Sermon Transcript
You guys are still suffering from food coma, all the turkey you ate? Thank you. We smoked up 2 Cajun-seasoned turkeys.
Turkey for days. We’re just eating leftovers. It’s so fun. Cindy’s really good at kind of like figuring out how to like mix it up. Turkey sandwiches, turkey with mashed potatoes.
Last night it was turkey with pesto. I am in my happy place, for the record. Hey, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and pull out to— turn to Luke chapter 17. We’re just going to get right into it. It’ll be on the board too.
If you don’t have your Bible, it’s fine.
Luke chapter 17, verse 11.
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, 10 men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, Jesus, Master, have pity on us! When he saw them, he said, Go, show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him, and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, Were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other 9? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?
Then he said to him, rise and go. Your faith has made you well. You know, could you imagine what it must have been like for these guys to wake up and discover that they were doomed to die of leprosy? I mean, this was just a physically agonizing disease. There’s no cure.
They literally watched their body eat itself. Alive. You know, it would have just been horrible. It would have been socially alienating. I mean, from the moment that they understood that they had leprosy, they were heading out the door.
No hugs goodbye, not even stopping to pack up their things. And as they went, they would pick up dust, they would pick up ash by the homes, rub it in their hair, tear their clothes, and yell, Unclean! Unclean! And be banned cast out into a lepers’ colony at the outskirts of town. It would have been emotionally debilitating.
I mean, you think about the life goals we have in life, no matter what stage you’re in, that would have been gone. And then worst of all, it would have been spiritually condemning. I mean, for society back then, what they believed was if you had a condition, it was because there was sin in your life. And the worse the condition, the worse the sin you had committed. So, you know, these guys being lepers were basically considered the scum of the earth.
And if society believed it, you believed it. So these guys were just hopeless, right? Desperate, unclean outcasts, and they were lost. Well, news would have been hard for them to come by, but Rumor said that there was a man who could heal even leprosy who was coming by where they were. Against all odds, he was going to come by.
So they found their spot a distance away and yelled at the top of their lungs, these 10 guys in unison, Jesus, Master, have pity on us. Now, let me just ask, do you think this story is in the Bible because Jesus healed them? I don’t think so. I mean, by this time in the Gospel of Luke, Luke has basically established that Jesus could heal. Supernaturally.
Even leprosy. And even if you look at the text here, it says, as they went, they were cleansed. I mean, it’s kind of an inconsequential thing. No, this is in the text, it seems to me, because it’s showing us— it’s about their response to God’s provision. Now, for us, as we think about it today, God provides for you and me.
If you’re a Christ follower, in your prayer life, you know this. God provides. You cry out to Him, He provides in different ways. But if you’re not a Christ follower, well, the Bible says he provides for everybody, like the rain we experienced today to give us crops, which we need in this area, right? You know, the air to fill our lungs, to give us life.
God provides. How are we going to respond? And this text shows us there’s really 2 ways that we can respond. One, a way that gets it, but another way where if we respond this way, we actually fail to open the door to what God actually wants to give us. Irrespective of what we might be asking him for.
Okay, so what we’re going to look at are these responses that these guys had. Okay, first, the 9. Now, before we label the 9 lepers as stupid, right, that they didn’t get it right, which obviously the text is saying, let’s first consider what they did right. Okay, number 1, they were obedient. Okay, Jesus said, go show yourself to the priests.
They went and showed themselves to the priests, right? They did it at once. That’s obedience. They also had faith. I mean, you got to figure if you’re going to do something like Jesus is telling you to do, there’s got to be, you know, they got to figure there’s something happening, there’s something to it.
So they had an element of faith. And then what I think is most interesting of all, Jesus never said come back, right? Do you see that in the text? He never said, and by the way, you know, one of you is going to do this, but the rest of you, you know, come back and thank me, praise God on your way back. He never said that.
And yet, when you look at the text, by verse 17, Jesus asked, were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other 9? In other words, he’s audibly sighing, right? These 9 didn’t get it. So what is it they didn’t get?
Or to flip that question on its head, what is it that the one leper did get, realized, understood, that the 9 didn’t? Well, I think that’s found in verse 19. Jesus, talking to the one cleansed leper, said— they said, rise and go. Your faith has made you well. Now, do you realize how profound of a claim that is?
I mean, this is one of those verses you can’t just read and say, oh, that’s nice. He’s made well. No. Think about the context. Think about the contrast, right?
Jesus just healed this leper of leprosy. Okay? The worst thing that we could basically have come upon us in this life, something like leprosy. Jesus just healed him from that, and yet somehow, in a way that doesn’t even compare to being healed of that, Jesus is now saying to him, you are made well. Okay, that’s a pretty big statement.
What does that mean, to be made well? You know, if you think of it this way, the Pharisees, if they had been there, you know, the religious leaders who just kind of questioned everything Jesus said, had objections, Because they knew better than him, right? If they had been there, we can be sure that they would have been saying something like, how dare you, Jesus? You can’t say that. We don’t have time to look at other texts where the Pharisees challenged Jesus in this way, but we can be sure they would have been challenging him on this.
Why? Because what he’s suggesting is a wellness that only God can provide. Jesus, how dare you say something like that? Actually, the word in verse 19 there we don’t— we lose the force of it in the English, is the Greek word sozo. It can be translated heal.
It can be translated to be made well. But the underlying force of the word is spiritual, a spiritual restoration, a wellness that our relationship with God is made right. And here’s another way, therefore, to think about what Jesus is saying to this leper, or this healed leper. He’s saying, Look, even if you were to contract leprosy again in the future, all would be well with you. In other words, I now give you a healing that is impervious to whatever life can throw at you.
Now this is what the 9 didn’t get. They didn’t understand this. But this is Jesus’ claim to us. If you’re not a follower of his, this encapsulates the Christian faith. Jesus’ claim to you is, I have come to make you well.
You know, it’s interesting to me because the Pharisees, in all their challenging of Jesus, they did get quite a bit right. Only God does have the right to make us well in the way Jesus was suggesting. But what’s interesting to me is that it was actually more intense, more severe than that. You know, God had ordained a sacrificial system for us. A priestly system that at the blood of lamb and other animals, you know, a very real object, you know, picture object lesson, their life that we might have life, death for life, the atonement of sins through their blood.
What Jesus is saying in this scripture, it’s not enough. Now look, he affirms it. He says in verse 14, when he saw them, he said, go show yourselves to the priest. Jesus is saying God ordained that system. You need to go participate in that.
And yet he is also saying it’s not enough. The priestly system is not enough. Why is that? How do we see that in the text? Well, when they don’t come back, Jesus is saying, in a sense, they failed to see it.
They’re not getting it.
And so the 9 didn’t get this. They didn’t understand that what Jesus was trying to do was give a provision far greater than they realized they even need. The 9 thought that they had gotten everything they needed from Jesus when they were healed from leprosy. Right? They had received all the wellness that they needed.
Right? And so they went on their way. But the one came back because he realized something. Now, he didn’t have all his theology figured out. You know, he didn’t understand all these dynamics at play, but he realized something that Jesus affirms and says, you now are made well.
What is that? It’s he realized that it’s not about the provision, but it’s about the provider. It’s not about the healing, it’s about the healer. It’s about our relationship with Jesus, because it’s— Jesus could make such an audacious claim because it was he who came to fulfill it for us, to fulfill the requirements for us on our behalf. He took on and made for us the ultimate provision that we need.
And so in a sense, he was saying, I have come to replace the priestly system, the sacrifices altogether, because that was temporary, it was incomplete. What you need is Jesus, the Son of God, the Lamb of God who’s come to take away the sin of the world.
That’s really the cross— excuse me, that’s really the gospel message, the center of our faith. Is on the cross, Jesus took the physical agony that we deserved. You know, God’s wrath poured out on him on our behalf such that not even enduring something like leprosy can compare. As torturous as that would be, Jesus infinitely felt and took our pain on his body. And then he also bore the social and spiritual alienation for us that we deserve.
That was infinitely greater than what we would experience being a leper cast out into a colony.
He bore hell for us. Eternal separation from God, from others. And so what Jesus was saying to the leper, this healed leper, and to us over his shoulder is, Son, I have come to be made unclean that you might be made clean.
You know, daughter, I have come to be cast out from God’s presence that you might be brought in.
This is the gospel message. First, for those of you who haven’t received this, this is what Jesus claims. I’ve come to make you well. And how do we receive it? It’s like this one leper, to say thank you.
You know, it’s a gift. There’s nothing we can do to earn it. It’s all that what he’s done on our behalf, and all we can do is really fall down at his feet praising God at a loud voice and worshiping Jesus.
But then for those of us who have received the gospel, there’s, there’s a, there’s a stark warning. You see it in the text? There’s a very stark warning. It starts with— starting with the percentages. You guys see, 1 of 10, only 1 of 10 came back to praise God.
To thank Jesus. 1 of 10. And then look at what Jesus said. He says, were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other 9?
Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Meaning we can be sure that of the 10, there were God’s people among them who Jesus is implying should have gotten it. But who got it? The Samaritan, the foreigner, the one who probably shouldn’t have realized it. He didn’t have access to God the way the others, and yet the others missed it.
That’s the warning to us, it seems to me, from the Scripture. It is very possible to be saved, to have access to the wellness that Jesus offers here in the Scripture, and yet not be experiencing it. I think that’s the warning for us in this text. Think of it this way. What’s something in your life that you’re crying out to God that he might provide?
Maybe it’s clarity of how the future’s going to shape out for you. Or maybe it’s, you know, that God would provide a relationship that you really desire. Or maybe it’s a job promotion. Or that God would bail you out of something. Or that God would heal you.
But whatever it is that you’re facing, what is your heart’s posture in it? Because it seems to me if we’re at all impatient, maybe bitter, resentful, stressed even, that our hearts are more focused perhaps on the provision and not the provider. Do you see where that leaves you and me with our hearts? It leaves our hearts in a place like the 9. A place of self-entitlement.
You know, I deserve, of pride.
I really think this is a struggle for us because it’s so easy to get focused on, God, why aren’t you? Or where are you? Or in the provision. But we fail to see what’s most important, and that is the provider. And the reality is, if we’re focused on— look, we’re always going to need more when it comes— if we’re focused on provision.
And yet Jesus offers to each of us to make us well, a wellness that is impervious to whatever external pressures or trials that life will throw at us, all the way up to leprosy.
Here’s what’s amazing to me about this text. It’s so easy to tap into what it is Jesus is holding out at his fingertips. It’s so easy. It’s right there for us to receive the wellness. That he offers.
I love that, by the way, about the scripture. It’s never complicated. We often make it that way, but it’s so easy. How we can tap into experiencing this wellness. Do you see it in this text?
Look at verse 15. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. What did he do? He came back. One word: gratitude.
That’s actually how I’d say the main point here is choose gratitude. I really think We need to choose gratitude. And if you’re like me, this almost needs to be a daily discipline, doesn’t it? I mean, just having gone through a couple hard weeks, you know, you just, you get so wrapped up in what’s happening or, God, where are you? And how— that if we just stop and realize what the Lord’s already given us, namely himself, I mean, it’s almost like an instant change.
You know, this passage isn’t so much about gratitude as it’s a warning against ingratitude, because ingratitude is what leaves us outside of experiencing what God is putting right there in front of us, and that is himself, who he is, his love.
Because when we’re connected to him, we can face anything. You know, my father-in-law, who was diagnosed with late-stage cancer relatively young in his life, had just become a believer. I haven’t shared this with you from this stage, but When he was— his body was withering away and he was on his bed, you know what verse he shared with anybody who would listen to him? This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.
That’s a wellness that Jesus offers even in the face of death.
Now I don’t know what you’re going through. I mean, I think for For a lot of us, what we’re actually dealing with is probably what we’d call first-world problems, right? God, bless me with a better job from the amazing job I already have, right? I mean, we just— but then there’s some of us, too, that what we’re going through, what you’re going through, is actually very intense and quite severe. You know, maybe it is life and death for you or for someone close to you.
But the point of this passage is all the way up to even leprosy.
Jesus offers a peace, a joy, a wellness that transcends whatever it is that life throws at us. So will you choose gratitude? You know, this month of Thanksgiving and onward? Because not all of us get to experience the healing of something like leprosy, but all of us do get to experience the wellness that Jesus offers in the gospel. Let’s pray.
With everyone’s heads bowed and eyes closed, I want to first give you an opportunity. If you’re here today and you’re not a follower of Christ, but you would like to receive the wellness, the salvation that Jesus offers to you on the cross— from what he did on the cross, I want to give you that opportunity. If you want to do that, you can raise your hand. I’ll see it and pray for you. God will see it and receive you into his family.
But if you’d like to receive the wellness that Jesus offers, forgiveness of sins, raise your hand and I’ll pray for you.
And then for those of us who are his followers, I would just encourage you just to take a moment now, maybe as you leave here today as well, just to think about what are the areas in your life that you’ve you’ve probably been reflecting a spirit of ingratitude, but that you can see God’s hand of blessing in it even if it doesn’t look the way you’d hope it would. How can we be thankful even in the hard things? Let’s pray. Jesus, we thank you that you in a sense became a leper, an outcast, uncleaned, that we might be— you know, that we might be brought into your family, made clean and whole. Thank you for what you did on the cross, bearing our sin and giving us life in your name.
We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
