September 28, 2025
Luke 17 Sermon
by Vicar Andrew Ronholt
“Have a little faith!” When was the last time you heard that phrase? Was it the last time the Packers were down in the fourth quarter? Did you say it when someone asked why the piece of Ikea furniture you just got done putting together had 6 leftover screws? People use iterations of the phrase “have faith” all the time. What do they mean by that? Generally, people are using it as a general encouragement, from unimportant to life-altering events. As Christians, we recognize that the word “faith” has a much different meaning for us than the rest of the world. In our Gospel lesson for today, the section hinges entirely on Faith. The worthy savior shows us unworthy servants that faith rooted uproots, and that by faith we can work in service of the worthy savior.
Now if while we read the Gospel this morning, you found yourself thinking “Wow, Jesus is talking about a lot of different things here!” you are correct. Let’s talk about some of these heavy truths Jesus was bringing to the ears of the disciples and to us. Firstly, temptations, trials and troubles were bound to come. It was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when. And that hasn’t changed today. No matter how much you would like to be able to close yourself off from the trials and troubles of life, we all know that’s not possible in this life. And then Jesus charges us to not put stumbling blocks before his dearly loved little ones. That’s a huge responsibility. We get the firm “watch yourselves.” That’s a tall order when we hear in Scripture that the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And then Jesus goes on to reaffirm forgiveness. If someone in our lives sins against us, and they come to us in repentance, we are called to speaks words of forgiveness to them, time and time again? Who has the patience for that Jesus? And then we have this whole mini-parable about the servants and the master that we will get into in a few minutes. Jesus has laid out a laundry list of realities about our world. The disciples have one thing to say: “Increase our faith!” The disciples recognize that this is a huge burden to bear. They recognize that they aren’t going to be able to bear all these things that Jesus has reminded them of. And right there, we can see ourselves easily in the disciples. We experience trials and troubles in life, and we feel like there’s nothing we can do on our own. We’d be correct. On our own we just fall into temptation after temptation. On our own we can do nothing to save ourselves from the pitfalls that are bound to come. We can’t easily find the words of forgiveness easily for those who sin against use. So, we are left with the disciples saying “Jesus we can’t handle all this that you just threw at us. The faith we have is not sufficient. Increase our faith.”
Notice Jesus’s answer. “If you have faith as little as mustard seed” you can uproot a tree and have it throw itself into the sea. And you might be tempted to make the logical conclusion “well, I certainly can’t do that, I must not have even that amount of faith.” But look at what Christ’s really saying there. He’s not saying “You have to look to yourself for the power to move that tree.” He’s saying “Look to the thing you believe in.” And what is the thing we believe in? What is the object of our faith? Well of course, because of the Holy Spirit working faith in our hearts, we recognize the object of our faith is Christ. Can Christ speak to a mulberry tree and uproot it? We’d say “Absolutely!” Can Jesus forgive you when you time and time again sin against him? Absolutely he can and does!
Now we know this truth by faith, which comes from hearing the message about Christ. And we get to see the power of the one who loves us. So then why do we falter? Why are we constantly tripping over those stumbling blocks and falling into sin? Why are we constantly worrying about God’s providence? Well, that’s our old Adam, our old sinful nature trying to make us take our eyes of the promises and comforts we do have by faith, and focus on ourselves. And of course, when we focus on ourselves, we have doubts. These doubts come into our lives at all different times. But do those doubts change the fact that Jesus died to take away your sins? Do the feelings of “I’m not enough for God” change the reality that God declares to you “You are a dearly and beloved child whom I have bought back with his holy precious blood.”, Even that weak faith still clings to the promises of God, and receives life and salvation. It takes hold of the live-giving promises of God.
Think about the words of Ephesians 2 “Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” This gift of God, not from yourselves. This is an important thing we have to remind ourselves of time and time again. Faith rooted in Christ uproots. It allows us to recognize the temptations and troubles in life and yet recognize the life we have to look forward to. It brings us again the assurance that in the blood of Christ, all our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west. The disciples saying “increase our faith” was because they were looking to themselves for that faith, not the object and perfector of their faith. But we can properly pray "Increase our faith," focusing not on ourselves but on the one we trust, the one we have faith in.
And the Lord answers this prayer. He gives us Word and Sacrament to strengthen our faith. If you were holding onto something precious, you would want the muscles you were using to be strong. We want the same for our faith. And God has given us these means of grace so that by his promises, he increases our faith. Sometimes we recognize times of trouble also increase our faith. Something that from a worldly standpoint seems bad can actually serve to focus our eyes on the loving promises of our savior. While comforts in this world are few and fleeting, the comfort of scripture is lasting. That is why we feed our faith and pray that God increase our faith.
Yes faith makes us realize we are unworthy servants, but have a worthy Savior who gave his life to redeem us and win for us eternity. Now, by faith, we recognize that we can operate in service of the worthy savior.
Let’s circle back to that parable that ends our section. It’s pretty straightforward. You wouldn’t expect a worker to expect above and beyond special treatment for doing his job. However, while it’s simple at face value, we recognize the problem we encounter: by our nature, we think we deserve more than we do. Sinful people love the law. They love to think that they can do something to earn eternal reward. It’s as if we are servants who walk into God’s house and say “Well God, I did my work for you today, how about you wait hand and foot on me?” Of course, the ironic thing is not only are we overstepping, but we never did the work God requires anyway. We did not uphold the law. We did not show love perfectly to God and neighbor, but Jesus did, and he promises that in him we are righteous, all our failures forgiven. Trusting in him, we call ourselves unworthy servants--because he did the work for us. So when we do good things and show love to our neighbor, we do not expect to be rewarded. And yet, here’s the twist, we are. And not only that, but we are rewarded so much more greatly than we could ever imagine. Us unworthy servants were first served by Christ. Our reward for what Christ has done, is eternal life. By faith, we recognize the gift that God has given us in all of our various vocations. No matter what your occupation is, your age, your background in life, you have the opportunity to serve God every day. And you have the gift of sharing Jesus with your neighbor. Through this message of salvation, the Holy Spirit can work the miracle of faith in a person’s heart. This miraculous faith can move mountains, not because of anything about the person, but because of how powerful Jesus is, the one who faith trusts. So the next time someone tells you “Have some faith”, you can tell them “I do, and I would love to tell you about my faith, because the author and perfector of it changes peoples lives every day.”