Luke 17:11-19: The Balanced Christian Life
It’s hard to find balance in our lives, isn’t it? Spending time at work versus spending time at home. How do you balance that? What is the proper amount of time to spend at work, or spend at home? We struggle to find balance in our lives. Or how about when you are at home – there is a struggle for balance there too, isn’t there?. Spending time enjoying yourself, relaxing, building relationships with family members, or spending time doing chores – fixing this, cleaning that. Both are necessary. And we struggle for balance.
It’s hard to maintain balance. Most of the time, we’re probably tipped too far one way or the other – either we work too much, or not enough. Either we’re too busy doing chores at home, or we neglect them too much. It’s easy to develop bad habits and live an unbalanced life.
What about in your spiritual life? Do you have a balanced relationship with God? Or, have you unknowingly picked up some bad habits – going too far one way, or too far the other, in your relationship with God. For many Christians, a lack of balance is a problem. Today, as we focus on God’s Word, we will see what it means to lead a balanced spiritual life as a Christian. We will find motivation and comfort and direction as we seek to glorify God with our lives. May God bless each one of us this day, as we ponder his holy Word.
Jesus meets some unbalanced people today. He’s traveling to Jerusalem, along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men with leprosy met him. Do you remember how bad the disease of leprosy was? Back in Jesus’ day, it was an incurable disease, and it was very easy to catch from someone else. I don’t want to groce you out with the details, but basically, you would wake up one day and find blotches on your skin. You’d feel funny. You have the beginnings of leprosy, where your body begins to decay and fall apart while you are still alive. You could describe it as a form of visible cancer. You have to leave your family, leave the town, and go out into the desert, and live in the caves with strangers who also have leprosy. Every time someone comes near you, you have to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” so that people know to stay away from you. It was a terrible disease, a long and lonely way to die.
Ten lepers, living out in the caves, saw Jesus as he approached the town. They stayed at a distance, because that’s what they were supposed to do, and they called out to Jesus: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” They called him “master.” They must have heard that this Jesus had the power to heal. Some thought that maybe he was the Messiah. They had nothing to lose, so they asked for his help.
Is there anything wrong with what they did? Is this what you would have done, if you had leprosy? Imagine waking up one day, and you have blotches on your skin. You feel kind of strange. You get checked out, and you have leprosy. You have to leave your family, leave civilization, and go out and live in the caves. But you hear about a man named Jesus. You hear that he has healed people of all kinds of diseases. Maybe he’s the Messiah. If you were one of those ten lepers, would you have called out to Jesus, and asked for help? Of course.
And they weren’t disappointed. Look at what happens. Jesus called out to them, and said, “Go, show yourselves to the priest.” And as they went, they were cleansed. Jesus was able to take away their terminal illness, just by speaking a few simple words – “go show yourselves to the priest.” The priest doubled as a doctor – he would check you out, give you his stamp of approval if you really were healed, and allow you back into town.
What would you have done if you were one of those ten lepers? Wouldn’t you have gone, and done what Jesus said? Go, show yourself to the priest - isn’t that what Jesus wants you to do? Well, yes and no. Look at what happens next. One of them, when he saw he was healed, interrupted his trip to the priest, he came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Remember, in the Jewish culture, the Samaritans were the bad guys. You weren’t supposed to like the Samaritans, because they didn’t have it altogether spiritually. But this Samaritan did something his Jewish didn’t do. He came back, and thanked and worshiped Christ.
Didn’t he disobey? Wasn’t he supposed to go and show himself to the priest? Yes, and no. Look at how Jesus responds. He said to the leper, “Were not all ten lepers cleansed? Where are the other nine?” Jesus wanted them to interrupt their trip to the priest and thank him. But only one of them did. “Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Only the Samaritan praised God. The others failed.
Do you see what Jesus is pointing out here? Lack of balance. Nine of those lepers asked Jesus for help. And when Jesus helped them, they just took off. They didn’t balance their asking with worshiping. They received a gift from God, but they didn’t balance that by giving praise to God. They were so focused on themselves - their hands and feet were healed! “Let’s go to the priest. Let’s go back to our families. Let’s see if we can get our old jobs back.” They were so focused on those things – all good things - that they failed to give praise to God. Lack of balance. And Jesus points that out.
Would you have been one of those nine unbalanced lepers? So excited, that you forget to worship God for what he has given to you? We struggle with this, don’t we? We ask and ask and ask God for things, but we forget to balance that, by thanking him for all the things he has given to us. We receive a gift from God, a blessing, we’re so excited, and then we forget to spend a few moments worshiping the God who has blessed us. Lack of thanksgiving. Lack of worship. We have our jobs. We have our families. We have our friends. We have all kinds of things going on – all good things, that God wants us to enjoy. But we’re so focused on those things sometimes, that we fail to balance it out, by worshiping and praising the God who has blessed us.
Why do we have this problem? Why do we struggle, and so often fail, to have balanced relationship with God? It’s because we have leprosy. Not physical leprosy. But spiritual leprosy. The leprosy of sin. We’re born with spiritual leprosy. And it causes us to be so self-absorbed, so focused on our lives, even after we become Christians, that we fail to balance our lives with thanksgiving and worship. You and I are those 9 lepers running down the hill, forgetting to worship Christ.
What are we to do? What does God want us to do, when we realize our spiritual leprosy? He want us to do the same thing those lepers did, to call out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” Heal me of my spiritual leprosy. Take away my sin. Give me the power to lead a balanced Christian life. Jesus, Master, have pity on me! We say that at the beginning of every worship service, when we confess our sins to God. “Lord, have mercy.” And how does Jesus respond? He heals us. Just as he cleansed those lepers, so Jesus completely and totally cleanses us of our sins. He washes them away, with his blood, which he gave on the cross so that we might be clean – just as clean as those lepers were.
And that’s why we worship God. That’s why we balance our asking, with thanking. That’s what the one leper did. Sure, he was going to go to the priest, and then go home, go back to his family and friends. Get his old job back. He couldn’t wait. But first, he thanked Jesus, worshiped him. This Jesus really is the Christ. Look – he has healed me of my leprosy. The Messiah! That one leper dropped down on his knees and worshiped. And look at what Jesus said to him, “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.” Jesus points out his faith. That day, that man was not only healed of his skin disease, he was healed of his sin disease. He had faith – his sins were forgiven – and he was a child of God, just like you.
That man balanced his healing with worship. And we will do the same. We ask and ask of God. And that’s good – God wants us to ask. And he promises us, “Ask, and it will be given to you.” But, as balanced Christians, we will also make sure to include thanking, and worshiping our God. You see, as a balanced Christian, you are different from the rest of the world. You are the one leper. The rest of the world focuses all they got on job and family and friends, and sports, and entertainment. You focus those things to, because those things are blessings from God. But what makes you different is that you’re always interrupting your life, just like that one leper. You’re always taking time out from the job and family and friends and sports and entertainment. You are a balanced Christian, and that means that you are always taking time out from those things, and worshiping the God who has cleansed soul, who has given you the hope of eternal life.
I have just recently noticed that it’s not summer anymore. Maybe you’ve noticed that too. The trees are becoming more and more bare. Except one tree - the evergreen. The evergreen is different. Regardless of what the other trees are doing, the evergreen is always green.
A balanced Christian is like that evergreen. Different from the rest of the world. Regardless of what other people are doing, regardless of what is happening in the world, in our own lives, we are ever-green. Always worshiping and praising God. Always. Because no matter what we see, no matter what we experience, no matter what the rest of the world is doing, we know that we have been cleansed of our sins. We know that our Savior has died for us, that he has risen from the dead, and that he is with us, today, encouraging and comforting and forgiving. And so we balance our lives by worshiping him. May God bless each one of us with a heart that seeks to glorify him, every day. Amen.
