Luke 17:7-10 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say to him by and by, when he is come from the field… I. THE UTMOST WE CAN DO IS NO MORE THAN OUR BOUNDEN DUTY. Our creation places us under a debt which our most accurate services can never discharge. Alas! all we do, or all we can suffer in obedience to Him, can bear no proportion to what He has done and suffered for us. And if our best services cannot discount His past favours, much less can we plead them in demand of His future. And therefore whatever farther encouragement He is pleased to annex to our obedience, must be acknowledged as a pure act of grace and bounty. II. AFTER WE HAVE DONE ALL, WE ARE UNPROFITABLE. God is a being infinitely happy in the enjoyment of His own perfections, and needs no foreign assistance to complete His fruitions, No — our observance of His commands, though by His infinite mercy it be a means of advancing our own, is yet no addition to His felicity, which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and consequently our most dutiful performances cannot lay any obligation of debt on our Creator, or presume upon any intrinsic value which His justice or gratitude is bound to reward. III. THE PERFORMANCE ITSELF CANNOT BE INSISTED ON AS AN ACT STRICTLY OUR OWN, BUT MUST BE ASCRIBED TO THE ASSISTANCE OF DIVINE GRACE WORKING IN US; and that all the value of it is derived from the mediation and atonement of Christ. It is His Holy Spirit that kindles devotion in our breast, infuses into us good desires, and enables us to execute our pious resolutions. This single reflection should, methinks, be sufficient to subdue every high and insolent conceit of our own righteousness, that in our best performances to God we give Him but of His own, and that even our inclination and ability to serve Him we receive from Him. To our Redeemer only belongs the merit and glory of our services, and to us nothing but the gratitude and humility of pardoned rebels. (J. Rogers, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? |
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