What are you to do when your brother sins? Tell someone else about it? Tell the pastor or elder so that they can deal with his sin? NO! You go and rebuke him for his sin! Further, what do you do when he repents? Continue to hold it against him? Refuse to fellowship with such a sinner? NO! You forgive him. What if he continues to sin? Continue to forgive even his imperfect repentance. Isn't this what God does with us? We sin, He convicts, we repent, He forgives. Then the cycle repeats. What a patient, longsuffering God we have! We must follow His example and be forgiving, even when we see imperfect repentance!
Do you ever get a big head because of all that you do for God? Do ever look at others with contempt who aren't doing what they're supposed to do while you strive to obey God? If so, Jesus' message in 17:7-10 is for you. When you do what you've been commanded to do, you don't get "brownie points." You simply fulfill the obligations of a bondservant of God! We are for too easily impressed with our own performance. We ought to look at ourselves as unworthy servants, even when we've done what we've been commanded to do!
The parable of the persistent widow (18:1-8) argues from the lesser to the greater. If an unjust judge can grant justice to a persistent widow, how much more will a righteous God give justice to His children when they ask Him?!
Are you a Pharisee? Are you puffed up in your self-righteousness externalism? How we need to have the attitude of the tax collector! Humble repentance is what God desires from us, not proud self-righteousness. The ironic thing in this account is that the Pharisee thanks God that he is not like the tax collector when that is exactly what he should be like!
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