Unworthy Disciples

**Joshua Kirstine** (0:00)
Good morning, Disciples Church family. Good to see you today. It's a beautiful day. The Lord has made a joy to gather with you and lift our voices together to worship our good God. I pray that no matter what's been happening in your life as of late, the Lord has good things for you today and work to do in your life to bless you and to draw you to Him. Excited to be back in Luke with you this morning. If you grab your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 17, continue in our study of Luke with verses 7 through 10
Is that me? You good?
We're going to study just a small parable that's only found in Luke's Gospel account, but it serves its readers to illustrate an ideal attitude that Disciples of Jesus should have as we serve God with our days. And I pray it's used by God this morning in each of our lives as we submit ourselves to God and His good word. Let's read our passage for today in its entirety, verse 7 through 10, Luke 17 Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him, when he is coming from the field, come at once and recline at the 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. The good word of our Lord. Jesus uses a first-century institution here to illustrate his point by comparing the disciple of Jesus to a slave. The word we read as servant in our English translation Bibles, is the word doulos, which means slave. It refers to a person bound to an owner. And while there are many sinful variants of slavery that has been carried out in human history, there are also a lot of ways that slavery was profitable for the servant as a common and life-giving way in which employment was handled in Jesus' day and economy. Slavery was a common topic in Holy Scripture, not only in the ways it was carried out in different parts of history, but in the ways it applies to our lives spiritually. Last week, one of our faithful deacons, Justin Ader, blessed us with an outstanding sermon from Galatians 4, 4-7, whereby he elevated the important truth that we, who are in Christ, who are saved, are no longer slaves to sin, but are adopted into God's family as children of God. For those whom God has redeemed, church, we are his beloved kids of grace, and he is our good, good father. Amen. If we are no longer slaves but adopted children, then why does the Bible often refer to Christians as slaves? Why is a slave of Christ, the Apostle Paul's favorite title for himself when writing much of the New Testament? Why does Jesus use a slave as his example in this parable of what a faithful, obedient disciple looks like? And the answer can be well summarized in question 99 of the Word of Truth Catechism. Question 99, the question is, what are the main identities the Bible gives the saved? The answer, our main identities are adopted children, loved slaves, and citizens of the kingdom of God. God moves the saved person from enemy to adopted child, from slave to sin to slave of God, and from alienated to citizen of the kingdom of God. So there's a most significant identity shift that happens to each of us when we are saved by God's grace. We go from death to life, from outcast to family. Colossians 1, 13 and 14 says, He, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Our text last week that Justin preached on Galatians 4, 4 and 5, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. So to redeem means to obtain or set free by paying a price. What was the price that God paid for our liberation, for our adoption? In the previous chapter of Galatians, we hear the answer from Paul himself, Galatians 3, 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. People pay a lot of money, or go through many years of long waiting to adopt a child. It can be a costly and very hard process, but the price that Jesus paid for our adoption is greater than we can imagine. And I pray you see the depth of God's love, Church, in your adoption, in the price he paid. Christian, if you ever feel unimportant, unloved, unwanted, understand you're missing the love of God for you in his specific choosing of you and the extent of the payment that he paid to make you a forever part of his beloved family. This also highlights the legal realities that God had to deal with to adopt us. His own perfect justice and law demanded that we be punished and excluded from his holy presence because of our sin. That is what is just. That is what the law required. Righteousness was required. Punishment demanded for our disobedience. God, to be just, had to satisfy justice perfectly. Had to, the law had to be met in order for us to be adopted into the family. And this he did by the life, death, and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1, 4 through 5, even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.