We are Unworthy Servants
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:7-10)
Before we jump into these few verses, we need to look back to the beginning of the chapter to remember who Jesus was talking to here. In Luke 17:1, it says, “And he said to his disciples” so Jesus is talking not to the masses, but his disciples. Today, these are people who are saved and are servants of the Lord.
The Hard Work at Hand
Jesus is talking to His disciples; these are the people who are serving with Him in the hard stuff day in and day out. These are the people who hare hard at work at the plow, who work through the blood, sweat, and tears for their master; and these are those tending the sheep, having a tender heart and care for them while baking under the hot sun each day.
And yet the master doesn’t call in the servant each day to stop working and recline at table with him; not because He hates His servants or doesn’t want them to rest, but because there’s still work to do.
Sometimes our hearts can get discouraged, especially if we had been plowing and then something happens where we can’t for a season. But there’s still work to do, and you are just as valuable whether you’re plowing, tending sheep, preparing supper, etc – because it’s a matter of your heart that what you’re doing is in service to your Master. There’s always something we can do to serve God, and there’s always some way we can do it.
If we take the context of what Jesus had told His disciples in the preceding verses, there is still the work of forgiving people and works of faith to be done. And you may even be physically disabled, but there is always ways for you to serve the Lord. I had a season of being completely physically disabled when I couldn’t walk, talk, and the whole right side of my body was paralyzed, but I was still able to pray in my heart even when my mouth couldn’t talk. I could still offer a one-armed hug to comfort others. And God was still pleased to allow me to serve in those ways.
Charles Spurgeon worded it very well when he said, “If you cannot go out ploughing, you shall go down into the kitchen, and do some cooking; and if you cannot feed the cattle, you shall bring up a dish of food for your Master. This is a change of work for you; but you are to keep on as long as you live.” (Spurgeon)
The Reality of Our Place
Jesus is talking to his disciples who are already serving, He’s not trying to tell them they need to serve, because they already are. Jesus’ goal here is teaching His disciples the proper perspective and attitude in serving. Pride so often becomes intertwined in how we think and it becomes a filter in which we view everything, whether we realize it or not. And Jesus doesn’t want us to have that filter of pride, He desires humble servants, especially in light of the fact that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6) The thing is, pride will have an affect on not only our perspective but on how effective our work is.
Unfortunately, there are many Christians who have an attitude of wanting to be seen as a type of “super Christian” and have a bolstered image before man, not stopping to really understand and acknowledge that the pride of that desire only serves as a broken and marred image before God. The reality of it though, is that we only think we’re better than other people and deserve praise when we look to man instead of Jesus. When we look to Jesus, we are faced with the full reality that He is everything and apart from Him, we are nothing. It’s in that reality of our place that we gain the correct perspective that God wants us to have.
The Attitude of Our Hearts
God desires us to have an attitude of gratitude and a proper perspective that His pleasure comes before our own, and that we serve for His sake and not our own. Sure, we may want to serve in certain areas, but do we take the time to ask God where He wants us serving at any given time or are we serving for our own pleasure, our own desires, and our own goals?
Having a correct perspective and attitude comes from a place of truly understanding the reality of our place – our Master has done far greater things for us than we could ever do for Him. When we let our heads and our hearts align in understanding what the Father did for us in Jesus, our gratitude will overflow into an immense desire to serve Him and not serving for compliments, praise, or our own desires, but out of joy that we have the privilege of being allowed to serve Him at all.
We aren’t meant to be looking for compliments, thanks, or praise for our works here and now anyway. There will come a time when the work is done and we are called to enter into the joy of our master when we will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23) But that time is still yet to come.
While we serve here, looking for compliments, thanks, praise, and self-fulfillment will only serve to distract us and bolster our pride – instead let’s look only to Jesus, with hearts full of gratitude, and tune our ears into the Spirit to hear what God wants us serving in for this current season of our lives.