The context for this exhortation toward unassuming, obligatory service is Jesus’ command to forgive – even the same person seven times in the same day. Because I am forgiven so much and so often, withholding forgiveness or presuming that my forgiving is a big deal is laughable. When I forgive it’s no great shakes – I’m only fulfilling my most basic obligation as a forgiven sinner.

There is a danger in misapplying this verse however, by thinking that God is pleased with service that flows out from a mere fulfillment of duty.

Truly, I have a duty to obey the Lord’s commands. Satisfying His standards is to be expected. My failure to fulfill His requirements is entirely blameworthy. Fulfilling the obligations of a slave, answering fully to all the master’s orders, is but the fitting response of any servant. But, this does not mean that God is satisfied with my mere fulfillment of duty. Such a disinterested obedience is unbecoming a Christian. I believe this passage speaks to everyone – Christian or not. When a non-Christian rebels, rejecting their status as creatures in God’s universe, they are guilty of derivation of duty. If they should obey a command, they have nothing to boast about since obedience is our humblest duty.

Yet, for the Christian disinterested service is not an option. Meditating on the nature of the master in this parable helps me drive home how mere upholding of duties is offensive to God. I rerun this parable inserting three different masters.

Master one: the scoundrel. There are many masters who gain their position through dishonorable, even deceitful means. And such a master, who has no regard for honor and integrity in his dealings – would be even more contemptuous of his slaves. Nevertheless, the slaves of a scoundrel are still slaves – they’ve been bought and so it is their duty to serve their wicked master. Yet they might do so, fully satisfying their duty, with no internal respect and with little regard for the master himself.

Master two: the honorable master. Now I consider an honorable master, one who gained his wealth by working hard. He treats others with proper regard and provides his servants with appropriate accommodation and fair treatment. Such servants must also perform their duties, it is their obligation. Yet I can imagine such slaves being more wholehearted in their service. They might genuinely respect their master, and even strive to do their jobs with distinction.

Master three: the good master. Consider a very wealthy master who uses his wealth to relive those in distress. His occupation is to feed and clothe widows and orphans. His extensive good works are evident to all in his household. He is renowned for altruism and generosity. He consistently gives himself to meeting the needs others. And this master did not buy his slaves off the market. No, he traveled far and wide to find the sorriest, most mistreated and oppressed slaves – belonging to the harshest, most wicked masters. He purchased them for outrageous terms. Having redeemed them from oppressive masters, at high price, he brings them into his home where they serve him by joining in his occupation of blessing others in distress.

What of the mere duty of these slaves? Yes, they are slaves whose duties are just as obligatory as any other. But could such a slave serve such a master with a dispassionate, disinterested duty? Never!

As a Christian, I must fulfill my duty – and not wait for a prize every time I do. Yet I may never merely fulfill my duty as though that is all that is required. My duties must be fulfilled – but they must be fulfilled like a servant of the good master – who being so good, serving Him can hardly be called service at all. No, more like astounding privilege and honor.

Dear Lord – grant me an enthusiasm for serving you that is fitting for one called to so great a master. Forgive me when my attitude and motivation is so much less than it ought to be for one redeemed, rescued and brought into your great kingdom. Set my eyes on the payment you made – demonstrated on the cross, that I might no longer live for myself but for Him who died for me and rose again – joyfully, happily, and thankfully. Amen.

Even as God cursed man in righteous judgment, His was mercy mingled with His verdict. Humanity was judged and cursed because of their failure to obey God’s command. Adam and Eve were ejected from the garden where they had enjoyed fruit that grew from plants and trees that God Himself had planted. The curse took away their abundant provision and forced them to pound dirt and tangle with thorns, through sweat and hard toil, for food. And the curse remains to this very day. Difficult toil and frequent hardships are common occurrences.

The curse is justly deserved. How is it then – how can I account for blessings such as rich soil, profitable work, and pleasant circumstances that often fall upon me? Thorns are common, but so are rich banquets. Thorns are due to my own sin, the ground is cursed because of me; so what causes it to produce good crops? It is all because of God’s mercy. God’s mercy is profoundly poured out upon fallen and sinful man. Our work has been cursed. As a result hard toil often results only in thorns. When I get thorns I am receiving justice. I deserve nothing better than thorns for my toil. Yet so often the ground yields fruitful harvests. Even in His cursing, God’s mercy stands forth.

Living under the curse means that all thorns are well deserved. I cannot justly complain when my toil yields no fruit, or when I am pricked. How much more culpable I become when I add bitterness toward God’s righteous judgment when I experience trials. What’s worse is my guilt if I fail to give profound thanks for the many undeserved blessings God grants in spite of the curse.

If the cursed life contains so much of God’s mercy, how much more is God’s mercy and goodness manifest in the cross! That I often have plates full of good food during my days under the sun is a profound mercy. That He would grant me forgiveness through the death of His own Son is amazing grace indeed. Not only this, but through the cross, God reverses the ultimate effect of the curse’s thorns. He conscripts them as particular means of blessing for my good! God’s blessing of redemption does not just remove the end result of the curse – death, but it also changes the effect of each occasion of hardship. Trials turn to gold. Toil, in the Lord, becomes blessed. Thorns turn my heart to Lord and produce humility which leads me into deeper experiences of His grace. How incomprehensible and vast is the mercy of God! For my sin I at least deserve the enduring effects of the curse; toil and thorns are gentle in view of what I deserve for my sins. But God’s redemption is so thorough that it will not leave even the prick of a thorn unconverted. The common and simple rewards that so frequently correspond to hard work are great demonstrations of God’s mercy. How much more is justification from sin?

Not even painful trials can hurt me for God uses even trials two bless and improve my life. If thorns lose their prick and toil becomes blessed in the Lord, what curse remains toward those who so richly deserve it? None, for my Lord became a curse for me, as He hung on the tree. Now, even as I dwell on the cursed ground of the earth, God turns even thorns and thistles into helpful prods and loving pricks’ that direct my steps toward Christ. The mercy of God triumphs over judgment, to the glory of God and the eternal joy of His people.

Thank you Jesus, for becoming a curse for me so that the curse I deserve is lifted and its effects no longer harm, but help me. Therefore, Lord, use every trial to draw me, and every blessing to remind me of your abundant grace and impossible mercy. Amen.

I live, now, on Crawford Dairy Road. The place lives up to its name. There are fields on either side of my house and tall dear corn growing across the road. Crawford Dairy rolls and gently bends past a farm house and then slips behind the tall North Carolina pines that frame our skyline. In the evening the lightning bugs launch themselves by the hundreds to dance the night away. I am captivated. Yet, as I sit on my porch soaking in this a pastoral place, I consider that the same idyllic scene has been played out for hundreds, even thousands of years. The snapshot is indeed beautiful. Yet as I think about the corn, I remember that it grows there by the sweat of a farmer’s brow. He tills, he sews, he waits, he harvests. Next year he’ll do it again, and the next year, and the next, until he comes to the end of his days. Then his sons will serve of the land as he did and his father did and his father’s father before him. The dance of the lightning bugs flickering above the corn is also futile. For they launch, dance, mate, and die, only for their offspring to do it again.

The book of Ecclesiastes is all about futility. The cycles of life under the sun, when viewed from its generational perspective are called futile, a “striving after the wind.” And so it has been ordained by God that we are all to be subjected to the futility of inevitable corruption and endless toil. This is our allotted portion and so we groan in chorus with all creation. But we are not left without hope.

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes is limited in its range. It does not extend its field of view beyond that which is observable on the earth. It does not consider anything beyond what will happen beyond the grave, except in a faint acknowledgment that something awaits – but we know not what. In this limited context our greatest good in the midst of toil is to enjoy pleasures and partake gladly in what prosperity may result from our work. Ecclesiastes is good medicine. It is an elixir against having too much ambition. But in the end it is merely a suppressant, keeping us from insanity. Toil and reward kindly distract us as we live out the length of our appointed days. Hope for enjoyments is good, but there is a much greater hope.

If our lives only contend with what each toilsome day brings, we groan and eventually, we die. To live for appetites that are never satisfied is a grievous evil, and O, how many of us in groan under our oppressive appetites. For the creation was subjected to futility and so it groans, waiting to be freed from its slavery to corruption.

But above the earth, and beyond Solomon’s wisdom, is heaven. While the site of heaven is obscured to us as we dwell beneath the clouds, there is one who has been sent from there to redeem a people. And though He has returned again to heaven, leaving His adopted people on a subjugated earth, yet He left us with a great gift – the Spirit of adoption. For the creation will be freed from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

The Spirit of adoption bridges the gulf between our earthly days of toil and our eternal inheritance. When eternity breaks into history all common wisdom is displaced. No longer are our lives measured by a number of days under the sun. No longer is joy attached only to earthly blessings. No longer does the oppression of the unrighteous trouble the just. No longer is work merely distraction. The measuring rod of life is no longer a segment with a definite starting point at birth and a definite end point at the grave. Rather it becomes a ray. It has a firm starting point but an infinite length. Along the ray is a point marking death, but that point is no futile end, but rather a glorious transition from sweat to sweet.

And yet, while we sojourn, we groan. Our earthly bodies are still subjected to corruption and we indeed waste away. We toil for our food and yet our stomachs are never satisfied. But even in our groaning we hope. We hope because we have received this blessed Spirit of adoption, and through Him we wait eagerly for our redemption. We have this Spirit of adoption as present and precious possession in the midst of our earthly toil. It is fully ours and we experience its wonderful effects. As our bodies waste away, inwardly we are renewed day by day. While our skin and bones submit to the laws of decay, our spirits are very much alive in righteousness.

And one day, one blessed day, our spiritual adoption will consummate in full adoption as sons. We will inherit our glorified bodies which will never again be ruled by futility. Such is the glory of this inheritance that all creation eagerly waits for its revelation. What a day!

O Lord, grant me perseverance to wait eagerly – in weakness groaning for your revelation in glory. Amen.

Jesus states, “You will all fall away, because it is written….” Peter strenuously objects, as do all the disciples. Nevertheless, as it is written so shall it come to pass. As much as Peter does not like it – and at the moment when he hears it he cannot conceive of it – he will, with all certainty, deny his Lord. It is impossible for it not to happen. It is written – it is in print, the ink has dried. Peter’s refusals and denials do not change the fact. It was ordained by God and recorded in His word. “I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.”

Oh, my soul, be sobered and encouraged. God Himself ordained in writing Jesus’ betrayal by Judas, and His denial by Peter. Yet God’s pre-design of my own sinful failures, betrayals, and denials removes none of my culpability. Nor does it lessen the “punch in the gut” impact of sorrow and shame that comes from my own sin. God can write beforehand that I will be a sinner and that I will sin. He knows and permits every detail of every sin I have ever committed, or will commit. And woe to me when I sin, it is to my awful shame when I dishonor my God.

But be encouraged, O my soul, because God has a superior pre-ordained purpose for permitting my sin – that is Christ, and the blood of His covenant. Those for whom Jesus died have perfect hope that we will be able to stand in the presence of His glory and not be destroyed for our sins. Unlike Judas who was ordained to eternal destruction – rather, like Peter, I have been ordained to repent, be restored, and receive eternal forgiveness. It has pleased our merciful God to lay my sins on Him and cure me of an eternally fatal disease. God’s glory displayed in such mercy is the only way I can understand how God would be willing that sins, such as those that brought Christ to the cross, and mine that dishonor Him daily, should exist. And in my own turning to His mercy, crying out for it in the light of my sinfulness, I discover why God allows, even pre-ordains my sins. If God writes my sins down in a book before they happen, my shame and my disgust of them is no less. Yet in the forgiveness of my sins my self-disgust can turn to Christ’s praise. O Lord, in view of such redemption I see that my terrible sins ultimately exist for your glory as mercy is displayed in and through the blood of Christ.

Lord I do not like the fact that, unless I die quickly, there remain sins that I will commit. Right now I want to cry out like Peter “Never! Even if I have to die with you I will not deny you.” Yet I humbly acknowledge my sin and accept with all the corresponding shame my inclinations toward sin. Keep me, O Lord, and preserve me – make me holy. In your preserving, sanctifying work, help me always confess every sin with sorrow and disgrace – yet also and even more, rejoice that in your mercy you have appointed Christ for my forgiveness and that I have been, and will be, cleansed by his blood. Be glorified in your mercy. In Jesus name. Amen.

Psalms 130:7

Not just redemption – though that would be more than I deserve, but abundant redemption. This redemption is so abundant that it delivers us, and then adds to deliverance an unimaginable inheritance. Lord, I’m so glad that you did not just save me and then leave me to myself, but that you saved me and granted to me a rich inheritance in Christ. Lord please help me to recognize and appreciate those parts of my inheritance that have been given to me now; forgiveness, freedom from sin, power from your Spirit, gifts to serve and glorify your grace, love and fellowship with the saints, promises that ensure that all things will work together for my good, inexpressible joy even in the midst of trials and sorrows, and so much more.

Lord, please help me also to continually have a longing, an aching in my heart, for those parts of my inheritance that are yet to come. Such future treasures that I can’t even imagine them; an undiminished, uncorrupted, and fully enjoyable delight in the presence of Christ and eternal fellowship with you such that will fully satisfy my soul. Lord please rain on me moments of this fellowship, times of such communion (albeit limited because of my current limited capacity to receive and experience such intensity). But as I wait on you, allow me to delight myself in you and feel your presence. I need you and am desperate for you. I wait for you more than the watchman wait for the morning – my soul waits. Come quickly Lord. Revive my heart with joy and power from your Spirit; that you will dwell in my heart by faith and I might be filled to all the measure of the fullness of God. Amen.

“For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” 2 Timothy 2:10

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