Forgiveness, Faith, Service and Gratitude

Luke 17:1-19
by Brian Knitter

Jesus covers a number of topics in just a few short verses: forgiveness, faith, service and gratitude. In a way, these are all interrelated through faith: faith allows us to forgive, and faith calls us into service out of gratitude for what God has already done.

Jesus actually starts out this passage with another reminder that we are all to love our neighbors, which means everyone. We are to forgive them all the time and we are not to cause them to stumble or sin. The disciples responded with: “Lord, increase our faith!” Translated, that’s: We can’t do that! Forgiving all the people all the time is an impossible task!” This is why Jesus then told the disciples that a little faith can go a long way. Jesus was encouraging them.
Jesus then changed direction a bit and reminded the disciples (and us) that this faith also needs action. Once we are believers in Christ, God calls us to be His servants. Furthermore, we are to serve with a humble attitude, not expecting that anything we do will be good enough to earn reward. That would lead to spiritual pride — something that we sometimes are guilty of, because we fail to realize that we are merely doing our jobs as servants — we are doing what is expected of us, not to gain reward.
We also cannot bargain with God. We cannot say: “If I do this, then God will grant me that.” That won’t work. Any good work we do should be in response to what God has already done. Any blessings we receive are the result of grace (God’s love for us despite our sinful nature), and not by our own work.
Jesus then ended this section of scripture with an example of gratitude, or lack thereof. Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one, a Samaritan, came back to thank Jesus. The nine Jews did not. This is not a ding against Jews, but against anyone who claims to know God. It is an example of how we as Christians can sometimes lack the gratitude we should give God because we are constantly under the umbrella of grace. A Born-Again Christian would certainly understand the need to thank God for His favor because he or she has only just experienced grace. We need to live in that Born-Again attitude. We need to be new in Christ every day. We need to act in faith, forgive, and be grateful.