Do you have true faith? Faith that sets a good example… Faith that carefully watches your own soul… Faith that gently & lovingly rebukes sin… Faith that forgives… Do you have true faith? Look at what Jesus says in Luke 17:1-6…
1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin 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. 3 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.” 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.
Do you have faith that sets a good example?
In verses 1 – 3 Jesus tells us to set a good example. Think about this for a minute. What kind of example are you? Are you someone who models Christ for others or are you someone who opens the door to temptation and sin? Do you lead other people down the hallways of destructive & deadly living? It’s too easy to answer these questions quickly and miss what Jesus is saying here about the need for every one of us to be a good example.
Look at the context for a minute…
Over the last few chapters in Luke’s gospel Jesus has been locked in conflict with religious people who should be setting a good example for others but weren’t. Instead, they despised him and complained about his commitment to seek and to save the lost. Over and over again, Jesus explains the heart of the Father for lost people as he confronts the hearts of the people who are listening to him preach. Jesus’ concern in the last few chapters is that he wants us to have the same heart of love towards God and people around us as our Father in Heaven has extended towards us in the picture of the cross of Christ. If we are going to be disciples of Jesus then we should…
Set a good example by being aware of temptation & sin…
Are you ware of the temptation & sin that lurks around in your heart? Jesus tells his disciples “Temptations to sin are sure to come.” You and I are living with our heads in the sand if we think we won’t struggle with temptation and sin in this life. You and I can be certain that the opportunities to be tempted and to fall into sin are lurking around the corners of the doorways of our hearts at all times. We need to be aware. We need to be on guard. We need to be ready. We need to be on the lookout. We need to set a good example by being aware of our bent towards temptation & sin.
We should take a lesson from the story of Cain & Abel in Genesis 4:6 – 7. Cain was ticked at Abel because God received Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. God came to Cain and warned him by saying “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” We must set a good example by being aware of our bent towards temptation and sin. Temptations to sin are sure to come. Sin is crouching at the door desiring to kill you.
Is there anger lurking around in the shadows of your heart? Is there bitterness hiding in the corners of your soul? Is there lust running rampant up and down the hallways of your desires? Is there envy or jealousy or impatience or laziness or pride or fear or un-forgiveness or hatred buried within the rooms of the fortress of your heart and mind? Jesus says that we should set a good example by being aware of temptation and sin and not only that, but we should also…
Set a good example by not opening the doorway of temptation & sin…
I am convinced that deep within the hallways of our hearts lie temptation & sinful impulses that are always knocking on the doors of our hearts just screaming to be let in so that they can control our every desire. After Jesus tells his disciples that temptation and sin are sure to come he says “woe to the one through whom they come!” You and I do not want to be responsible for opening the doorway to temptation and sin. We need to barricade these doorways and lock them up tight as we resist temptation and sin. You and I cannot sit passively by while playing around in the doorways of temptation and sin. If you open the door to temptation and sin then watch out because the outcome will be painful. The outcome will be dangerous. The outcome will be life threatening. We need to set a good example by not opening the doorways of temptation & sin.
James 4:7 – 10 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” In other words… Don’t open the doorways of temptation and sin by laughing at what God calls evil or minimizing what God calls sin or excusing what God calls impure. Don’t live a double standard or a double life.
Are you guilty of opening these doorways? Do you say yes to anger? Do you give into bitterness? Are you enslaved to lust? Are you envious or jealous of what others have? Do you find yourself being impatient? Are you prone to laziness? Does your pride manifest itself in being afraid of people and seeking their approval? Does your pride manifest itself in defensive posturing and seeking to crush other people with control and manipulation? Do you live out hateful fantasies of vengeance & un-forgiveness? Jesus says that we should set a good example by not opening the doorways of temptation & sin and not only that, but we should also…
Set a good example by not running down the hallways of destructive & deadly living…
Listen, if you don’t recognize or if you are not aware of the dark places of your heart that lead you into temptation and sin then you will inevitably be the one who opens the door for temptation and sin and then the only recourse you will have is to run down those dark and evil corridors and hallways of destructive and deadly living.
Jesus says that if you are not aware of your own tendencies towards temptation and sin then you will run down those sinful hallways and if you do he says “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were cast into the sea than that you should cause one of these little ones to sin.” In other words… if your life is characterized by your indulgence of sinful living rather than repentance then it is better for you to be cut off so that you do not lead younger Christians into the same patterns of destructive & deadly living. Think about your Facebook profile and posts over this last week. Think about the language you use in front of other young believers. Think about the children that are watching you. Think about the woman you are taking advantage of sexually. Think about the man you are placing your emotional hopes in. Does your life leave people thirsting for more of God or does it lead others down the hallways of sinful & destructive living?
I had a friend once who served alongside me in ministry. At some point his life went on tilt and he began to lose his awareness of his own tendencies towards temptation and sin. He began to open the doorways to all kinds of evil living and then he began to run up and down the dark halls of the sinfulness embedded within his heart. When many of us came to him out of concern and love he refused to listen and he refused to repent. Many people followed him as he ran up and down the hallways of his ever-growing sinful lifestyle and today many of those people are no longer walking with the Lord. When you choose to run down the hallways of destructive & deadly living you are not setting a good example and you will inevitably cause other little ones to sin as well. Jesus is telling us in this passage to set a good example by not running down the hallways of destructive and deadly living because when we run down these hallways we become like what Jesus’ brother James says in James 1:14 – 15 when he says “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
Here’s my prayer for us…
My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would continue to turn all of us to Jesus through the hearing of this message. My hope is that we would rest in Christ. Find our refuge in Christ. Find our satisfaction in Christ. Find our justification in Christ. Find our acceptance in Christ. Find our fulfillment in Christ. My prayer is that as the Spirit of God does this work in us that he would turn us into repentant people who in the power of the cross of Christ set the example for others in our awareness of our temptation and sin… in our resistance to opening the doorways of temptation and sin… and in our rejection of the hallways of temptation and sin. My prayer is that we continue to grow in holiness as we learn how to set a good example for others.
Do you have faith that watches, rebukes & forgives?
In verses 3 – 4 Jesus calls us to watch over our own hearts diligently… rebuke our brothers and sisters who fall into sin gently and lovingly… and forgive endlessly. Jesus says, “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.” In other words… Wake up from your slumber! Pay attention! Open your ears! Open your eyes! Watch the condition of your own heart carefully and if you have a brother or a sister that is unaware of their sin… has opened the doorways to the sinful desires of their heart and are running like a child through the dark hallways of sinful living then you must practice the art of rebuking and forgiving them.
Look at Matthew 18:7 – 9…
Jesus says “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” We must pay attention to ourselves. We must watch over our hearts and souls like hawks. We must ruthlessly run down our sinful desires, our sinful thinking patterns & our sinful behaviors and murder them relentlessly. Pay attention to yourselves! Watch yourselves! Murder sin within yourself or it will be murdering you and everyone that follows you.
Look at Matthew 18:15 – 17…
Jesus says “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Further down in verses 21 – 35 Jesus describes what it looks like to forgive people who’ve sinned against us and ask for mercy. The point of these passages when read in context together is neither a wholesale acceptance of harsh and legalistic punishment or passive glossing over of sin or sweeping things under the rug or ignoring and excusing sinful living. These passages teach us that we must be ready to rebuke and forgive. We must be ready to confront, correct & call out our brothers and sisters when they are standing on train tracks with trains barreling down upon them and we also must be ready to forgive them when they repent.
Look back at Luke 17 again…
Back in Luke 17 and verse 3 we run into a little bit of a linguistics mess when Jesus says, “if he repents forgive him”. Does this mean that our forgiveness is conditional? To take that to be the meaning of what Jesus says here would be to interpret this phrase wrongly because we know that we are called to forgive unconditionally, perfectly and infinitely if we understand Jesus’ other references to “forgiving 7 times” properly. So what’s the meaning of this phrase “if he repents forgive him”? In my searching for some meaning here I came across this quote from J.C. Ryle where, in regards to this passage he says, “This expression is remarkable. It doubtless cannot mean that we are not to forgive men unless they do repent. At this rate there would be much bitterness constantly kept alive. But it does mean that when there is no repentance or regret for an injury done, there can be no renewal of cordial friendship, or complete reconciliation between man and man.” In other words… forgiveness is a command that we must seek to follow but restoration and reconciliation of relationships broken by the chaos of sin is conditional upon the effort and evidence of repentance. We should be people who watch our hearts and lives like armed guards… we should boldly, gently and lovingly rebuke our brothers and sisters when they begin to live in the chaos of sin… and we should be ready to forgive always.
Where’s your heart in all of this?
Are you paying attention to the condition of your heart and soul? Are you ruthlessly running down your sinful desires, sinful thinking patterns and sinful behaviors so that you can ruthlessly murder them? Are you watching the backs of your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you practicing biblical discipline and correction? Do you have un-forgiveness running rampant in your heart that is producing bitterness and resentment? Are you watching ruthlessly… rebuking gently… and forgiving endlessly?
My prayer for us is this…
My prayer is that God would continue to bring us to repentance in these areas. My hope is that we would repent from our self-reliant and self-worshipping ways of living and turn in faith in these moments to the only one who can authentically and faithfully watch over our souls… rebuke our sin and extend eternal unconditional forgiveness. That person is Christ. Christ alone is the faithful shepherd who watches our hearts and souls diligently by the power of his Spirit. Christ alone is the one who gently and boldly confronts, corrects and rebukes our sin through the power of His Spirit at work through His Word and the mouths of the body of Christ in community around us. In Christ alone we find true forgiveness from our sins because of his perfect sacrifice at the cross. This is good news! This is the gospel! We must believe it today! We must rest in it today! We must find our refuge in it today! We must let the gospel forge our ability to watch diligently… rebuke gently… and forgive relentlessly! Amen!!
Do you have true faith?
In verses 5 – 6 Jesus tells us to have true faith. Listen… When Jesus calls us to set an example and to watch, rebuke & forgive there comes a point when we must ask… “How in the heck do I do all of this?” We might even begin to think… “Dang… I’m going to need a lot more faith to make this all happen!” But the reality is that it’s not about having more faith it’s about having true faith. The disciples had to have been feeling the weightiness of what Jesus was throwing down here because there response was admirable and understandable when they exclaimed, “Increase our faith!” But Jesus responds to their outburst by saying “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.”
Listen… it’s a proven fact that some mulberry trees can live for hundreds of years. Can you imagine how deep those roots go? How about this… Have you ever thought about how impossible it would be to plant an uprooted mulberry tree in a sea, miles below the surface of the water? The impossibility of uprooting a mulberry tree and then planting it in a sea merely by telling it to be done is beyond my comprehension and ability. I’m certain that you might agree with me on this point… Otherwise, if this doesn’t seem so impossible to you then I’m happy to accompany you to the nearest mulberry tree and then I would like to take a trip to the nearest sea of your choice! The point here that Jesus is making is that to do the impossible things that God calls us to do… we do not need more faith… we need true faith! This is how the impossible becomes possible! Through true faith in Christ the impossible becomes possible!
Philip Ryken commenting on these verses says “It is hard to set a good example for people, not leading them astray. It is hard to rebuke a brother’s sin in a way that leads to repentance. It is hard to forgive people who have done us some kind of wrong.” All of these things are hard to do if not completely impossible. It’s hopeless to believe that any of us can do any of this. If you think you’re going to walk away from this message and start knocking it out of the park in all these areas… you will be left with your hopes shattered in a few moments. You’ll be left unsatisfied. You’ll be left with an overwhelming sense of failure. You’ll be left face to face with the truth that doing all of this is impossible for you on your own.
So where do we look for hope?
We look to Jesus. We trust in the perfect work of Jesus. We trust in the never-ending love of Jesus. We believe in the perfect performance of Jesus. When we fail to set a good example we confess our sin and proclaim the perfection of Jesus who is the best example. When we get lazy and forget to watch our souls we confess our sin and proclaim the perfect shepherding skill of Jesus who watches our souls like an armed militia. When we chicken out of rebuking our brothers and sisters or when we are being rebuked by our brothers and sisters in Christ we confess our sin and proclaim once again the perfect performance of Jesus as he dies upon the cross paying the penalty for our sin so that we can receive complete and eternal forgiveness. When we are faced with the impossibility of extending forgiveness to other people who’ve sinned against us in horrific ways we confess our failure to forgive and we look to the cross of Christ again where as he was being nailed to that cross by his enemies he looked up into the Heavens and cried out “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” This is the forgiveness that Christ extends to every one of us and it’s the forgiveness that he calls us to extend to others, as we trust in his ability to do the impossible. This is where we find our hope. Christ is where we find our hope. Our ability to perform any of this will leave us hopeless, empty, dying in the chaos of sin. Christ’s ability to perform all of this perfectly will embolden our faith and breath life into our lives. This is what it means to have true faith and not more faith. God calls us to set a good example… to watch our hearts, rebuke our friends, extend forgiveness… and the way we do this is by having true faith in our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. The question we are left with today is… Do you have true faith? Faith that sets the example… Faith that carefully watches your own soul… Faith that gently & lovingly rebukes sin… Faith that forgives… Do you have true faith?