Jesus says some really hard things when he speaks. He doesn’t gloss over things and he doesn’t paint a picture of easy-peasey faith. When Jesus calls us to be his disciples he invites us into a journey of suffering as he hands us a cross, which is an instrument of torture…
Try that one on for an invitation to join the church family. The message of the gospel is a message that invites us into a life of suffering. Yet… to follow Christ is also to find true joy and happiness and satisfaction in the gospel. To follow Christ and to be his disciples is to serve him who served us through the suffering of his cross on our behalf so that we could be made whole again. So that we could be healed. So that we could be set free. So that we would no longer be slaves to sin but instead become slaves or servants to Christ Jesus. Christ offers us all we could ever need in his life, his death, his resurrection, his glorification and his imminent return to take us home to the presence of our Father who is love. The question for us now is this… How do we come to Christ? Do we come as servants? Do we come as people in need? Do we come as people who trust in Christ?
Read Luke 17:7 – 14…
7 “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’? 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.’”
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, 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.
#1: When We Come To Christ We Must Come To Him As His Servants… (7-10)
What stops you from coming to Christ as a servant? Servants don’t believe they are entitled to anything. Servants don’t elevate their desires above the desires of their master. Servants don’t practice prideful disobedience. Can you imagine a spouse who lives with a sense of entitlement? Can you imagine a friend who can’t get their eyes off their own needs long enough to care for someone else’s needs? Can you imagine an employee who continues to ignore the boss’ directions? These three problems of entitlement, self-centeredness and prideful disobedience are barriers to our coming to Christ. They’re like barricaded fortresses deep within the rooms of our hearts that stop us from coming to Christ as his servants. When we come to Christ we must come to him as his servants.
Serving Christ means we must work hard… (7)
Entitlement is the enemy of hard work and to be a servant means to work hard. Jesus describes what it means to be a servant who works hard instead of living out of a false sense of entitlement when he says “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’?” It’s a rhetorical question that’s meant to remind Jesus’ disciples that they are not entitled to anything other than a life that is characterized by the hard work of a servant who’s been served so well by the cross of Christ. If you and I truly set our focus upon Christ and his work at the cross won’t we be compelled to serve him by working hard instead of believing that we deserve more? Won’t we be compelled to work hard instead of believing that we are owed something? What more could we want than a Savior who gave his life willingly on our behalf? Serving Christ means we must work hard…
Serving Christ means we must put Christ first… (8-9)
Self-centeredness is the enemy of Christ-centeredness. Jesus describes what it looks like to be a servant who puts his master first when he says “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?” Again… Jesus is asking rhetorical questions that are meant to remind us that serving Christ isn’t about what we get out of it. It’s not about a paycheck. It’s not about an easier life. It’s not about getting accolades. It’s not about us. It’s about Christ. It’s about putting Christ first. Jesus doesn’t have any needs. Jesus doesn’t need us to feed him. This story that Jesus is sharing is meant to help us become servants of Christ by putting him first. Putting Christ first is all about dying to ourselves. Dying to our self-centeredness. Why would we want to live for ourselves anymore? Why would we want to serve ourselves anymore? Could we pay the price of our sin for ourselves? Only Christ could pay that price and he willingly did it so that we could be saved and employed in the service of the king as servants who put Christ first. Serving Christ means we must put Christ first…
Serving Christ means that we must humbly obey… (10)
Prideful disobedience is the enemy of humble obedience. Jesus makes this point when he says “…when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Listen… when you do what God commands you to do and your pride wells up within you because someone else isn’t doing what they should do then you’re really just being proud of yourself for what you did and therefore disobedient. Why would we stake anything on any of our obedient actions anyway when we know that in the next moment we could disobey? The point is this… we must humbly obey what the Lord asks of us as we seek to serve him because in the picture of the cross of Christ and his perfect obedience to the Father’s gift of grace on our behalf our obedience looks like a mere duty to be performed. We can’t out-obey the obedience of Christ. We can’t out-obey the performance of others. We can only serve Christ by humbly obeying him. This is what it means to serve Christ… To serve Christ means that we must humbly obey him.
Have you come to Christ as his servant?
Think about your job, your marriage and your friendships. Are you ready to work hard to serve Christ? Are you ready to put Jesus first in everything? Are you ready to be Christ-centered? When you come to Christ you must come to him as someone who is ready to serve him by working hard… serve him by putting him first and serve him by humbly obeying him. Have you come to Christ?
#2: When We Come To Christ We Must Come To Him As People In Great Need… (11-14)
What stops you from coming to Christ as a person in need? People who believe they’re clean don’t believe they need Jesus. People who believe they’re perfectly healthy don’t believe they need Jesus. Can you imagine a person who believes they smell perfectly fine when in reality they need a really good shower? Does this person really believe they’re in great need of mercy or are they just stuck in the bonds of self-justification? Can you imagine a person who believes they’re perfectly healthy when in reality they’re terminally ill? Does this person really believe they’re in great need of healing or are they just stuck in the bonds of self-help? These two problems of self-justification and self-help are barriers to coming to Christ as people in great need.
We must come to Christ as people in great need of mercy… (11-13)
Self-justification is the barrier that stops us from believing we need God’s mercy. Instead of seeing ourselves as people in need of mercy we see ourselves as people with our lists of accomplishments that prove our worth. Luke tells us that as Jesus was, “On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Listen… what Jesus was encountering here was a really unhealthy community of people. Jesus was encountering a sick family of lepers. Lepers weren’t allowed to be in relationship with healthy peopl because they had a serious skin disease. They couldn’t live in town with their families. They couldn’t enjoy the intimacy of close relationship or physical touch. To be a leper was to be an outcast whom everyone stared at and avoided. Can you hear the desperation in the voices of these lepers as they call out to Christ? Can you hear the loneliness of their cries? Can you imagine the years of isolation and shame? Can you imagine their feelings of failure and hopelessness because true healing kept evading them? Can you imagine their desire for someone to just have mercy on them and extend a healing touch or an encouraging word? This is what Christ offers to all who would come to him in great need of mercy. The lepers couldn’t fix themselves or justify themselves. They couldn’t cover up their shame. They couldn’t hide their sickness. What these lepers needed most was exactly what we need the most. Mercy. Our sin is like an infectious skin disease that leaves us rotting in the stench of death. Our sin first creates chaos within our relationship to God and then second is made visible in our relationship with others around us. Mercy from our Father is what we need the most. The cross of Christ is the picture of the Father’s mercy for us. Why wouldn’t we come to Christ crying out for his great mercy that he has freely offered for our sick souls? We must come to Christ as people in great need of mercy.
We must come to Christ as people in great need of cleansing… (14)
Self-help is the barrier that stops us from believing that we need Jesus to cleanse us. Instead of seeing ourselves as people in need of cleansing we minimize, ignore, excuse, blame or hide our shameful failures on external circumstances rather than admitting our deadly sickness and our great need for cleansing and we jump from one self-help technique to the next to try to fix ourselves. Luke tells us that Jesus doesn’t give these lepers another self-help book or another self-help talk show with Oprah or Dr. Phil but instead, “When he saw them he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went they were cleansed.” One commentator on this passage says that priests effectively worked as public health inspectors and had the authority to diagnose people as either clean or unclean. So these lepers turned and headed for their meeting with their caseworkers with their heads hung low and as they did Jesus did the miraculous. He did the impossible and he cleansed them completely. Why would we want to look for cleansing in any other place than the cross of Christ? Why would we want anything other than the blood of Jesus which washes us whiter than snow? The Scriptures tell us that “though our sins they be as scarlet… though our hands have been an enemy of God… though our hearts have played the whore… God gave us more than we deserve when he washed our hearts as white as snow.” This is the message of the gospel! It’s great news! We are people in great need of cleansing and we can’t cleanse ourselves but Christ offers all the cleansing we need in the shower of his grace through his work at the cross. When we come to Christ we must come to him as people in great need of cleansing.
Have you come to Christ as a person in great need?
Think about your thinking patterns… the desires of your heart and the habits of your life. How often do you attempt to justify or defend yourself? How often do you try to just pull yourself up by the bootstraps? Is your mind occupied by how bad everyone else is in light of how good you are? Have you come to Christ as a person in great need?
Here’s my prayer for us…
My prayer is that the Spirit of God would move on our hearts and compel us by the picture of Christ who was our suffering servant. My prayer is that we would be compelled to come to Christ as his hard working, Christ centered, humble and obedient servants. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would compel us to come to Christ as people in great need of mercy and cleansing.My prayer is that the Spirit of God would move us to repentance from the sins of entitlement, self-centeredness, prideful disobedience, self-justification and self-help. My prayer is that the Spirit of God would draw us to belief in the gospel and that as he does this we would come to Christ as servants who are in deep need of Jesus.