Sermon: The Thankful One

Good morning, happy Thanksgiving to you all from my family to yours. We hope that you had a day full of blessings and a day of blessing our God for his kindness and his goodness to you. Uh, we certainly did. And I wanna say one more thing from our family to yours. We are thankful for you all. We are thankful for this church. We have been here for about four months now and we are very happy to be here. You have loved us well, you have been so kind to us.

You've been very encouraging. You've supported us very well. It's been fun. As people have asked if anything about our transition here has been surprising and really there hasn't been much that's been greatly surprising. But one maybe surprise that I've told folks is this, I've been surprised at how many of you had have said this very simple thing. Thanks for being here. Small thing. We're very thankful. We're very glad to be here.

As you know, we're in a season of Thanksgiving. Obviously we've just celebrated Thanksgiving just a couple days ago, a day with a name for giving thanks. But I think oftentimes as we come even into the Christmas season, we tend to think of it as a season of Thanksgiving as well. We're obviously giving gifts to one another and we're celebrating Jesus' birth and that gives us reason to be thankful. Right? As we receive gifts, we return Thanksgiving.

So this morning I thought it would be appropriate for us to study a passage on this theme theme of Thanksgiving. So would invite you to join me in Luke chapter 17.

It's on page 8 76 if you're using a pew Bible. And this morning we'll be considering verses 11 through 19. As you're turning there, let me just preface our reading, uh, with a couple introductory comments. The Bible maybe unsurprisingly to us, says a lot about giving thanks. Uh, Jerry Bridges points out in his book The Practice of Godliness, that in all there are approximately 140 references in the Bible to giving thanks to God.

That's a lot. So he says Thankfulness is no minor principle in God's Sight. It is absolutely necessary to the practice of godliness.

You don't have to be a Christian to be a thankful person, but if you are a Christian, you ought to be thankful. You ought to be a thankful person. And I might add this, you ought to be growing in thankfulness even if you're a thankful person, you haven't yet fully arrived. And if Jerry Bridges is right, and I think he is, remember this, it's absolutely necessary to the practice of godliness. So with that being said, let's pray.

Ask for God's help and blessing and read His word together. Our Father in heaven, we come now to your word and we desire not only to hear this word, but to be doers of it. And so we ask for the help of your Holy Spirit who inspired these very words to impress upon us the necessity of thankfulness in our lives. Father, we are so thankful that you have chosen to speak to us, that you have chosen to speak to us in a way that we can comprehend, so that we might know you

and we might know your will for us. And so help us then as we read and listen and we ask for your help and your blessing in the name of Jesus our savior. Amen. Reading then from Luke 17 verses 11 through 19

on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along 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, prai God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus's feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, we're not 10 cleansed. Where are the nine? Was No one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner. And Jesus said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well.

Well this morning's outline gives nod to Luke's background. Luke, the author of this gospel was a physician. And in these verses he gives us a report, as it were, of the condition of the 10 lepers, their outward condition that is, and then the condition of the one leper. And that is his inward condition. So in verses 12 through 14, we're gonna examine Luke's report of the outward condition of the lepers. And then verses 15 through 19,

we're gonna examine Luke's report of the inward condition of the one. But before we get to the 10, Luke provides us with some context for our passage. He, he sets this event in context and he does so by giving reference to the geographical location where Jesus performed this miracle and where he encounters the 10 lepers. To in verse 11, Luke writes on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.

Samaria and Galilee are neighboring regions. If you look at a map from this time period, they're north of Judea and Jerusalem. And Jesus is walking sort of in between these two neighboring regions and he's on his way to Jerusalem. Now that might say something to you, it ought to say something to you. It's meant to indicate something to us. What? What is Jesus going to Jerusalem for? What is he about to do? This whole second half of Luke, Jesus is on his way.

He set his face to Jerusalem because it is in Jerusalem that he's going to finish his earthly ministry. He's going there with a purpose. He's going to die. He knows he's going to be crucified. It's where he's going to finish his work of redemption. And Luke includes this one to remind us that the crucifixion of Jesus is drawing near. But secondly, I think Jesus, uh, Luke putting this word of context here, reminds us that this event,

this encounter that Jesus has with the lepers is going to come in full. This is the, this is the foretaste of what Jesus is about to do. He's about to heal 10 lepers, but then when he gets to Jerusalem, it's it's going to come in full. Okay? So that's the context of this passage. And it was as Jesus was entering that village, that 10 lepers call out to Jesus. There are 10 men afflicted by leprosy, which is just to say they're afflicted by some sort of skin disease

that the term leprosy covered many forms of skin conditions. So for some lepers, their skin might've been raw all over, uh, for filled with wounds. Other lepers might've had boils all over their skin, but for most lepers, their leprosy would've covered their entire body from head to toe. So no doubt this disease would've been painful physically. It would've been painful. But even worse perhaps for lepers is that they were social outcasts.

And Luke points that out. He says there in verse 12 that it was as Jesus entering a village that the lepers stood at a distance. So they were separated from others on the outskirts of the village, and they were far off from Jesus. They were social outcasts because they were ceremonially unclean. They were ceremonially unclean. So hear this from Leviticus 13 says, the law of God concerning lepers, the lepers person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes

and let the hair of his head hang loose and he shall cover his upper lip and he shall cry out unclean, unclean. He's indicating to everyone all around him, I'm sick, I'm unclean. Do not come near me. Think about how shameful or humiliating that must have been. But the next verse, Leviticus 13, verse 46, because of this lepers were to live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp Leviticus 1346. So imagine for just a minute how devastating

this diagnosis would be. How devastating leprosy meant you were cut off from your community. I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, I feel absolutely miserable. And I loved it when my mom was close by to come, come me to provide me with my needs. Or maybe as some of you are growing older, you're in ailing health. Perhaps it means a lot to you to have your son or daughter there at your bedside to care for you. This was not possible for lepers. There was no handholding.

There's no back rubs, there's no hugs. You're on your own.

And leprosy meant that you were cut off and prevented from attending worship in the temple that you've come to gather this morning, there would be no lepers among us. They're unclean. They're not fit to be in worship. My wife Sarah, is home right now with our children, our sick children. And in this day and age, there's a blessing that in some ways she can still participate. Even now with you all be a live stream, right?

Obviously back in this day there's no such thing. Okay? So you're, you are cut off from your community. So in light of all that, you can probably understand why these 10 lepers were together. As the saying goes, misery loves company, right? These were miserable fellows. And so they were together.

These lepers were in need of mercy their whole lives. They needed mercy. They probably were standing somewhere by the gate begging for food and sustenance. They were at the mercy of others to provide for their needs. And mercy, it seems, was in short supply for lepers. So when these lepers heard that Jesus was walking in to their village, they must have been gladed and thought, man, this is our chance, right? Because they lifted up their voices calling out to Jesus

to get his attention saying, Jesus, master have mercy on us. Perhaps they had heard about how Jesus earlier in his ministry healed a leper. You look back in Luke chapter five, Jesus encountered a leper earlier on and he healed that leper immediately. And perhaps these 10 men had heard those reports and were hopeful that Jesus could heal them just like he had healed that other leper. We see that they call out to him by his God-given name,

Jesus, Jesus. And they call him master.

They acknowledge Jesus's authority, his lordship, this this term master when it's used throughout. Look, Luke is used by the disciples, the people that were acquainted with Jesus's authority. And these lepers take that name upon their lips, Jesus master. And then they have a very straightforward, simple plea. And yet it's a very bold plea. It's the right plea. Have mercy on us, have mercy on us. What else could one rightfully ask of a master?

What else but have mercy on us Friends, I think the way these lepers called out to Jesus set a good example for us. Needy sinners of how we ought to pray. We address Jesus. We take his name upon our lips. And when we do so, we acknowledge Jesus as the Savior, the loving savior sent to earth to set his people free from their sins. We call him master our Lord. We acknowledge His lordship over us. We are just his servants, nothing more.

And when we pray, we pray like these lepers, they didn't deserve anything. We don't deserve anything. And they didn't wait till they're better. Remember that song? Don't Terry till you're better or you're never gonna come at all. They didn't wait till they were better. They they came to Jesus as they were. It was simple faith. They casted themselves completely on the mercy of Jesus. And that too is how we ought to pray.

They call out to him and we cast ourselves upon his mercy. Pastor Kevin prayed earlier in prayer of confession, I dunno if you noticed this. He prayed that we would pray like the tax collector, if you have your Bible open, just look across the page that that story is in Luke 18. You can see it right there across your page. We don't have time to do this now, but this would be an interesting exercise for you all later on today or this afternoon

or this week, compare how similar the plea of these lepers is with the prayer of that tax collector. Notice all dissimilarities to in some these two verses 12 and 13, tell us that the lepers were in need of mercy. That is their outward condition. They're physically afflicted, they're socially ostracized and ceremonially, they are unclean. That was their outward condition when Jesus was entering their village. But we notice that quickly

the lepers received what they desired and needed. First of all, they got Jesus's attention. Verse 14, Jesus saw them, he saw them, how wonderful that little word is. And then Jesus showed them mercy first by acknowledging their plea and then in responding to them, Jesus was under no obligation to respond to these lepers. He didn't have to respond to them, but mercifully he did. And what did he say to them? He said, go and show yourselves to the priests.

We'll come to that in just a minute. But then finally, Jesus's mercy, most evident in that he cleansed them, right?

So some of you maybe on first glance we're wondering, what is Jesus saying to these lepers? It may not make sense to you how this exhortation would've been a merciful exhortation. Go show yourselves to the priest. It sounds like maybe Jesus is not really empathetic, you know? Or maybe Jesus isn't actually concerned about their need, he's just go, go off to the priests. That's not it at all. That's not it at all. Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priest

in keeping with the law. Jesus remember, had not yet fulfilled the ceremonial law at this point, but this act that he was about to do indicated that he was going to fulfill the ceremonial law. He he would do it. Luke tells us in verse 14, he uses the word cleansed. Cleansed. Later on he'll use the word healed. But here he uses cleansed. And in Leviticus 13 and 14, these two chapters that were all about the rules for leprosy, we find that it was the priest's responsibility

to examine people who had issues with their skin to determine if it was in fact leprosy. That was the priest's responsibility. It may not be always re re remembering that, that it was a priest's responsibility. So the priest would look at this diseased person, he would determine if in fact it was leprosy, and then he would make a declaration. If it was leprosy, he'd say, you're unclean. And then the leper would go away.

When that leper was healed, their skin had cleared up, they would return to the priests and the priest would reexamine those lepers to determine if in fact the disease had been healed. And if it was, then a ceremonial cleansing would happen. That would take over eight days, eight days of sacrifices and rituals. And then at the end of those eight days, the priest would pronounce to the leper that you are clean, you are ceremonially clean.

And then you would be restored to your normal activities.

Curiously, when Jesus says to these lepers, go and show yourselves to the priests, they had not yet been healed. They had not been yet been healed. Did you notice in verse 14 how Jesus, how Luke says that it's only as they went, as they went, they were cleansed. As soon as they, they went as Jesus commanded, and as soon as they heeded his command, then they were healed. They were cleansed. So Jesus is telling them, go show yourselves to the priest.

And he's telling them in so many words, I will heal you. I will heal you. But just to revisit, come back to this thought on prayer that was thought upon just a few minutes ago. If verses 12 and 13 give us a pattern for prayer, an example for prayer. Verse 14 should give us confidence. As we pray, we see that Jesus is full of mercy. He is full of mercy, though he is far off, he hears their request. Though they can offer him absolutely

nothing, Jesus answers.

And this might be helpful for some of you. You notice that Jesus here answers their request in his way and in his timing, in his way and in his timing. Jesus doesn't heal these 10 lepers like he healed that one in Luke five. He did that immediately. And here he tells them to go and as they go, they're healed. Jesus doesn't answer every prayer the same exact way, but he answers them and he does far more for them than they even asked or imagined.

They asked for mercy and Jesus went above and beyond. Doesn't this help you as you pray to have confidence that Jesus will hear you. Jesus is full of mercy. He loves to hear your request and he is able, he is able to answer and meet your needs. So from an outward perspective, just looking at their outward condition, these 10 men had a lot in common. All 10 were afflicted, afflicted with leprosy. All 10 were in need of mercy.

All 10 called out to Jesus asking for such mercy. All 10 follow Jesus's instruction to go show themselves to the priests. And all 10 were cleansed of their disease. But that is where the similarities end, because from verses 15 to 19, the focus is no longer on the 10, but on the one, the one who responds to what Jesus did. And as he responds in his response, we see the condition of his heart. Let's read again verses 15 and 16.

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's feet, giving him, thanks.

What? What do you notice about how this leper responds? What do you notice? Did you notice how promptly he responded? The text says in verse 15, when he saw that he was healed, there's no indication given that this man took any time to go back to Jesus. He did not delay. Did you see the posture of his being and the posture of his heart? His outward posture is marked by reverence and humility as he returns to Jesus and he falls down on his face at his feet, the sign

of humility inwardly his, the posture of his heart is one of gratitude. He gives thanks to Jesus, his master and his healer for all the thanks belongs to Jesus. And then with a loud voice, he praises God because again, the praise only belongs to God. So did you notice how this man, his heart was filled with thanksgiving, filled with humility? It it flows out of him it it comes from within and it flows without in many ways, verses 15

and 16 are the exact response we would expect after what Jesus had done in these prior verses, right? Right. I mean this leper had a great need. He had a great need and Jesus fulfilled it. This man was absolutely hopeless. No one could do anything for him like this. And Jesus healed him and cleansed him. He found relief from his misery. Giving thanks was the least that this man could do in response to Jesus.

And yet, while this is exactly what we might expect, verses 15 through 18 is full of surprises. It's full of surprises. The first surprise of course, is that this one leper is the only leper to come back and to give thanks to Jesus. The nine are nowhere to be found.

If this guy could come back and give thanks, couldn't the other nine, of course, of course they could have. Jesus answers the praise of this leper with a series of questions in verse 17. These questions I think are best understood as rhetorical questions. Meaning Jesus was asking these questions, not expecting a response, not expecting an answer, but allowing the obvious nature of these questions and answers to make his point.

So you see in verse 17, were not 10 cleansed. Of course they were. There were 10 lepers. We saw that they were cleansed. It's obvious where are the nine? They're not here. Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Well indeed he, that was it. He's the only guy. These are rhetorical questions and the point that Jesus is making with the obvious answer to these questions is this the the other

nine, were not thankful. They're not thankful. Their absence reveals as much about them as the presence of that one leper revealed about him. They are not thankful. I wonder if you guys have ever considered that unthankful is a sin.

Have you ever considered that before? Maybe not. Unthankful at best is probably in our view, an acceptable sin. By that I mean it's one we overlook. It's one we don't think about. It's one we don't care that much about. We don't think it's that big of a deal because in comparison to some of the other big sins out there, this is just minor, but to fail to give thanks is a sin. Perhaps you'll remember in Romans one where Paul is recounting the decline of mankind.

And there Paul says, uh, Paul identifies their lack of thanksgiving. He writes, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, they did not give thanks to him. And then God proceeds in his judgment to give them up to their own way. They were not thankful. And Jesus notices here these nine, the nine unthankful lepers, Matthew Henry commenting on this passage and specifically on this question says that these questions

intimate how justly God resents the ratitude of the world of mankind for whom he had done so much and from whom he has received so little. We see that here, don't we? Jesus had done so much for these lepers. He turned their life around completely and they don't do anything. They don't even respond with thanksgiving. That's the first surprise. Here's the second. The second surprise is that out of 10 lepers, the only one

to give thanks was a Samaritan. At the end of verse 17, we have that comment there. Now this leper was a Samaritan. What do you know about Samaritans? Well, here Jesus tells us that Samaritans are foreigners. They're viewed as foreigners, but they were probably even considered enemies. They were hostile. They had uh, no relations. Jew and Samaritan. You might remember the parenthetical comment that is made in John four verse nine.

Jesus is at the well with a Samaritan woman. And then John says this, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. They were at odds. So the grateful leper is the one least expected, least expected. A Samaritan is the one who gives thanks while the Jews do not. If you think about it, this theme is present all throughout scripture where the people to whom God's kindness is shown most clearly is shown most consistently are the ones that are often guilty of spurning

God's kindness. And of course we see that theme show up most clearly in that when, when God sent his best gift, Jesus, the full revelation of his kindness and bodily form, he was rejected. John one verse 11, Jesus came to his own and his own did not receive him. The ones that you would expect to receive him don't receive him. The ones that you would expect to say thank you to Jesus are the ones that are nowhere to be found.

But perhaps even more surprising than the fact that the one leper to give praise to God was the Samaritan, is that Jesus, a Jew, does not turn him away. Instead, he receives his worship.

Many of us in this room I think are so familiar with our Bibles and lemme stop. That is a very good thing. Okay? Just to be clear, I want you to be familiar with your Bibles to to know your Bibles well. But think some of us are so familiar with our Bibles that passages like this don't give the effect of surprise as they ought. We're not surprised by Jesus and his dealings like we would if we maybe were not as familiar.

When, when Jesus is engaging with lepers, that ought to surprise us. Nobody did that except for Jesus.

Jesus performs a miracle, a great miracle at that. He heals 10 lepers. No one else could do that. Surprising. And Jesus here receives worship from the nations. That too ought to surprise us. We know that's coming. We know that's the fulfillment of Jesus' work. But to the readers, that would've been surprising. So what do we learn then from this? That Jesus receives his worship once again, just like we do in so many other places in scripture, we are

reminded that no one is disqualified from receiving the grace of God. No one the poor leper. And yet God's grace comes to him. That's true for the rich. It's true for the poor. It's true for the Jew, it's true for the Samaritan and for the Gentiles. It's, it's true for the insiders, it's true for the outsiders. It's true for those of you who grew up in church and those of you who didn't. It's true for those you'd expect

to be recipients of the grace of God. But it's also true for those you would not expect to be recipients of the grace of God. You know this. You know that Jesus welcomes anyone, anyone who would come to him in repentance and faith, clinging only to him pleading only his mercy. You know this, you don't have to have the religious profile that you might think you need, need. This man came empty handed. And you see then in verse 19, what Jesus says about him.

He tells the man to rise and go his way. Your faith has made you well. This man had saving faith just like Enoch, who we studied last week. Just like those heroes of faith. In Hebrews 11, this poor leper had saving faith and Jesus commends him one intention. One intention of these surprises that we find here is to make us slow down. To make us slow down as we read a passage like this and then to look inward ourselves.

So I want you to ask yourself, and this is not a rhetorical question, I want you to actually answer this for yourself. What is the condition of my heart?

And I'm not meaning the physical condition of your heart. I don't wanna know that after all of the food I ate over thanksgiving and the spiritual condition, what is the spiritual condition of my heart? Is faith proceeding from my heart? Do I acknowledge whether I'm a new believer or whether I've been a believer for a long time that I like those lepers and without hope except for God's saving and sovereign mercy? Do I acknowledge that? Am I regularly seeking

mercy from Jesus and not just mercy to cover my emotional needs or my physical needs or my social needs, but the deepest need, my spiritual need and my seeking God's mercy regularly? Maybe the most practical way that you can assess the condition of your own heart this morning is to compare yourself to these lepers. Do you see yourself in the one or do you see yourself in the nine? The one leper? Of course, his heart was overflowing.

His faith was evident in the way that he responded to Jesus. He responded quickly, do you respond quickly? Jesus has answered so many of your requests, even your unspoken requests. Do you return to give him thanks? Do you acknowledge that God is the source of all blessings? The extraordinary ones where you might have been healed from sickness or maybe God reconciled a strained relationship or he saved a relative, but also very ordinary blessings.

The fact that when you go home and you have food on your table, it's not just coming from the hand of the farmer, it's coming from the hand of God.

Just praise usher forth from your heart and then come from your lips. This man was full of loud praise. When you come to church, do you sing? Do you sing loudly? Even that is a evidence of faith in your heart and of a healthy heart. And then there's one more thing, of course, this leper gave thanks. He wasn't merely thankful. He gave thanks. There's a difference. The leper took action to express his appreciation for what Jesus had done

by giving him thanks. It's an action, not just a feeling.

Have you taken the opportunity to give thanks to God for his goodness to you today?

Do you see his goodness to you today? You're here. You're sitting in the worship service. You woke up this morning. Have you taken the opportunity to express your thankfulness to God? This last week, this last year,

nine, healed lepers failed to return to Jesus, to give him thanks. That action or the failed action is what Jesus chooses to highlight as the primary difference between the one and the nine.

And it ought to confront us, remind us and confront us that it is far more common than we think.

That thankfulness is not returned to God. You think it is. You might take it for granted. This event confronts us to our face, to our core, that it's far more common. That people are not thankful. Even those who should be expected to be thankful. Uh, friends, each one of us has, has reason to be thankful. Psalm 1 45 tells us that God is good to all. He has made His mercy is on all that he has made. Each one of us has something to be thankful for.

But of all people, all people that should be thankful, it's the people in this room.

Not just the people sitting next to you. It's you, me. We ought to be the most thankful because Christians, we know how great our need was. Right? Don't you know how sinful you are? And yet Jesus met that need. We know more than anyone, better than anyone that God's mercy. We don't deserve God's mercy. And yet time and again, God has poured out his mercy upon us. And most importantly Christians know that it's due to God's mercy alone,

that we are saved from our sins. We know Psalm or uh, Isaiah 53 tells us that it's by the wounds of the suffering servant Jesus, the the one who fulfills that passage by his wounds. You are healed outwardly, inwardly, socially, emotionally, of course spiritually. The doctrine that we believe and profess here in this church, that salvation, uh, is by grace alone, ought to produce humble, thankful people. Because we know it's only by grace.

It's only by grace. It's a gift we didn't deserve. We come empty handed. We have nothing to give.

And so is it true of you that you're a thankful person? Is this trait, this godly trait evident in your own life? We have an opportunity while the world around us, our nation thinks about Thanksgiving and this season to practice thankfulness, to cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving and may be true of each one of us. That we are found in the company of that one leper, right? The one leper who seeing all that Jesus had done for him

Returned to him and gave him thanks. Let's pray and ask for God's help to do that.

Our Father in heaven, we have many reasons, reason upon reason, 10,000 reasons and more to give thanks to you. Your word tells us that your mercies are new every morning and that your faithfulness is great. So each one of us here has reason to be thankful.

We see though that sometimes it's hard, sometimes we forget. Sometimes we're presumptuous. And so we ask that your spirit would be at work within us using this word to make us more godly, to make us more thankful, to cultivate within us a spirit of thanksgiving. And may it be true of us that we're not just hearers of this word, but we are doers. And like that one leper coming to you quickly and over and over again, build with thanksgiving

and giving thanks to you where we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.