Good morning. My name is Josh Book, and I am not a very patient person.  I know, I know, some of you are shocked.  I know that Nellie is probably thinking, “Yes you are, Josh, you’re VERY patient.”

But it’s true.  I have a character flaw that tends to expect fast food to be fast.  I expect that when I go on a diet, I will see immediate results.  And I am the king of quick fixes.  Why take all day to fix something that can be fixed in a few minutes?

I can’t count the number of times that something has gone wrong, and I have decided to fix it myself, rather than call someone else.  Most of the time, that quick fix ends up making the problems worse.

Why should I want to wait for someone else to come and fix something when I could do a quick fix on it myself?  Oh, yeah, I guess that another character flaw of mine is that I am also a cheap skate.  Having someone else come and fix your problems cost money.

But like I said, because of me being cheap, and because I am a very impatient person, I tend to make things much worse and more expensive than they would’ve been if I had
just taken the time to do things right.

Unfortunately, I believe that a lot of us tend to do the same thing when it comes to healing our hurts.

When a cut or a sore starts to heal, we can’t leave it alone.  I know, you shouldn’t pick at the scab, but sometimes we have a hard time just giving it the time it needs to heal.

And though we hate to admit it, we are often no different when it comes to internal hurts, the emotional kind, the kind we’ve been talking about these past few weeks.

Today, we are going to finish our series that has been looking at how to Heal Your Hurts.  Here is what we have looked at so far.

We began this series by studying John 5, and we discovered that step one in the healing process is that we have to admit that we are hurting, and then we need to choose healing over hurt.

In our second week, we looked at John 11, and we discussed the importance of comfort.  During that week, we looked at the necessity of receiving comfort from God and from others as another important step in the healing process.

And then last week, we looked at a parable Jesus told in Matthew chapter 18, and we examined the importance of forgiveness.

Well, this morning is our final installment in this series on Healing Your Hurts.  If you have your Bibles with you, go ahead and turn with me to the book of Luke 17:11.

Beginning at that verse, we are going to take a look at an encounter that Jesus had with hurting people.

So, beginning at Luke 17:11 we are going to consider an extraordinary passage of Scripture that has much to teach us about the final step I want to cover in the process of healing your hurts.

So, if you’ll look with me at Luke 17:11 it says, “Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.”  Now, stop right there for a minute.  I want to make sure that we all understand something here.

Jesus was making a lengthy and dusty journey, on foot, from Galilee to Jerusalem, on a route that lay between Samaria.  Finally, His tired, sandaled feet approached a village where He might be able to rest or eat.  But as He approached the town, His attention was diverted by a group of lepers, 10 of them to be exact, who, because they were lepers, had to stay outside the village in isolation from everyone except other lepers so that they would not infect others with their dreadful skin disease.

Now let’s look at verse 12, “As He was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met Him.  They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!””  Okay, let’s hold up there for a second.

Now here’s something interesting, notice they called out to Him by name, from a distance.  But how did they know this was Jesus?  Luke doesn’t tell us.  It may be that one or more of them had seen Jesus before; or maybe they recognized one of His disciples; or maybe the news of His approach had already reached the village, so when they saw a rabbi surrounded by a group of followers, they just figured it out.

But whatever the answer, when they saw Him, this HEALER they had heard about, this MAN who could work MIRACLES, they lifted themselves onto their decaying feet and
began as best they could to wave their rotting hands, and shouted as loudly as their failing strength allowed, crying out for His attention to their great and horrible need.  They wanted Him to help them as they hurt.

And Jesus, as He had done many times already on this trip to Jerusalem, stopped along the road, because He cared about their pain.  You see, when Jesus stopped and looked at these 10 men who were huddled together outside the city, He saw 10 wretched, forsaken,
miserable men.

Leprosy in that day was a grim and gruesome disease, and though we know much more about the disease now, in those days there was no way to treat it, except to cast the leper totally out of society, away from his home, away from his family, away from his friends, so that his curse would remain his alone, so that no one else would get it because of him.

And so, Jesus knew that their cries were a desperate, fervent cry for help and healing.  And what I want us to do today is take a look at some of the parallels between what happened next in this story, and what must happen in our lives as we try and heal the hurt that we are dealing with.

Assuming that you have hurts like the rest of us, whether they’re of recent or ancient origin, whether they were intentional or unintentional.  Whether they were caused by a parent, or child, a spouse, or boyfriend or  girlfriend, a brother or a sister.  And assuming that you’ve done the things we’ve talked about so far in this series:

•You have admitted that you are hurting, and you are choosing healing over hurt.
•You have experienced the comfort from God and from others.
•And you have began the process of forgiveness.

If all of that is true, then there remain just 3 things that I believe you can do, 3 steps to the true healing of your hurts.  And each of those 3 things are exhibited, and almost hidden in verses 14 and 15 of our passage.  The first part of healing your hurts from this point is to:

1. Move On

Look at what it says in verse 14.  When Jesus saw these 10 lepers, He didn’t go to them, He often did go to lepers, even touching them, but in this case He didn’t even move from the road He was traveling on.  He simply spoke to them.

In verse 14, it simply says, “…He said, “Go…””

Those are the 3 words I want you to focus on.  “…He said, “Go…””  Now, in doing that, He was telling them to go into the city, into the temple, and there present themselves, according to the Law, so that the priests could certify them as having been truly healed.

And I believe that God is saying the same thing to some of us here today.  Those of you who were here when we began this series might remember Jesus’ words to the man
by the Pool of Bethesda, “Get up!  Pick up your mat and walk.”  In other words, “Go.  Leave your hurt behind you and move on.”

If you’ve chosen healing over hurt, experienced comfort for your pain, and by God’s help have been able to forgive whoever hurt you, then its time to move on!

You see, you and I so often choose to stay where it hurts, to go back and dip into the pain again and again, even though God is urging us to “GO, move on, find someplace else to be, something else to do, something new to focus on, someone new to think about.”

So, the first part of healing your huts from this point on is to move on.  But that’s not all.  The second step, also found in verse 14, is:

2. Move On In Patient Faith

Verse 14, just the last sentence, says, “And as they went, they were cleansed.”  You see, Jesus had said to these 10 lepers, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

I can imagine that these men, upon hearing Jesus’ instructions, might have looked at each other with puzzled expressions.  They might have examined their hands, noticing that the flesh was still decaying.  Up to this point, these 10 men had experienced NO change in their condition.  In fact, they hadn’t even felt anything.  Jesus never even touched them, said a prayer, or even waved in their direction.

But, it might have happened that instead of turning away disappointed, one of the lepers decided within himself, “Well, I haven’t felt anything, I don’t seem to be healed, but I will do what the Healer said.”  And so, as he started walking toward the city, the others, who were still standing around with confused looks on their disfigured faces shrugged their shoulders and followed him.

And AS THEY DID SO, a strange thing happened.  Verse 14 says, “… as they went …”  Those are the three words I want you to focus on, “…as they went, they were cleansed.”

You see, the first steps those lepers took were steps of faith.  They hadn’t yet experienced a miracle, but Jesus said “Go,” so they went.

And it’s not hard to imagine that the next steps they took were steps of patience.  Luke doesn’t tell us whether they had taken a few steps or a few hundred steps before any change took place.  But even as they moved on in patient faith, even as they were putting feet to their faith, the Bible says, “… they were cleansed.”

Finding true healing is a process.  Sure, you can find a quick fix for things sometimes, but those quick fixes usually are quick lasting as well.  True healing is a process.  It takes time, and a lot of time for some of us.  And for some kinds of hurts, it takes more time than for others.

But the healing most often happens as you go, just as it did for the 10 lepers.

As a young boy, C. S. Lewis, the author of Mere Christianity and the Chronicles of Narnia, was terrorized by a sadistic teacher in his public school.  For decades after, Lewis carried the burden of hurt around with him, and was bothered by his inability to forgive that teacher’s actions.  But then, not long before he died, Lewis wrote a letter to an American friend.  In that letter, he said these words:

“Do you know, only a few weeks ago I realized suddenly that I had at last forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my childhood.  I’d been trying to do it for years; and like you, each time I thought I’d done it, I found, after a week or so it all had to be attempted over again.  But this time I feel sure it is the real thing.”

“And as they went, they were cleansed.”  Move on in patient faith, believing as you do, that healing will come.

And there’s something else you can believe in.  David Seamands, in his book, Healing for Damaged Emotions, says,
“Not only will God and His grace be with you in every step of the healing process, but God will be pleased with you at every step of the process.  In the Bible the word grace is always woven into the presence of the Giver of grace.  We should never use the word grace as if we were describing some kind of commodity that God dispenses.  Grace means a gracious God coming to you . . . . A loving, gracious God accepts us as we are, offers Himself lovingly to us right here and now, not when we shape up.”

He goes on to say, “God is as pleased with you when you are in this healing process as loving parents are when their child starts learning to walk.  Those are exciting days in a home . . . The child stumbles, knocks over the furniture, may even bend the lamp a bit.  But do the parents scold him, tell him how displeased they are because he isn’t doing a perfect job?  Does Dad shout, “You ought to do better than that, kid”?  Of course not.  God will be pleased with you, every step of the way.”

So, the first step in healing your hurts from this point on is to move on.  The second step is to move on in patient faith.  And the third step, which we’ll draw from verse 15 of our text, is:

3. Move On In Gratitude

Look what happened next, starting at verse 15 it says, “One of them,” that is, one of the ten lepers, “when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him, and he was a Samaritan.”

As the lepers, on their way, looked at their hands and arms and feet, and they realized that they’d been healed, only one stopped in his tracks, turned around, and ran frantically back to the place where Jesus had heard his cry, all the time shouting out hysterical praises to God, until finally, having caught up to Jesus and His party of disciples, he fell in the dust at Jesus’ feet, mixing his tears with the dust of the road, and poured out his gratitude for what Jesus had done for him.

Those are the 3 words, packed with meaning for us today, that I want to emphasize in verse 16.  “…and thanked him.”

1 of the 10, only 1, displayed true gratitude.

Now, I could do a lot of “preaching” on what Jesus says in verses 17-19, but I’ll exercise a little restraint, just a little bit, and I will say that if you would fully experience healing for the hurts that you have, then in addition to moving on, and moving on in patient faith,
you must move on in gratitude as well.

In fact, let me suggest a great starting point, a prescription, a prayer to pray as often as you can, and as often as needed: “Thank you Lord, that you are healing me according to your perfect schedule.”      “Thank you Lord, that you are healing me according to YOUR perfect schedule.”         Can you pray that prayer?  Can you move on in gratitude?

I know, maybe your healing isn’t complete.  The Healing Process may be far from over
in your heart and soul, but can you begin this morning to “Go!”?  To move on, to leave your hurt behind you?

Can you move on in patient faith, believing as you do, that healing will come, believing that a gracious God will be pleased with you every step of the way, even when you stumble, like a proud father watching his child take those exciting steps toward healing and wholeness?

Can you move on in gratitude, can you say, “Thank you Lord, that you are healing me according to your perfect schedule”?  Can you thank Him for the progress you’ve made already?  Can you thank Him for every baby step of forgiveness and healing you take from now on?

I invite you, in the final moments of our time together today.  As we sing our hymn of invitation to reach out to God in prayer, in gratitude, and let His gracious healing power
begin its work in your life.

Let’s Pray!