Faith, Rewards And Duty (October 5, 2025 Version)

FAITH, REWARDS AND DUTY

Text: Luke 17:5 – 10

Luke 17:5-10  The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"  (6)  The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.  (7)  "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?  (8)  Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'?  (9)  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  (10)  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

The first homemaker placed her cake in the oven and went about her duties. With watchful care in time she presented her family a beautiful and delicious cake.

The second homemaker prepared her cake and placed it in the oven and in time was greatly disappointed for the cake was flat and a failure. She had left out one ingredient, the baking powder.

There are ingredients in life that cannot be left out without contributing to failure and defeat.

Among them are appreciation, which is registered in worship and adoration of God. Respect which is included through worship of God. Love which is expressed in worship.

The love and worship of God are the ingredients which put all things under the light of His truth and beauty.

Do not leave out the ingredients!

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What good is a half-baked cake or an incomplete discipleship?

A cake without the necessary ingredients will lack in texture, quality and taste. What happens when we leave our any of the ingredients of true discipleship?

Today’s text seems to come in the middle of one of Jesus’s teaching moments with His disciples. In Luke 7:1- 10 there are four things that Jesus mentions: 1) the warning of sin; 2) the need for forgiveness; 3) faith and finally 4) duty. Though these four things do not seem to be connected, they are the ingredients of true discipleship. This passage of scripture presents us with three things, faith, rewards and duty. If we forget about the sin warning that Jesus gives to us in this scripture, then our ingredients for true discipleship will be incomplete.

FAITH

How do you define faith?

1) Scriptural: Hebrews 11:1 gives us the best answer: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (ESV).

2) Observational: How can we observe faith in action? When we flip a light switch, we trust that the light will come on When we turn on the faucet, we expect that water will come out.

How do we look at faith through our trials and struggles?

1)Purpose: Who doesn’t want the answer when we going through a stormy time? It seems to make a storm more bearable if we can see that perhaps there is a purpose.

2) Growth: God often uses our trials to teach us something about being still and knowing that He is in control. Its a Romans 8:28 kind-of-a-thing.

3) incomplete: All football fans pull for their star receivers to catch the ball and make the play. Yet, we get discouraged when the pass was incomplete.

4) Off-sides: When a football player jumps the gun and gets off sides it usually results in a penalty when yards are lost for the team. Do we get off sides in our faith journey?

“A man found a cocoon of the emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn’t seem to force its body past a certain point.

Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.

He expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The constricting cocoon and struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The merciful snip was, in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need”. (Practical Illustrations. Chattanooga, Tennessee: Leadership Ministries World Wide, 2001, pp. 37 - 38). How many times have we gotten off-sides in our spiritual journey where the struggles would have helped us to grow more in our faith?