Good morning. Luke chapter 17 verses 11-19 talks to us about Jesus healing a group of leapers. Listen to this amazing story. It says in Luke 17:11-19 that, “1”
Let’s Pray!
As we progress through the week, we come closer and closer to Thanksgiving Day. Now most of us are familiar with the traditional story of Thanksgiving where William Bradford, of Plymouth Rock, proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the survival of the Pilgrims in their 2nd year in the New World, as well as an abundant harvest that they had reaped with the aid of the Indians. However, most people don’t know that the first American Thanksgiving didn’t occur in 1621 with this group of Pilgrims who shared a feast with a group of friendly Indians.
In fact, the first recorded thanksgiving actually took place in Virginia more than 11 years earlier, and it wasn’t a feast. The winter of 1610 at Jamestown had reduced a group of 409 settlers to 60. The survivors prayed for help, without knowing when or how it might come. When help arrived, in the form of a ship filled with food and supplies from England, a prayer meeting was held to give thanks to God. You would think that after seeing so many of their loved ones die due to the hardships of the New World, they would not feel that thankful. However, the opposite was true. They realized that they had much to be thankful for.
I think that sometimes, we ourselves don’t realize how blessed we are, or how thankful we ought to be, until what we have is threatened to be taken away from us. It is good and fitting that as Christians, we ought to celebrate Thanksgiving, for God has certainly been good to every single one of us. Someone once said that gratitude is the source for all other Christian virtues. If that is the case, then perhaps we need to realize that ingratitude may well be the source of all, or at least many of our faults as well. When we begin to take for granted what God has done for us, then we become calloused and filled with pride and then God can no longer use us. For a Christian, every day ought to be a day of thanksgiving.
Here in the passage of scripture that I read this morning, there were 10 lepers who met Jesus and had a life changing encounter with the Lord. When you break this story down to its simplest elements, that describes every Christian. We were outcasts from the Kingdom of God, on our way to certain death, but then we had a life changing encounter with Jesus. We should never forget where the Lord has brought us from, and we should always be thankful to Him for all that He has done in our lives. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 51:1, “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn…” In other words, look at where God has brought you from, remember what God has done for you. Visit again in your mind the place where you first met God and His mercy and His grace. Be thankful that He brought you out of that old way of living that was leading to death, and He brought into a new way of life that leads to eternal life with Him.
Now, as we look to the scripture, the significant thing about these lepers who were healed is that out of the 10, only 1 returned to say thanks. There were 9 others who did not take the time to say thank you. Now, if you would apply this event to the story of humans today, we could say that 9 out of 10 people never really pause to give thanks for what they have. One man named Charles Brown, gave several suggestions as to why the other 9 never returned to give thanks. Keep in mind that these are only suggestions, but they reveal a whole lot about human nature. He says:
· One waited to see if the cure was real.
· One waited to see if it would last.
· One said he would see Jesus later.
· One decided that he had never had leprosy to begin with.
· One said he would have gotten well anyway.
· One gave the glory to the priests.
· One said, “O, well, Jesus didn’t really do anything.”
· One said, “Any rabbi could have done that.”
· And One said, “I was already much improved before I saw Jesus.”
But then there was One guy who returned to give God thanks. I want to share with you this morning several truths from this passage of scripture that I hope will cause us to truly give thanks to God for all that He has done for us. Not only now as we approach Thanksgiving, but in ever day life as well.
First, Notice The Leper’s Condition:
Most of us have heard stories of the horrors of having leprosy in Biblical times. It was a horrible disease to have. Not only was there the pain of the disease itself, but there was also the stigma that went with having the disease.
The Mosaic Law pronounced a leper as being “unclean.” They were not fit to enter into the tabernacle, or later, the Temple to worship. They could no longer live with their families, but the law required them to live outside the city. The Law required that they rip their clothes as a sign of extreme sorrow, that their faces be covered and that they cry out “unclean” when ever anyone came close to them. Their faces were hidden, representing that no form of intimacy could be known to them. In Hebrew tradition, the face was seen as being the most intimate part of the body. You could not truly know someone until you could see their face. When the Jews were commanded to seek the face of God, they were commanded to seek His presence. The same Hebrew word for face, is the same word for presence.
To be a leper meant no intimacy with anyone, no friendship with anyone, you were isolated and a total outcast. Leprosy was regarded as a disease which the Jews thought that it was inflicted for the punishment of some particular sin. This disease, more than any other disease was thought to be a mark of God’s displeasure with a person. If you were a leper, you essentially lost everything, your family, your job, and your money. You truly did lose your way of living.
Note that verse 12 in that passage of scripture describes these lepers as standing “at a distance.” Rabbinic tradition said that they had to stand at least 100 paces from anyone else. They could not even come close to Jesus.
Now, the reason I have spent so much time in describing leprosy this morning is because it is a picture of sin and what Satan wishes to do to every single one of us here today. Eaton’s Bible Dictionary says of this disease: “Leprosy was “the outward and visible sign of the innermost spiritual corruption… in its small beginnings, its gradual spread, its internal disfigurement, its dissolution little by little of the whole body,
of that which corrupts, degrades, and defiles man’s inner nature, and renders him unfit to enter the presence of a pure and holy God.”
I’m not going to equate leprosy with sin, but there are important similarities between them. Like the leper, we too were isolated from true intimacy, like the leper, we too were outcasts from God’s Kingdom, like the leper, we too were in the process of loosing everything to sin, and like the leper, we too were being destroyed by that which was in our bodies, the law of sin and death. So that was the condition of the lepers in this passage, and it is the condition of us when we have sinned.
But Secondly, Notice The Leper’s Cry:
In verse 13, we are told, as Jesus was about to enter into the city, that these lepers, who had to stand at a distance, began to cry out loudly, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
That was all that they could do. No physician could heal them, no medicine could cure them. They were completely helpless before the onslaught of this deadly disease. We like to think that we are sufficient, that we are capable of handling life, but the truth is, we are born helpless into this world, and we are helpless to stand before sin and Satan. We stand condemned by sin and we are totally helpless. Romans 5:6 says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”
Here in this verse, in the Greek origin, it means to be totally helpless. Like these lepers, we were helpless to stop our destruction. All we can do is cry for help from God. These lepers were asking God to have mercy or compassion on them. I believe that these men realized that they were sinners and whatever they had received, they deserved. Yet now they are crying out for mercy, for relief from their torments. They are begging the Lord to have compassion on them, to help them in their time of need.
Their only hope was placed on this man Jesus. Everything had come down to this moment, to this encounter with Jesus. Aren’t you glad that when your only hope is placed on Jesus, He will be more than enough to meet your every need? Jesus had compassion on them and told them to go and present themselves to the priests, as the law commanded. The priest would inspect them and give them a clean bill of health so that they could rejoin their communities and go back to their families once again.
But the question is, “Why did Jesus tell them this? Why didn’t He just say, “be healed”?” Well, I believe that it is because faith is always required of the helpless. Naaman the Syrian had to act on faith in the Old Testament in order to be cleansed. The story of the leper in Matthew chapter 8, who came to Jesus. He confessed his faith and that is why Jesus healed him by just touching him. They went on by faith and as they did, they were healed. They heard the Word of Christ and they believed and they were healed. This was by faith. They were not healed first and then told to go to the priests, they had to act on faith.
And the same is true of us today. We are in need of God to show us some mercy when it comes to the punishment that we deserve for our sins. And God has told us to enter into a relationship with Him through His Son. It is by our faithful actions in following Him that He truly cleanses us from our sins. So we see the leper’s cry out for Jesus to help them, and we realize that we need to do the same.
But the main thing that I want us to look at as we consider being thankful is this last thing.
Finally, Notice One Leper’s Celebration:
We are told that as they began their journey to the priests, they were cleansed or healed. What is significant is that out of the 10, there was only one who reacted differently than the rest. The Bibles says that he saw that he was healed, he turned back and glorified God, and he came to Jesus and gave Him thanks.
So why did this one react differently? Well here is the meat of my message this morning. This is a sermon within a sermon. There are 3 distinctions between him and the other lepers.
First, Note The Awareness Of Gratitude:
The Bible says, “One of them, when he saw that he was healed…” The Bible says that he saw he was healed. Now the others no doubt knew that they were healed, but there was something different here. The Greek word that is used here means “to know, see, or perceive.” You see, he took the time to note that he had been blessed. He realized that something wonderful had just happened to him. He was sensitive to the power of Christ working in his life. His perception had entirely changed.
There is an old Jewish story that illustrates this point. There is a man who goes to the rabbi and complains, “Life is unbearable. There are 9 of us living in one room. What can I do?” The rabbi answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.” The man is in disbelief, but the rabbi insists. “Do as I say and come back in a week.” A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. “We cannot stand it,” he tells the rabbi. “The goat is filthy.” The rabbi then tells him, “Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week.” A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, “Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat -- only the 9 of us.”
Now, the situation was the same as at first, there were still 9 of them living in one room. But now his perception had changed. He realized that he was blessed to begin with.
Do we really perceive the ways that God has blessed us? Not one of us is hungry, not one of us is naked, but most importantly, if you are a Christian, you have been given everything through Jesus. The devil will do his best to keep your mind off the blessings of God. He will constantly tell you how bad you have it, of how everything is wrong in your life. You see, it’s when you begin to realize how much you have in the Lord, that you will truly begin to be thankful, and when you are thankful, your heart will abound with love for the Lord. You will realize that He has graciously given you everything you need and a whole lot more.
But, an unthankful Christian is a defeated Christian for he or she has lost their joy. So one of these lepers had an awareness of gratitude.
Secondly, Note The Priority Of Gratitude:
When he saw that he was healed, he turned around and came back. Now the Lord had given the command to go to the priest but he delayed, he turned around and went back to the Lord. Why didn’t the Lord rebuke him for this? The reason is because this man realized the priority of gratitude and worship.
We have talked before about the importance of worship, of how it is the main thing. God has called His church to give glory to Him above everything else.
Well I believe that this man fully intended to obey what the Lord had told him to do, but he realized that he had a higher calling that must come first. If you don’t give God thanks, it won’t be long until your obedience just becomes a job to do. You lose the meaning of what God is wanting you to do. You become unthankful. It is fitting and proper to give thanks and praise to the Lord for what He has done in your life. So the leper noticed the priority of gratitude and went to thank and praise God first!
And Finally This Morning, Not The Perfection Of Gratitude:
As he drew near to where the Lord was, he glorified God. The Greek word here means that he made the Lord glorious, he manifested the worth of the Lord. He came to Jesus and fell down before Him in perfect submission and gave Him thanks. The Lord asked the question, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” Then note what He told this man, “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.”
Now this was something that the others did not receive. One scholar said that a new power was given to him that day. He had faith, not just to be healed, but many commentaries state that he had the faith to follow Christ. All people are blessed of God, but not all follow Christ. This man’s thankful heart responded in faith and he was perfected as a disciple of the Lord.
So as we close today, and we approach Thanksgiving Day this week, may we always remain thankful to God for everything that we have been blessed with. I would pray and encourage you to not be like the 9 lepers who never returned to thank God. Instead, be like the one leper who knew what had just been done for him and he was thankful enough to express that to God.
Let’s Pray! |
