We are useless servants, undeserving of any praise

We are going to the Word of the Lord, Luke chapter 17 verses from 7 to 10 and we are going to simply read, and enter directly into the Word. They are words of the Lord Jesus Christ, a parable, an illustration, a story that the Lord tells to illustrate a deep spiritual truth that we do very well to integrate into our lives.

The Lord says and asks rhetorically: "Which of you having a servant who plows or grazes cattle, when he returns" that is, the servant "from the field, then says to him: come in, sit at the table." By the way, I say that it is a rhetorical question because the answer is already known. In this case, given the customs of the time, the answer was a resounding: no one, no one, no one, not me, no person, no. The idea was that no one who has a servant, after he has done his job, says: oh, come, sit down, come to the table, eat with us. Those were the customs of that time and the Lord uses those customs to point out something, a spiritual truth.

Then he says: "No, he tells them rather: prepare the table for me, gird yourself and serve me until I have eaten and drunk, and after this, only then after that you eat and drink. Does he thank the servant because he did what what was commanded?" The answer again is what? no, right? No, it does not, given the customs at that time in which the owners or employers treated the people who worked for them very badly.

The Lord says: I think not, in other words, from what I can see it is not so, and here is the conclusion, the spiritual truth that this parable wants to leave in us. He says: "You too" say there: me, ok? "In the same way, when you have done everything that has been ordered to you, say: useless servants we are, because what we should do we did." One would expect him to say: well, we did not do what we should have done, but the Lord says: No, say: I am a useless servant because I did everything that I was told to do; an irony there but very instructive, right? Let's see what the Lord is trying to tell us and what we can learn.

I want to tell you that this is one of the attitudes, this is a description of one of the most fundamental attitudes that a Christian, a believer, must have. This is one of the most powerful and most basic recognitions that we must have in our Christian life. This must be an attitude, a conviction, an essential perspective for every mature believer who knows the principles of the Kingdom of God. It is what I would call an attitude of extreme subjection and surrender to the Will of the Lord, and of total recognition that in the first and last instance we deserve nothing from God, and that we owe everything to Him. that we have done all the things that we can do, and that we have given money, served the Lord, lived faithful and holy and godly lives, at the end of the day and at the end of the day we do not deserve anything from God ultimately, we are servants useless and God does not owe us a dime or anything at all.

That seems unfair, but when we analyze the principles of Scripture you will see that it is absolutely valid and fair, and that from there, from that position, from not deserving anything, God's blessings come upon our lives. When a person is aware of his radical debt to God, then he can receive from God. We cannot approach the Kingdom of God with a sense as it says in English: entitlement, a sense of right, of merit, that God owes me this, that I have the right to expect this from God or this good treatment from God, or that He responds to my requests. There is no ultimate right that we have when we stand before the Presence of God. If you have heard anything different, it is an exaggeration and a distortion of God's Word.

Now, I am going to qualify this a little later because we can approach the Lord with the expectation of blessing but not because we deserve it, not because God has to give it to us, not because there is a formula out there that if I use it then God will to have to give me something, no, none of that, just by the grace and mercy of God.

So this parable, as I say, tells us about the absolute Lordship of God and the attitude of total surrender and subjection to the Will of God that should characterize our life, our behavior, our Christian perspective. Jesus uses a parable here and uses in what poetry and rhetoric is known as a hyperbole, how many have ever heard the word hyperbole? If you haven't heard it, I'm going to enrich your cultural vocabulary this morning; look around for an occasion to impress your co-workers and family by using the word hyperbole at some point.

Hyperbole in the dictionary description, I am translating a definition, it says: "hyperbole is the use of exaggeration" that is the key to hyperbole, it is something exaggerated, extreme, extremist, "it is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical instrument" that is to say: it is used for poetry, for declamation, for a speech, for writing. It is a resource that is used to enrich what one says or writes. "A rhetorical instrument or a figure of speech, and it can be used to evoke strong feelings or create a strong impression, but it's not meant to be taken literally" that's very important. You are not supposed to take it literally.

When I say for example "I'm starving" you don't see someone pick up and say: oh, call the ambulance, take him to the hospital! People know that it is hyperbole, it is an exaggeration, right? I'm trying to give people the impression that: wow, I'm really hungry, you better get my food fast because I'm starving, but people aren't supposed to take that literally. If you take it literally you're probably a person who needs a shrink or something, it's not supposed to be taken literally.

And here in this Word of Jesus Christ I see elements of exaggeration, of hyperbole as He did many times, right? to illustrate a principle. For example, when He says: "If someone does not hate his father, his mother, his brothers, he does not deserve to be My disciple" that does not mean that you necessarily have to tell your father, your mother: I hate you, I don't I want to see you, leave my house so that I can be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, no. What he is saying is that if someone does not detach himself for love of the Kingdom of God so radically from his father, his mother, his brothers that he seems to hate them, he does not deserve to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, do you understand? that is what hyperbole means.

And that is why here the Lord is using an exaggerated illustration of a boss, an owner, and incidentally here the word is used: servant, but in the original Greek of this text the word is dulos which means: slave rather , refers to a very typical condition of the Greco-Roman world where there were hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who were in servitude. It was not the bloody type of slavery that we saw, for example, here in the United States or in the Caribbean, or in Latin America, or in other European countries where it was totally an attitude, well, although there was also, understand.

But slavery in the Greco-Roman world was very prevalent and not necessarily so bloody because there were slaves who were housewives, kept accounts with their employers, were even teachers and tutors for young people and children, many things but they were slaves in the sense that they did not belong to themselves, they did not have the right to do what they wanted, they could not move to another place if they wanted to, their owner, their employer was their owner and he could if he escaped or tried to break ties of servants, he could ask until they were imprisoned or even possibly even killed. In other words, that person had no freedom of his own.

And that is why Paul when he says: Paul, servant of Jesus Christ, what he is saying: Pavo, dulos of Jesus Christ, slave of Jesus Christ, is to say that he did not belong to himself but belonged to Christ Jesus and he did not have right to decide what he wanted to do, where he was going, no, he said: no, I serve the Lord, I am a slave of Jesus Christ. This means that when you read the word servant in the Bible, understand that what it means is that: servant.

Today, for example, our brothers often call the Pastor: servant, right? and nowadays that has become almost like a title of honor for many Pastors, servant, oh, servant, it's already like. But no, if they call me a servant they are right, they are telling me: slave of Jesus Christ, and I believe that many times we Pastors have turned these labels into titles of honor and glory, may the Lord rebuke that pride, right? We are servants, we are stewards, we are simply instruments in the hands of the Lord. Servants has become rather something for us to glorify ourselves but no.

So here there is an element of exaggeration that the Lord uses, the relationship between a master who has absolute rights over his slave, and the slave who has no rights against his master. And so the Lord uses this social condition so prevalent in His environment to illustrate the relationship between a believer and God, the Kingdom of God and our life of service. But at no time is the Lord here validating slavery, understand this. He is not saying: slavery is good, it must be maintained, go ahead guys, no. He is simply using this context in which He moves to illustrate a relationship between the Christian and the Kingdom of God.

Parables are always limited, aren't they? you cannot apply all aspects of it. Usually there is an essential truth that he wants to emphasize and that is the truth that we pay attention to; the others may or may not be very convenient, in this case what matters is that relationship of no rights and all rights, to do everything they ask of you but not deserve anything and have the right to demand everything from a person without having to thank them nothing.

In that sense, this parable is similar to the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. Do you know that parable? this widow who wanted the judge to give her justice but the judge was an unfair judge and did not give her justice, he did not take care of her and the woman came every day and appeared before the judge until the judge had had enough of her and said : ok I'm going to take care of her because she's going to fill my patience so she'll leave me alone, and she took care of her, and did her justice, and the Lord wanted to illustrate through that hyperbole the truth that if we present our petitions before the Lord continually God is powerful to answer them, that we have to pray continuously, without ceasing as the Word of the Lord says.

So there Jesus describes a situation of injustice to illustrate something that is almost the opposite as well, and that is that if the unjust judge finally granted the widow her request at her insistence, how much more will God, who is just and loves us, grant us our requests if we ask him consistently, amen? many times we have to see the other side of the parable. And this parable also has a very beautiful and very promising side that I want to point out at the end of my presentation.

The injustice of that judge makes justice and God's love shine even more. This parable therefore describes two dimensions. One describes how things are in the world and in human reality, and the other dimension invites us to remember that this is not the case with God, but that we have a God full of grace and mercy, who treats us with love and kindness even though You have every right to do the opposite if He wants to, do you understand?

We have to have that dual mentality, double in our mind. On the one hand: I have no rights before God, I cannot demand anything from God. I cannot wait as if they owe me anything good in my life, I cannot demand or demand, nor wait as if it were a given that everything will go well for me, that God will always give me everything I want, that He will always thank me for everything I do for Him, I have no right. I signed a paper when I entered the ways of the Lord that says: I have no rights before You, that is one version, right?

But the other thing is that God loves me, God forgives me, God thanks me for what I do for Him, God blesses me when I serve Him, God answers my prayers. God tells me: Come good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over little, I will put you over much, God blesses the cheerful giver, amen? God gives us good things, God sits us next to Christ as the Word of the Lord says. God has saved us by grace and has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, amen?

But we have to keep the tension between those two conditions continually: I deserve nothing and God has given me everything, and we have to keep that in tension. The first level of interpretation of this parable instructs us in many things, and do you know what the origin of this message is for me?

In the last few days I kept thinking about the connector and I remembered that after we finished this construction project that has required so much effort, so much investment, so much money and effort on the part of all of us, we were celebrating as the servant who does everything what your lord asks of you right? he arrives at the end of the day tired and sweaty, and says: wow I deserve a good coke, I can take a good bath and I'm going to watch the basketball game or whatever, I can rest now, I can see you tomorrow. Or the weekend came and now I have three days left, or two days off, right?

We were like this, we had already finished, glory to God! Now we can take off this donkey rig and we're going to celebrate, right? now we could as a Church, I as Pastor and the leaders of the Congregation could dedicate ourselves to celebrating, resting and enjoying the fruit of our efforts, right? And I said: amen, how good! I no longer have to rebuild or anything like that. But what happened? that God had something else in mind. He said: No, no, you still lack work, we lack work. Oh yeah, you gave money and you gave sacrificially but you know what? do not boast of that because you have to give even more.

Oh now this parable does hurt, right? how beautiful, yes, glory to God, hallelujah, but when they put the picaso around your rib then it bucks like a horse when they put a spur in it, right? Because that touches all of us, it touches me. I have been saying: wow, someone who comes so happy, we are already calm, we can celebrate and enjoy, and then the Lord says: No, you know what? still, gird yourself again, bring me My food, bring me My dinner, bring me a drink, find me my slippers. God had something else in mind, we had to continue working. We had to put on the towel and the basin, wash our master's feet even though we were tired. We had to start the process of starting to build that connector.

And that was, you know? a reason for great joy on the one hand because as I tell you, we had resigned ourselves to the fact that this was not going to be done and that the natural condition of our Church was going to be for the rest of the time having to go down, go up, go out in winter, in heat, rain whatever, but we celebrate. When God resurrected this possibility we said: what a good gosh. Our Church is going to be able to finally complete everything it set out to do and what a blessing. But it was also a reason of great psychological and emotional weight for many of us and many of us said: wow but if I already gave, now again, do I have to give more, do I have to do more, do I have to start planning for these meals and everything? this mess, right?

And thank the Lord by the way, many brothers and sisters who have been working hard to make this reception possible up there, I heard Magaly laugh, where is Magaly? I think I heard his distinctive laugh, the Shepherd has a good ear to hear his sheep. And others who have worked hard, Sofia and so many, well, many people, Raisa and others that we give to the Lord, people who donate money, time, effort, have been working hard to prepare something very beautiful, very good. Those who have donated different objects and things for the silent auction, praise the Lord for all of that. It's good that there are people who went even from the very beginning.

This very morning a brother came with an envelope with an apology because it was not an appropriate envelope to give me something for construction, glory to God for those lives, brothers and then we are going to ask them, I am going to tell them this. I am going to come before you and prepare your heart and spirit there, you are not giving to me, you are giving to the Kingdom of God, you are giving to your heavenly master who tells you: gird yourself and feed me, put me on the slippers, get ready.

Prepare your heart, we are a strong people in the Lord. To whom much is given, much is required. Oh what a privilege it is to give to the Lord. I have nothing, everything belongs to God, whatever God asks of me I will give it to him because He has given me everything there, He sent His Son Jesus Christ for me, freed me from sin, death and hell, and has given eternal life, He owes me nothing more. I am eternally grateful for Him and everything that I have, everything that He asks of me, I hope that He gives me the grace to give it to Him with joy and gratitude.

Some may feel a little resentful at having to continue working and giving. I confess that sometimes I have complained a little, but I know very well that after giving two or three tantrums I have to come and kiss the Hand of the Lord and tell him: Father, thank you for allowing me to be useful to Your Kingdom, that is so. No?

So what the parable says has to do with that attitude of ours, right? that we give and serve, and then we say: well, I've done it, I've already done this, I've already done that, and well, now let my reward come to me, and what's more: many work to be rewarded, but that parable as that deals a death blow, it is a stab to the heart of that deserving attitude that many Christians have regarding the Kingdom of God.

So that is why Jesus uses that image of a slave who had no will of his own, he had no right, he had to do everything he was commanded to do. Although the Lord was not justifying that horrible institution, he was using it as an illustration of God who also has the right to demand the same way, to treat us in the same way but does not; but that does not mean that it changes our real, judicial, ontological condition, so to speak, before God. That is what I truly am, even though God does not treat me that way, but I have to remember that this is what I am, that this is my true condition. I have to do everything my master tells me and I do not deserve any commendation or praise for what I have done for the Lord.

I am going to use another illustration like this that is a little more understandable for us. It's like when you work for a corporation or for a hospital, you're a doctor and you're on call, and they can call you at any time in the morning or whatever to do an operation, or you work for a law firm, or for a consulting company or something like that that pays you money and tells you: you don't have hours here. If there is a contract to settle, if there is construction to do, if there is a trial to prepare, you have to prepare everything that is needed. If it's sixty hours, if it's eighty hours, for that we're paying you a good salary, and there you are working until midnight on a Friday night, or a Sunday night because there's a trial tomorrow and you're a lawyer for that signature, and all the documents have to be prepared, the case has to be very well presented on Monday morning before the judge.

And when you've done all that it's not like the chief executive of the corporation is going to come: ooh, thank you employee for doing so much work, no. You did exactly what we paid you for, here's the next job. You are expected to do that, not given. The doctor who has to go out tying his pants at three in the morning because he has to do an operation because he was called on the beeper, because he is a surgeon and is exposed, that day is his day of duty. He has to get out of the comfort of his house, get there, operate on the patient and no one tells him: wow, how holy this man, how good, look how noble he got up. No, he is a doctor, he is paid well, that is his condition. That's what he's supposed to do even if it's sacrificial.

That is the condition our brothers. We are soldiers of the Kingdom of God. You are a servant of Jesus Christ. God redeemed you, bought you with His blood, now you belong to Him and you are supposed to be twenty-four hours available for the Lord to do with you, what He needs from you. That must be the fundamental attitude of every believer, this must base our mentality, our actions and above all our understanding of what we are in relation to God and His Kingdom. We are servants we are slaves of the Kingdom. God has every right and we have no right before God. God owes us nothing and we owe everything to Him.

I hope you are getting that into your mind and that you receive it. Receive it in the name of the Lord and reject any sense of heroism or exceptionality because you are trying to serve the Lord and do what God asks of you. Sometimes we believe that because we serve the Lord and give him He owes us, right? although we don't say it like that but there is a subconscious expectation in us. We believe that God has to bless us, heal us, provide for us. God does not have to do any of that brothers, He is not obliged. It is important that we understand this.

Everything we receive after having served the Lord is by pure grace and mercy if He wants to. Pure grace, put that in your head right now, pure grace, say it a thousand times: pure grace. That attitude of not deserving anything of God and of owing everything to God, of being totally subject to His pleasure and His Will, is absolutely key at this time when in very subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways people are being taught that God exists to advance our interests, to please us, to give us the best possible life, to respond to all our needs. To make sure that we live a comfortable life, that we get to be everything we want to be, that we are quote-unquote "happy" and "prosperous" and healthy, and all this.

Brothers: God does not necessarily exist for that and you cannot come to the Kingdom of God expecting that this will be your reward or that this will be your salary. The apostle Paul says that when a person works and is paid that is not free, they are simply being given what that person earned, but when it is free then we cannot boast of it nor can we demand it before God. We do not come to the Kingdom to guarantee God's blessing or "provision" between quotes, that is in addition and it is very important that this be clear in our hearts.

The Bible in fact if you look, in many passages promotes exactly the opposite attitude and expectation. The fundamental attitude of the believer, his essential starting point must be that: we do not deserve anything, that we are sinners, that we have offended God and that we do not even deserve to be saved. The Bible says that: "When we were mired in sin, Christ died for us." It was not when humanity repented, no. It was when it was most perverse and most sunk in sin that the Lord said: This humanity must be rescued, I am going to send My Son to die for it, right?

God in His mercy rescued us, He saved us says that mentality and now as a consequence we owe everything to Him, and we must serve Him with all our hearts, live totally grateful giving Him everything, knowing that we deserve nothing in return except to serve Him in everything we He asks us Our honor lies in doing everything God wants us to do and in the end saying: what else do you want me to do now? that is what we have to do brothers.

The fundamental attitude of the believer must be one that: we live for God. For me, living is Christ and dying is gain, Paul says, right? We live to serve Him, to advance the interests of His Kingdom, we do not live for ourselves, we are His. What does the Word say, again? "Whether we live or die of the Lord we are." What happens is that we say that and we recite it like a poet reciting a poem to make a girl fall in love, right? but we do not understand what that means in practical terms of life, we belong to the Lord. That means that you belong to God and when you belong to someone it is so that someone can do what they want with you. God has the right to do with us what He wants.

Paul expressed this through his life there in Galatians, let's see, Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, Galatians 2:20 says: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And what now I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." What I now live in the flesh, that is: what I already live now, everything I have, everything I am, my family life, my profession, my work life, I live everything in Him and for Him because He gave himself to me.

And in James chapter 4 in verse 13 the apostle James invites us to live in that mentality of total surrender and total dependence on the Will of God. Santiago there says rhetorically: "Let us go now, those who say: today and tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and we will win, when you do not know what tomorrow will be; because what is your life? It is certainly a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes, instead of which you should say: if the Lord wants we will live and do this or that."

That is why I say that this mentality of surrender, subjection, not expecting anything from God, knowing that you deserve nothing, knowing that you owe everything to God, being willing to serve the Lord, giving to the Lord, doing everything you God willing, advance His Kingdom, that must be your fundamental mentality, that must always be in the back of your head. Everything you do must be based on that recognition. That is the fundamental attitude of a mature believer.

That is why Jesus speaks in this passage that when we have done everything, that we have been perfect in obeying God, we will still be useless servants. Say that word: useless, I am useless before the Kingdom of God, I am worth nothing except what God has assigned me, right?

The Greek; I saw some sisters there, wives who enthusiastically told their husbands: useless (laughs), I don't know why but it seems they were enthusiastic. I don't know what's in the heart, little sister, take care; no, I'm playing (laughs). They took advantage there for a moment. The Lord rebukes the enemy (laughs), I couldn't avoid that cheap joke all to earn a laugh from the brothers.

Useless servants. The word: useless is the word acreioi, acreioi meaning: undeserving of any praise. Useless is that too, the idea is that you do not deserve praise. You did what you had to do, that's your condition. You are an ordinary servant, don't brag about anything ok? We didn't do anything heroic, we just did what we had to do. We do not deserve any gratitude from God.

So we have talked about that hyperbole, right? the Lord uses an exaggerated illustration. But you know what? what Christ is saying between letters, I want to leave him, I'm going to give him a little palette there, I don't want them to leave only with the bitterness of this teaching, right? The beautiful thing is that there is good news for us, you know? That's the starting point, that's the legal condition, but you know what? that God loves us and treats us as His children, He blesses us constantly. Reward us, share with us, hallelujah.

Know what? listen to this. I just told you that we are like slaves, but I am going to tell you something now that will complicate your mind: we are no longer slaves, in a sense, of God. We are adopted children, we are adopted children. We have all the rights of a member of God's family.

Christ says that he will no longer call us servants but will call us what? friends, how beautiful is that Word, right? John chapter 15 verse 14 and 15 says: "You are My friends if you do what I command you." It says: "I will no longer call you servants" listen to me, that's why sometimes the Bible seems like it contradicts itself, right? but what happens is that things in the Kingdom of God are so complex that sometimes they seem contradictory, but they are simply paradoxical; an apparent contradiction.

On the one hand, we are servants, without rights, forced to do everything God wants, deserving nothing, and when we have done everything we deserve nothing, we have no legal rights, we cannot demand anything from God, we cannot be surprised when it happens to us. something that seems to contradict the goodness, mercy, and justice of God, but on the other hand the Lord tells us: "I will no longer call you servants because the servant does not know what his Lord is doing, but I have called you friends, because all the things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you."Glory to the Name of the Lord.

The Bible says that: "Do not be troubled little flock because it has pleased your Father to give you the Kingdom." Glory to the Name of the Lord, God is my Father. God is not my owner so sterile, abusive, ungrateful, God is the image of the merciful father who when the son comes without any rights because he has sinned against Him, he has wasted all his wealth, he deserves to be consigned to eat the carobs of the pigs of the father's house, the father says: dress him in the best dress, put the ring on his finger because my son was dead and is alive, he was lost and has returned home, glory to the Lord. Let's kill the fat lamb and let's celebrate, hallelujah. That is the attitude of my heavenly Father, although I do not deserve it He says: But anyway.

I imagine that throughout his life that prodigal son, every time he saw himself dressed well and enjoying all his father's property, he remembered that once he wasted all his father's money, that once he offended his father saying: give me what belongs to me. You see? the prodigal son comes before his father and says: give me what belongs to me as if nothing belonged to him, right?

That is the thing: that nothing belongs to you and many of us act as if: yes, it belongs to me that God blesses me, that God provides me, that God gives me and also belongs to me the power to decide if I serve God with my treasury, my money or else, no.

I imagine that this young man remembered all his life that he did not deserve anything he had. He had it but he didn't deserve it and I figure he had to be very, very humble before his dad and always do everything he could to thank his dad for being so merciful to him.

How many of us have offended the Lord in so many ways, brothers, huh? Do you believe that we deserve Christ to die for us? Do you believe that we deserve to have the Holy Spirit dwell within us? Do you think you deserve to know that, when you finish this life, an eternal life is waiting for you, with all imaginable spiritual blessings, where there will be no crying, no pain, no sickness? A complete retreat, a premium condo up there in the sky? clothes that will not age? all the comforts, natural air conditioning? Electricity that doesn't cost you a penny to pay for it, wifi, free internet? Travel wherever you want, anywhere in the galaxy, for free? hallelujah, we have everything in the Lord, merciful God.

But knows? the thing is this. Never forget: you deserve nothing and you owe everything to the Lord, but God in His mercy gives you everything and blesses you, and loves you. Glory to God. Having that sense of deep gratitude let's get out of this place. Bow your head this morning, thank that generous God who has blessed you even though he doesn't have to bless you.

Tell him right there in your heart right now: Lord, I don't deserve anything from You. If one day I receive something that I think I don't deserve. If one day trials come into my life, if one day I ask you for something that I ardently long for and you decide not to give it to me, I am not going to accuse you of being unfaithful, I am not going to complain against you, I am not going to reject you, my ardor for You will not diminish. I am going to serve you and I am going to bless you all the days of my life, and I am going to be like that prodigal son whose father forgave him everything and gave him his status as a son even though he did not deserve it, and who probably lived all his life grateful to his father trying to make up, although he was never going to be able to, all the offense and loss he had caused to his father's farm.

And so I will live Lord, so I will serve you all the days of my life, my life is yours Lord Jesus. I will serve you every day and love you every day of my life.