Servanthood before God

Luke 17:7-10

⁷ “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? ⁸ Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? ⁹ Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?¹⁰ So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

I. We are unworthy servants

Verse 10 tells us the conclusion:

¹⁰ So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

Luke 17:7-10 asks us to know ourselves as a servant simply doing his/her duty given by the Master. So, we don’t call ourselves MVP or VIP who deserves priority rewards. Even just after coming back from hard work in the field, a servant should patiently attend the master first and then himself/herself as the last. Therefore, this teaches us to be humble and patient.

Here, patience we are talking about is very different from asceticism. Our patience is from our trust that God will care for our needs.

Let us review the lesson from the Exodus. During the Exodus, people complained when they were thirsty or hungry in the dessert on their way to the promise land after escaping the slavery at Egypt. The Exodus teaches us “trust” and, therefore, “patience”. We trust God, we know God cares for our needs and therefore we can wait for God. Man of faith has wisdom to wait, is spiritual and patient, while many people in the world are impatient.

II. Knowing ourselves under the light of the truth

We should know ourselves under the light of the truth as the Bible requires so.

God told Adam “for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19b). Adam disobeyed His command and God reminded him of his humble origin.

Paul knew the crown of righteousness was ready in store (2 Timothy 4:8), the reason of which is written in 2 Timothy 4:7. But, Paul described himself as the worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15, 16), despite of his being most outstanding apostle of Jesus.

Baptist John introduced himself as “the voice” (John 1:23) to emphasize his mission as a messenger for the Christ. He knew that himself was the voice prophesized in Isaiah 40:3.

And today we learned of servanthood before God that we should say ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty' (10).