Gospel Humility
Luke 17:1-6
As we saw in Acts, the first generation of preachers, the apostles, were given power over disease, and power over death, and they were sent out with that power to authenticate the message of the gospel of the Kingdom that they brought. As a result, The Church grew in the Word and in fellowship as they depended on God and the Gospel message. That MESSAGE of the Gospel was never lost, and as it began in the Pentecost church, it continues today. God has never ceased to build His Church but there certainly are obstacles that the Church encounters, and we are going to take a few weeks to look at Gospel Humility.
Have you ever taught someone a concept, an idea, without actually using the word? Today, in Luke 17:1-6, Jesus is actually teaching “GOSPEL HUMILITY” without ever using the word “humility”. Today, in Luke 17:1-6, Jesus is actually teaching “GOSPEL HUMILITY” without ever using the word “humility”. If you look at the previous chapters, Jesus is speaking here for the benefit of the Pharisees and other religious leaders as much as for His Disciples and for us. One of the issues which Jesus continually warned them about is an issue that threatens the eternal destiny of every sinner, namely PRIDE. The Pharisees exercised hypocrisy artfully, wearing their PRIDE on their sleeves, they looked for honor from men. Their hearts and lives lacked humility before God and love toward the hurting and those they were called to serve. Listen to Luke 17:1-3 to begin:
1. Gospel Humility resists offenses to others.
1 He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, (skandalon- the stick that holds a trap or the bait of the trap, a stone of stumbling. Jesus figuratively was a stumbling stone to the Jews because His life and ministry were so contrary to their expectations concerning the Messiah that they rejected him and by their own obstinance made shipwreck of their salvation. It is inevitable that temptations and TRAPS will come…) but woe (strong warning) to him through whom they come! (Don’t YOU be a stone of stumbling to someone; Don’t you be responsible for leading someone else into sin: Don’t you bring an offense that will cause others to sin.) 2 "It would be better for him (you) if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard!”
Jesus expanded a little on this in Matthew 18: 6-7, and this is his response to the disciples’ question after three years with Jesus about who would be the “greatest in the kingdom of heaven:” (Also in Luke 9: 46-48) “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone (a huge stone used to grind grain) hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!” –In other words, It would better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and dropped into the sea than for you to be a stumbling stone to another believer.
Gospel Humility resists offenses to others: The world doesn’t care one bit about leading others into sin; the sinful world PROMOTES anger, division, jealousy, selfish ambition, abuse of authority- TURN on the news you’ll get loads of examples. But people who have bowed their hearts and lives to God in order to serve Him recognize that they have a responsibility to spiritual integrity and to speaking and acting out the Truth of the God in LOVE for the sake of the Savior and for others. We as followers of our Lord Jesus have a responsibility to teach what is true and to live what is right: Why? Because our calling is to lead others TO Godliness (to our Savior) in our speech, in our actions, our interactions, not AWAY from Godliness, while at the same time expecting and withstanding opposition.
We are called to share the TRUE GOSPEL of God’s Grace in Christ- pointing to any other way for salvation would cause a person to stumble. We demonstrate that our dependency is on God, on His Word, His Son and Spirit, not independent of Him. Instead of being a stumbling stone to others and having a stone hung around our necks, we demonstrate that we stand on Jesus, who is the ROCK of our Salvation. Gospel Humility reveals the Truth in love in teaching, talking and interacting with others. Humility is the ACTION of being brought low in your spirit, bowing to God and being obedient to Him. Humility before God is reality for the Christian.
Persecutors of Christ’s “little ones”, those who scandalize and corrupt the truths of Christ and His commands (teach falsely), and those who, under the profession of Christ, live and act in direct disobedience to the Name of Jesus, all lead “little ones” astray: They DESTROY the Body of Christ and so the warning is given by Jesus: “Beware! Be on your guard! Watch out for yourselves and watch out to protect believers.”
Listen to Isaiah 66:1-2: 1 Thus says the LORD, "Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? 2 "For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being," declares the LORD. (If Heaven is God’s Throne and the earth is like His hassock or ottoman, what kind of temple could you possibly build that would be satisfactory to house God and all His Glory-LISTEN.) "But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” “To him who is humble and contrite of spirit” have bowed to Him, received His Word, and they honor Him. They become His temple, His dwelling place. Who can stand against Him?
And so we guard against stumbling blocks coming from without (outside of the Body of Christ) and we resist causing them within the Body of Christ. We still are sinful, but that’s why Paul later instructs the Body in Phil. 1:27 NAS: “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Isn’t God’s Word wonderful! I love the picture of the Church here: “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” We function in accountability together, not to Paul, but to God! What a beautiful picture!
2. Gospel Humility is ready to forgive.
This being so, look at verses 3-5: "Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke (admonish) him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 "And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him (the tense of the verb means “KEEP ON forgiving him”)." 5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" Gospel Humility STANDS ready to forgive and forgive…and forgive again.
The GOSPEL is the Good News that WE ARE FORGIVEN in Christ: If we don’t forgive, we are just as hypocritical as the Pharisees- religious on the outside while our hearts are still DARK! It’s almost a “GIVEN”, isn’t it, yet forgiveness is difficult and retribution, reaction and revenge seem to be the auto “default”. Remember Peter had asked Jesus how many times should I forgive someone in Matthew 18:21: “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Do you really want to keep count that long? Until you get to 490 times? Of course not!) It has been said, "To err is human, to forgive is divine,” but in Matthew 6:1, Jesus had taught already taught His disciples to pray, "Forgive us the wrongs that we have done, AS WE FORGIVE the wrongs others have done us. ....” Why does it seem so impossible?
For many, forgiveness is like looking through a store window at something that you would very much desire, but there is something in the way. There is an invisible barrier, a stumbling block that keeps that item just out of reach: PRIDE! PRIDE is the absolute enemy of FORGIVENESS. It is NOT ONLY the enemy of forgiving others, but it is the enemy of BEING FORGIVEN. You MUST BE humbled in order to seek forgiveness. Ps. 51:16: “For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” A PROUD spirit is a personal stumbling block to BEING FORGIVEN, and having the ability to FORGIVE.
Micah 7:18 says: “Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” We trust God for forgiveness and salvation and we trust God to give us a heart that practices the same kind of character in us- to forgive and DIVORCE THE SIN from the offender: We divorce (forgive) the offense from the offender because it is in our SPIRITUAL DNA. That is what Believers are called to do. A humble spirit is quick to understand selfish pride and the need for forgiveness and so they will be quick to forgive others because they HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN! We make it our constant practice to forgive injuries and should practice until it becomes a healthy habit.
3. Gospel Humility recognizes your own fleshly faith.
Look at verse 5: The apostles said to the LORD, "Increase our faith!" 6 And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and be planted in the sea; and it would obey you.” (In Matt. 17:20 Jesus said if your had the faith like a mustard see you could move mountains into the sea! Remember?)
“Increase our faith, Lord.” You're calling on us to teach truth and to not be a stumbling block to others, to live graciously and to forgive people who wound us repeatedly and this is asking a lot of us. We can’t possibly do that!” That’s where we actually have to be in order to be forgiven and then to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us. Gospel Humility recognizes our own WEAK fleshly faith. Gospel Humility recognizes that we are weak but He is strong.
Some of the rabbis used to say that the mulberry tree had roots that would survive for 600 years and so to uproot a mulberry tree would be a significant achievement. At your command to have it move across the sky and plant itself at the bottom of the sea would be spectacular, as a matter of fact it would be absolutely supernatural: It’s humanly impossible. Have you ever heard of mountains being picked up and dumped into the sea? I haven’t heard that either. HERE IS WHAT YOU MUST SEE AND KNOW: It is God and God ALONE through Christ, who takes all of the deep rooted SIN of your HEART, yanks it out by the roots and buries it all in the depths of the SEA….by FAITH in Him not in your works! THIS IS A FABULOUS PICTURE of the Gospel! If you take a tree that exists on fresh water and plant it on the bottom of the sea, it would certainly die. When God works the miracle of faith, our old selves are dead; our sins are plunged to the depths of the sea.
Hebrews 11:6 says: “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:10, "When I'm weak then I'm strong." In Ephesians 6:10, armed with Godly equipment, Paul says, "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”
Jesus is saying that a small growing faith, a small expanding faith, can do unimaginable things; The Lord is not saying do pointless, crowd-pleasing things. He is saying you don't think you can live a godly life, you don't think you can always speak the truth correctly. You don't think you can set a perfect example so no one stumbles. And that’s true, but if you will continue to trust Me, My power through you will accomplish all of that because as you entrust yourself to the power of God, He does His work through you. LORD,
INCREASE OUR FAITH!
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2: "And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. "
Colossians 1:29, For this purpose also I labor, striving (I work to the point of sweat and exhaustion but it’s) according to His power, which mightily works within me.
Do you say to yourself, I don’t know if I can live like that: well, who is The Object of Your Faith? Who is the source of your faith? Why do you live? Nothing that God wills and nothing that God asks us to do for Him shall be impossible. Believers can live like that because living for Christ becomes the basis of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in and through your life. HE IS THE FOUNDATION and you are ROOTED IN HIM!
The disciples hadn’t received that the Spirit until Pentecost, but after they did, we see that they learned what it meant to walk in the Spirit, or to let the Word of Christ dwell in them richly. When you are yielded to God in humility, then Faith and Forgiveness flow in your life by the Power of God: You will be a living illustration of God’s grace and forgiveness, His mercy and compassion. God will do in and through you what is impossible for you to do in the flesh. You don’t have to transplant trees into the ocean or move mountains: You have to first be moved by God to humility and obedience and then the Christ-like character and charisma (grace-charged, GOSPEL-CHARGED, humility and faith) will be the miracle of new life in Christ in you: YOU WILL BE a living miracle of God’s Grace which will be displayed to others and which will exalt Our Great God. May our prayer coincide with the disciples’ prayer: LORD, add TO our faith for Your Glory. Amen.
OUTLINE: Prayer from M Henry: Lord, The apostles themselves, were diplomats for Christ's kingdom, yet acknowledged the weakness and deficiency of their faith; they saw their need of Christ's grace for the improvement; they said "Lord, Increase our faith, perfect what is lacking in it.' Let the discoveries of faith be clearer, the desires of faith stronger, the dependences of faith firm and fixed, the dedications of faith complete, and the delights of faith more pleasing. Lord, we earnestly desire the increase of our faith. Give us more Faith in your pardoning mercy and grace so that nothing will lie in the way of our forgiving our brothers. Amen
1. Gospel Humility resists offenses to others. And stands guard(1-3), Isaiah 66:1-2, Phil 1:27)
*Our calling is to lead others TO Godliness (to our Savior) in our speech, in our actions, our interactions, not AWAY from Godliness,
* We guard against stumbling blocks coming from WITHIN and we resist causing them WITHOUT.
2. Gospel Humility STANDS ready to forgive and forgive. (3b-4) (Matt 18:21, 6:1, Ps. 51, Micah 7:18)
*PRIDE is the absolute enemy of FORGIVENESS.
* A PROUD spirit is a personal stumbling block to being FORGIVEN, and having the ability to FORGIVE.
* A Humble spirit “divorces” (forgives) the offense from the offender because it is in our SPIRITUAL DNA.
3. Gospel Humility recognizes your own fleshly faith. (5-6, Heb 11:6, 2 Cor 12:10, Eph 6:10 1 Cor. 2:1-5 Col 1:29) As you entrust yourself to the power of God, He does His work through you.
