Luke 17:10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
Serving Christ Enriches Me
I’ve heard it said a number of times recently that it’s easy to be a servant until someone treats you like you are a servant. It’s almost a Christian honorary title to be called a servant, but there’s a difference between using “servant” as a benevolent title that shows appreciation and actually doing what a servant does.
In Luke 17: 7 it says, “But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?” No, that doesn’t happen. Verse 8 says “And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”
Is Jesus suggesting that His servants are worthless? No. What He’s saying it that when I serve Christ, He doesn’t profit. Jesus is not getting rich off of our work. When we serve Christ we are doing that which is our debt or duty to do.
Serving Christ does not enrich Him, it enriches me. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus told the disciples that if a man “trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent: thou shalt forgive him.” Then Jesus talks about faith and launches into this discourse about servants.
So, here is a guy who does me wrong over and over again, but when he asks, I forgive. Someone says, “Wow, what an amazing servant of God this Wil Rice is to forgive the same person so many times.” Christ isn’t being enriched by that, I am.
In the first place, if Christ tells me to forgive this way, who do you think already forgives that way? Christ does. Whom has Christ forgiven that way and whom does He continue to forgive that way? The answer is, “Me.”
Second of all, if it takes faith for me to forgive like Christ would, then who is actually supplying the power to forgive as Christ would in my life? Again, the answer is Jesus. I’m doing what I’m a debtor to do, and it doesn’t profit the Lord Jesus, it profits me.