Transcript
In your Bibles, will you turn with me once again to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17? Luke’s Gospel, chapter 17. Luke chapter 17. Beginning to read at verse 5. But for the sake of connection from our previous message let’s start reading at verse 3.
Jesus is speaking here. “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
Now our text begins with verse 5. “And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’”
So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
“And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? But would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.
“So likewise you, when you have done all those things which are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”
Rosalinda Cantu loves bingo. So does her mother. In fact it was her mother who first got Rosalinda started. She started playing bingo about January of 1991. But she was soon very heavily involved in it. And she was playing one or two sessions three or four nights a week.
By the middle of 1991 she decided that as a special treat to her mother she would drive with her mother to Durant, Oklahoma in order to participate in the Choctaw High Stakes Bingo.
Now the Choctaw High Stakes Bingo games are broadcast nationwide to 54 subscribing bingo halls. In order to win you have to cover the entire bingo card in 50 numbers. And as she was up there that weekend she found herself sitting around munching chicken strips and saying to herself, “Why did I come? I never win anything.”
How very, very wrong she was. Because on Sunday she won the mega cash matinee jackpot which was worth one half million dollars to be paid out to her annually. Checks amounting to $25,000 a year.
Now the next week when she was interviewed by the media here back in Dallas she explained that this tremendous good luck of hers probably wouldn’t change her life very much. She lived in an apartment. She was going to look for a house. And she said, “I promised my nieces and nephews that I would get them something.” In fact today I’m taking two of them to Toys R Us.
And apparently the biggest winners of the loot that Rosalinda Cantu got were her two poodles. She said she was going to get rhinestone collars for both of her poodles. And she said, “They’re spoiled already. Now it’ll just be worse. They’re going to become a couple of little rich dogs.”
Now I guess it’s a little late for me to do this but my congratulations to Rosalinda Cantu and to her nieces and nephews and to her two rich little poodles.
And I have to confess to you this morning that I never even played five minutes of bingo. I have only a vague idea of how it’s played. But I know that it appeals to a lot of people. And one of the reasons it seems to me that it appeals to people is that bingo offers instant gratification. It offers immediate money. It offers immediate reward.
And there are lots of people in our culture and society who live their lives that way. You’ve got to get it and you better get it now. Immediate gratification.
And tragically I hate to tell you this but there are actually people who are born again by faith in Jesus Christ. Who have received the free gift of everlasting life by faith in Him. And they know that they’re saved. And that they know they’re going to heaven. And yet they bring something of this philosophy of immediate gratification into their Christian living.
And sometimes more tragically than that they bring this philosophy into their religion. And they kind of begin to think of God as someone who will give them immediate gratification if they play the game right. God will reward them lavishly here and now.
And in order to warn you against a philosophy like that I’d like to suggest that we talk for a few minutes about the following subject. Faith is not a bingo game. And that happens to be the title of my message to you this morning. Faith is not a bingo game.
Years ago when I was a teenager that was years ago I have to admit my dad and I joined the Chambersburg Chess Club which played chess one night every week. And it had a ladder. And for purposes of distinguishing between the two Hodges my father was Hodges and I was somewhat inaccurately Hodges Junior.
Now the setup of this matter was that the top player in the club held the number one spot. The next best player held number two. And so on down the ladder. But the rules had it that if you got within two spaces of someone you could challenge them. Either the person immediately ahead of you or the person just ahead of them. And if you beat them you would trade places on the ladder.
And naturally everybody was looking for an opportunity to move right to the top. And Hodges Junior was no exception to that. And once in a while I think once or twice I got within reach of first place. Either I was second or third. And I had the nerve to challenge the man who occupied number one.
Now our number one player was named Mr. Scheib. He was an elderly man. He walked with a cane. He was very soft spoken and gracious. And he played a killer game of chess. I mean he played a killer game of chess.
And I would sit there at the board and I would stare long and hard at the board until I figured out a move that I thought was possibly good if not brilliant. And I would make it against Mr. Scheib. And then Mr. Scheib would look at it for a couple of minutes and make a move that didn’t make a bit of sense to me. “Why is he doing that?” But a couple of moves later I found that’s why he did that. He had captured my queen or he’d taken my rook or my bishop.
And I want you to know that I never won a game against Mr. Scheib. Not even one. Worse than that I never even smelled the victory. Because Mr. Scheib was very expert at sweeping up the board with Hodges Junior.
So I’m sorry to say that in that particular setting I never made it to the top.
And may I suggest to you this morning that in the life of faith there’s no ladder. There’s no ladder. And there is no way of making it to the top.
Did you notice the way in which our passage of Scripture which we read a few moments ago began with the words of the disciples? The disciples said to Jesus, “Lord, increase our faith.”
Now please remember that Jesus had just said to them, “If you have a brother that sins against you and he comes and says, ‘I’m sorry,’ forgive him. And if a little later he comes back and he sins against you again and then he says, ‘I’m sorry,’ forgive him. And if he does that seven times in the day and comes back and says, ‘I’m sorry, I repent,’ forgive me. You shall forgive that brother.”
And I can imagine the disciples are standing there saying, “Wow, that’s heavy. I mean that’s really, really heavy. That’s got to be hard. I think maybe I could forgive him once or twice on the same day. And on a very good day I might forgive him three times. But seven? No way, Jose. Impossible. How can I do this? The only way I could possibly pull that off was if I had big, big, big, big faith.”
So no wonder the apostles after hearing this instruction say to Jesus, “Lord, increase our faith. Give us big faith. If you expect us to do that give us big faith.”
And did you notice the answer of Jesus? The answer of Jesus amounts to this. You men have got it wrong. You’re talking as if it took big faith to do big things. And you can’t quantify faith like that. For if you have faith as a mustard seed, and remember everybody knew that the mustard seed was very, very small, if you have faith as a mustard seed you will say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and be planted in the ocean,” and it would obey you.
And don’t you see that Jesus is saying, “Look, it doesn’t take big faith to do big things. Even if your faith were real, real, real small you could command this sycamore tree and it would be removed into the depths of the ocean.”
To put it very plainly in faith it doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small. The issue in faith is not the size of faith. The issue in faith is whether faith is there.
May I repeat that? In faith the issue is not the size of faith. Not the strength of it. The issue is do I believe what God says or do I not?
We can illustrate this principle easily, can we not, from the biblical teaching on eternal salvation? John 6:47, Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.”
Did you notice he doesn’t say he who believes in Me with big faith or with strong faith or with deep faith? That’s not the issue. He who believes in Me has everlasting life.
May I suggest that when it comes to faith there’s no ladder. No getting to the top. Nobody can come to me and say, “You and I believe the same thing but my faith is bigger than yours and I will end up here at the top of the ladder because I’ve got big faith. And you belong at the bottom of the ladder because your faith is small.”
That doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t make sense at all. You see faith is having confidence in what God says. And either I have confidence in what He says or I don’t have confidence in what He says.
And the Bible never contrasts big faith with little faith. Faith is always contrasted with unbelief. And therefore the essence of the offer of salvation is here is the offer of eternal life. If you believe it you’re saved.
Remember that on that occasion which we often read at funerals Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
And then He said to Martha, “Do you believe this?” He didn’t say to Martha, “Do you believe this a lot? Do you believe this strongly or deeply? Or is your faith big enough to believe this?” That wasn’t the issue with Martha. “Do you believe this?”
And Martha said, “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”
And everyone who has believed that message has no greater faith than Martha and no lesser faith than Martha. But one thing is true of every person who has believed the message. They have what Martha had which was everlasting life and the guarantee from Jesus Christ himself of resurrection in the day to come.
So wait a minute. Wait a minute. Many of you have heard the verse that we’re talking about here. “If your faith is as a grain of mustard seed.” Let’s see. Good. Many of you have heard it. I wonder if you’ve ever thought how odd it is.
It’s odd. You had faith as a grain of mustard seed, says Jesus, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and be planted in the depths of the sea.” Can’t you imagine the apostles going around the land of Palestine and they see a raggedy old mulberry tree and they say to the mulberry tree, “You are the ugliest mulberry tree that I have ever seen. You are a real eyesore. Nobody gets any pleasure out of you. I command you to be uprooted and to be planted in the depths of the ocean.”
Do you think the disciples ever did that? Do you? If you do and you’re afraid to, not yes come see me after the meeting, okay? But I’m assuming most of you don’t think they ever did that. I don’t think they ever did it either.
And you know something? Although I have heard of almost every biblical miracle being claimed in our day and time I don’t think I’ve ever heard that anyone’s claimed to have uprooted a mulberry tree and planted it in the ocean. I never heard of anybody making that claim. I’ve never heard of it. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done. Maybe there’s another David Koresh out there somewhere who thinks he can uproot mulberry trees and plant them in the ocean.
The very nature of this statement by Jesus Christ suggests that he is speaking to us in what amounts to a parable. Jesus often spoke in parables. And if you examine the Bible you will notice that the nation of Israel is often compared to a tree. And also in the Bible the nations of the world, the Gentiles and all of the masses of mankind are often compared to the restless, restless ocean.
And after Jesus was crucified by Israel after he rose from the dead and went back to heaven the apostles to whom he is speaking here preached the message that he had given them to preach to Israel. And what was their message? That if Israel did not believe in the one that God had sent to redeem them they would be uprooted from their land, the land of Palestine, and they would be planted in the midst of the Gentile people.
They didn’t put it in those words but that’s essentially what they were saying. And of course it happened in the tragedy of 70 A.D. A million or more Jews were killed. And Jews were scattered from the land of Palestine throughout all the Gentile world. They were planted in the sea as it were.
And it was only after centuries, in 1948 to be exact, that God allowed them to begin to return to their native land.
And if we understand the words of Jesus in this way then we see that what the apostles were really doing was responding to what God had told them. This parable signifies their message which they have preached on the authority of Jesus Christ.
And that leads to a very simple principle. Biblical faith is always a response to the word of God. It is always a response to what God has said about himself.
You know a lot of people don’t understand that. So they read a verse like this and they think, “Well that means I can go down to the new car dealer and I see a Mercedes Benz for sale which is way over my budget. But if I can just believe in my heart that God will give me that Mercedes Benz he’ll give it to me. Maybe a little check will come floating down from the ceiling just enough to cover it. Or maybe the dealers will come rushing out and say, ‘This, you won the grand prize. Here are the keys to this Mercedes Benz.’”
Some people think, “You know I can go to the store and I can buy a Texas lotto ticket and I can pray to God for the 50 million dollar prize. And if I really, really believe in my heart then I’m a winner.”
But you see that’s more like bingo than Christian faith. If I can just hit at the right time and get that Mercedes Benz or get that new job or get that Texas lotto winning ticket. That’s how people think about faith more often than we would like to admit.
When in reality faith is responding to what God has revealed.
The little boy one time who was in a church meeting the minister noticed that he seemed to be praying very earnestly. But all the minister could make out was that the boy was saying, “Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo.”
So after the meeting was over the minister came up to the little boy and he said, “You know I noticed you’re praying. I was very impressed by your earnest prayer. But all I could hear you saying was Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo. What did you mean by that?”
And the little boy replied, “Well,” he said, “I’ve just taken my geography exams at school and I was asking the Lord to make Tokyo the capital of France.”
I’m afraid it didn’t work.
And sometimes we treat faith that way. “Okay Lord I’ve messed it up but I’m counting on you to straighten it out. Okay Lord I need some new money quick.”
We treat the sacred matter of faith, the sacred manner of responding to the word of God as though it was a way of playing bingo with God and hoping that we hit the right numbers at the right time.
And then Jesus gives a very penetrating analogy. He says to his disciples, “Who of you suppose some one of you has a servant.” And in those days that meant a slave.
“Suppose one of you has a slave. And the slave comes in from his daytime operation like plowing the field or attending the sheep. He says are you as the master going to say to your slave, ‘Okay come and sit down and eat’? No,” says Jesus. “That’s probably not what you’re going to say. You’re probably going to say to your slave, ‘Go get something for my supper and then gird yourself and come serve me while I eat and drink. And then and then you can eat and drink.’”
Does the master say to the servant, “Thanks for what you did”? I don’t think so, says Jesus.
And then he adds this word. “So also you, when you have done all that is commanded to you, say, ‘I am an unprofitable servant. I have only done what it was my duty to do.’”
You know I think this passage of Scripture is one of the most neglected passages in the church. You hear what Jesus is saying? Something we often forget. He said the needs and desires of the master come ahead of the needs and the desires of the slave.
May I repeat that? The needs and desires of the master come ahead of the needs and desires of the slave.
But that’s not the way some Christians look at it. They say to themselves, “I’ve served God for 10 years. It’s about time I got mine. What’s the Lord going to do for me for my 10 years of service? I’m going to ask Him to give me an expression of His gratitude. New home, more money. You name it.”
And what would God say to that? The first thing he would say is your job isn’t done yet. 10 years? You owe me a lifetime. Keep at it. And then when your job is over then you will get a chance to have your own needs met. Then you will eat and drink.
But even when that happens remember one thing. The master doesn’t owe it to you. Because all that you have done is what you were commanded to do. And you are an unprofitable servant.
I wish I could get this through to you. Because I’ve met lots of Christians. We’re not talking about salvation here. Because a person who has believed in Christ has salvation. But I’ve met an awful lot of Christians who think that somehow or other God owes them something. He owes them something. They’ve done this or they’ve done that or they’ve been coming to church for years or they’ve been serving God in the church.
Why doesn’t God pay off? Why doesn’t God take away my problems? Why doesn’t he take away my testing? Pay up, God.
We don’t say it like that but sometimes that’s how we feel. Because you see faith is not a game of things. It’s not doing X to get God to do Y. It’s not doing A to get God to do B.
The life of faith is lived with the recognition that God comes first all the time throughout the entirety of my life. And then he will reward graciously.
There’s a story about a man named Rob Safra who owned a jewel for which he was asking 10 pieces of gold. Some merchants came to him and they offered him five pieces of gold for the jewel. And he turned them down. But later he reconsidered his decision and he decided that yeah he would sell for five pieces of gold.
So one day he was engaged in his prayers. I don’t know whether he was a Christian convert or a Muslim. For the purposes of this story it doesn’t matter. But he was engaged in his prayers. And the merchants came back to him and they said to him, “Will you now give us the jewel for five pieces of gold?”
Rob Safra didn’t say a word. “Well don’t get mad,” said the merchants. “We’ll give you two extra pieces of gold. We’ll give you seven pieces of gold for the jewel.”
Still from Rob Safra. So they said, “Okay let it be the way you want it. We’ll give you 10 pieces of gold for this jewel.”
And presently Rob Safra spoke up and he said, “I’m sorry. I was engaged in my prayers and I wasn’t quite finished with my prayers and I couldn’t hear you. But I have decided to sell the jewel for five pieces of gold and it can be yours for that much.”
What’s the lesson? Well if we’re living a real life of faith, if we are really committed to God we’re going to be deaf to the offers of the world. We’re going to be deaf to those things that would win us away from God. We’re going to be deaf to money and fame and success.
And the only thing that’s going to really count with us is whether we win the approval of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
I made the mistake not too long ago of entering one of these sweepstakes. You know why that’s a mistake? Because they never again give you a moment’s peace. And they pass your name around to everybody else who has any kind of contest going.
And now on some mornings this is not an exaggeration half my mail is from a contest to people who want me to apply for my grand prize. And I have now fallen into the habit of junking it all in the waste can.
And I don’t have to say this but look down from a biblical point of view there isn’t any jackpot that is being offered anywhere in this country that’s really, really worth having compared to the jackpot that all of us ought to be aiming for.
And that is standing in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ face to face with Him at His judgment seat. And after His review of our Christian life hearing Him say, “Well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
Friends that’s a jackpot I hope you win. And I hope I do too by God’s grace.
Let’s pray.
Father we thank thee for the gift of eternal life which is ours freely and permanently when we trust in Christ. And we also thank you for the life of faith which it is our privilege as Christians to lead.
Father may our ears be deaf to the alluring things of the world that draw us away from you. And may we look forward to meeting the Lord Jesus Christ and hearing his words of approval to us.
Teach us to live in this way. We ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.