Increase Our Faith
Luke 17:1-10
Pastor Bob Hiller
10/3/2010
Luke 17:5-6 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" And the Lord said, "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
1. Sin can take our eyes off of _________________ and ______________ our faith.
2. Only the ____________ of ___________ can increase our faith.
3. Faith ____________ God to provide all things, even the _____________ for us to carry out our duty of _________________.
Scripture Readings
Habakkuk 1:1-4;2:1-4
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:1-10
Take It With You!
Here we will offer thoughts and meditations on the message to help us as we contemplate and discuss and wrestle with what we are hearing.
It is also taught [among us] that such faith should yield good fruit and good works and that a person must do such good works as God has commanded for God's sake but not place trust in them as if thereby to earn grace before God. For we receive forgiveness of sin and righteousness through faith in Christ, as Christ himself says [Luke 17:10]: "When you have done all [things]..., say, 'We are worthless slaves.'" The Fathers also taught the same thing. For Ambrose says: "It is determined by God that whoever believes in Christ shall be saved and have forgiveness of sins, not through works but through faith alone without merit.'"
The Augsburg Confession-Article VI. Concerning the New Obedience
[Sanctification] must also be understood as an exclusive act of God. Just as forgiveness is exclusively God's work and every cooperation or conditioning activity on man's part is completely excluded, so regeneration is an energy that comes simply out of Christ's victory and does not require our supplementary efforts...The statements of the New Testament, however, make the gift of sanctification dependant, in the same measure as the forgiveness of sins, on faith in Christ, and commands that the message of deliverance be heard and accepted just as gladly and assuredly as the promise of pardon.
Adolf Koberle, The Quest for Holiness, p. 95
