Introduction
Garry Moore had three young men on his TV show, “To Tell the Truth.”
These high school boys were standing by a subway station in New York City when a man suddenly fell onto the tracks below.
Instantaneously, and without knowing the other, each boy jumped down to rescue the man. They pulled him to safety seconds before the train swept into the station.
The mayor presented each young man with an extraordinary citation for bravery.
Several organizations in New York recognized these extraordinary youths for their heroism.
When Gary Moore asked one if he had had any contact with the family or with the man whom he rescued, he said, “No, he never thanked us” (G. Curtis Jones, 1000 Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching [Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1986], 388).
It is inconceivable that the man would not thank the boys.
But he did not.
In this lesson, I want to talk briefly about the sin of ingratitude.
Jesus encountered the sin of ingratitude in a famous story about ten lepers.
Scripture
Let’s read Luke 17:11-19:
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Lesson
Luke 17:11-19 teaches us about the sin of ingratitude.
Let’s use the following outline:
1. The Story
2. The Sin
I. The Story
First, let’s look at the story.
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, where he would die on a Roman cross.
In verse 11, Luke said, “On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.”
Most Jews avoided traveling through Samaria because they despised the Samaritans.
But not Jesus.
He traveled through Samaria.
Luke tells us in verses 12-13, “And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’ ”
Leprosy was a terrible disease.
It was dreaded far more than Covid-19.
Its effects were far worse than those of COVID-19, as people were ostracized from their homes, families, societies, and worship.
Lepers were the social outcasts.
These ten lepers likely heard that Jesus was passing by.
So, they cried out to him.
Commentator Kent Hughes paints the following picture for us:
On the outskirts of an unnamed village on the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee, ten leprous men stood before Jesus in various stages of decay, their clothing torn in perpetual mourning, their skeletal heads uncovered, their lips unveiled as they warned others, “Unclean, unclean!” (cf. Leviticus 13:45; Numbers 5:2; 12:10–12).
They looked as though they had climbed out of the graves. But they were alive, sensitive human beings, feeling souls living in the nether world of society’s fringe while they rotted away. So from a safe distance, they shouted the traditional plea, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (v. 13). They were loud and persistent. “Have mercy on us!” “Master, have mercy!” “Mercy, please!” (R. Kent Hughes, Luke: That You May Know the Truth, Preaching the Word [Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998], 170).
The critical point is that Jesus is the right one who can answer every need.
We should take any need we have to Jesus, as the ten lepers did.
Jesus, ever merciful, responded immediately to their cry for help.
He said to them in verse 14a, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
Astonishingly, “as they went they were cleansed” (17:14b).
They were healed!
In verses 15-16, Luke notes, “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.”
Here was one of the ten who returned to thank Jesus for healing him.
Kent Hughes notes,
At the very least, he recognized Jesus as an agent of God. More likely, he realized that Jesus was king (R. Kent Hughes, Luke: That You May Know the Truth, 171).
“Then Jesus answered, ‘Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ ”(17:17-18).
This brings me to my second point.
II. The Sin
Second, let’s look at the sin of ingratitude.
To be fair to the nine, I should quote R. C. Sproul, who made this comment about their healing, “The interpretation that I have heard again and again is that although Jesus healed ten lepers, only one of them was grateful. I don’t believe that for one moment” (R. C. Sproul, A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999], 324).
He goes on to say that they were so overjoyed that they rushed home to their families. That is what most people would have done.
However, Kent Hughes notes:
There is a deadly problem here—God was not the center of their gratitude…. Only the foreigner, the Samaritan, gave praise to God! The other nine were so earthbound, so like the shrewd manager and the rich man of the preceding parables, that they missed the spiritual dimension altogether. Vague gratitude to divinity was not an adequate response to what had happened. Christ wanted their hearts! By failing to glorify God and returning to thank Jesus, they missed the greatest possible moment of their existence (R. Kent Hughes, Luke: That You May Know the Truth, 172).
John Calvin once said, “Ingratitude is very frequently the reason why we are deprived of the light of the gospel, as well as of other divine favors.”
That was the problem with the nine lepers who did not thank God.
Many years ago, a boat was wrecked in a storm on Lake Michigan at Evanston, Illinois.
Students from Northwestern University formed themselves into rescue teams.
One student, Edward Spencer, saved seventeen people from the sinking ship.
When he was carried exhausted to his room, he asked, “Did I do my best? Do you think I did my best?”
Years later, R. A. Torrey was talking about this incident at a meeting in Los Angeles, and a man in the audience called out that Edward Spencer was present.
Dr. Torrey invited Spencer to the platform.
An old man with white hair slowly climbed the steps as the applause rang.
Dr. Torrey asked him if anything in particular stood out in his memory.
“Only this, sir,” he replied, “of the seventeen people I saved, not one of them thanked me” (Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000], 203–204).
Conclusion
The sin of ingratitude is horrible.
Vance Havner said the following regarding ingratitude:
Our biggest problem in the church today is this vast majority of Sunday morning Christians who claim to have known the Master’s cure and who return not [at other times] to thank Him by presence, prayer, testimony, and support of His church. In fact, the whole Christian life is one big “Thank You,” the living expression of our gratitude to God for His goodness. But we take Him for granted, and what we take for granted, we never take seriously (Vance Havner, The Vance Havner Quote Book in Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 17).
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, said in a sermon he preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in the late 1800s:
I fear thousands call themselves Christians who are not thankful. Yet, they never thought themselves very guilty on that account (C. H. Spurgeon, “Knowledge. Worship. Gratitude,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 30 [London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1884], 68).
My dear brother and sister in Christ, everything we have in life is a gift from God.
The very breath we take is a gift from God.
The food we eat is a gift from God.
The clothing we have is a gift from God.
The housing we have is a gift from God.
The salvation we have is a gift from God.
The healing we have is a gift from God.
Everything we have is a gift from God.
May you and I not be guilty of the sin of ingratitude. Amen.
