Text: Luke 17:1-20
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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.”
One of the most tragic events during the Reagan Presidency was the Sunday morning terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, in which hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded as they slept. Many of us can still recall the terrible scenes as the dazed survivors worked to dig out their trapped brothers from beneath the rubble.
A few days after the tragedy, [there was an] an extraordinary story. Marine Corps Commandant Paul Kelly, visited some of the wounded survivors then in a Frankfurt, Germany, hospital. Among them was Corporal Jeffrey Lee Nashton, severely wounded in the incident. Nashton had so many tubes running in and out of his body that a witness said he looked more like a machine than a man; yet he survived.
As Kelly neared him, Nashton, struggling to move and racked with pain, motioned for a piece of paper and a pen. He wrote a brief note and passed it back to the Commandant. On the slip of paper was but two words -- “Semper Fi” the Latin motto of the Marines meaning "forever faithful." With those two simple words Nashton spoke for the millions of Americans who have sacrificed body and limb and their lives for their country -- those who have remained faithful.
J. Dobson & Gary Bauer, Children at Risk, Word, 1990, pp. 187-188.
Being faithful as followers of Christ and his Gospel also has obstacles and enemies. As Jesus says:
“Temptations to sin are sure to come,”
We all fall short in thought, word and deed - even at times allowing things, and those that we love, to become a stumbling block – separating us from the love of God and getting in the way of the gift that is Christ Jesus our Lord.
Even the little ones, those who are new to the faith, child, teen, and adult alike can have those who lead them away through their own apathy for Christ or love for the world. Jesus gives a word picture of a millstone and sea as to what awaits those who lead away from him, becoming a stumbling block where unbelief results.
We too find temptation to sin and fall away all around us.
What are your stumbling blocks?
Is it the needs or wants we have in this life?
Is it the time we spend with and on the things, we love?
Is it how we feel about the issues of the day?
Is it politics?
Temptation to sin can be very strong and affect every aspect of our day-to-day lives. We can fall away from God or fall back into a right relationship to him as God calls and directs us through his word and by faith.
I’ve had these same problems in my life over the years.
Work demanded much of my time - even working nights and weekends. As I wrestled with life and faith issues, God drew me closer to him and as I read his word, prayed to know his will and to know him better and I saw the need to be in relationship with him. It was no longer, “My will, but thy will be done!”
“No way!” I thought initially, that’s hard!”
“I have enough to do! I work long hours! I have to care for the house and yard work, and besides being the spiritual head of the family is too much for me!
But Jesus kept pursuing me through the word.
“Russ … you need to do it!” – “YOU are the one who needs to be the spiritual head of the family so pick up the matt you are sleeping on and come and follow me!”
Semper Fi! Forever faithful, to Jesus and his words!
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Even the apostle’s faith was struggling. They’re confused and until after the resurrection won’t really understand what Jesus is saying.
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.
Faith is nothing without its object and the object of our faith must be Jesus!
So, if he needs to be the object how can we know him?
Last week from chapter 16 the cry was to send Lazarus back from the dead:
28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
In John chapter 5 Jesus says of Moses and the Prophets to the teachers of the Law:
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. John 5:39-40
Life has two aspects, that which is conceived and brought forth in this life by God’s gift of procreation, though corrupted and brought forth in sin.
And that which is recreated by God through the working of the Holy Spirit, so that the perfect original righteousness that God created us to dwell in would be recreated in us through Christ’s sacrificial work and by the working of the Holy Spirit point us to Christ unto salvation.
Because of sin and the fall some children conceived in this life are miscarried, some die of complications in pregnancy, some are born with birth defects, while others are born healthy and others - aborted at all stages of pregnancy and for any number of reasons.
What God had created perfect - has been corrupted.
In this life, we who are fortunate to have been born and live, deal with the wages of sin our whole lives. Sickness and death cover the life given to you and me by God - but a life that is broken and in bondage to sin has been corrupted.
That is where the word of God and the means of grace come in.
Through the word we hear the voice of our savior speak.
Through the means that God gives in Christ, we now come to him and are marked as his redeemed by grace through faith, washed in the waters of Holy Baptism and raised to newness of life we are his beloved children who listen to his voice.
In the Lord’s Supper, God feeds us the gift of eternal life in Christ’s true body and blood given under the bread and wine for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith.
As we confess our sins together, God through his called and ordained servants absolves us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
Life and life eternal are both gifts of God and in his control.
We cannot have life or life eternal apart from God and his word. It is why our church and synod hold up the Bible as the word of God and stand firmly on that word and our Lutheran confessions as they rightly expound the scriptures.
Jesus says:
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.”
Friends, God has forgiven you in Christ your sins and desires only one path forward for we who are in Christ.
To be in his word.
To follow his word.
To cling to his word.
To trust his word.
For to hold to his word is to hold to Jesus. And to hold to Jesus is life eternal and forgiveness in his name!
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
J. Dobson & Gary Bauer, Children at Risk, Word, 1990, pp. 187-188.
Being faithful as followers of Christ and his Gospel also has obstacles and enemies. As Jesus says:
“Temptations to sin are sure to come,”
We all fall short in thought, word and deed - even at times allowing things, and those that we love, to become a stumbling block – separating us from the love of God and getting in the way of the gift that is Christ Jesus our Lord.
Even the little ones, those who are new to the faith, child, teen, and adult alike can have those who lead them away through their own apathy for Christ or love for the world. Jesus gives a word picture of a millstone and sea as to what awaits those who lead away from him, becoming a stumbling block where unbelief results.
We too find temptation to sin and fall away all around us.
What are your stumbling blocks?
Is it the needs or wants we have in this life?
Is it the time we spend with and on the things, we love?
Is it how we feel about the issues of the day?
Is it politics?
Temptation to sin can be very strong and affect every aspect of our day-to-day lives. We can fall away from God or fall back into a right relationship to him as God calls and directs us through his word and by faith.
I’ve had these same problems in my life over the years.
Work demanded much of my time - even working nights and weekends. As I wrestled with life and faith issues, God drew me closer to him and as I read his word, prayed to know his will and to know him better and I saw the need to be in relationship with him. It was no longer, “My will, but thy will be done!”
“No way!” I thought initially, that’s hard!”
“I have enough to do! I work long hours! I have to care for the house and yard work, and besides being the spiritual head of the family is too much for me!
But Jesus kept pursuing me through the word.
“Russ … you need to do it!” – “YOU are the one who needs to be the spiritual head of the family so pick up the matt you are sleeping on and come and follow me!”
Semper Fi! Forever faithful, to Jesus and his words!
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Even the apostle’s faith was struggling. They’re confused and until after the resurrection won’t really understand what Jesus is saying.
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.
Faith is nothing without its object and the object of our faith must be Jesus!
So, if he needs to be the object how can we know him?
Last week from chapter 16 the cry was to send Lazarus back from the dead:
28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
In John chapter 5 Jesus says of Moses and the Prophets to the teachers of the Law:
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. John 5:39-40
Life has two aspects, that which is conceived and brought forth in this life by God’s gift of procreation, though corrupted and brought forth in sin.
And that which is recreated by God through the working of the Holy Spirit, so that the perfect original righteousness that God created us to dwell in would be recreated in us through Christ’s sacrificial work and by the working of the Holy Spirit point us to Christ unto salvation.
Because of sin and the fall some children conceived in this life are miscarried, some die of complications in pregnancy, some are born with birth defects, while others are born healthy and others - aborted at all stages of pregnancy and for any number of reasons.
What God had created perfect - has been corrupted.
In this life, we who are fortunate to have been born and live, deal with the wages of sin our whole lives. Sickness and death cover the life given to you and me by God - but a life that is broken and in bondage to sin has been corrupted.
That is where the word of God and the means of grace come in.
Through the word we hear the voice of our savior speak.
Through the means that God gives in Christ, we now come to him and are marked as his redeemed by grace through faith, washed in the waters of Holy Baptism and raised to newness of life we are his beloved children who listen to his voice.
In the Lord’s Supper, God feeds us the gift of eternal life in Christ’s true body and blood given under the bread and wine for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith.
As we confess our sins together, God through his called and ordained servants absolves us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
Life and life eternal are both gifts of God and in his control.
We cannot have life or life eternal apart from God and his word. It is why our church and synod hold up the Bible as the word of God and stand firmly on that word and our Lutheran confessions as they rightly expound the scriptures.
Jesus says:
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.”
Friends, God has forgiven you in Christ your sins and desires only one path forward for we who are in Christ.
To be in his word.
To follow his word.
To cling to his word.
To trust his word.
For to hold to his word is to hold to Jesus. And to hold to Jesus is life eternal and forgiveness in his name!
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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