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Number seven, I guess I should
have looked at the calendar. I didn't realize that Christmas
has already come upon us here. I'm still living in the past
today. I'm still in November. You know, if I had another message
in here, I probably would just switch over. I'm thinking about
preaching on Thanksgiving. But then I think to myself, you
know, how many of you got leftovers in the refrigerator from Thanksgiving? Still eating on them? Yeah, exactly. We are too. I'm hoping that's
gonna end soon. I'm hoping my wife will be led
to get rid of the leftovers and bring out something new. I like it one day for one day,
but after that, that's all I need. She loves it, but we still get
along. Isn't that amazing how you can
do that? Agree to disagree. In Luke chapter number 17, read
a passage of scripture that talks about, and many times as we look
at this, we do think about thanksgiving and we think about giving thanks
and being thankful. And I think that's okay. We're ought to be thankful year
round. Luke 17, verse number 11, the Bible says, and he came
to pass as he went to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of
Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain
village, there met him 10 men that were lepers and 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 yourself to the priest. And it
came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. In other
words, as soon as they obeyed the Lord, they turned around,
they left, they were cleansed. They were cleansed of their leprosy.
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. Jesus
answered and said, were there not 10 cleansed, but where are
the nine? They are not found that return
to give glory to God, save this stranger. He said unto them,
arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. And this
man, not only was he saved physically, but he was saved spiritually
that day. Let's go to the Lord in prayer,
if we could, and ask the Lord to bless the reading of his word.
Lord, as we come before you today, Lord, today we'd ask that you
would just, you would bless. Lord, we sure do need your help.
Lord, I pray that you would bless your word. May it speak to each
and every heart. Lord, may we be able to see with
understanding what you have for us here this morning in this
passage. Lord, there's so many good things
in here that We need to learn and we need to know about, and
I pray that you'd bless. Lord, use me today. I sure do
want to be used of you. Lord, my voice, my heart, my
mind, I pray that it would all be just an instrument in your
hand that, Lord, you could take it and use it and speak to our
hearts today and help us to learn the message that you have for
us, the lesson, and we sure will be thankful for that, and I pray
that you'd bless now. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. As we look at this passage of
scripture, and no doubt we're familiar with it, we've heard
this before, we've heard and seen this before, if we're not
careful, and if we're not, if we just read the passage and
just look at it for what it says here, sometimes we miss the meaning,
the true meaning of what God is trying to do, and what God
is trying to say to us. You know, not only this passage,
but as you look around, you see these decorations, you see Christmas
trees, you see the manger scene, you know, you see the wise men
over here. Nothing wrong with those things. Those are all good
things and not discounting any of that. You know, this time
of the year, Thanksgiving, Christmas time, it's a blessed time. Because,
you know, a lot of times we get to be with our family, have meals
with our family, spend time with people that maybe we wouldn't
normally spend time with. We give presents, you know, to
people. We are kind to people. We're
thankful for, you know, we look back and reflect on this past
year and we're thankful for that. But you know, can I just say
in all of those things, really the true message behind all of
that is that God loves us. That's the message. Now all of
us, we understand and we know that this book, this Bible that
we hold in our hand is all about God. But sometimes when we read
it, we forget that God, whatever the passage is, whatever's being
said, that God is doing something great and wonderful, whether
we see it or not, whether we realize it or not. Hey, during
Thanksgiving time, when we're thankful, what do we say that
we're thankful for? Well, I mean, most of us, if
we're saved this morning, most of us would say, I'm thankful
that I'm saved this morning. Well, what happened? How did you get saved? Well,
God loved me so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on
the cross for me. I'm thankful that he did that.
And, you know, we ought to never get over that, never get used
to the fact that God saved us. Man, that ought to be something
that we just can't get over. And we ought to tell everybody.
We ought to say it loud. We ought to, every opportunity,
let people know, listen, the Lord saved me, and I'm thankful
for that. Christmas time, we think about
Jesus. Coming to the earth. Now, He
didn't come to earth so we could have another holiday, so we could
have a reason to give gifts to everybody. He came because He
loved us. That's the whole purpose behind
it. That's the whole reasoning behind it. He loved us so much.
God did. He said it like this, For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whosoever
believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Listen,
if we're not careful, like I said, we'll see this passage, we'll
look at this, and we'll see that, hey, there was one man that was
thankful. There were ten or nine that wasn't thankful. And we'll
see that, and that'll take our focus. But folks, look farther
than that. Look deeper than that. God is
doing something. God is doing something great
here, whether, like I said, whether we realize it or not. And so,
my goodness, we were to look at this and see what God is trying
to do. God's doing something great here.
But can I just say for a minute, You know, we just went through
Thanksgiving, and like I said, I'm thankful for Thanksgiving.
I hope y'all are too. We had our Thanksgiving meal
with my wife's parents, her mom, and the family. You know, when
you're the preacher, you're always the one that they ask to say
the blessing. You know, if you're vocal in
your belief, which, by the way, we all should be, I think. So,
I made up my mind a long time ago that if they're going to
ask me, To say the blessing, I'm going to give them just a
little bit more than just the blessing. You know, people are
sitting there ready, they're wanting to eat, and they're ready
to devour the meal, and they're not really wanting to hear a
message, but by the way, hey, shouldn't have asked me if you
didn't want to get the whole thing, right? So before we did, I asked, I
said, is anybody here thankful for something that God has done
in your life or God has done something for you this year?
Well, three or four people said something and most of them said,
I'm thankful for being saved, I'm thankful for the family and
stuff like that. And like I said, I was glad for that. But like
I said, I made up my mind a long time ago, I wanna make sure that
people understand that Thanksgiving is not about just being thankful.
Thanksgiving is about God saving us. And that's the only reason
that we can say that we're thankful. And the only reason that we can
say that, you know, God's working in my life and God's blessed
me in so many ways because he saved me. And I'm thankful for
that. I'm thankful for my wife. I'm thankful for my family. And
God's blessed me in a lot of ways. I'm thankful for this church,
my church family. I look out here and I see all
these people, and I may not be able to call everybody's name,
but most of you's name I could call. And you know what? Whether you consider it or not,
I consider you my friend. that I consider you part of my
family. And you know, not everybody can
say that. Boy, it's such a blessing to be a part of a good Bible-believing
church and have a good church family that you can be a part
of. I'm thankful for that. I tell you, that's one of the
biggest blessings in my life. I believe that. Not other than
being saved, hey, this church family. I'm thankful for that.
I'm thankful I had Christian parents. I grew up in a Christian
home. And they tried to do me right. They took me to church. Didn't
work until later on, but they didn't give up. They took me
to church, they prayed for me, and eventually I got saved. I'm
thankful for that. And I'm thankful for this church.
I tell you, I just can't say enough about this church. I'm
thankful for Pastor Broyhill and the leadership that he has
here at this church. I mean, you think about where,
in the short time that he's been here, where he has brought us
to. God's done something great here.
And I tell you, we got a lot to be thankful for. I'm thankful
for being in the ministry. God saved me, God called me to
preach. I'm thankful for that. And I
don't, like I said, I don't know, I really don't know where I'd
be if God hadn't saved me, God hadn't called me to preach, I
don't have a clue where I'd be. But I'm thankful that he did
all that for me. And listen, by the way, one of
the easiest things in the world that we can do is tell people
what God's done for me, what God's done for us. Listen, if
you never had a soul winning course, don't worry about it.
Just tell people what God did for you. What did God do in your
life? He saved me, you know, and he's
done all these things for me. And I tell you, I am so thankful
for all the things he's done in my life. When we go to Luke
chapter 17 here, We see there's three important lessons that
He has for us here in this passage of Scripture. Verses 1 through
6, He's talking about forgiveness. If someone wrongs you, forgive
them. And you know, that ought to be a lesson that all of us
have learned and all of us should be working on. There shouldn't
be a person in this room that has something against me or I've
got something against you. There shouldn't be anybody like
that. Listen, if you have wronged somebody, forgive them, even
if they don't ask you, even if they don't ask you. Like I said,
there shouldn't be nothing between any of us here in this room.
By the way, we're family, we're friends, and we ought to forgive
one another or to be faithful. Verses seven through 10, it talks
about being faithful and faithful to serve and do it with a good
attitude. And all of us should be faithful in our service to
the Lord. Listen, it ought to be said of all of us. One of
these days, we walk across this stage, like I said about Brother
Don, Don's been faithful for years and years and years. I've
known him for many years, I don't even know how long, and he's
been faithful the whole time. That ought to be said about all
of us. How long have you been saved? Well, you ought to be
faithful in your service. And then he talks about being
thankful, and that's what we want to look at. here this evening,
if we could. Being thankful for what the Lord
has done. You know, unthankfulness, not
being thankful is a sign of self-centeredness. You know, these people in this
passage, these 10 men, nine out of 10 of them thought they were
self, you know, they were self-sufficient. They thought that really they
deserved this, and there was really no need to give thanks
because this is just the way it should have been. They didn't
deserve this disease, but now that they're healed, they didn't
think anything about the one who healed him. Not only that,
but it's a sign of an unrepentant heart. Romans 121 says that because
when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their
foolish heart was darkened. You know, I'm telling you, there's
so much that could be said negative about being unthankful. God wants
us to be thankful, though. Listen, and by the way, it shouldn't
be hard It shouldn't be hard for us to do, once we realize
and once we think about all the good things that God has done
for us. Ephesians 5, verse 20, the Bible
tells us that we're to give thanks for all things, giving thanks
always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we're to give thanks
for everything that comes in our life. Now, I'm just going
to tell you, I know and I realize that's a hard thing to do, because
not everything is what we call good. Not everything that happens
to us, not everything that we go through is a good thing. But
yet the Bible says we're to give thanks for all things, all things,
no matter what it is. Romans 8, 28 says that everything
that happens in our life works together for good. TO THOSE THAT
LOVE GOD, TO THOSE THAT ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE. NOW,
AGAIN, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT'S HARD TO UNDERSTAND. THAT'S SOMETHING
THAT'S DIFFICULT. HOW CAN ALL THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN MY LIFE,
GOOD OR BAD, HOW CAN ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR MY GOOD? FOR MY GOOD. AND I'LL BE HONEST
WITH YOU, I DON'T KNOW THAT WE'LL EVER, ALWAYS UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING
ABOUT THAT. But I tell you what we can do,
and what we can understand, we can always understand that God
loves us, and no matter what's going on in our life, listen,
God is working, God's doing something great in our life. And we see
this passage of scripture right here, and we see these 10 men
that's got leprosy. I'll guarantee you that none
of these ten men were sitting around and shouting and saying,
man, I'm so thankful that I've gotten leprosy and I'm at the
point of death in my life. You know, leprosy in the Bible
always was a sign, it's always a sign or a picture of our condition
before we get saved. These men right here, when they
received the news that they had leprosy, they had to separate
from everybody. They had to go off by their self
and be by their self. They couldn't be around people
because it was something that it was contagious and other people
would get it. And so they had to separate themselves
from their family. from their friends and from society. They were by their self. They
had no hope. And they really didn't have any hope of any cure
whatsoever. There was no cure. And unless
God, by some divine intervention, touched them or forgave them
or whatever it was, they would die with this dreaded disease,
leprosy. And I'm going to tell you, it
was a hard thing for these men to live through. I know that.
It was a difficult time. I think about a story I read
about Matthew Henry. Matthew Henry was a commentator
of the Bible. And most preachers have a set
of his commentaries in their library. But Matthew Henry was
one of the great commentators of the Bible. And he wrote in
his diary something about one day that he was robbed. And here's
what he said, he had been robbed, and he wrote this in his diary,
and he said, let me be thankful. First of all, because I was never
robbed before. Now I'm gonna tell you, you think
about that, you stop and think about it, well, that's something
to be thankful about. I mean, you were robbed one time,
but I hadn't been robbed many times. He was thankful that he
was only been robbed one time so far. Second thing, although
they took my wallet, They did not take my life. I tell you,
again, that's a lot to be thankful for. They can take property. They can take things that we
might count precious or valuable to us. They can take that, but
that can be replaced. But you know, your life can't
be replaced. If you lose your life, then it's over with. Third,
because although they took my all, it was not much. We can
say amen to that right there. Man comes, he's gonna steal my
wallet. He's probably gonna feel sorry
for me and say, well, let me help you out. Let me give you
something. Maybe I could be a blessing to you. But they took his all,
but it wasn't much. And then fourth of all, and I
think this was the best one, it was I who was robbed, not
I who robbed. And you know, I always thought
that story was such an encouragement to think about, that you can
always find something to be thankful for. Listen, God says, we're
to give thanks for all things. Not only that, second thing I
want you to see, it is the will of God to give thanks. 1 Thessalonians
5, verse 18, and everything, give thanks, for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. And you know, as Christians,
were to give thanks to God in every circumstance of life. The fact that God works everything
together for good for those who love him is the basis for this
thought. A thankful heart is usually someone that's humble.
And that's true. These men right here, like I
said, they gave evidence of the fact that they didn't, they just
thought this is the way life should be. They had gotten healed
and they didn't give thanks to the one that healed him. You
know, I think about Some people in the Bible that we read about
that were going through difficult times, and they had very hard
times that they went through, and yet they were able to give
thanks through all of these things. Paul, as a prisoner, many of
the books he wrote, many books of the Bible he wrote were from
a prison cell, and he was chained to two Roman soldiers. He was in a prison, and yet he
gave thanks FOR BEING IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE. AND BY THE WAY,
HE WENT ON TO EXPLAIN HOW THE GOSPEL WENT FURTHER AND WENT
OUT TO MORE PEOPLE THAN IF HE HAD BEEN FREE. HE WAS GLAD THAT
THE LORD HAD BROUGHT HIM TO THE PRISON. AND PUT HIM THERE BECAUSE
THE GOSPEL WAS FREE TO GO THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE WORLD. BY THE WAY,
NOT ONLY THAT, BUT WE'VE GOT PART OF THE SCRIPTURES THAT WE
HAVE HERE, AND THE GOSPEL IS STILL GOING OUT IN THOSE SCRIPTURES
EVEN TODAY. AND SO PAUL WAS GREATLY USED
OF GOD BECAUSE HE WAS IN PRISON. I THINK ABOUT JOB, AND ALL OF
US KNOW THE STORY OF JOB, HOW JOB SUFFERED PROBABLY AS MUCH
AS ANY MAN THAT EVER WALKED THE FACE OF THIS EARTH. And Job had
this to say, Job 1, verse 21, here's what he said. He said,
naked came I out of my mother's womb, And naked I shall return,
thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job, after he lost everything that he had, he said, listen,
the Lord has gave, and the Lord has taken away. And then he gave
the expression, or he gave how we should feel about that. He
said, blessed be the name of the Lord. Listen, the Lord has
given. And we can rejoice in that, we
do rejoice in that. But wait a minute, what about
when the Lord takes away? Can we not rejoice when the Lord
takes away? Well, you say, well, the Lord
has given me these things. And by the way, I'm telling you,
if we don't think that we should be thankful for those things
that the Lord has given us, guess what? You know what that means?
That means that we feel like that was owed to us. And listen,
it is a sin, I believe it's sinful to be unthankful for the things
God has done for us. Listen, he said, the Lord hath
given but the Lord hath taken away. You see, we feel like and
we believe when the Lord gives to us that He loves us. When
the Lord takes away from us, He doesn't love us. But can I
tell you that the Lord loves us just as much when He gives
us something as when He takes something away. May I just go
on to take that a step farther, that maybe He loves us more when
he takes it away than when he gives it to us. You see, when
the Lord takes it away, whether we realize it or not, whether
we want to believe it or not, whether we understand it or not,
God is doing something in our life. You see, these men, these
10 men here, they had leprosy, and I'm telling you, if they
had not interacted with the Lord Jesus Christ, these 10 men would
have died with their leprosy. But you know what? They had leprosy. And because they interacted,
because one day they were walking. By the way, the Bible says He
went to a certain village. You know what that means? That
means He's doing something on purpose here. He came to this
village. Why? Because there's 10 lepers
down there that's getting ready to die if something don't happen. If something don't take place
in their life, these men are not going to survive very much
longer. But because they had leprosy, they were able to encounter
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we say to ourselves, man,
it's terrible that they got leprosy, but wait a minute, it's probably
a good thing that they had leprosy because they were able to come
across the path of Jesus and he was able to change their life.
Can you imagine if they hadn't had leprosy, would they have
ever come across the path of Jesus? I don't know. Would anything
have happened? Would anything have changed in
their life? I don't know, but I do know this, but because they
did have leprosy, because Jesus came to see them one day, guess
what? They had the opportunity to receive
the greatest gift they ever had a chance to receive. Listen,
and I'm not talking about being healed from leprosy. The greatest
thing that happened to these men was the opportunity to trust
Jesus Christ as their Savior. Listen, God loved those men.
God wanted those men to be saved. I believe on purpose He came
to where they were at so they would know how much He loved
them. Listen, can you see Jesus coming
to these folks? Now, folks, we know we're all
on the same page on this. This is God. Jesus is God. He
knows those men are going to be there. He knows exactly what
those men are going to do. He knows that none of them will
care less and not have anything to do with Him. He knows that.
But they cry out and they say, God, have mercy on me. You know what Jesus did immediately?
He said, okay, I'll forgive you. Okay, I'll heal you. I'll answer
your request. I'm gonna do something great
for you. And they didn't realize that the greatest opportunity
was what this one man received. He received life eternal. He received life everlasting.
You see, these men, even though they were healed from leprosy,
eventually they all died. But one man, one man, the Bible
says, you know, when you drink this water, you eat this bread,
you'll never die, you'll never hunger again, you'll never thirst
again. And this one man received the gift of eternal life, and
nine men did. And I'm gonna tell you, folks,
listen, God, no matter the circumstances, we may not, like I said, we may
not understand, we may not realize all the time, listen, I know
this is a hard thing. You think about it, here's somebody
that's sick, here's somebody that's going through the worst
time of their life, and they're facing death, yet one of the
best things that ever happened to them was the thing that they
were going through. because it brought them face
to face with Jesus. You know, I think about, again,
I think about Job. And you know, when Job went through
what he went through, he had a decision he had to make. He
could either believe and trust God that he was doing the right
thing, or he could turn his back on him and become better and
have nothing to do with him. You know, Job, we would have
looked at Job and we'd have said, you know, Job, you would have
been justified to look at God and say, God, you did this because
you hate me. You did this because you don't
care anything about me. We would look at that and most
people would look at that and say, you know what, Job, Job was justified. Look at all the bad things that
happened to him. But you know, all the time, all this that was
going on in his life, the devil had a plan. The devil wanted
to drive Job away from God. He thought if he could get Job
to get his eyes off of God and get him on his circumstances
and get him on all the bad things that's going on in his life,
The devil thought that Job would turn on God and, you know, just
like his wife, why don't you just curse God and die? And you know what? That was not
God's plan at all. You know, in God's plan, he wanted
Job to draw close to Him. Because listen, Job had the right
attitude. Job had the right spirit. He
saw, he believed what God was doing. He didn't understand it.
He didn't know what God was doing, but I'm gonna tell you what,
he said, the Lord hath given, but the Lord has took away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. And all this, the Bible says
that God didn't charge God foolishly. He didn't point his finger at
God and say, God, you did this because you hated me. He realized,
no matter what, that God loved him and God was doing something
great in his life. Now, folks, can I tell you, I
can look back over my life, I can tell you the story, or give you
my testimony of how I can look back and I've seen all these
things that God allowed to come into my life. My daughter had
a disease that we didn't understand, we didn't know anything about,
and she's had to take medicine every day her whole life. And when we got the call, We
thought to ourselves, this is the worst thing in the world
that could happen. But neither one of us was safe. We didn't
know what we were going to do. And so we got that news. I almost lost my job. I thought
I was gonna lose my job. I didn't know if I was gonna
be able to afford to buy anything or do anything to take care of
her. There were so many things that
had happened. My best friend was killed in a car wreck, and
I could just look back and see so many things. Now, when those
things were going on in my life, I thought to myself, you know,
we're on a bad streak. We've just got to run a bad luck
going on here. But once I got saved and once
we got to looking back on it, we could see how God was moving
and He made every move there to get us to the place to where
we had to look to the Lord. You know, folks, listen, I don't
know what you're going through. You may be going through the
worst time of your life, but guess what? Just remember that
God loves you, and He's not doing something to try to drive you
away from Him. He's trying to do something that's
going to bring you close to Him. You see, you have to see and
understand. That if you have the wrong attitude
and you turn your back on God, it's never gonna get better for
you. I'm just telling you, it'll never be better. But when you
get to that place to where you see and realize, listen, no matter
what happens, no matter what takes place, God loves me so
much. So much, listen, I'm telling
you, we think because that's the way we are, we think because
everything is not going right, we think that God doesn't love
us, he doesn't care. But that's, folks, I'm telling
you, that's just not true. God loves you so much. He wants you,
He wants you to come to Him, no matter what. By the way, even
as Christians, once we get saved, God still wants us to come to
Him. He's still doing things in our
life to bring us closer to Him. He says, if you will draw nigh
to me, if you'll come close to me, God says, listen, I'll start
coming to you. All you have to do is make the
move. All you have to do is turn toward Him. He's ready and willing
to accept you and take you just like you are. Folks, listen.
God loves us so much that He allows things to come in our
life that we might be drawn close to Him. Well, folks, can I just
tell you, listen, through all of this, God wants us to be thankful. God expects us to be thankful.
He is looking for people that will love him no matter what.
You know, I believe, like I said, when we look at Job, we see the
example of a man that no matter what happened in his life, he
always looked to God and he said, you know what? God, I trust you
no matter what. And I tell you, folks, listen,
as Christians, that ought to be our attitude, that ought to
be our spirit. If you may be here this morning and you don't
know what it means to trust and believe that Jesus loves you
more than anything. Listen, he died for you on the
cross. He paid for your sins on the cross. Why did he do that?
Because he loves you and he wants you to be close to him. He wants
you to be drawn close to him. And so if you're here this morning
and you're lost, you don't know what it means to be saved. We're
gonna give you an opportunity to come and trust Jesus Christ
as your savior. And we're gonna invite you to
do that. You may be here and you're going through a difficult
time. Why don't you come and ask God to work in your heart. Ask God to help you to see and
understand what's taking place in your life so you'll be able
to see and understand and appreciate the things that's going on and
realize that he's drawing you close to himself. Let's bow our
heads for a prayer. Lord, as we come before you,
Lord, here this morning, we are so grateful and thankful for
you and your blessings. Lord, thank you for the word
of God that we have. Lord, thank you for the examples
that we have in our Bible. that Lord tell us and shows us
and demonstrates to us how much you love us and how much you
care for us. Lord, you're not doing things to us to drive us
away. Lord, you're doing things in
our life to draw us close to you. And Lord, I sure am thankful
for that. And I pray that, Lord, you would
just bless the message. No doubt there's somebody here
this morning that's lost, and Lord, they need to be saved.
I pray that, Lord, you'd give them and work in their heart,
and Lord, help them to see that, Lord, how much you love them.
And you'll take them just like they are if they'll only come
to you. And then, Lord, we'd ask that you'd bless Christians
and help. No doubt there's Christians that are going through difficult
times, and I pray that, Lord, you'd bless them and work in
their hearts and their lives, Lord. And we'll thank you for
what you do. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Being Thankful
Being Thankful | Luke 17:11-19 | Scott Vernon
| Sermon ID | 12124141084994 |
| Duration | 33:42 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Luke 17:11-19 |
| Language | English |
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