was betrayed, he's sitting around or reclining around a table, and he tells all of his disciples. He says, now one of you is going to betray me. I mean, as unbelievable as it sounds, these disciples, they've been following Jesus. They've seen his miracles. They've been empowered to do some of those miracles.
Joel Brooks:
They have heard his teaching. They were friends with Jesus, And yet Jesus says, now one of you is going to betray me. And Mark tells us a interesting detail about that. You would expect that when Jesus says that, they would begin looking around the room with suspicious eyes thinking, who is it? Who is it?
Joel Brooks:
But the gospel of Mark says that each one of them, they looked at Jesus and they said, is it me? Is is it me? Because at this point in their life, they had come to know know that their heart was capable of any evil. Even after following Jesus for all that time, they knew the sin that often lie dormant there, but sometimes came roaring up. Jesus says that temptations to sin are sure to come.
Joel Brooks:
Can can we all agree to that in this room? That temptations are going to come. That no one here can avoid temptation. If, if you woke up early, had your quiet time, came here early to pray with us, you have a big fat King James version bible, it doesn't matter. Temptation is gonna come.
Joel Brooks:
And since we can't avoid temptation and we have a sin nature, we're often going to sin. So at some point in my life, some point in your life, you're going to need to be forgiven and you are going to need to be rebuked. Can we all agree on that? You will need to be forgiven and you will need to be rebuked. Look at verse 3 again.
Joel Brooks:
Says, Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he sent, if he repents, forgive him.
Joel Brooks:
Now, if this verse excites you, you've got a problem. Alright? If, if the Jesus commanding you to go and rebuke people, really, I mean, puts a fire in your belly, you have got a problem. If if you think rebuking is your spiritual gift, let me tell you, it is not. If it's something that comes natural to you, something you're really good at, stop.
Joel Brooks:
Quit rebuking people. That is not the kind of rebuking that the Bible is talking about. I once knew a man who rebuked everybody for every every kind of thing. He he rebuked people if they were too kind because he said, you're being fake. Then he rebuked people for not being kind enough.
Joel Brooks:
You would rebuke people for all kinds of things. And I remember one time I'm going into a chapel service and as I'm about to walk in, he stops me and I don't know him well at all. He goes, Hey Joel, I've got a rebuke for you. I was like, wow. And then he looked at me and he goes, I can't remember what it is.
Joel Brooks:
Come talk to me after the chapel service. So the entire chapel service, I made a list. 37 things that I was gonna rebuke him for. And then I had to repent for making that list. And then I found his almost rebuke of me has actually led me into sin and I got really mad.
Joel Brooks:
It was just a spiral. Rebuking, it it cannot be done with a smile. It cannot be done with a smirk. Re rebuking needs to be done with tears. It should be one of the most painful things that you do as a Christian.
Joel Brooks:
Rebuking someone. Giving a rebuke should be far more painful than receiving a rebuke. But if we love someone, we have to do it. We can't, you know, see somebody about to go off a cliff and say, you know what? Awkward.
Joel Brooks:
I'm just not gonna say anything. Hey. Certainly, they're gonna see that before they get there. Certainly, they're gonna realize their mistake or certainly somebody else is gonna say something to them. So I'm just I'm not gonna be the bad guy and yell at him about this.
Joel Brooks:
We can't do that. Love compels us to cry out and say, listen, do you see where you're going? Turn around. As Christians, we have to rebuke one another. We cannot be like Adam, who watches Eve being tempted and he sees the way that she's she's leaning and he just sits and he doesn't say a thing and he watches her fall.
Joel Brooks:
We cannot be like that to one another. We've got to speak out. We all need rebuking at some point in our lives because all of us are blind to sin. Not all sins, but the sins that are probably most pervasive in our life, we are blind to. Now we, we can see a lot of sins, but we can never see the big ones.
Joel Brooks:
And I, I mean that. I often ask people, I get to do this because I'm a pastor. Like, I sit down with people and I can say things like, hey, can you tell me some of the biggest struggles in your life? And it's not weird because I'm a pastor. They also never tell me the truth because I'm a pastor and now they're like, well, I just love too much or, or, you know, just they're they're always giving me these things.
Joel Brooks:
I'm like, yeah. Alright. And I look at them, I'm like, yeah, okay. They'll usually say things like, lust or pride or, you know, struggles like that, and I'll say, okay. Those are some struggles, but those aren't the big ones.
Joel Brooks:
The big ones you're blind to. The big ones they're they're such a part of the fabric of your being. You're not even aware they're there. The sins that you're struggling with, that's good. That means you're struggling with them.
Joel Brooks:
The big sins, you don't even know you're struggling. You don't even know they're there. You've given in. And we have got to actually deputize people in our lives to point to us those sins. We'll never see them.
Joel Brooks:
Now, I rarely listen to the podcast of my preaching. I rarely do it. I think I've listened to 3 over the years, over the last 10 years or so. And because it's just painful. I mean, it's just painful listening to yourself.
Joel Brooks:
And if any of you are non agreement, I am, I'm gonna remember you. But in my mind, I have this rich kind of baritone sound. I mean, I kinda, y'all y'all laugh at this. I kinda sound like, you know, Sean Connery, or or Gandalf, or you know, or something like that. And just this, weighty words.
Joel Brooks:
And then I listen to a podcast. I'm like slurring my speech. I'm like, I'm talking so fast. I mean, just, who is that guy? And every one of you, you listen to it and you're like, that's Joel.
Joel Brooks:
I listen to it and I'm like, that's a stranger. That's not me. And I can't recognize myself because I'm too close. I don't recognize my own voice because I'm too close to it. And in the same way, some of you cannot see the most pervasive sin in your life because you're too close to it.
Joel Brooks:
It takes somebody from the outside to look in and say, no. That's who you really are. You're like, not me. I don't sound anything like that. I don't do anything like that.
Joel Brooks:
I don't struggle with that. No. You can't see it, but I can. You're one of the most materialistic persons I know. Rip.
Joel Brooks:
No. No. We need to deputize people to point to us the things that we cannot see. Now Jesus says that when we rebuke one another, this is to be done in a family context. We rebuke our brother or our sister.
Joel Brooks:
We don't rebuke strangers. Don't go to Walmart. And if you see some kid misbehaving, rebuke them and then turn around and rebuke your parent for being a bad parent. Do that and see how it see how it turns out for you. We've got to rebuke in a family, in the safe environment where people will receive it without knowing their status, when knowing your status won't be threatened.
Joel Brooks:
We can only rebuke in the midst of community. We're not allowed to look around at the person next to us who might be struggling and say, not my problem. You cannot say that as a believer and you can't think that your problem is not anybody else's in this room. We share one another's burns. We share one another's struggles.
Joel Brooks:
We're a family. Now, becoming a family or having a community doesn't just happen. You know, coming to church is the starting point for community. It's not the end point for community. It's just a start.
Joel Brooks:
You gotta find a place where you're deeply involved in the lives of other people. You need to be around a circle of friends that know you for more than your favorite color, like your favorite car or what your job is. People have got to actually know what your desires are. They gotta know what makes you tick. Jesus is saying, you cannot grow as a Christian outside of community.
Joel Brooks:
It cannot happen. Because where are you gonna get rebuked? Who's going to point out that sin. And this is extremely hard in this culture in which you have people who kind of hop to a service here, hop to a Bible study there, hop to another church there, and they're just kind of always hopping around and they're involved in worship services, but they're not involved in church. They're not, they're not part of a community of faith.
Joel Brooks:
In 1st Corinthians, and we looked at this when we first started this church. Paul, he tells us that there's a person living in sin and that they are to kick this person out of the church. They're to remove them from the church. Now, if you're just in sin, you know, we don't just kick you out or anything, but Paul's talking about a person who's unrepentant. They've been shown their sin and they're like, uh-huh, forget it.
Joel Brooks:
I'm not repenting. And he says to such a person you remove from your midst. Now, what would this look like in your life? What would the word is excommunicated? What would excommunication look like in your life?
Joel Brooks:
Would you just be denied going to a worship service? You're kicked out. You can't go to a worship service. Is that what excommunication looks like? That's not what Paul's talking about here because these people were still allowed to come to the service.
Joel Brooks:
They were still allowed to hear truth. What they were denied is all the fellowship groups, all the table fellowship there. They were denied all the prayer meetings, all of the gatherings that happened in the week. That's what this person was gonna be denied. That's what excommunication looked like.
Joel Brooks:
So what would it look like in your life? What exactly could be denied you? The reality is most Christians live in a voluntary state of excommunication. They have voluntary, on their own accord, removed themselves from the church. They're not members of a church.
Joel Brooks:
They're not under the care of a godly eldership. Not seeking to be part of a intimate gathering of believers, and yet they wonder why their faith struggles so much. Do you have a godly group of men or women who were so involved in your life? So involved that they will rebuke you in love. Do you have people that say, brother, I know you.
Joel Brooks:
I might be wrong about this, but I'm thinking I'm right. You've got this in your life and you got to deal with it. Do you have anybody like that who will say that to you? We have to be part of a church and not just part of a worship service. Now nobody here I'm imagining enjoys being rebuked.
Joel Brooks:
Being rebuked. If you do, there's something wrong with you. Most people probably respond to rebukes the same way I do, which is not very well. Every defense mechanism I have kicks in. Lauren, the other day, she asked me something simple.
Joel Brooks:
She said, Hey, don't lean our fold up chairs against the walls because it scratches them. That's all she said. In my mind, I said, yes, scratching the walls that I painted. Okay. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:
Because I'm tired. I don't want to take them to the basement because I've been working my butt off all day on this home. Okay. And you know what? How about the time, every time you lift open the kitchen trash can, you actually scratch the kitchen wall.
Joel Brooks:
And I'm thinking all of this in my mind in about half a second. It just floods there. And then God says, shut up and chill. I mean, the Holy Spirit just chill. I don't know what how he speaks to you, but I mean, he says, chill.
Joel Brooks:
And I stopped. I was like, she's right. She's right. Absolutely right. And I changed, and I think that's how most of us respond to a rebuke.
Joel Brooks:
Immediately, defense mechanisms kick in. Immediately, we wanna lash out. But if the holy spirit is in our heart, he confirms it. Oh, it's painful. Then he changes us.
Joel Brooks:
I'll say that I have never felt more loved than when I was rebuked. I enjoy being loved other ways, but I've never felt more loved than when somebody with tears in their eyes rebuked me. It's not easy to do. If you're somebody who, when you receive a rebuke, your very first instinct is to lash out. You need to stop.
Joel Brooks:
Usually that's because the person hit an area that's wounded. I like to use imagery like they picked on a scab. I broke one of my toes in my right foot a few weeks ago. And so if you were to come and step on my left foot, you would just be annoying, and nothing really would be said. You were to step on my right foot, I'd scream.
Joel Brooks:
I would just scream. You'd get this violent reaction. I'd probably push you away because that's where I'm injured. That's where I'm wounded. And if a person rebukes you and you find yourself lashing out, it's probably because they're right.
Joel Brooks:
They hit an area in your soul where there's a wound, there's something festering there. Otherwise, you wouldn't have that reaction. So take time to stop and pray and ask the holy spirit to change you. Let's go back to the text. Look at verse 3, the second part of verse 3, and 4.
Joel Brooks:
If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you 7 times in the day and turns to you 7 times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. Now, honestly, if a person sins against you 7 times in one day and says, I'm sorry each time, are they genuine? I mean, really, we see this all the time in our house.
Joel Brooks:
You know, Hey, Natalie, give Caroline back her Barbie doll. Sorry, Caroline. 5 minutes later. Hey, Natalie, give Caroline back her Barbie doll. Sorry, Caroline.
Joel Brooks:
It happens all day. Now, is she really sorry? Probably not. Should Caroline forgive her? Absolutely.
Joel Brooks:
Absolutely. We are called to forgive people unconditionally. Forgiveness is to be part or to become part of our very nature. Now, when the apostles hear this, not just the disciples now, Luke rarely uses the word apostles, and he uses apostles. Here you're saying the 12, the godliest of the godliest.
Joel Brooks:
When they hear this, they say, increase our faith. That's impossible, God. Increase our faith. That can't be done. And I think it's really interesting here that they say faith.
Joel Brooks:
We think the key to forgiveness is we would pray, God increase our love for this person. God increase our patience for this person. They say no increase our faith. That's the key to forgiveness. Faith And they're right.
Joel Brooks:
Look at verse 6. Jesus says, if he had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. Now this is a rhetorical question I believe by Jesus because these people do, these apostles do have faith like a mustard seed. They do have a kernel of faith there. I mean, some of them sold everything they had to follow Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
There is a little bit of trust there. What he's saying is use the faith you have. You've got the faith now. Now use this faith. And he, he points to this mulberry bush.
Joel Brooks:
A mulberry bush would have an extensive root system, could live about 600 years. You'd say, if you would exercise that faith, if you have that teeny little faith, you could tell this tree bush to be picked up and thrown into the sea. And what he was saying is I know there's hurts out there. I know people have wronged you for a long time. I know that there are bitter roots that go very, very deep.
Joel Brooks:
But if you have faith, you can forgive. God can remove that. You can throw it into the sea. You don't have to hold on to that anymore. But what exactly are they being called to believe?
Joel Brooks:
Jesus tells us in the next story when he talks about the unworthy servant. Now, to understand this story, each one of these stories builds on the other, and it keeps building and building in this chapter. To understand the story, you have to understand the type of slavery that Jesus is talking about here, the type of servanthood. If someone in the 1st century, 1st century Palestine got in debt and they couldn't pay it back. Well, the person who loaned that them that debt could just throw them in prison, debtor's prison.
Joel Brooks:
Just throw them in there until they paid it up. The problem is once you're thrown in debtors prison, are you ever going to make money and pay it back? No. So when you're thrown in desert, debtors prison, you're thrown in there for life usually. But if the person who gave the loan is very gracious, he could give another option.
Joel Brooks:
He could say, how about this? Alright, come be my servant. Work off your debt. That's what you can do. You can, you can work for me as my servant.
Joel Brooks:
And for some people, this might just be years for other people. The debt was so great for many. The debt was so great that basically it's a lifetime of servanthood, which was better than prison. Now Jesus says that the key to forgiveness is that story and realizing that that's how we relate to God. You gotta believe this story.
Joel Brooks:
You gotta believe that this is how we relate to God. By by sinning against our creator, we have incurred a debt. So great. It can never be repaid. We have sinned against an eternal God and it would take all of eternity.
Joel Brooks:
He ever tried to break even. We cannot repay that debt And God has every right just to throw us into prison, to throw us into hell. But no, instead he allows us to be his servant. He has grace on us. And so in return, when we do good things, like let's say we give to the poor or if somebody is really hateful to us and we respond in love, we can never ever at any point say, Hey God, look what I did.
Joel Brooks:
God, look what I did here. We can't do that, because we're in debt to him. We've done nothing. God will never owe us something. We can never work for something and then him say, okay.
Joel Brooks:
You have done a really good job. Let me pay you something. No. You're in debt and always will be. So when he asked us to do something like forgive, we have to forgive.
Joel Brooks:
We can never say, Hey God, I was in the right on this. They did me wrong on this. We can't ever say that because god says, uh-uh. Because anything that they owe you, they actually owe me because I own you. They don't have to pay you anything because it comes back to me.
Joel Brooks:
I'm saying forgive. What Jesus is doing is saying, believe the gospel. Remember that you had a debt you can never repay and God had grace on you. Every breath you take is an undeserved gift from God. We just sang about it and come that fount.
Joel Brooks:
Oh, to grace, How great a debtor. Daily I'm constrained to be. Every day we grow in more and more debt to God. The reason the the apostles here were struggling so much with forgiving people is because they were trying to forgive people as superiors, which is how we often try to forgive people. Admit it.
Joel Brooks:
Your forgiveness often goes like this. You have hurt me, but I'm going to take the high road. I'm not going to lash out at you. Not going to yell at you. I'm just going to forgive you.
Joel Brooks:
I'm not going to stoop down to your level. And that's how we forgive. And Jesus says, no. No. You don't forgive as superiors, you forgive as servants.
Joel Brooks:
You are no different. You give grace like one who has received grace. You give forgiveness like one who has been forgiven. You forgive people of their debts just as Jesus has forgiven you of yours. And that is why the apostle said increase our faith, not increase our love.
Joel Brooks:
Help us to believe the gospel that we've all blown it and are saved by grace alone. Real quick, Jesus, he shows the workings of this in the story of the 10 lepers in which 10 lepers come to Jesus and he heals him, but he doesn't heal him like he did previously in Luke. Remember there was a leper in Luke and he reached out and touched the leper. This time he doesn't. He stays at a distance.
Joel Brooks:
It's a different healing because he's trying to teach something differently here. He's teaching these people how to be a servant. And so he has says, go show yourself to the high priest or to the priest before he heals them. He already gives them a command there to go before they are healed. Now, I know a number of you are going through the Bible in a year and you're probably knee deep in Leviticus now.
Joel Brooks:
All right. Leviticus is full of boils, you know, scabs, pus with white hairs coming out of them. It's a really gross book at times. And, and the reason it is is because it was for the priest who were the health inspectors. That's what they did is they examined pus and boils, and they would push the skin and see what color it would change to.
Joel Brooks:
And and they would declare people clean or unclean. And Jesus is telling these 10 lepers here who were obviously unclean, as unclean as you could get, Go show yourself to the health inspector. Go and ask them if you're clean. This would be the most humiliating thing they could do if God didn't heal them. But God doesn't Jesus doesn't heal them first and then say go, he just says, go.
Joel Brooks:
Only a servant would obey. You've got to trust. Jesus is saying that he is not our consultant. He's our master. He's not waiting for us to agree with him when he gives us a command.
Joel Brooks:
You know, like the, the lepers, if he had healed the lepers and then say, go, they'd be like, I'm healed. Of course I'm going to go. And they would have just agreed with Jesus. Jesus isn't after you agreeing with him. He's after your obedience.
Joel Brooks:
That's what he wants. So he doesn't heal them. We don't know when they were healed. They might have been, you know, healed right as they were about to approach the high priest or the priest. We have to obey unconditionally.
Joel Brooks:
And then when one of them comes back, the Samaritan, he throws himself at the feet of Jesus, which is the act of a servant, the posture of a servant. Now, did he throw himself at Jesus's feet because it was his duty? He has only done his duty. He threw himself because it was his delight. At that point, duty will become our delight.
Joel Brooks:
You know, being forever indebted to Jesus is not a bad thing. This is, this is how it works in our life. Every good thing we do or every sin we commit and need forgiveness for Jesus actually gives us the grace. He gives us a grace be to be forgiven and he gives us the grace to do good things. So when you do good things and you're like, Hey man, I'm feeding the poor, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm doing all this.
Joel Brooks:
That good thing was actually enabled by the grace of God, which puts you more into his debt. And so now you do more. Hey, but the more you do, actually that only happened by the grace of God, which puts you more in his debt. So you come to church and you sing praises. Well, the only reason you can sing praises is because god's grace in your heart enables you to.
Joel Brooks:
And so the very praises you sing to God puts you more in debt. And God will keep giving you grace, keep giving you grace, and you will keep going in debt, Keep going in debt for all of eternity. But it's okay, because you cannot exhaust God's grace, and He keeps giving you His grace over and over and over for all of eternity. Forever in debt and forever receiving grace. And with that grace comes joy.
Joel Brooks:
With that grace comes healing. With that grace comes the ability to forgive. With that grace comes the adoration of Jesus, humbly bowing at his feet in both duty and in joy. Pray with me. Oh, to grace, how great a debtor we are constrained to be.
Joel Brooks:
Lord, at this moment, let your goodness, like a fetter, bind our wandering heart to thee. Bind us to Yourself. If there is any room in our heart that we have not given over to You, We have not submitted to Your Lordship. Show us. Let us give You the keys.