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Well, this season of the year is really marked by praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. I trust that the last week for you has been especially rich as you've turned your mind towards the Lord's blessings. We had a wonderful time Wednesday night here. I think anybody that was here really would just be full of gratitude, not only for the blessings of the last year, but just the blessing of being able to be in the midst of so much testimony to the Lord. Would you take your Bibles, turn tonight to Luke chapter 17. We're going to consider a passage from the Gospel of Luke that really is quite familiar. And you may have noticed that I've preached anytime recently, just been preaching out of the gospel of Luke, and it really has become a precious portion of scripture for me. And it really is a portion that I'm studying more and more. I'm grateful for some resources to study the book as well, but also grateful for the opportunity tonight to be able to bring God's word to you. And I'm thankful to pastor for allowing me the opportunity to study and prepare and present God's word. Luke chapter 17, we're going to start in verse 11 and read down through verse 19. And it came to pass, as he, Jesus, went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were not there ten cleansed? But where are the nine? They are not found that return to give glory to God, save this stranger? And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. The most popular Christian children's series is produced by Arch Books. I well recall one of those little picture storybooks from my childhood. It was published in 1976, a year before I was born, and it's called, He Remembered to Say Thank You. And it highlights this biblical account. The man's name in the storybook is Hiram, and he's a Samaritan. And it's mostly taken up with the back story of Hiram, the part that's not in scripture. Of course, they make up a good bit. He's dejected. He's left out. He's rejected. He's alone. And it's all because of his leprosy. The climax of the story and of the biblical material occurs only in the final fifth of this little children's book. And there appears to be some confusion about the message of the story in the children's book. There's a note to parents at the end on the back inside flap of the book. And really the message to parents is you ought to emphasize to your children that Jesus really wants us to feel okay about ourselves. And I think that that's really not the message of this passage. But the title comes a lot closer. The title, as I mentioned a moment ago, is He Remembered to Say Thank You. It's a great time of the year to say thank you, isn't it? It's important to say thank you. Don't let someone else be the only one. It's kind of the message of the story that I think we all get, real upfront, easy. We've gotten that since the first time we read it. But I think there's an even more important message here that's attached to that, but goes a good bit deeper. I'd like to propose tonight that there is, in this passage, a real connection between true, genuine faith and thanksgiving. True faith produces thanksgiving. So I've entitled this message, Faith Produced Gratitude. And first, I'd just like us to see this, that many people receive abundant blessings from God. That's really apparent in the first four verses, verses 11 through 14. And God loves everyone, verse 11. Let me just back up in our thoughts a little bit and just set the stage here. Jesus, in Luke's gospel, he is presenting Jesus on a journey, starting at the end of chapter 9. This is his journey to Jerusalem. Repeated throughout this section of the gospel are references to he set his face to go to Jerusalem. He was on a mission towards Jerusalem. He was progressing to the end. So this journey to Jerusalem is a feature of the gospel that's really noted by any commentator. It's not a straight line journey. He really does stray all over the place as he's making this journey, but it is how Luke presents that he set his face to go this direction. And even though Luke reorganizes some material chronologically, there is still this temporal progression. He's getting nearer and nearer to his passion week, the time of his death, his crucifixion. And we read here that he passes through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Literally that means along the border of Samaria and Galilee. So this miracle occurs somewhere right along that border fuzzy land in between these two regions of the promised land. Let me just back out a little bit and give a little geography lesson here just to make sure we're all up to speed. In Palestine, you've got up in the north, Galilee. Down in the south, you've got Judea, formerly known as Judah. And then in between, you've got this place called Samaria. Then you've got over across the Jordan, And somewhat in the Galilee area, this region called Decapolis, and then south of that next to Judea, you've got Perea. And often people would go from Galilee down into Perea and avoid Samaria, and then they'd get to Judea. So they would often travel around that way, and you're very familiar with this, with the account of the woman at the well, where Jesus goes through Samaria to meet this potential convert who comes to him. Same sort of situation here. Jesus is ministering right on that Galilee-Samaria border, and it's a bit questionable in some people's mind. We've also got a little historical background that's important here too. Samaritans were descendants of mixed marriages. Mixed marriages between people that were Babylonian or Syrian and had been imported into the area when the bulk of the Jews were exported or deported out into captivity. The Samaritans weren't pure-blooded Jews. They were half-braids in some people's minds. They had hybrid worship practices as well, part Judaism, part pagan. They had a temple on Mount Gerizim. And they were often known or looked at as a schismatic sort of people. They were divisive. In fact, you know in the account of the woman at the well that she asks about this. She says, where is the right place to worship? in Jerusalem or on our mountains. She's referring to Mount Gerizim. And they viewed these people as distant from covenant promises. They were not to be included among the real Jews. And believe it or not, there's still Samaritans today, descendants of these people, who still claim that they are the real descendants of the promise. They're still divisive. But God loves these people no matter what. And Jesus makes a real point here at the outset, and it's going to continue through the whole account, that it doesn't matter what color your skin is, what ethnicity you have, what your social status is, what your mental status is, what physical abilities you have, what political persuasion you might be, what financial status you have, or what sort of governmental power you have. We can extend all of those from this basic idea that it doesn't matter in God's mind what you're like, you can still come to him. Jesus is ministering right here on the borderland, and he brings in a mixed group. It's not real obvious on the surface of this miracle, but we have in this account some indications that there was only one Samaritan, and all the rest were Jews. You know, we're familiar with John 3, 16, for God so loved who? the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And we're very familiar with Romans 8, 31 and 32, where there is an extended climactic paragraph about the love of our God. If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his son, but delivered him up for whom? Us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? God loves all people. But secondly here, I'd like us to see this, that many people look to God in general for help. They look to him, though they are not his children, but they'll look into him. They don't know him, or they don't know him well. Verse 12 says, as he entered into a certain village, there met him 10 men that were lepers, which stood afar off. And these men kept their distance. They had leprosy. Literally, it's scale disease. And that could refer to one of about 70 different skin diseases. It's not really the Hansen's disease of modern leprosy. Often people were disfigured. People had different limbs or body parts that had really been eaten away. People did not have feeling in many of their extremities. And we find in the Old Testament a really prominent passage about leprosy. I'd like you to turn there. And this ought to be your best place to go in the Bible to learn a little bit about leprosy. It's in Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 13 and chapter 14. These are the two chapters that really give us a view of leprosy in biblical times. And you can see right at the outset of chapter 13, Verse two, when a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought into Aaron the priest or one of the sons of the priests. So the priests had this function of diagnosing and helping to determine whether or not someone really had leprosy. But you can see there, it's a skin disease as it's described in verse two. But I'd really like to focus on just two verses later in the chapter. Chapter 13, verses 45 and 46. This is what happens if you do have leprosy. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent torn, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. Without the camp shall be his habitation. He is not just sick. He doesn't just have a disease. In the Jews' land, he is ceremonially unclean. He is looked on with disdain. And just briefly, if you'd look at chapter 14, I'd just like you to see that in chapter 14 is a whole section of what the priest's function is in cleansing a person from leprosy. It would be very good reading just to see the extent to which somebody with this disease had to go if he was going to be called clean. Now let's go back to Luke chapter 17. When we see that somebody is really shunned like this in society, it reminds me a little bit about what happened in the late 80s and early 90s when a certain disease came to the forefront globally. You know what I'm talking about. It's when AIDS was first really discovered as a disease worldwide. And in the US, we didn't know how it was transmitted entirely. We didn't know all the ways it could be transmitted. And so I remember in those days that there were news stories and there was real precaution taken, not to the extreme that we have like right here now, but we had a lot of precaution being taken. And then you had people really being shunned and they would have to live in a house by themselves. And they were to stay away from other people if they had HIV or AIDS. Very similar thing as we see here. Back in chapter 17 of the Gospel of Luke, we see this, that in verse 14, the cure for this disease is cleansing, not healing. It's called cleansing. And that just reemphasizes that though this was a disease that needed to be cured medically or miraculously, This disease also had with it this stigma and this ceremonially unclean status. So somebody actually needed to be pronounced clean, cleansed. They were dirty, they're filthy. And it really is an object lesson throughout the Old Testament of sin and of judgment. Can you think of anybody in the Old Testament who had leprosy? Maybe you can think of somebody. We have our first example, in most of our minds, ought to be this Syrian man named Naaman, right? And we have Naaman, who the only way he can get cured is from God. So we know that in the Old Testament mind, throughout the biblical era, we've got this idea that's really true and prominent, that you can't get rid of leprosy once you've got it, unless God does a miracle in your life. But we've also got this truth, that it is a judgment. Can you think of anybody else in the Old Testament that got leprosy? Here are three prominent examples. You know Miriam. She was cursed because of her disrespect, and she got leprosy. You know also Uzziah, the king. He was a leper as well, and it was a judgment on him for his sin, his rebellion against the Lord. And think about somebody associated with the story of Naaman. At the end of the story, we've got this man named Gehazi. And Gehazi is stricken with leprosy as well. He's a licentious servant. And he because of his sin as well. It is healable only by God. And we'll also see here in this verse, verse 12, that these men were social outcasts. Jesus came to break down these sorts of walls, geographical walls, national walls, racial walls, and ritual walls. He showed his love to all humans. In verse 13, they lifted up their voices and they said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Now Luke is the only biblical writer to use the particular Greek term that underlies this word master in this verse. Literally it means leader in charge. It's not our typical word that could be equally translated master or Lord. It really is a specific term there, but it's not really an acknowledgement in these men's minds of Jesus as Lord. in a way that they're calling on him for salvation. They're not acknowledging him in that sort of way. They're basically saying, you're the leader of this band. We've got leprosy. We've heard you can do miracles. Please heal us. That sort of thing. They want him to heal them immediately. And you know people that are kind of like this. They want whatever God can give them. But that's about the extent of their relationship with God. They are there to get from God. There are many people who simply want blessings from God, and God gives it to them. God gives them many blessings. They just want, though, what God can give them. Let us see here, God showers blessings on people who don't deserve them. He does give blessings, verse 14. There is a priestly pronouncement that's necessary, and that's a requirement from Leviticus 14 that we just looked at. And so Jesus says, go to the priests to get this pronouncement, and on their way, they are healed. It's unbelievable. Can you imagine? These men, perhaps they look at each other with question marks on their faces, and they're looking at the face of a leper next to him, and they start on their way, and within minutes, they're in the midst of conversation perhaps, and somebody whose nose they've never seen, suddenly it just appears. And there's a set of ears they've never seen there before. And somebody who's been bald for their entire existence as an adult, suddenly a full head of hair just pops right out. Can you imagine it? And you're running along like this, and your feet and your hands have no feeling, you kind of stumble, and suddenly, you can feel warmth in your hands and your feet. And toes and fingers come right back on. They just appear. Can you imagine all this? Eyebrows, eyelashes, they're suddenly right back. And these men must have been ecstatic. Can you imagine the praise, the thanksgiving coming from their lips as they're thinking and celebrating together? But they don't thank the one who gave it to them. You know, I think of a lot of things like this that happen around us in society, and I think, you know, sometimes it even happens in our own homes. You know, some of our kids are saved, and we have this Thanksgiving little ritual that probably many of you have that at some point during the holiday, you list off some Thanksgivings. Some things that you can just thank the Lord for. And so we do this around our table, and we did that several times in the last week. We write them down. And so we go from youngest to oldest, and this year I said, you know, we're going to try this for Vivian. Vivian sits right next to me at the table. So I wear something to keep me clean. I'm thankful for Vivian, but she can make a mess. So I turned to Vivian the first time we did this, and I said, Vivian, are you thankful for anything? And with a little prompting, she said, God, that's great. So a day later I said, Vivian, what are you thankful for today? She said, God and Jesus. So far so good. Then she said, my bacon. I'm thankful for my bacon too. But you know, she really doesn't know God. She's thankful for what God put on her plate. I think there's a lot of people that are just kind of thankful just to get from God. And many people do receive abundant blessings from God. He puts his reign on the just and the unjust. And God really showers us with blessings. And there was a lot of Thanksgiving going up to the Lord this past week. But I think there is a totally different sort of thing that goes on in the heart of a Christian. Albert Schweitzer said this, healing can lead away from salvation when we only want something from God and not God in the something. So point number two tonight, some people receive the blessing of salvation from God. Verses 15 through 19. And this is really basic theology for us. that some people get saved. And that is such a wonderful blessing. Verse 15, one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God. Letter A, some people see truth with the eyes of faith. I don't think it's a little thing in this account that something happens when the man sees what happened. He saw that he was healed. I think we have good reason to believe that there's a lot more going on in here underneath that statement. He doesn't just see parts restored to his body. He doesn't just feel things that he hasn't felt in a long time. He knows that someone healed him. And he sees a lot more than the other nine men see. He wasn't a Jew. Therefore, it's not called cleansing here. It's called healing. He didn't have that ritual uncleanness that the other men did. And only God can heal. It's very apparent here to him. Therefore, he sees not just as healing, but he sees that Jesus is God. And letter B, some people respond appropriately to God's blessings. Verses 15, the second half through verse 18. He turned back and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, were there not 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? Then the next statement really is a question. There are not found or was no one found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger? I think this represents the moment of his salvation. He saw and glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. It echoes something that we read in Psalm 30 verses 10 through 12. Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. Thou has turned for me my mourning into dancing. Thou has put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent. Oh, Lord, my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever. The man is doing this exact thing. He is giving praise and glory to God for the wonderful salvation he's received. And it does say here that he lifted up his voice. It's a loud voice. And this is really neat. The Greek underneath here is megaphones. What does that sound like? He is lifting up a megaphone. Can you picture that? This man is shouting out so everybody can hear loud and clear. God be praised. I am saved. Lord, thank you for saving me, for cleansing me. Charles Spurgeon was sharing the gospel with a very talkative woman one day. She was beginning to understand the good news when she just burst out, if Christ saves me, he will never hear the end of it. She spoke beyond her understanding. The praise about our salvation through Christ will be the eternal activity of all of the redeemed. We are going to join those in heaven, singing this, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. We are going to shout, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. We are going to sing the praises of our God forever and ever. We are going to lift up loud voices. God also wants us to get one really strong point that I've made already, but God doesn't stop making it in these verses. This is a Samaritan, verse 16, an unpredictable salvation. Now the Jews would not have said, that's the one that's going to see with the eyes of faith. in verse 18. He's called a stranger. This is the very term that was written out on the walls of the temple, right outside the wall that separated the court of the Gentiles, the foreigners, from all the other inner courts. Don't go any further if you're one of those. God wants us to understand that he is ready and willing and eager and delights to save people who are foreigners, pagan people who are heathen. He delights to save unlikely people. Who are the unlikely people? We would just stand back and squint and say, really? God might save them? In our culture, that would be your Muslim coworker. Or that might be a rebellious teenage mother. Or that might be an abortion doctor. Or a really left political liberal. Or a homosexual neighbor. Or a transgender young adult. Or a man with a severe mental illness. Or a drug addict. or a criminal in prison, or a homeless man on the street. We look at people like this and we think, well, yes, God could save them, but I think there's a lot more likely people that I would share the gospel with very eagerly. But can you imagine a church full of people like that? all singing praise to God because their chains are broken, because their hearts are cleansed, because they're reconciled with the God that they knew forever would judge them? Now that's a sound of praise that God delights to hear. And wouldn't that be a wonder If all these pews were filled someday with folks that knew again and again, over and over again, they knew what they'd come from, the depths of their sin. God delights to heal, to cleanse, to save people like that. And this man alone gives thanks. Some people receive eternal salvation in letter C. Verse 19, this is the only one that Jesus says this to. He says, arise, go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole. It's really unfortunate that we don't have this translation. Thy faith has saved thee. That's what the Greek means underneath this. It's the very word for salvation, sozo. Only the Samaritan had the eyes of faith. Only the Samaritan received salvation from his sin that day. Many people receive God's blessings, but only a few encounter God in their healing. Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14 says, wide is the gate, And broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Straight, narrow, like the body of water that's called a strait. Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Jesus didn't come primarily to heal people from leprosy. or from issues of blood or any other biological disease. Jesus came to heal us from our disease of sin. How can you, if you're an unbeliever, become one of the few who receive the blessing of salvation? The scripture is really clear about this. It's clear in the Old and New Testament. The Gospel writer, pardon me, the prophet Isaiah wrote in chapter 55 verses 6 and 7, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him. And to our God for he will abundantly pardon. We find in the New Testament a real simple answer to a question. When a jailer in the city of Philippi says, how can I be saved? The apostles say this, call upon the name of the Lord and thou shalt be saved. Believe on the name of the Lord and you shall be saved. I wonder if you are ready, if you haven't yet done so, to turn from your sin and trust the Savior. But I think there's a good question that we as believers ought to ask ourselves as well. Where there's true faith, there ought to be profoundly thankful hearts. And we find this really true throughout the New Testament. You find true faith and thanksgiving connected often. Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. People who have victory through Christ are saved. And they proclaim this, thanks to God. Now, thanks be to God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. And whatsoever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. And it ought to make us ask this question of ourselves. Are we thankful like we ought to be? Does our faith, does our, pardon me, does our thanksgiving, our gratitude demonstrate our faith? And if you ask that question and come up a little short, but you know you're saved, then what do you do? I think it's really important that we ask ourselves this, how can we increase our gratitude as true believers of Christ, people who are saved, but people who don't thank God like we should? I'd like to near close our sermon tonight by just taking off on the little hint that we saw in the middle of the passage about this man's gratitude. At the moment of his salvation, we saw that he saw with the eyes of faith. So I think the hint about our increasing our gratitude as believers ought to take off from that saying we need to fill our sight with truth. And can I give you sort of a five-pronged application here? We ought to look certain directions. We ought to look, first of all, inward. We ought to look first and see, you know, there is something that's true about me. I'm a person who is a sinner. I don't deserve any favor from God. I am wicked. I'm unclean. Still as a believer, a saved sinner, I still wrestle with sin. I still have my flesh. I still give in to temptation. I still struggle. I'm a sinner. And I don't like that. And secondly, we ought to look backward. We ought to look inward, then backward. What's our past like? Our past is full of sin too. Lots of things covered by the blood, but things that we're not proud about, things that we're ashamed of, things that we don't like to recall, we don't like to talk about, but it's helpful for us mentally to think about those things from time to time. But I think it's also really helpful to look backward and to count the blessings that we have found. Look inward. Look backward, but don't stop there. Look upward. You've got a God who loves you deeply. He loves you so much He sent His Son to die for you. And God is your Father. He really loves you like a child. You're His. You're a beloved child of God. You've got a relationship with him that unsaved people just don't know. And when you grasp these three things so far, the inward reality of your sin, the backward reality of, yes, your sin and the blessings you've received, and the upward reality of a God who loves you and has showered blessings on you and is still doing so, then you begin to really give thanks to the Lord. But don't stop there either. Look outward. at the people all around you and look at them in a couple of ways. Look at them as people from whom you have benefited a lot. Now look to your past and all the people that have surrounded you. Look to the upbringing that you had. Look to the family that raised you if you were raised in a Christian home or even an unsaved home where you had parents that cherished you and loved you. Look around you at the people who continue to uphold you and who nudge you closer to the Lord. Look to the people that God has put in your life that make you more like His Son. But look outward also at the people that are needy, the people that don't have what you've received, And look outward like that and note the gratitude that starts to well in your own heart for the blessings you've received. But don't stop there. Yes, look inward, look backward, look upward, look outward, but last, look forward and look forward to the blessings that are due you yet. It's not like they are owed to us at all, but they are coming due someday. And we're gonna have a blessing in heaven. We've got wonderful blessings in this life yet to come. We can bank on this, that our God loves us so much that he's gonna continue to carve away at all of our rough edges, he's gonna continue to shape us, he's gonna continue to make us like his son, and we've got all of this life to enjoy that continuation of his sanctifying work, but it doesn't stop when we die. He is going to glorify us. And we're going to be in heaven forever, surrounded by the saints and with our eyes filled with our Savior. And we get to enjoy that forever. Not a forever of a thousand years only. Not a forever just of a million or a trillion years. A real forever that you can never put an end to. And there are people that won't be there forever. They don't know God. They don't know the saving work of His Son. And they are gonna be in hell forever. And think about us forever in heaven with our lovely, beautiful Savior, worshiping Him forever. We've got wonderful blessings from our Lord. It does take active bringing to our minds these sorts of realities. Fill your mind with truth. You know it's true. You trust God. So bring these realities to mind. Someone wrote, oh man, so oft an ingrate to thy thankless nature true, thy self see in those lepers who did as thou dost do. Nine went their way rejoicing, healed in body, glad in soul, nor once thought of returning thanks to him who made them whole. One only, a Samaritan, a stranger to God's word, felt his joyous panting bosom with gratitude deep stirred, and without delay he hastened in the dust at Jesus' feet to cast himself in worship, in thanksgiving, warm and meet. Let our hearts be increasingly filled with faithful thanksgiving as we progress through the days ahead. Let's bow in prayer. Father, we thank you for blessing us with your Word and all of the ramifications of our salvation. We thank you that not a one of us has to spend eternity in hell outside of our Savior, those of us who know the blessing of our salvation. Lord, please help us to grow. Please help us to grow in ability to see your truth. And please help us this week to know the increase of walk with you and faith in you that we so long for and know and appreciate. Please give us a wonderful week in Jesus' name.
Faith-Produced Gratitude
Identifiant du sermon | 12120195612488 |
Durée | 43:39 |
Date | |
Catégorie | dimanche - après-midi |
Texte biblique | Luc 17:11-19 |
Langue | anglais |
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