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More Faith, Less Attitude:
Last week we talked about making an “exchange” with God. We specifically talked about exchanging stress and anxiety with God. But some then asked, “what do I do when it just doesn’t seem like my faith is strong enough to do that?” This is what we are talking about this morning. Most of us just need to change our attitudes a little. Now, I am not talking about a bad attitude verses a good attitude. I am talking about an attitude, a feeling of being downtrodden, if you will. An attitude of self pity. An attitude that says, I can’t do that.
The Bible says many things about faith for the believer. Believers are to live by faith. We read that Jesus said “according to your faith be it unto you.” Hebrews says that we cannot please God apart from faith. How then is it possible to be truly saved and have such a weak faith? We need to possess a real faith, and more importantly, have a real faith possess us.
So what happens when our faith just doesn’t seem to be enough? Last week we talked about trusting God, that is, having faith in God in all our circumstances. But many say, I just can’t seem to do it. That is what we are talking about this morning.
Some Christians talk about praying for this or that and it doesn’t seem like God is listening. They get discouraged. They wonder if they have a real faith, or if they need more faith. Have you ever been there? If you haven’t just wait and you will! I read through the Psalms and I think David felt like that at times. Of course, God is listening, the problem is that we are not good listeners.
I mean what do we do when we want to cast our stress, anxiety, fears, worry, and other troubles upon Christ, but we just can’t seem to do it? We often want to throw in the towel. You know God has written a whole chapter in the Bible on this kind of thing. If fact, we often call it the “Hall of Faith.” The Book of Hebrews is one of the hardest books in the Bible to understand. But in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews we find a rather easy portion of that book to understand, but boy is it hard to live out.
This entire chapter is filled with people just like you and me. People who don’t belong in the Hall of Fame but the Hall of Shame! But yet God uses precisely this kind of person. If you are here this morning, and you are perfect, then you might as well leave now! God can’t use you and we might corrupt you. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is filled with people who were ready to throw in the towel. They had been serving the Lord and there was great persecution.
With most of the saints mentioned in
Correct understanding of faith:
Now let me say an important note about faith before we
get into our text. And listen to this, b/c many people don’t get this.
This is important because many of us often think of faith and say “I need more faith.” In reality we have been given adequate faith from God to live out our Christian life, but we need to EXERCISE that faith. We need to use it! So when I say more faith in my title this morning, I am really talking about exercising the faith we have.
Now please turn with me this morning to
Exegesis of text:
Luke 17:1
And he said to his disciples, Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!
Jesus here is speaking of believers’ actions toward other believers which bring a temptation to sin. Literally, the word is “snare or trap.” We are to build the body up not set “traps” which helps lead to other believers sinning. Jesus says that there will always be snares or temptations to sin in the Christian life. His point here is that they should not come from other Christians. In fact, Jesus says, “woe to the one through whom they come!”
Could you imagine an Army going into battle and while they are fighting the enemies, they are also fighting themselves? That is foolish. Yet, Christians do it all the time?
God does not like sin, but He particularly hates when we do things that can lead others to sin.
Luke 17:2
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.
This seems like a pretty strong statement doesn’t it? Now God uses hyperbole in the Bible and He uses it in a few places in this parable. Here is one such place. God is not saying that we should take a believer who is setting “traps” for other believers to sin, and tie some cinder blocks around them and throw them into Smith Mountain Lake! We would like to do that at times wouldn’t we! Instead God is just making it clear how much He despises Christians who tend to set traps for other Christians to sin.
In Jesus’ day, each household had a small stone mill to grind grain into flower. And communities often had a pair of millstones to grind grain for the community—they didn’t have a Kroger or Super Wal-mart! So Jesus was using a common object to make a point to the disciples.
By the way, an example of setting a trap would be gossip or saying things we shouldn’t. You know you say something negative to someone about someone or something, then they add to it. Before long you have a big negative salad. This and that have been added. We need to be careful with these things. And beloved, keep your distance from such people. They will take you down with them.
Luke 17:3
Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,
So Jesus begins by saying “look at your own lives.” Judgment must always begin by looking in the mirror! After we have determined that we are not in sin, then we can deal with a brother who sins. Now stop right there! If we would do this, then often there would be no reason for the next step. Most of the time, the problem is with us. Also we must remember that we should not seek out ways to be offended. We need to overlook small things. Proverbs 12:16 says, A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult." So we should not have a hair trigger in such matters.
If the problem is not with us then we should “rebuke him.” Not yell, not gossip, but speak to the brother. If the brother repents then we forgive him.
That sounds easy enough, right? But what do we do if he sins against us again? We just go to another church right? If this is happening with staff members, then we just start another church, right? Well, let’s see what Jesus says:
Luke 17:4
and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him.
Now obviously, Jesus means if the person truly repents.
Now what if the person does not repent? Jesus instructs us elsewhere:
"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you"
The point is that we better not harbor bitterness. That will only destroy us. Some of us are bitter at others and we have not even gone to the other person to give then a chance to apologize.
Now let’s turn our attention back to the brother who does repent. Again, I don’t think Jesus is specifically saying only seven times! Seven, of course, is the number of completion. What Jesus is saying is that when another brother sins against us our attitude must be one of forgiveness if they repent. But this is hard for us to do, isn’t it? I mean this is a hard saying. Listen to what the disciples said:
Luke 17:5
The apostles said to the Lord, Increase our faith!
The disciples literally said, “give us more faith.” Now this is somewhat comical. Jesus has just told them that they need to do something that is hard to do, and they, in essence, said well we can’t do that so you have to give us something so that we can do that! Now that is a bit comical. But it is not just comical it is common. We read something that is clear in Scripture and we say we can’t do it, b/c we don’t have what we need to do it.
Last week we saw that we are to wait on God, that is to trust God, to have unwavering faith in God. And some were saying, “I can’t do that, I need more faith.” Now again in this context Jesus is speaking about an attitude of forgiveness. But we can apply this principle quite broadly. Giving our fears, stress, & anxiety and whatever else over to God requires us to act in faith. And many of us are saying: “Lord, give me more faith or I can’t do it.” That is what the disciples have said. Let’s see Jesus’ answer:
Luke 17:6
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.
Jesus says all you need is a tiny bit of faith to forgive. See, beloved, they did not need more faith, they just needed obedience. Jesus is not saying here that their faith wasn’t even as big as a mustard seed. Most of you know the mustard seed was one of the smallest seeds, perhaps the smallest seed known to them at that time.
Several places in rabbinical writings you find the phrase "the size of a mustard seed.” The roots of the fig-mulberry are proverbially deep-rooted and hard to dislodge. So Jesus combines these two proverbial ideas and says, with the very tiniest faith you are able to uproot the most tenacious tree and plant it, and make it grow where no tree can possibly grow.
(There are two similar passages that use a mustard seed and a mountain to make a similar point (Matthew 17:20; Mark 11:23), though Jesus spoke those sayings in different contexts altogether. In Mark 11:23 Jesus is illustrating the power of believing prayer. These are examples of hyperbole -- contrasting the smallest and the greatest in order to stretch the disciples understanding of the power of their faith.)
So Jesus was telling them that they didn’t need more faith, they needed to exercise the faith that they had. They simply needed to be obedient. They needed an attitude change on the matter of forgiveness. We may need an attitude change on a different matter. But we need to exercise our faith more. That is what we need!
Luke 17:7-10
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? 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.
Jesus ends this teaching by saying, that when you do obey this command, don’t think that you are entitled to some special rewards, for you are simply meeting the minimal requirements. You know some people think that if they don’t run a red light, the state should send them a check!
Now there is much more we could say about this text, but my main point this morning is one of faith. As I said, a few people mentioned to me last week, that they just didn’t seem to have the faith to exchange their weaknesses for God’s strength. As you can see from God’s word: You do have the faith. You just need to use it!
