14. Persistence is the Prerequisite: The “Unprofitable” Servant, and The Widow and the Mean Judge (1983)

[music] Welcome to the Dallas Willard Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Willard Heatley. In Luke 17, Jesus instructs his disciples to forgive others, even if someone wrongs them repeatedly and seeks forgiveness seven times within the same day. The disciples seemed a little stunned by this idea, and responded by saying, "Increase our faith!" Jesus then proceeded to share images and stories in Luke 17 and 18 that show us how mighty faith can be. This included three parables, the unprofitable servant, the persistent widow, and the Pharisee and the tax collector. Throughout this session, Dallas emphasizes the importance of being persistent, particularly in the areas of forgiveness, service, prayer, and humility. He reminds us that Jesus said, "Strive to enter at the straight gate," and Paul compared life to running a race or being in a boxing match. All of these things require persistence, and persistence is a prerequisite for a fruitful life in the kingdom of God. So let's join Dallas now in this session he called, "Persistence is the prerequisite." I like to preface my remarks today by just saying this very simple thing to you if you wish saying it as an educator and as someone who has some experience with teaching and with the development of personality, and it is this, very few things, if any, that are worth doing it all are pleasant in their early stages. Very few things that are worth doing it all are pleasant in their early stages. You can almost apply that without any exceptions, Paul. For example, I would venture that if I were to ask how many in this room today took music lessons when they were children. Quite a number, wouldn't say yes, I did. But somehow, it didn't develop because it was unpleasant. Making money is pleasant after you've got a lot of money. But when you haven't got any money, making money is extremely hot. Physical exercise is easy when you're in good shape. But when you're not in good shape, it is torture. Which explains why many of us are not in very good shape. In the early stages, in the early stages. Let me just now repeat to you the general thing I want you to think about and remember, and that is that in the early stages of anything that is really worth doing, we experience great difficulty. That's a part of the human life. It's true when we come to these matters of personality. For example, if you are trying to learn how to be a pleasant conversationalist with people. As a young person, for example. They are tortured by how do you do it? And there's almost no way you can tell them it. I mean, really, I mean, there are things you can say, but the truth of the matter is there isn't much you can tell people about how to do that. They will rely. They will rely. Or how you rely. They will just talk about things that will interest the other person. Well, but how do you do that? And it's torture until they get in. Very difficult. These matters of personality in things of the spirit is the same way. And this is what I want to try to help you understand today. And this is why persistence is the prerequisite. Now, we have a kind of teaching about the grace of God in salvation, which can mislead up here. Because we are taught and that is rightly so. That the grace of God brings salvation. We do not earn it. No matter how hard we might work, we could never deserve it. And in fact, no matter how hard we may work, we can't achieve it. It isn't an achievement. It isn't an earning. That's an important truth, isn't it? That's something we must never forget. But it has left many people with the impression that there is nothing left to do. And that is very unfortunate. Because there is much left to do, Jesus said, "Strive to enter at the straight gate, for straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads us into life and few there be evil times." Strive. Strive is not an easy word. Paul said, "I ponder myself, my body, and keep myself under, that in order that I might, after having preached to others, I myself might not be a castaway." This is Paul. Paul compares the life to running a race. The boxing matches. These are not easy things. I hope I kind of set a picture for you. We are on the one hand saved by the grace of God, but the grace of God is a strenuous matter. It is a strenuous matter. Not like some boring sitcom that you just kind of sleep through. This is a battle. It is a race. It is more like a championship basketball game where everything is down to the wire. Let's look now at the 17th chapter of Luke. In the 17th chapter of Luke, Jesus begins by teaching about something which we have already touched upon. That is the matter of offenses and forgiveness. And you'll find here some words which are suited to this idea that when we walk into the way of Christ, we are entering a race course. One for tough-minded, if you wish hard-nosed people who are in the battle for the Lord and for truth. He begins by observing that offenses are certainly come. Are certainly to come. We will offend others. They will offend us. It's in the nature of life. One of the things that we cannot do is to try to live in order to offend no one. Jesus said, "Cursed be ye, when all men speak well of you." In this world, if everyone speaks well of you, you are in trouble. If everyone speaks well of you, we are bound to offend. And many times we are bound to offend for things which are quite beyond any conscious effort or control that's just who we are. It's just where we are. There's no reason in it. It's just we're brought together with another person and they're, well, I mean, you may be perfectly at home driving down the street and all of the sudden you're in the middle of an audible dialect. It's not a question of intentions. In many of these cases, just a question of "there you are." Now they're mad and you're upset and what's it going to be? And offenses will come. Sometimes it is a matter of punctuation. And now notice in the third verse, "A key to yourself, if thy brother trespass against the rebuke him." Rebuke him. If thy brother trespass against the rebuke him. Now that is a note which is not often heard. And the idea that is often communicated is if your brother trespass against you, just sort of, you know, hump up and go off into the corner. Feel sorry for yourself. Well, you see that this aspect of truthful and faithful rebuke him Here's the. part of the strenuous life in the way of crime. Now, look, this doesn't say, climb right up, is back, and take off his scalp. It's as rebuking. Let him know that he's hurt you. And if he repent, forgive him. If he says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I will make restitution. I didn't forgive him." And we talked about forgiveness now, and remember forgiveness is where you simply say, "This will never arise in our dealing. I will not hold us against you. I will not, and otherwise make you, as we say, "hey for it." Forgiving. And if you trespass against these seven times in a day, forgive him seven times. Forgiving him every time. In a day, note it says, "in a day." Why do you suppose it says that? I think it is because it is dealing with this issue of our thinking well. I mean, if you are forgiven, you shouldn't do it again. You shouldn't do it again. But you see, I want to tie this back into what we were early saying about forgiveness. Forgiveness, the good that is in forgiveness, is in forgiveness of self, nothing the result that comes from it. It is a good thing to forgive. It's a wonderful thing to forgive. You're far better off to forgive. You don't forgive in order to manipulate other people. You forgive because it is good. And if this person is insincere, still, forgive him. Seven times in a day, remember in the parallel process of this which we looked at earlier in the series, Peter said to the Lord, "How many times shall I forgive him?" Seven times, Peter thought, "Well, this is seven times a lot." That's right. And the Lord said, "Seven times, Seventhe and Peter fainted." Passed out. Well, actually, that's sort of what it says in this passage, isn't it? Now, shall forgive him and the Apostles said almost, "You can see them in one voice. Increase our faith, Lord. Seven times, oh, that's too much. I just can't take it seven times. Maybe twice." Not seven times. Seven times. Persistence, the prerequisite of the fruitful life and the kingdom of God in forgiveness. Set yourself to forgive endlessly. And the reason is very simple. You're better off that way than any other way. Forgive. Forgiveness is good. Forgiv it. Drop it and go on. Now, Jesus then in the next verse, following up the point where they say, "Lord, increase our faith." Makes a comment about their faith, which is really a strain on us, I think, sometimes to read, and leads then into an altogether different vision of service of what service is the Lord. They say, "Increase our faith." And Jesus says in verse 6, "If you've had faith as the grain of a mustard seed, you might say unto this mulberry tree or sickle mine tree," as some of your versions say, "Be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted in the sea." And it would obey. Now, this is not one of the themes which I wanted to spend a lot of time on, but I just want to say here that in order to understand these verses, you can hurt yourself with these verses. You can hurt yourself with it, because you can try it, you know, and say, "Well, let's see if I can do that." There are a lot of people that have tried this, but they never told anyone. They were a little ashamed. They didn't work. They've read it and they said, "Well, maybe I have much faith in my God." So they command the mulberry tree to be plucked out, and it just stands there. Well, faith is a matter of knowing how to speak the creative word of God with God. Faith is seeing things to be so which are in the will and vision and purpose of God so that you are joined with God in speaking the creative word. When Paul, in Listera, preached the gospel, a man's faith was brought forward, a crippled man, and he looked at Paul and Paul looked at him and Paul said, "In a loud voice, stand upon thy feet and walk, and leap and walk, praise them." Paul was able to speak a word of faith. I really don't have time to go into this, but I want to put it out for you to think about. Notice here that Jesus doesn't say you will pray. Read the verse again. Look at it. What does it say you will do? You will speak. You will say to Him. As God said, "Let there be light and there was light." Now, this is something I hope that you will consider, and you will notice how a few times Jesus ever prayed for anyone. You ever notice that? How few times? And this is a fruitful line for you to take up and study in your study time, in the Old Testament, the New Testament. See how often there. There's no prayer. People speak. Sometimes there's prayer with speaking. Sometimes there's prayer without action. This runs very deep, and I think that's what we have to say here is simply that Jesus is opening up to us. A vision of the possibilities of life in his kingdom. And he's saying to his followers, "Something like this." He's saying, "Now, they brought up the topic you see of increasing their faith when they were faced with this problem of forgiving seven times in a day." So, increase our faith. But what Jesus is really saying to them is something like this. He's saying to them, "You really don't have any idea of what faith is like when you are boggled by something like forgiving your brother seven times in a day." He's just opening it up to him, saying, "Now, look, I mean, you've really not made a beginning." Now, he tells us one of the most interesting stories in all of his power. A story which opens up to us and all forget it, different approach to the idea of serving God. And this story is intended to help us understand what real faith is like. And real faith is a faith which always goes beyond anything that is commanded. Real faith is a faith which enters into the life of the kingdom of God. Inter's into that life as it were on its own. Not just standing around waiting to be told what to do. That's the picture really that we normally have of religion. As we are sort of standing around waiting to be told what to do. And so we think we're told to forgive seven times in a day. "Oh, I've got to do that. I've got to forgive seven times in a day." Another job have to do. And Jesus opens up something and says, "Look, you really know what faith was about. You wouldn't even think in those terms." Read with me now, verses six through ten. If you had the faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say, "Under the sick of mind, three be thou plucked up by the root and be thou cast in the sea, and it would obey you." But which of you, having a servant, plowing or feeding cattle, will say under him by and by when he comes from the field, go and sit down and have something to eat? What he's doing here is he's taking the rather hard case of the way in which we deal or which they in those days dealt with servants or slaves. And here you have been sitting in the house all day reading Life magazine and watching the TV. And your servant comes in from the field and he's been out there working from sun up and he's hired. And what does the master of the house then say to the servant? Oh, go sit down and have something to eat. Go sit down and rest. Put your feet up. Take a shower and here I'll give you a little refreshment. Well, Jesus says no. That's not the way it works. Verse 8. And we'll not rather say unto him, "Make ready wherewith I may stop." And gird thyself and serve me till I have eaten and drunken and afterwards thou shall eat and drink. Now that was the way the servant was treated. Very hard life. Doth he then thank the servant because he did the things that were commanded him. So now he's asking, after the servant who has been working all day in the field has come in and taken off his old dirty clothes and leaned up and put on his butler's costume and spread the table and brought out the food and stood behind the master, Wally 8, to make sure that every little thing was just right. Does the master turn around and say, "Thank you. You're a wonderful person." No, he doesn't do that. Because he had to stand and command that servant to do it. Doth he thank the servant because he did the things that were commanded him. I troen off. So likewise ye, when you have done all those things which are commanded you, say, "We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do." Now see once again, we often think, well, if you do what your duty is to do, what more is there to be done? Suppose you have a son or a daughter and all that you get out of them is what it is their duty to do. Do you like that? Have a husband or a wife and they are very, very duty-full. And if you tell them to do something, they do it. That's what you want. That's your idea of a family. No, it is. You want someone whose heart is in it. But you want someone even in your workers. You don't want someone who just sort of stands around and waits until you tell them what to do and does what you tell them. You want someone who can identify the interest of the business and do better at it than you're doing. That's what Jesus is saying here. So if our idea of service is just doing what we are told to do, we haven't begun yet to understand what life in the kingdom of God is like. Our faith is not the size of the mustard seed. You see, it's because we don't understand these things, that then back down to these levels of forgiveness and little bitty things like this, we have so much trouble. So you go around in many of the circles of the churches and you have folks who are really struggling with these basic things like forgiveness or honesty, all the various kinds of things which you can read about in the newspapers and see on the soap opera as you see. Why is that? Because they have not risen to this level. If they have risen to the level of life in the kingdom of God, these other things are going to take care of themselves pretty well. That's what we said about possessions. And again, you see, the possessions, the idea of possessions and whether we have them or they have us. That's a very fundamental thing. The idea of whether we have identified the mind of Christ to the point where we are prepared to step forward and do His work without always being told what to do. That's a fundamental thing. And you can sit around and make sure that you never lie or steal. That you walk right strictly in the tin commandments as we ordinarily understand them and never touch this line. You're still below the level of the grain of mustard seed because the grain of mustard seed has a life in it. And that life is unfolding and it is doing something. And so we have to learn to say, I'm an unprofitable servant. I've only done what I was told to do. See, we get concerned about the will of God many times. We think, "Well, what does God want me to do?" The truth of the matter is God is standing there saying, "What do you want to do?" You had a child that when they were 35 years old came around kept saying, "What do you want me to do?" You'd say, "Good night. What do you want to do? What do you want to do?" See? "Grow up." That's what God wants us to do is to grow up. What do we want to do? What do we hear for? Our heart is not revealed towards the Lord just by our all was doing what He tells us. Our heart is revealed towards the Lord when He doesn't tell us to do anything. And we have to choose and we have to decide. That's when we know what we are before God, when we have to decide. See? The Lord didn't make us to be little totes and seeker fans and robots standing around saying, "Lord, what do you want us to do?" No. He called us to be men and women to live in His world, to do something. That's the vision of a colabrer with God, a friend of God. We're called to be His colabrers. That's scriptural language. Second Corinthians, sixth, sixth, colabrers with God. Friends of God, like Abraham, who was said to be the friend of God. Jesus, you remember said to His Apostle, "In John 16, you are my friend." You are partners in the business. Now, what do you want to do? What are you going to do? So now, instead of having to be told, the servant comes in and as a matter of course, simply seeks and does those things which are pleasing and useful to the Master. The Master turns around and says, "Wow, where did this guy come from?" This is something. This person is really identified with my business. Thank you. Thank you. That's a different level of relationship. I'm sure I'm not putting it very well, but I hope that you will get a different idea here about what our life is to be like in the kingdom of God. Now, let's go on to point three. Persistence in prayer. I'm afraid we're not going to have time to finish this up, but the Lord will use it for His purposes as He sees fit. And here we're looking at a story, one of my very favorite stories, about a widow. Now, a widow in those times, a widow was regarded as the most helpless of person. They were the easiest to kick out of the way and do what you wanted. If a woman in those days did not have a man to stick up for her, she was in real trouble. And that is why Jesus takes this case, a widow. And he spake a pair of them under this end that men ought always to pray and not to faint at His not give up, saying there was in a city a judge, which feared not God neither regarded man. This fellow was a rascal. He is not a good judge. That's what Jesus is saying. This guy is tough. He's sort of Kojak sitting up there on the bench, you know. He's a tough person. He doesn't fear God. So what's God to me? He doesn't fear man. He's a rough person. And there was a widow in the city, and she came to say to him saying, "Venge me of mine, adversary. Someone had done something to take away some of her goods, perhaps, or stole some of her land, or who knows what?" And she came to that judge and said, "Correct this matter. Here's me of mine, adversary. Set it right." And he would not for a while, but afterwards he said within him, "So, though I don't fear God, and I don't care anything about man, yet because this widow trouble with me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming." One version says, "She wear me out, right? lest by her continual coming, she wear me out." Now, folks, that is persistence. Okay? That is persistence. And the Lord said, "Here what the unjust judge, what the mean judge, what the unrejudge said, and shall not God avenge his own elect that cry day and night under him, though he bear long within. l tell you that he will avenge them speedily, never the last, when the Son of Man come, shall he find fate on the earth." The Lord is on to something here that he saw in the lives of people. And that is their readiness to give up. He spoke a parable to this in that men ought always to pray and not to think. Here we come upon one of those ironies of human life, that many folk think they've got something better to do than to pray. Isn't that interesting? What is prayer? This talking with God, talking with God. And yet people are very slow to do it. Something happens in your life. It may take you 15, 20 minutes, three days, a year and a half before you pray about. Again, it reveals the smallness of our faith that we don't get around to that which is most important and most fundamental. And when we do get around to it, we just sort of dive on it. We just go in, say the prayer and we're gone. They don't come back for six months. Now, there's a lot of things that we need to understand about prayer. We can't begin to go into all of them. I want simply to open up one thing and ask you to take it and thoughtfully and prayerfully consider it. You see, we think of prayer as going to someone to get them to do something. And there is that element in prayer. Prayer is not just an exercise in talking to ourselves. It isn't a little self-induced therapy of some sort, though it often has that effect. That is not what it is. Prayer is doing business with God. But doing business with God is not just a matter of going to get him to do something. When we pray, we are entering into a working relationship with God. And now at this point I want to go back to some things that I have surfaced earlier in this discussion today, the point namely about speaking with God. See, what you understand that, you see the aspect of doing something with God. Prayer and speaking with God are on a continuum together. They are both ways of doing business with God. Now, when you start to pray for something, you are entering into a very complex relationship. And most people are going to be praying about things that involve them very intimately, because they are going to be praying about members of their family, of their neighborhood, of their church, of their loved ones. They are going to be praying about things of that sort. And whenever you start praying about those kinds of things, especially you have to remember that if the prayer is going to be answered, it is probably going to change you also. Probably going to change you also. You are praying for family. I have watched over the years, for example, many women who would pray for their husbands to be saved. Now, in a relationship like that or a child, a relationship like that, probably that prayer is not going to be answered without you changing very deep. And we think, well, I am saved, and I just want my husband to say, Lord, and so why don't you just do that? Lord says, well, wait a moment. Wait a moment here. Let's look at this whole thing. Or I just want my son or my daughter straightened out, why don't you just do that? And the Lord says, well, wait a moment. Let's look at this whole situation. A business circumstance, a work relationship. All of these are things, which when we begin to pray, we have to be open to changing ourselves. Now, all change is growth. And growth takes time. And if you're not willing to hold that before the Lord in prayer, you're like a person who learns that a plant needs sunshine, and so you set it out for five minutes every morning and put it back in this clock. The plant needs sunshine, all day. Prayer is a way of working together with God to accomplish something jointly. And that's why I have brought this up in this order so that we could have these earlier remarks about the kind of service that we have before the Lord as a part of our understanding of prayer, because prayer is a part of our service before and with the Lord. I guess the one of the things that we have the hardest time understanding once we get a little ways into the prayer life is why it is so hard for us to return to it. You think of the most joyous fellowship you've ever had with your loved ones and ask yourself, would I be slow to return to that? Think of the person you most love and whose company you most delight in and ask yourself, would I be slow to return to that when two young people fall in love? They simply want to be with one another all the time, if we watch a grandparent and a grandchild together. When we see the problem of divorce and children being separated from parents have loved them since the agony of separations. Sweet hour of prayer. Is it sweet? You see, when we begin to get beyond the level of minimal faith and begin to understand what it is like to forgive freely because it is good for us and enter into the work of God beyond anything we're commanded. And we also begin to understand the sweetness of prayer, the joy of the time spent in the presence of the Lord. When we have begun to think that every moment we have to spend the way from it is a loss of time. We're just about to begin to get there. A lot of folks as they grow older don't have anything to do. Wouldn't it be wonderful if as we grew older we could regard that as a progression towards the time when we could pray all of the time? And that put a different light on me. If we understand what prayer is we can see it in that way and we can learn and we can grow into it. We can understand what that is like. We can understand what the Psalmist has to say about the joyous time in the temple of the Lord, time in the presence of God. how he had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God, back to dwell in the tent of righteous. Persistent in prayer. The parable of the widow is, of course, one where that widow probably had to steal herself. Every time she went in to see Old Kojak sitting there on the bench, you see. But when we go into the Lord, we're not going in to someone like that. We're going into someone very different from that. Well, just quickly, let me say, persistent in humility. And I give you the last story for today from the 18th chapter. This follows up on prayer. And there's a very deep connection between humility and prayer because one of the things that keeps us from prayer is the lack of humility, see. When that widow went in there, she didn't go in there proud. She went in, you can bet humble, but she went in. She went in. And if she had been proud, what would she have done? She wouldn't have gone in, right? If she'd been proud, she'd say, I'm not going to take that from that old guy. I mean, he just passes me off if I were nothing, right? She wouldn't have gone in. Humility is one of the main keys to prayer. The reason one of the reasons why we don't pray is because we say, well, we'll just run it on our own. We just take care of it, see. And we don't want to be put in the position of saying, Lord, help me. Now, Jesus told the parable here, which I think I only have just time to read. Verse 9 of Luke 18. And he spake this parable into certain which trusted in themselves. Oh, that's it, you see, no prayer if you trust in yourself. No service, really, if you trust in yourself, no forgiveness, if you trust in yourself, the key is trusting in oneself. And this is, this really is the secret that cuts the hamstring of the persistent effort to go forward in the kingdom of God. He trusted in themselves, and they were righteous and despised others. And he spake this parable unto them. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one of heresy, the other, a publican. Now, the publican you recall was a sort of corrupt politician, political figure. Let's think of it in that way. Sort of an appointee of the Roman government probably, but in any case, he was a corrupt person. And the Pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I think the that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust as altars, or even as this publican. I fast twice in a week. I give chives of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off. Would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me. I tell you, this man went down to his house, justifying rather than the other for everyone that exalted himself shall be a base, and he that humble himself shall be a result. And Jesus goes ahead now to tie into this the teaching about the children and their place as symbols of the attitude for those who enter into the kingdom of heaven. They brought under him little children, little infants that he would touch them, that his disciples saw it and said, Oh, no, don't do that. And Jesus said unto him, suffer little children to come unto me. And forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God. Therely I say unto you, whosoever shall not read see the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter. There he is. And he falls down. He gets up and goes at it again. He learns to talk by persistently babbling. And the great thing that is given to the little child is humble the system and the thing that will later be good pulling. As he grows on, he has to undertake that consciously. It's sort of like in the Christian life. You know, when people are just born again, very awesome, they are marvelously blessed by gracious the system. And we've all known this, I'm sure. But then as we go along, when we fall down, somehow your system is not the pain because it's time for us to get up by ourselves. The persistence had to be undertaken consciously and falsitated. And as we do that, and all of us here are probably at the level where we need to seriously understand this and consider it. Perceive them, and forgive them, and serve them in prayer and humility must be consciously undertaken as our part in receiving the grace of God for a fruitful light in your kingdom. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we commit these words to your service in our mind, help us to grow, to understand we've taken up many things this morning, which we haven't been able to go into very deeply. Your Lord, have your way and cultivate all of our minds that they might grow and help us walk and conform to your image in this world, in Jesus' name. Thanks for joining us. You can learn more from Dallas about this topic and much more by visiting deweller.org. You'll find a wide variety of resources and learning opportunities there, including personal growth resources, small group studies, online courses, retreats and conferences. We also have an 18 month discipleship community called the School of Kingdom Living that you might be interested in. New cohorts begin every October. Find us on your favorite social media channels for thought-provoking quotes throughout the week and visit our Facebook group. Dallas Willard is my homeboy to discuss the things you're learning on your journey with Jesus. This podcast is brought to you by Dallas Willard Ministries and the family of Dallas Willard. Our producer is Tim Williams. Until next time, remember who you are. You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe. [BLANK_AUDIO]