Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello. I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the gospel, we are studying the event overcoming temptations. This is found in Luke, chapter 17. And we're going to read from one to verse ten. Follow along with us as we read.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: And Jesus said to his disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
Pay attention to yourself.
If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. 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. Will any one of you who has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep say to him, when he comes in from the field, come at once and recline at table? Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink? And afterwards you will eat and drink. Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty.
Temptations.
Every single one of us, every single human on this earth, has been tempted, including Jesus. Right?
Is temptation. Sin.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Temptation is not sin itself. Following that temptation, it is embracing that temptation.
It is obeying that temptation when sin happens.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, but then there's something that seems like it's even worse than sin, and this is tempting someone else to sin. This is the woe to the one whom through, they come through. So if I come to you and say, hey, Gabriel, let's go, we should go rob a bank. We can get lots of money in.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: For me, it's not a sin yet if I just think about that. But for you, it's already a sin. Based on this. Very interesting.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: And by me trying to tempt you to join in, that makes it even worse. It would be better if a millstone was hung around my neck and I was cast into the sea.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: The tempter becomes the initiator, the moral author of an evil act.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: And this is why Satan is going to pay the biggest price, because he's the one who is tempting us in many ways. To sin, and he will have to pay for that.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: And every time we tempt someone, we become Satan's agents.
And by doing this repeatedly, we resemble his character.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: So Jesus here is talking about the seriousness of sin and how we shouldn't just brush it off. Then he goes on to our role in forgiving, that if we are wrong by someone, we need to forgive them, not just once, even if they do the same thing seven times in a day.
Now, jewish thought was, you forgave people three times.
But Jesus is saying seven times in one day. We often say, well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
And we tell people, you don't need to be victims. You don't need to stay. And that's true. You don't need to stay in a situation where you're being abused.
But God here is telling us that we need to forgive, even if the person does it again and again and again.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: The same day, Jesus had a conversation with Peter. When Peter asked, should I go all the way to seven? He was very generous.
And Jesus said, you can go even beyond that. 70 times seven. That is 490 times practically. We should not set any limit to forgiveness.
We have been forgiven by God is one of those gifts that we receive from God. And if we keep it for ourself, that becomes dishonest management, because we receive in order to give. And this is why we pray, as Jesus Christ taught us in the Lord's prayer, and forgive us our sins or our moral debt in as much as in the same way we forgive our debtors.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: I think your story with Peter ties into the second part perfectly. So Peter, I think when he came to Jesus, and this is just my imagination, that Peter thought he was doing something great. I'm going to forgive him seven times, not just the three. I'm going above and beyond.
But Jesus is saying, no, you need to do more. And I think there are many times where we come and feel like we have earned something from God.
I paid my tithe this week. I've earned blessings from God. I helped someone on the side of the road who had a flat tire. I've earned blessings from God. I was kind to someone who was mean to me. I turned the other cheek. I've earned blessings from God.
There are many times where we feel that we have earned merited favor.
But this is what the second part is getting to. And what is it teaching us? The second part of this parable, when.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: We fulfill our responsibilities we have before God, we do not make points, we do not earn.
Heavenly currencies for the kingdom of heaven. We do not fill that container with good works. And when the container is completely full, that means we deserve heaven.
No, we do what we are supposed to do.
A mom is taking care of her children and she's doing just what she was supposed to do.
And a father provides food on the table and he's doing what he was supposed to do. In our relationship with God, we return God's favor in the form of worship, in the form of aligning our lives with principles of heaven, in the forms of giving what we have received, and that is what we are supposed to do.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: I think this goes a step further on that as well, because I might have on my way to church or on my way somewhere, stopped by and helped someone, but that doesn't absolve me from being kind to someone later in the day, to forgiving someone else, to going out of my way and helping someone cross the street just because I did one good thing. The servant was out keeping the sheep. Just because he did that one job well, it didn't mean he didn't have to prepare a meal and get dressed and do his other jobs correctly.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: We have this kind of popular understanding that was planted in our minds that God looks at us with this balance mindset. And one side of the balance, he puts what he do good on the other side, he places what he did wrong and hopefully we'll tilt it the right way.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: The scales of justice.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: The scale of justice, yeah. No, we are called to reflect God's character in everything we do.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So as we reflect God's character, this is a natural output. This is our duty. This is what happens, and this is what God does in us. The goodness that comes out of us is a reflection of Christ living through us. Again, it's unmerited, and so we should not expect any reward or any return for the good things we do.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: For some reason, this concept of duty, which used to be fundamental in the modern society, developed by the western part of the world, this is going away and is being replaced by this concept of I deserve it.
This is how they advertise big billboards towards the airport here in Chicago advertising a vacation. You deserve it.
You deserve this, you deserve that, you deserve the promotion, you deserve to be first. And just in case I don't get what I think I deserve, I get mad.
So this mindset is very much different than what Jesus Christ teaches in this passage.
When we serve God, we cannot do something that exceeds God's expectations.
We are doing only what we are supposed to do, returning God's love. We love God says first, John, because he loved us first.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: And if we want to talk about what we deserve, what I deserve is death.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that is in Romans chapter three. It's very clear all of us deserve death. Exactly.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: What I deserve is separation from God. What I deserve is all the bad things.
That's what I deserve. But Christ, through unmerited favor, has given me a chance of eternal life, has given me a new life, has given me a new heart, a desire for those around this mustard seed, it's a tiny, tiny little speck of a seed, and it grows up into a tree. It doesn't get to choose what tree it grows up into. It doesn't get to say, I want to be an oak tree or a grapevine, or I want to be a mulberry bush.
It's going to do what God intended it to do. And the same thing's true for us. As we allow God to work in us, he's going to do what he wants to do within us.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: I like how these three teachings are together. One event, they are like a sandwich. The first one is about forgiveness and resistant temptation. The last, the bottom one is about our self concept. How do we see ourselves just doing what we are supposed to do, returning to God what God has invested in us and in the middle. The most beautiful part is the prayer. Lord, increase our faith and we need faith both to forgive. We need faith also to overcome temptation. And at the same time we need faith to see ourself in the right perspective, how God sees us. Of course we are available. Of course we are important. Of course God loved us so much that he gave his only son to die for our sins.
But whatever we can produce for our salvation is outside or beyond that 100% that God did for us.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: So I guess the logical question is, where do we get faith? How do we get more faith? What do we do to get faith?
[00:12:59] Speaker B: In the book of acts a couple of times, faith is presented as a gift from God. God gives faith and there is this general type of faith that is a gift from God for everyone.
On top of that, faith is also presented, especially in one corinthian twelve, in Romans chapter 14. It's part of that list of spiritual gifts as a special faith for a special situation that can be translated into a big vision, into a big step in faith. To cross Red Sea or a Jordan or a significant event in your life, God can call you and God called people to have that special faith. So both of them, the Gerald's faith as well as the special faith as a gift of the spirit. Both of them come from above. We ask for them. We believe that God can do it, and God will do it in our lives.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Now, faith is, according to Hebrews eleven one, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So as we look back in our lives and we see that God was there, or this experience was supernatural, or those are faith building points that help us to look forward in faith to the promises God has. So let us pray for more faith. Father God, we believe, help our unbelief. We so many times falter in our faith, so many times we don't have what we should. And so I pray that we will surrender and come to you, that we will seek your faith. We'll be happy with the evidence that we have, and we will believe what we've been shown. We'll move forward and do what you've asked us to do without expecting rewards. But increase our faith. Increase our faith to overcome sin, increase our faith to forgive. Increase our faith to see your hand at work. And increase our faith to believe that you will come soon. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
