This is the text of a sermon I recently preached from Luke 17.
Introduction
A few years ago, we went on holiday with some friends to a place called West Bay which is down in Dorset and famous as the place where Broadchurch was filmed. Our friends’ parents had a holiday home there but they were selling up and so they were getting one last use out of it. However, when we arrived at where we were meant to be meeting them, there was no sign of them or a holiday home. We realised we were in the wrong place, we were a digit out on the postcode.
If you set off on a journey how do you know if you are on the right route? The answer is that first of all, you need to get the right destination put into your sat nav! Secondly, you need to have look out for clues along the way. Like, the farm house that is right in the middle of the M62 Motorway which tells us that we aren’t far from my dad’s house, or the sight of the Dartford crossing which tells us we are nearly at Sarah’s mum’s.
In Luke 16, we saw that our lives, our actions and decisions now need to be made in the light of our eternal destination. We need to get the location of it right! But how can we be sure that we are going to reach the final destination -and what do we need to live life right now? What does it mean to have the right postcode plugged in? What helps us to follow the markers along the way?
The answer both in terms of getting the final destination and the pointers along the way right is faith. Luke 17 builds on Luke 16 by showing us what the faith looks like that we need and the difference it makes.
By faith seek to be those who build up not those who trip up! (v1-10)
Jesus says that life is full of challenges, struggles, things that might surprise us and trip us up. However, we shouldn’t go out of our way to cause problems for others. One of my early jobs was piloting a new business system. The idea was that we set up some pretend scenarios and ran the system trying our hardest to break it. Don’t do that to people, we aren’t equipped to do that. But the reality is that in any case, we rarely trip others up because we are taking responsibility for testing them. God might do that through us but far too often, it’s just our own selfishness or thoughtlessness isn’t it? There are all kinds of ways we can do this. It might be through giving bad advice or setting a bad example. Paul says that we are to be alert to how weaker brothers and sisters might see our decisions.
Jesus has shocking words for those who do cause younger, weaker Christians to stumble. He says, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a millstone, a big stone used for grinding grain around your neck. There were tales of the Argentinian military junta pre the Falklands war taking political dissidents, encasing their legs in concrete and dropping them into the ocean from helicopters, the point was to make sure that you were properly weighed down and drowned. You weren’t coming back. Jesus says that it would be better for you to face certain mortal death with no way back than to put your own or another, vulnerable believer’s spiritual and eternal destiny in jeopardy. Keep a watch on your own life, make sure that you aren’t a stumbling block.
Life now is a choice between being those who cause others to stumble and those who help others along through repentance and forgiveness. So Jesus tells his disciples that if someone sins against them, to challenge them but also to forgive them repeatedly. I think there are two dimensions to this. First, by addressing their sin, by being honest with them, we do the opposite of tripping and tempting, we help them to be godly. Sometimes, especially in white middle class culture, we end up being so polite and gentle that we fail to help people out of sin. There’s nothing loving about that in fact we become complicit in their stumbling. The other side of things that we should not allow ourselves to fall into sin or put them at further risk of temptation by holding a grievance that breaks fellowship and leads to bitterness (v1-4).
The disciples realise they need faith for this. They see it as a massive deal and so they ask Jesus to give them more faith (v5). Jesus points out through parables that we can do great things with small faith. It can be small like a seed and accomplish great things.(v6). In another parable, where a servant insists that by caring diligently for the master, they are only doing their duty, Jesus shows that this stuff about repentance and forgiveness is actually just a small thing, it’s just our duty, it’s entry level stuff (v7-10). Note that we aren’t meant to assume that the master in the parable is just like Jesus. Just get the punchline.
By Faith find salvation, be made clean and whole(v11-19)
A number of lepers approach Jesus. In those days, it was a frightening disease that caused horrendous disfigurement and certain death. It was also, according to the Torah law, something that made you unclean, separating you from God’s people and banning you from worship at the Temple. Jesus heals them all but only one comes back to say thank you and it turns out that he wasn’t even a Jew, one of God’s people. He was a Samaritan – so salvation is not about being the right ethnic group or anything else we might think of as “the right thing” -words, people, places Faith is what delivers us just as it delivered the leper from his illness and uncleanness.
By Faith make sure that you aren’t taken by surprise when God’s judgement day comes (20-37)
The Pharisees ask Jesus about the “coming of the kingdom.” Their hope and expectation was for the day when the Messiah would come to make all things new, to restore God’s kingdom through the Davidic line and rule for ever in justice. We link that now to Christ’s return. Jesus tells them that they don’t need to be looking out for special signs. By the way, this means we don’t need to be second guessing as to whether events in Israel now are predicted in Revelation or whether Putin, Trump or Keir Starmer are the anti-Christ. Jesus says that you don’t need to look hard. God’s kingdom will be obvious, it will be right in your midst. I think that means we don’t need to be second guessing when God is moving, it will be obvious. That’s important because you will always get people telling you that this or that thing is a move of God, is revival and you’ve got to, without question, accept it. I think that when God’s Holy Spirit is doing something like renewal or revival it tends to be overt and obvious, just as when demons and the devil are up to no good, it’s overt and obvious too.
Jesus also says that there will be a time when he won’t be around, even though lots of false Messiah’s will show up. We are not to be deceived. The day will come but there are other things to happen first. The first thing was that he had to suffer, die and rise again. Jesus also says that when he does come back, it will catch most people off guard, they will be busy enjoying themselves just like in Noah’s day or when God sent destruction on Sodom.
We are not to be caught off guard. Note that the imagery here is of an attacking horde. If an attack comes, you are not to be either distracted or delayed, trying to get away with as much as possible. If you do, then you will end up being caught out. It’s possible that those taken are those who are captured, or it could be that it’s they are the ones who escape. Either way, this is an image, a parable if you like and so we aren’t meant to create a theology of rapture and songs or book series about being “Left behind” from it, with apologies to anyone who likes those songs or books.
But there is a point here. Faith keeps us focused on Jesus both in this life and for when he comes back. Faith is necessary because there is coming judgement -eternal destination. Make sure that you don’t get caught by surprise.
Conclusion
Don’t be taken by surprise -whether its by circumstances now or by your final destiny. Have faith. What do you specifically need faith for?
Faithroots 