The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. If you have your Bibles, we are in Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17, picking up in verse 11. This is the reading of God's Word. On the way to Jerusalem, He was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, we're not ten cleansed. Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. This is the reading of God's word. So we are finally through one through 10. That was a hard stretch, wasn't it? It was a hard stretch and I know the Lord is working in me and I trust and I pray that he was working in you. And as we come out of this stretch, we now get to come to a scene that would have taken anyone aback. You would have noticed what was going on here. Jesus now, as he is traveling, and you're going to find this building chorus of Jesus drawing near to Jerusalem, because that is where he intends to go. That's where these plans are going to come to fruition, completion, fulfillment. And so he's drawing near and he's traveling, and as he comes there's a group of lepers a ways off. Now we've talked about lepers before, but just for the sake of making sure that it's fresh in our minds, I want to start first just by considering what it meant to be a leper back then. Leprosy, it's still deadly, but to this day now, we thankfully have means of treating it. But leprosy back then, it's as bad as it gets. It is as bad as it gets. Leprosy is contagious. Leprosy is painful. It's debilitating. Leprosy is the kind of thing that since they had no way of dealing with it, the only thing they could do for a leper is say, we've got to quarantine you. The only thing you do for a leper is tell them, don't come near the healthy people anymore. And so what you have is a disease that's unbeatable, contagious, certain to lead to death, and they can't do anything really about it. And so the life of a leper was a miserable life. It's like one commentator said, it's a living death. Bit by bit, your skin wastes away, ulcers form, you begin to, in fact, lose body parts. It's just an awful existence, and in the midst of all that, the only company you could keep would be with fellow lepers. because you've been cut off. You've been cut off from society because you're too great a danger. And in some sense, you've been cut off from God because back then you could no longer go to the temple. You could no longer go to that place of nearness to the Lord. And so it's truly just a terrible existence to be a leper. So you have to imagine when you're living that kind of life, suffering under that kind of burden, Do you think your ears perk up when you hear that there's a miracle worker traveling the land? You're hearing stories. You're hearing stories about this man who's going around healing diseases, healing maladies that no one thought were healable. You have to imagine when you hear those rumors at first as a leper, you're thinking, oh, I want to see this man. I want to meet this man. And then, then the misery gives birth to this just incredible anticipation when you hear, I heard he's coming this way. The healer is on his way. And so there's this group, there's this group of 10 lepers and you have to imagine they look at each other and they say, we've got to meet him. We have to do whatever it takes to meet this man. This is the only hope for us. If we keep going on this course, every single one of us will simply suffer until we die. We must meet this man. And so their suffering just gives birth to this anticipation, this longing for deliverance from the condition that no one can help them with. Jesus, he comes through this region is described as being between Samaria and Galilee. Jesus is working this kind of zigzag path eventually culminating in Jerusalem. And as he comes near, these 10 lepers are standing at a distance. And this is what the law required. If you are a leper, you cannot go near other people. And so there they are standing a ways off. And how are they going to get his attention? Well, they're going to shout. They're going to yell. They're going to do whatever it takes. And they cry out, have mercy on us. Have mercy. This is the cry of a people who knows that with no help they will die. This is a cry of a people who knows that with no help they will simply suffer until they die. Master, have mercy on us. And what they mean by that, Master, help us. Help us. And so as we come to verse 14, Jesus is gonna do something unexpected. In a sense, it's no surprise because Jesus is often doing things that are unexpected. When they cry out to him in 13, Master, have mercy on us. Jesus says this, go and show yourselves to the priests. That's not exactly what you're going for if you're the leper. What do you want if you're the leper? You want some word of power. You want some hands-on application. Your leprosy is cured, right? Jesus says, go show yourself to the priests. So the priests back in that day, they were sort of like the health inspector. If there was someone who was a leper, the law had given a means by which someone could actually be brought back into society if in fact they had been healed of that deadly disease. The goal was your healing, whatever means it comes by, takes place. And then you go and you present yourself to the priest and he's going to look you over. He's going to look for any of those signs that you are not healed. And if you are, he's sort of going to be the one who certifies it. He'll be the one who says, yes, I can vouch. This person is healthy now. We can take them back into society. They don't need to be cut off anymore. So Jesus, by saying, go to present yourself to the priests, he's telling them to go to the priests as if they had been healed. What's so confusing about this is that they are supposed to go get something certified that had not actually happened yet. You see how that might be difficult? You see how that might be confusing? I mean, imagine you're that leper and you're sitting there thinking, no, no, no, no. I want the healing. I want it now. And Jesus says, go, go show yourself to the priests. You imagine being that leper and just thinking, I don't want to leave. I want to be with a person who everyone says heals people. I want to be with this guy who's my only hope at life. Leaving him without an obvious solution in hand. It wouldn't be easy. And that obvious part is part of the problem too. There's just the problem that this doesn't make sense. Go show yourself to the priest and you can imagine the leper thinking, why? So he can tell me I'm a leper still? Don't you see how that would be confusing? He's like, no, you go to the priest after you've been healed. You don't go to the priest without being healed. And so you can imagine the confusion. The leper is thinking, I don't have my healing. And what he's telling me to do doesn't make all that much sense. But Jesus just says, go. Go. And to their great credit, to the credit of all 10 of them, they believe and they go. At some level, they must be trusting in Jesus's intent to heal them. He's not playing a joke on them. Go to the priest, and then when you get there, he's going to say, you're still a leper, right? It's not a joke to Jesus. They clearly must think he intends to heal them. And even though they don't understand exactly what he's up to, they believed and they went. And as the verse continues, it says, and as they went, they were cleansed in their believing obedience. Jesus worked. It wasn't going on a walk. Walking to the priest didn't heal anything. It was as they believed and obeyed that Jesus healed them. He healed them as they trusted and obeyed. And as they go, this life-consuming trial, this life-threatening disease is solved. It's cured. It's healed. Their greatest trial is ended. Do you imagine a day went by when they didn't pray to God? God, won't you heal me? God, won't you help me? And then as they trust and obey, they go and that prayer is finally answered. Deliverance had come. And so as they go, you just have to picture what that begins to feel like. Because they go, and they're walking, and it doesn't feel any different at first, right? Nothing looks any different at first. But then, as they obey, then as they go, like they're going to go present themselves to that priest, the healing happens, the cleansing happens, and one of them looks down and, I don't know what, catches a glimpse of his hand and says, wait a minute. They stop, they look around, they look at each other, the ulcers that had marked their face, the deterioration of their skin, they're looking around and they're realizing, we're better. We're better. We're healed. He did it. He did it. And can you imagine the celebration that must, must happen then? I mean, it can go any number of ways, right? Bursting out in a song, jumping up and down, dancing, whatever it is. Maybe they had been walking to the priest and then they just take off sprinting because they are so excited. But in that response, there's only one of them that comes back. In all that celebration that must have took place, there is only one of them that comes back. And that one isn't content to just celebrate with his friends. He comes back praising God. Comes back praising God in this loud voice, it says. Intensely praising God. How else would you praise? How else would you praise if your deliverance was so great? If you come back, just praise God, praise God, praise God. People would think something was wrong with you. You are meant in a deliverance like that to come back shouting up a storm. Praise God. He comes back honoring God. And before, don't you remember, he had to stay at a distance. The law required that he stay at a distance. After, do you know what he does? He comes right up to Jesus and falls at his feet. The work of Jesus, it had overcome this uncrossable barrier that the law had placed between him and God, between him and man, and now because of the work of Christ, he can come near a glorious moment A glorious moment. And then, as you are caught up in this moment, as you're reading this account, Luke doing just what Luke likes to do. He says in verse 16, now he was a Samaritan. Now he was a Samaritan. And again, we've talked about Samaritans. Jesus has healed lepers before, and we got to study that. And Jesus has dealt with Samaritans before. Remember that parable of the Good Samaritan? That was in Luke chapter 10. But we always have to remind ourself, you hear Samaritan, you're like, okay, cool. I'm half Chinese, you're Samaritan, great, you know? But it's not like that back then. Jews, Samaritans, they despised each other. And they despised each other in the way that you can only accomplish with history. Generations upon generations of despising one another. They had this ancient cultural divide, one between the other. And for Jewish people, you could insult someone by calling them Samaritan. You Samaritan, right? And you're like, that's fighting language right there. You'd be mad at me if you were a Jew. And I said, you're like a Samaritan, right? So we have this moment where Luke totally, let's be honest, he kind of suckered us in here, right? You're all excited because this glorious deliverance has happened. This guy comes back different from the nine. He's the one who praises God just like he should. And if you're a Jew and you read this, you say, by the way, he was a Samaritan. You're like. He was a Samaritan. Why does it matter that he was a Samaritan? I mean, this is part of this broader theme that is happening in the gospel, showing the extent of God's work. God is good and God is gracious and God intends to save even the despised Samaritans. Jesus had a heart for the outcasts, which is good news because that's why a lot of us are here today. Isn't that right? Jesus had a heart for the outcast. You see it in his gospel. And in Luke, Luke clearly loved that Jesus had a heart for the outcast because it keeps coming up in Luke's gospel. You see the extent of the gospel work. It's going out even to the Samaritans. But there's also this way that pointing out that he's a Samaritan, it kind of magnifies Jesus's work. He's able not just to bring a leper near, he's able to bring a Samaritan leper near. And there's something glorious in that. God doesn't actually just work through the people we expect. There are expected ways that God works, and that primarily ends up being the family structure, right? God has saved so many through faithful parents to faithful kids, but there are so many unexpected ways that God works. There are so many unexpected people that God saves. I mean, you have to take Paul, right? You remember that time when God is using, bringing him around and it's Ananias, right? And he's like, God, don't, this is the guy who's killing us. This is who you want to use? God says, absolutely, this is who I want to use. And that's how he's working to this day. If God can use Paul, if God is saving Samaritans, you know, he's working through us too. There's no person God looks at and says, ah, I don't think I could use that one. There's too far gone. God works in the least expected of people. But the point that he's a Samaritan, it's also going to be really useful for setting up a strong contrast as we keep going in the passage. It says you get to verses 17 and 18. that you get Jesus' big take on all this. So Jesus, presented with this Samaritan who comes back to praise and worship and gratitude, Jesus says, we're not 10 cleansed. Where are the other nine? Where are the other nine? He has these three questions, and they're going to build to his big point. And the first one, it's totally rhetorical, right? We're not 10 cleansed. Do you think Jesus lost count? Guys, I thought there was more than this. Count up for me, right? That's not his point. Where are the other nine? It's not like he's waiting for them to say, they're on the way to the priest where you told them to go. He doesn't need answers to those questions. They are building to his big question. The third question. Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Except this foreigner? Jesus' point is this. All 10 should have come back. All 10 should have come back, not returning. in Jesus's eyes, was ungrateful and inexcusable. Ungrateful and inexcusable. After receiving such a mighty deliverance, their lives have been reclaimed. They have been restored to life, to real, true, good life. After that kind of deliverance from Jesus, they should have come back. They should have praised God. But they didn't. And in this incredible reversal, the Samaritan is the only one who does what is right. Jesus says, was there no one found except this foreigner? And that's a great word. It's a great word because that's the word that would be written on a sign outside the temple to say no foreigners can come in here. You gotta love this. So there was a barrier preventing foreigners from entering into God's presence, into that, that fullness of that, of that religious experience in the temple. And now here we are and the nine won't come near. And the only person who has come near is the foreigner who wasn't even allowed into the temple. Just this foreigner. He's the only one, the one no one would expect to respond correctly, yet he is the only one who comes back and is grateful, is properly grateful. He is the only one who responded correctly. This was a pass-fail test. This wasn't like the other guys got 75% and he got 100. It was pass or fail, and he's the only one who responded correctly. rather than go back to society, rather than return to society so that he can be restored, the Samaritan returns to the Savior who had healed him. And because he returned, he found an even greater blessing. See verse 19, it says this, and Jesus said to him, Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. Now, you are a church that's heard a lot of good preaching, and you're a church that's probably studied this phrase, but I have to remind you, whenever you get this phrase, your faith has made you well, there is always this tantalizing possible second meaning. Because the word for made well is the same word as saved. Your faith has made you well, or is it your faith has saved you? Or is it both? And so we look at this tantalizing, glorious gospel phrase and you ask, what does Jesus mean here? Well, if all it is is your faith has made you well, I'm going to make the case to you that that loses the flow of the passage. If all it is is the guy comes back and he's no longer a leper and Jesus just wants to say, yeah, that was your faith that did that, it loses the whole flow. In this passage and in Jesus's mind, the Samaritan is the role model. The Samaritan is the enormous contrast versus the other nine. And so, if he just comes back and says, oh, by the way, your faith has made you well. Well, you know, the afterthought is, and that's what made the other nine well too, who didn't come back and do what was right. You see how you lose the contrast. Jesus means something bigger for his role model of faithful obedience. Jesus means something much bigger. I think Jesus isn't just saying your faith made you well, your faith healed you of your leprosy. I think Jesus is saying your faith has saved you. Your faith has saved you from the problem that's bigger than your leprosy. Your faith has saved you from the sin that has separated you from your God, your sin that you will answer for on judgment day. Your faith has saved you. Your faith has saved you from judgment. Your faith has reconciled you to God. So now, you can go your way because your faith has not just healed you, Your faith has saved you. There is so much that we are meant to learn from this leper. There's so much. Now, some of the lessons that we could take from this passage, the other nine live out as well, but there is only one. There's only one who models all these lessons. So we're going to focus on the Samaritan leper. Learn from the leper. who cried out in his great need. We don't want to miss one of the most obvious steps here. One of the most obvious ways of thinking here. This leper was suffering the worst disease that you could basically imagine back then. He's cut off from man. He's cut off from God and he is dying and he knows it. And so when a hope was near, He cried out for mercy. He was not going to miss this opportunity. He knew his need. He knew what was going to happen if he did not get help. And so knowing that need, knowing how bad it was, he cried out for help. Master, Jesus, have mercy on me. Is there anything worse than leprosy? You bet there is. We're not talking modern diseases, we're talking the ancient plight of mankind. We're talking about our sin. Do we suffer under our sin? Do we suffer under the guilty conscience that alienates us from God? Do we suffer under the sin that destroys us and destroys other people? And our sin will lead to our eternal death every bit as inevitably as the leper's leprosy was going to lead to his physical death. Do we know our need? Have we done justice to our need? What did the lepers do? They jumped on their opportunity. They would not be denied an audience with the only one who could possibly help them. And so even though they had to stand at a distance, they sought the Lord. Even though no one would have been happy about the group of lepers following the crowd, yelling out at them, they didn't care. They cry out, Master, help us, have mercy upon us. Child of God and those who are not children of God, do justice to your need. Your need is greater than a leper's. My heart breaks on the one hand and my heart is torn up on the other, that there are so many people who know the basics of the gospel. They know about the truth. They know about sin. They know about Jesus Christ, the son of God, who died and was raised on that third day. They know that there is hope for the forgiveness of their sin, if they will trust him, if they will follow him. And you get this incredibly important truth, and you get people who won't do anything with it. You get people who know at some level their need and they know at some level the solution to their need and they don't do anything with it. They go on living normal lives. Blissfully ignorant of like the cosmic acts that is hanging over their head. Friends. Your ignorance will prove eternally fatal if you do not act on the truths you have been given. We learn from the leper and we cry out in our need. We go to the Savior knowing that he could cleanse lepers and therefore we know he can also cleanse souls. If he's able to cleanse the wasted, deteriorated, lacerated, ulcerated skin of the leper, we know that he can actually lift the stains of our souls. And you ask how? How can you wash away these years of guilt, these years of baggage? And it's because he's not going to wash you with mere water, he's going to wash you with his own blood. Our souls are filthier than a leper's skin, but our Savior can cleanse our souls just as well as He could cleanse a leper's skin. And now is the time, just like the lepers had their window to jump on that opportunity, now is the time for us. Now's the time when help is drawn near. Now's the time when hope is drawn near. And so now is the time for you to cry out to your master. He's your master, whether you like it or not. Cry out to your master and say, have mercy on my dying soul. Cleanse my guilty stains. The leper would not be ignored. The leper would not give up. Friends, do not be ignored. Do not give up. Cry out and seek the one who can help you until the day you are assured that he has helped you. Don't let a day pass. Don't keep another appointment without doing justice to this. Seek him until he is found. Seek his truth, seek his grace, seek his cleansing, and believe me, he is delighted to cleanse your soul like he has cleansed so many in this room. Learn from the leper and cry out to the Savior who alone can help you, who alone can meet your greatest needs. Learn from the leper who trusted and obeyed. Learn from the leper who trusted and obeyed. Christ challenged this leper. He challenged all 10 of them He challenged them to see what they really believed, to see what they really thought he was up for, to see the level of their faith. He asked them to trust them for a blessing that they could neither see nor feel in that moment. He said, leave me without any ounce of healing and go present yourself to the priests. Christ called them to obey with the conviction that the blessing was sure to come if they believed and obeyed. Believing obedience was the key for them. And in their believing obedience, that was how Christ blessed them. That was how they took hold of the help that Christ could offer. Like the leper had to trust, you have to trust. They had to believe in a healing that they had not experienced. And that was pretty unusual for a healing miracle, but this is everyday life for a Christian. This is everyday life for a Christian. You think of that very first command, that very first command of salvation, repent and believe. Repent and believe. There's that same discomfort. If you can remember back, child of God, when you first heard that, or maybe you're hearing that for the first time today, and you hear that, and there's that same discomfort. You're saying, my soul is bound for hell. My sins are going to condemn me. And repent and believe is the way that that enormous burden is lifted, that that enormous problem is solved. It doesn't necessarily make sense. It doesn't just say, oh, yeah, of course, that's going to take care of it. He says, repent and believe, and look ahead to a salvation from judgment, a judgment you haven't experienced yet. Jesus says, whatever your discomfort, whatever you don't understand, look at Him, believe, obey, and find the blessing, and find the blessing. Live your life with a confident expectation that the fullness of your salvation awaits you. The same challenge goes for everyday life. You consider the commands like deny yourself, the commands like live for Christ. Because of the work in progress that's going on in us, that does not feel natural all the time. Maybe it feels natural, a minority of the time. It actually, in times when you are presented with, should I do what I want or what Christ wants, it doesn't only feel unnatural, it feels outright wrong. When you're presented with that choice to live for him and die to self, that can feel wrong. But child of God, in the obeying, find the blessing. You take those spiritual disciplines that make up just our daily life, that call to pray, that call to seek the Lord, to seek to grow in your understanding of Him, grow in your relationship with Him, and command to join yourself to a church family like so many of you here have done. And all of these, they can leave us just thinking, really, that's how that works? So you're saying for my soul to be eternally blessed, I should do these things. I should do these unnatural things. These things perhaps I've never done in my life. I've done them before. Maybe they've never benefited me an ounce in my life, but you're saying this is the way to go. This is how I will be blessed in Christ. The Lord says, believe me, obey and find out and find that blessing. Learn from the leper who believed, obeyed, and was blessed. Learn from the leper who returned with grateful praise. Learn from the leper who returned with grateful praise. When the Samaritan leper discovered his healing, he came back. with grateful praise, overflowing with grateful praise. There was no containing that grateful praise that was streaming from his heart and from his mouth. And Jesus makes clear that response was the right one. That response and that alone was the right one. There is no reading this passage and studying this passage and missing that Jesus condemns ingratitude. He condemns it. Nine of the lepers received the same blessing and yet they saw no reason to come back and thank the one who had delivered them. Jesus would say that's not the way it's supposed to be. That's not. Grateful praise is the foundation of the Christian life. Grateful praise. Those who are blessed by God are supposed to draw near to God in gratitude. Those who have been made righteous by the work of Jesus, they are supposed to be fueled by gratitude for that incredible work. Those who have been washed clean, who have had their filthiest sins washed clean, they're meant to have hearts that are now overflowing with praise for their God. And God's work is supposed to fuel the praise of our everyday life. You ask, how do you actually do that? That sounds right, that sounds biblical, but how? How do I actually do that this afternoon? And I'd point you to just a famous phrase, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not any of his benefits. Forget not any of his benefits, or the other side, remember his benefits. One of the biggest spiritual challenges that the people of God are facing and have faced across all time is that we absolutely forget our benefits. We have the worst memory in the world when it comes to our spiritual benefits. Israel was like that, we're like that. We just, I don't know where they go sometimes, but they just flush out of my brain, out of my heart, out of my life. The Lord calls us to remember his benefits. Practically speaking, identify, lay hold of those biggest blessings of our faith and hold them close. Keep them close to your heart. Keep them close to your memory. And if you're a disciple of Christ, that's actually a huge job. That's actually a huge job because the Lord is saying, remember this incredible wealth of things that I have done for you. Child of God, remember your forgiveness. Remember your justification. Remember your adoption. Remember your reconciliation. Remember your redemption. Remember your sanctification. You're already going to struggle with that list right there, but it keeps going. If you just keep going into the benefits, they keep going. Child of God, you've got a spot in the kingdom. You've got a place in the royal family. You have an internal inheritance that cannot be taken from you. You have nearness with God because of the work of Jesus Christ. Is that enough? Let's keep going, huh? Child of God, you have been released from your guilt. You have escaped eternal judgment. Your debts that you never could have paid have been wiped out. Is that enough? You have a new hope. You have a new life. You have a new purpose. You are an ambassador of the king, a holy one of the Lord, a servant of the master. You are rich in Christ. You are pure in Christ. You are beloved in Christ. You have joy, you have peace, you have strength, you have eternal comfort, you have glory to come. You see what I mean? That it's kind of hard to actually get your mind and heart around those. But the Lord calls us to try. Remember those blessings. And you've got this little pea-sized spiritual heart, and you're gonna see over the rest of your life if you can cram the treasure trove of the Lord's blessings in there. It will overload you, overwhelm you, but it will bless you in the most delightful of ways. Remember your blessings. Don't let them just slip out of your life and heart. And once you've remembered them, this isn't just an intellectual thing. Once you've remembered them, sit with them for a minute. This isn't a checklist. You're not trying to see. Yeah, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one. Okay. Now I'm going to go do my thing. Dwell on your benefits. Sit still with your benefits. Think about your benefits. And as you try and put that treasure trove of benefits into your pea-sized heart, do you know what that makes you want to do? Praise. Praise. As you consider those benefits, as you consider how deep they go, as you consider how rich you are in the Lord, and you really try and do justice to that, the reaction's natural. You don't have to fake it. When you reflect on those treasures, on those mighty works of salvation, grateful praise is what comes out. Grateful praise. Make your blessings a way of life. Let them always be sort of hanging over your days, interpreting your days. Let your blessings be your worldview on life. Let no event, let no thought go through your heart or your life without you thinking, how does this relate to my incredible blessings of the Lord? Remember your blessings. Consider how great a rescue you have received. Consider how great a forgiveness you have received. Consider this incredible hope you have. Consider how great your God is. Consider that that great God, the King of all creation, has set his eternal love on you specifically, on you individually. And as you do so, The gratitude is going to well up in your heart. The gratitude is going to well up and your heart won't be able to contain it. It's going to overflow and I encourage you, let it overflow. Let that grateful praise infiltrate your entire life. Let your gratitude spill over into your words. Let it spill over into your relationships. Let it spill over into your actions. Learn from the leper. who returned with grateful praise. And lastly, learn from the leper who found the greater blessing. Learn from the leper who found the greater blessing. When the lepers found that they were healed, every single one of them had received a life-changing blessing in full. But the Samaritan, he wasn't going to be satisfied with just a life changing blessing. He wasn't going to be satisfied with simply a gift. He wanted the gift giver too. He wasn't content to walk away with his blessed gift. He wanted to come back for the gift giver himself. When the leper goes back for Jesus, he doesn't just find a healer. He found a savior. He found a savior. And by faith, he took hold of a better blessing. By faith, he took hold of a better blessing. This actually helps us to understand what was so wrong about the nine never coming back. On the one hand, yes, it was ungrateful and that was wrong. But the other side of it is this. There was something way better waiting if they would have come back. If they had not contented themselves with simply their healing, they could have come back and found a savior. They could have had more than worldly salvation. They could have had eternal salvation. We learn from the Samaritan leper not to settle for worldly blessings. Blessings they are, but don't settle for just worldly ones. The Samaritan could have run back to society, but he chose fellowship in Christ. The Samaritan could have lived for himself. Instead, he came back and threw himself down at the feet of his savior. And every sacrifice that he made to come back to Christ, it was the right choice. And every choice that put Christ first was the best choice. Every single one. So you, child of God, whether you are tempted to sin or you are tempted to settle, Christ wants you to see that there is always a better blessing in him. guaranteed every single time. There's not a single blessing that you can find in this world that's going to hold a candle to what Christ offers you in himself. Hebrews would say, I've read this to you recently, but it came back to me, that Jesus, the radiance of the glory of God, he is the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Take just that. In a savior like that, there's more than enough to satisfy our souls. And in contrast, outside of Christ, there is nothing that can satisfy your soul. Not a single thing. The Samaritan leper teaches us not to settle for gifts when you can have the gift giver himself as well. So don't settle for money when in Christ you can have eternal treasure. Don't settle for relationships when in Christ you can have fellowship with God almighty. Don't settle for a career when in Christ you can have an eternal calling prepared for you from before the foundations of the world. Don't settle for pleasure when in Christ you can have boundless joy. Don't settle for a love life when you can have the beloved son of God himself. Don't settle for the creation when you can have the creator. Jesus would say to those Samaritans, to that Samaritan, rise and go your way. Your faith has saved you. You see, the problem with the nine lepers was that they left too early. They left too early. They left Christ with a worldly blessing alone. That's all they took with them. The Samaritan only went his way when he had found the full blessing, the blessing that was found in Christ alone. For every blessing that God gives you, don't lose sight of the greater blessing that is in Christ himself. Don't let any blessing that is not Christ satisfy your soul. Don't let any good blessing derail you from the best blessing. which is Christ himself. So learn from the leper. Learn from the leper and run to the Savior who meets your greatest needs. Learn from the leper and trust in the Savior who blesses you in your obedience. Learn from the leper and let grateful praise Be the heartbeat of your life. And learn from the leper. And in Christ, find a blessing better than anything that this world has to offer. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ himself. We thank you that you give gifts bigger than we can even get our minds around. We thank you for the unbounding treasures that we have in Christ. Treasures that we've never even fully explored, nor will we ever. Lord, make us a people who better understands our blessings. Make us a people overflowing with grateful praise. Make us a people unsatisfied with the best the world has to come and only satisfied in Jesus Christ, the gift giver. And we pray today that those who have not dealt with their greatest need, we pray that today would be the day. We pray that they would see their sin for what it is. And we pray that they would see your offer to cleanse them of their sin for what it is. We pray that you would be gracious to save today. And we pray this in the name of the gift giver, Jesus Christ, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.