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Jul 21, 2019

A Servant’s Manifesto

A Servant’s Manifesto

Passage: Luke 17:7-10

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: The Stories In-Between: Parables

Keywords: jesus, gospel, serving, master, servant, parables, character of a servant

No servant is greater than his master, Jesus tells us. What does a genuine servant’s heart look like? Where is our obedience liable to misshapen motivation? How is the gospel of God’s sheer grace meant to reshape motivations of our heart?

Order of Worship

Pre-Service Text: 1 John 4:19
Call To Worship: from Psalm 91:2; Romans 10:9, 13
Sermon Title: A Servant’s Manifesto
Central Text: Luke 17:7-10
Corporate Confession of Sin: from Psalm 25:6-8, 11, 16-18
Assurance of Pardon: Romans 5:1
Benediction: Jude vv 24-25
Post-Service Text: Matthew 25:23

07.21.2019 Sermon Notes

Illustrations

60 Minutes - Servant Armstrong

Home Alone 2 - Cheap Tip

Toy Story 2 - Road Kill

Real Genius - Teacher's Pet

Readings & Scripture

Pre-Service Text: 1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

Call To Worship: from Psalm 91:2; Romans 10:9, 13
LEADER: Let us worship God.
PEOPLE: He is our refuge and our fortress, our God, in whom we trust.
LEADER: Let us confess with our mouths, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead.
PEOPLE: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
ALL: Let us call upon our true God, believing him in our hearts, confessing him with our mouths, worshiping him in spirit and in truth.

Central Text: Luke 17:7-10
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 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.’”

Corporate Confession of Sin: from Psalm 25:6-8, 11, 16-18
All: Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of our youth or our transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember us, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord! Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon our guilt, for it is great. Turn to us and be gracious to us, for we are lonely and afflicted. The troubles of our hearts are enlarged; bring us out of our distresses. Consider our affliction and our trouble, and forgive all our sins. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: Romans 5:1
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Benediction: Jude vv 24-25
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Post-Service Text: Matthew 25:23
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Related Scriptures:

  • Matthew 20:20-28
  • John 13:14-17
  • John 14:15
  • John 15:15
  • Acts 17:23-25
  • Romans 11:35
  • Philippians 2:12-13
  • 1 John 5:3

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  1. What chore did you loathe the most as a child? Why? How did you tend to respond when it was your turn? What were all the reasons or “motivations” given you by your parents to complete the task? What once seemed like a “chore” but now just feels like a normal responsibility? How did your attitude change toward it?
  2. What’s your first thoughts when you hear Jesus’s words about the attitude of a servant? Why those thoughts?
  3. What ought the servant in Jesus’s parable not expect in the course of fulfilling his responsibilities? What reasons for that attitude might be behind Jesus’s instruction?
  4. How does Jesus embody the character of the servant he outlines in this parable?
  5. How does all you know about Jesus--in what He said and did, and in particular what His good news is--make his instruction in the parable a firm but not stern word?

Quotes

  • Ego can’t sleep. - Robert K Greenleaf
  • Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to wash the dishes. -Cited in Tish Harrison Warren’s Liturgy of the Ordinary
  • . . .as the reprobate have no rooted conviction of the paternal love of God, so they do not in return yield the love of sons, but are led by a kind of mercenary affection. - John Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.12
  • A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone. - Martin Luther
  • When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • We can never put God in our debt. - N.T. Wright
  • I, then, wish also myself to wash the feet of my brethren, I wish to fulfill the commandment of my Lord, I will not be ashamed in myself, nor disdain what He Himself did first. Good is the mystery of humility, because while washing the pollutions of others I wash away my own.- Ambrose
  • And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.- Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
  • If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship...Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.- Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

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