An Invitation to the Impossible Christian Life: Part One

A Portrait of Faith and Grace

The Bible is full of absolutely impossible commands. Consider Deuteronomy 10:12-13:

“And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”

What does God ask from you? Well, it is plain. Walk in all his ways. Serve him with all your heart and soul. Observe all his laws. That’s it. Got it? Good. Now you better get to work. The Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets are full of these sorts of exhortations. Jesus said it plainly, “If you love me, you will follow my commands.” He wasn’t kidding when he demanded of the rich young ruler, “if you want to be perfect, go sell everything you have and give the proceeds to the poor.” Or when he boldly demands of his followers that they, “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”

We tend to respond in one of three ways in the face of these exhortations. Either you are filled with pharisaical zeal and proud determination to indeed obey the entirety of the Law, or you are forced to cower under the weight of your dark, sinful heart and woeful inability. Or, perhaps you roll up your sleeves and give it the old college try. In any case, you lose. If you start out like a Pharisee, your pride condemns you and sin will find you out. If you simply cower under the weight of sin, well, the commands remain and your sin is ever before you. If you move out with a naïve and innocent zeal to please God with your piety, you will fall short before you can say, “scripture memory”.

Is Jesus just trying to frustrate us? Are these empty commands, considering our utter inability to realize them? Are we or aren’t we to be ‘perfect’?

I think that Luke is trying to answer these questions in Luke 17:1-19. Upon first glance, these verses seem to contain three or four disparate sections. But Luke is not just stringing a few different stories and situations together without any apparent theme or structure, there is method to the madness. Let’s take a look at the first section in Luke 17.

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." (17:1-4)

Verses 1-4 present us with more of these seemingly ‘impossible’ commands. If you cause a little one to sin, it’ll go better for you if you just tie a big stone around your neck and jump into the ocean. Yikes. How about this one? You must forgive your brother, even if it is up to seven times in a day. Who’s going to repent seven times in one day? No one I know. And, even if they did, who is going to actually put up with this? I might forgive someone seven times in a year, or month maybe, but not in one day! Elsewhere Jesus says we are to forgive those who repent (remember, we are to forgive the repentant) even up to 490 times (Matthew 18). I know people, and Jesus knows them a lot better than I do, and this is, quite simply, impossible.

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you. (17:5-6)

It is fitting that the apostles cry out in the next verse with exasperation, “Increase our faith!” They did not say, “You got it, Lord,” or “Sounds reasonable, Jesus.” They are filled with dread at the magnitude of the Lord’s demands. And they rightly understand the only possible route to satisfying them is not via works righteousness or stoic determination. It must be by faith. Remember, ‘without faith it is impossible to please God.” God tells us plainly, but we grow tired of listening, that the Christian life is impossible – without faith. But there is so often something faulty in our view of faith – exemplified by the apostle’s cry. So Jesus responds with two lessons for the apostles.

First, he tells us that in regards to faith, ‘quantity’ is not the issue. Even the smallest pinch of faith (if we are to evaluate faith in such ‘human’ terms) can throw trees into the sea (lots of stuff getting hypothetically thrown into the sea in this chapter.) Jesus seems to be saying that there is a ‘quality’ problem in their faith. Their view of faith is weak because it is rooted in a hope and focus upon the possessor of it and human evaluation of the effects of it. Rather, proper faith is rooted in the giver and source of it, and his evaluation and promises regarding the effects of it. Saving and living faith has its eyes upon God and his promises, not self and its accomplishments. Ephesians 2:8-10 so famously tells us that faith is not from ourselves, “it is a gift from God.” Even our obedience is not ours, it is also a gift of God, which he “prepared in advance for us to do.”

"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 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.'" (17:7-10)

Here Jesus gives us another lesson on faith and obedience. I think the title of this little parable should be, “The service of a servant is nothing spectacular.” A servant should not see his duties as any great shakes. He is, after all, a servant. That is what servants do. A servant cannot expect anything from his master. After a long day the servant cannot demand gifts and grace. He must get supper ready. Jesus says something even more shocking still in these verses. Yes, God’s commands are heavy, but even if we were to accomplish them all, we still merit no grace because of it. It is our duty. We cannot say, “Look God! I obeyed your law!” and expect congratulations. That is our duty. All else is sin. Mere duty and sheer obedience is nothing spectacular, even if it were possible…which it isn’t.

Let me give an example of this sort of thing. Have you ever been at one of those kitschy restaurants where the server mighty actually sit down at your table while taking your order? I’m not a fan of this. I like the distance between waiter and patron. I know this sounds awful. But, this is why I go OUT to eat. I want someone to politely take my order and courteously and efficiently serve my meal. I really don’t want someone sitting down and complaining about their aching feet or how long their shift has been. I want to say, “Hey, this is your job. Quit complaining and get my bloomin’ onion.” But, this is in essence what Jesus is saying in verse 10. Even if we do obey God (which we do not), it is only our duty, and merits none of his favor. The apostle Paul put it this way, “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” (Romans 4:4-5) Grace is the only hope for a servant. The gift of faith, by the sheer grace of God, is the only hope for those facing the impossible Christian life.

Thus far in this passage from Luke we find the unbearable weight of the law and the demands of God. We discover that even our pathetic attempts at obedience and piety is the duty of a slave and does not merit the favor of a son. In part two of this devotional we will discover that, sadly, many choose to live under the weight of sin and slavery to the world and the flesh, rather than in the power and grace of God.