November 19, 2000 Luke 17:11-19
“Do you think to thank?”
INTRODUCTION
To All Ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. (William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony) So began the very first official thanksgiving celebration on the shores of this new world.
Most children, at some point in their elementary school career will have to give some kind of report on or be in a play about the events of that first Thanksgiving. I heard about a little fourth-grader who stood up to give a report concerning the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday. Here’s how he began: "The pilgrims came here seeking freedom of you know what. When they landed, they gave thanks to you know who. Because of them, we can worship each Sunday, you know where.
When Gov. Bradford, and later President ____________ set aside one special day for giving of thanks, I don’t think that they meant for this to be the only day that we give thanks. Rather, I think that they intended that thankfulness should be so much of our everyday lives that we commemorated it with one special day of each year. In spite of that annual reminder and in spite of the many reasons that we have to give thanks, probably in many people’s homes, the only time that “thank you” is heard is over the dinner table. But even that kind of thankfulness is quickly fading away. A farmer went to eat out at a restaurant in town - and, as was his custom, he bowed his head and said a prayer before his meal. At the next table were some rowdy young men who began to poke fun at him. "Hey, farmer!" said one, "that’s out of vogue, man! Nobody prays nowadays!" "Yes, indeed," said the farmer. "There are some members of my own household who won’t pray before their meals." "Hey, they must be real smart!" said the young man, "Who are they?" The farmer answered dryly: "They are my pigs."
Probably the one day of the year on which “thank you” will be heard as often as it is on Thanksgiving Day will be Christmas Day. Unfortunately, some people will try to show their gratitude with a few too many words when they should have just quit with a simple “thank you.” A husband gave his wife a beautiful skunk coat beside a Christmas tree. When his wife opened it up she said, "I can’t see how such a nice coat can come from such a foul smelling little beast." She was referring to the skunk, but her husband believed that she was referring to him. Some of you would be most thankful if I would quit trying to tell jokes.
As I prepared for the message today, I asked myself why we aren’t more thankful – why we fail to say those simple words which can mean so much. Part of the reason is because we just don’t think about it. In my study this week, I discovered that the word “thank” actually comes from the German word which means “to think.” We don’t think enough about who gave the gift, how much it cost them, and what significance it will have for us. We just don’t think. That’s what I want us to do this morning. I want us to think about the gifts that have been given to us, how much those gifts cost the ones who gave them, and what our response to them should be.
1. We think to thank when we realize our desperate situation. (vs. 11-12)
It says of these ten men that Jesus encountered that they were lepers. The word which is used to speak of leprosy in the Bible covered a wide range of skin diseases, only one of which is what you and I would think of when we hear the word “leprosy”. When we think of leprosy, we think of the disease now known as Hanson’s disease – where the extremities of your body die, decay, and fall off. This disease may have been represented among the ten men, but there were probably other skin diseases represented there as well. But regardless of what their actual diagnosis was, they were all classified as “lepers”. That one fact meant several things in their lives, none of which were good. It meant first that they had to face isolation. They were outcasts. When a person began to show signs of having leprosy, according to the law, he had to go to one of the priests for the priest to examine him. if the priest found that he did have leprosy, then that person was ordered to go and live outside the city and away from people. If he was lucky, then he might be able to find others like him to live with so that he wouldn’t have to live in total isolation. Sure, the people he was living with stunk, had open sores, and were dying, but at least he wasn’t alone. Second, it meant humiliation. If ever he did have to go into the city or anywhere else where he might come in contact with healthy people, he was forced to cover his face and cry out, “UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN!!” everywhere that he went. Can you imagine the humiliation of having children point their fingers at you and laugh at you? Can you imagine what it would feel like to have everyone run away from you and turn their backs on you? A further humiliation was that he had to rely on the pity of other people or on stealing to provide for himself. Third, it meant tremendous loss. Since he was separated from the city, that meant that he was separated from his family. He could not watch his sons grow up, even though his sons would have to grow up faster than normal now because they had to take on the responsibility of providing for the family since he was no longer able to. He could not taste his wife’s cooking. He could not touch her and love her the way that he longed to do. He was also separated from his job. His job had given him fulfillment in life. He had loved his job. He had loved working in the fields or handling wood, or selling goods – whatever his job had been. He had enjoyed talking with the people that he met and learning new things about his world. Now he had no real purpose in life – no reason for living. He had been left to die. That’s the fourth thing that having leprosy meant. It means that you were going to die, and it meant that you were going to die alone. Sure, you might be surrounded by other lepers such as here in this event. But the people that you wanted around you – your wife, your kids, your friends and neighbors – they would not be there. Even if you didn’t have actual leprosy, you were still forced to live among those who did have it. Your only activity each day would be watching the others get worse and trying to find enough food to make it through another day. So if the sickness didn’t kill you, then starvation might.
It’s easy to see that the situation that these ten men faced was desperate. There was no cure for leprosy, and there was no comfort given to those who had the disease. They were simply thrown away so that they would not contaminate the rest of the population. They were without hope.
The Bible compares the disease of leprosy with sin. In that sense, we are all lepers because the Bible says in Rom. 3:23 that we are all sinners. As sinners, we were without hope. The destiny which was sure for us was an eternity spent in hell (Rom 6:23). We were without hope. Outcasts, separated from the presence and blessings of God. Destined to watch others die around us, and then destined to die ourselves. Suffering the shame and humiliation which our disease of sin caused in our lives. But God reached down to us, sent a Savior to pay the debt that we owed and then drew us to himself that we might gain forgiveness and eternal life. An awareness of how desperate our situation was should cause a great sense of thankfulness within us because of God’s forgiveness and love. God likes intervening in desperate, hopeless situations. The situation of these ten men was hopeless.
2. We think to thank when we realize that we have no right to expect anything. (vs. 13, 16)
The situation was hopeless, that is, until the day that Jesus came by. I don’t know how, but the men in that colony had heard about Jesus and the healings that He had brought. Earlier in his ministry, Jesus had healed another leper. Maybe they had heard about that and figured, “If Jesus could heal him, then He can heal me.” So when they saw Jesus, they called out to Him.
Look at the words that they used when they called to Jesus. They said, “have mercy on us.” If these men had lived during out time, they might have used different words. They might have said something like, “My union contract says that you have to treat all lepers equally. I heard that you helped out another leper, so I demand that you heal me too. Otherwise, I will sue you for discrimination on the basis of race.” Or maybe they might have said, “I’m a U.S. citizen. I have a right to receive medical treatment from you. I am entitled to it.” Don’t get me wrong. I am not against union contracts, nor am I against the gov’t giving help to those who need it. But I am against the entitlement mentality of our nation that says it is my right to receive these things. Instead, we need to be thankful when we receive them.
There was one man among the group who knew especially well that he did not deserve Jesus’ healing. He was a Samaritan (vs. 16). That might not mean much to you except to let you know that he was from Samaria. But it meant a lot in that day. Because of some things that had happened in the history of the two peoples, they hated one another. The Jews considered them to be half-breeds, traitors and impure. The Jews would do whatever was necessary to avoid any contact with the Samaritans going out of their way to go around Samaria even if going directly through Samaria would have been shorter. This Samaritan knew better than anyone else that he did not deserve the healing which Jesus provided.
One day, Jesus was eating a meal with one of the religious leaders of His day. While they were eating, a woman came into the house and began to weep over Jesus’ feet. Then she used her hair and the water from her tears to wash Jesus’ feet. The religious leader became indignant. He knew that the woman who did this was a prostitute. He was so self-righteous that he wouldn’t even have allowed the woman to touch him. He was appalled that Jesus had allowed her to do what she did. Then Jesus put a question to the man. He said that two men owed another man money. One owed ten times as much as the other. Both men were forgiven their debt. Jesus asked, “Which man will love his master more?” The religious leader correctly answered, “I suppose the man who was forgiven the most”. The one who feels his own lack of deservedness for the gift of another is the one that will be the most thankful.
Have you ever wondered why a person who was saved as an adult and came out of a life of sex, drugs, and alcohol seems to be more on fire for God than a person who was saved out of a “good” life? The more a person has a grip on how sinful they really are and how far God had to reach down to rescue them, the more they will respond with thankfulness and love toward Him. None of us, I hope, would ever claim that we deserved God’s rescue of us. But somewhere in the back of our mind, we might act like we deserved it more than the person who was wallowing in their own sin. Paul called himself the chief of sinners. He never lost sight of where he had come from, so he never lost the thankfulness for the gift of God toward him.
Husbands, you don’t deserve the love and loyalty of your wives. Children, you don’t deserve the home that your parents provide for you. Wives, you don’t deserve the strength and leadership that your husbands provide. Christian, you don’t deserve the rescue from hell and the relationship with God that Jesus provides. Be thankful.
3. We think to thank when we realize what we have gained.
Those men on that day, they realized that they had gained much more than just their health. So much more came along with that. They had gained the opportunity to go back home. They had gained their lives back. Do you understand what you have gained as a result of your salvation? You have gained forgiveness, a clean slate, a home in heaven, the guidance of God’s Spirit, the promise of God’s protection, a relationship with Jesus, a peace that overcomes all obstacles, and an assurance that everything is going to work out in the end. Because of that, we can do as the Bible says and give thanks in all things. Sometimes that may be difficult to do, but if you try hard enough, you can find a way to give thanks for almost anything. Matthew Henry, the famous Bible scholar, was robbed by thieves. He wrote in his diary: "Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before; second, although they took my wallet, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed." - Jerry Songer, "`Tis the Season to Be Thankful," Proclaim, (Nashville: Sunday School Board, Oct-Dec, 1996) 35
God has given us so much already and promised us even more, that we need to be satisfied with these things. A man wanted to sell his home and contacted a real estate agent. He described his house and grounds to the agent and asked him to write an advertisement which he could put in the papers. The agent did as he requested and then read what he had written to the home-owner. “Read that again” said the man who wanted to see his house. The agent obliged, only to hear this astonishing remark: “The house is not for sale. All my life, I’ve wanted a home just like the one just described. But I never knew that I had it until I heard what you have written about it.” – Knights master book of new illustrations, p. 675 Do you want to know what you have gained in Christ? It’s already been described and recorded in God’s Word. Read it for yourself.
4. We think to thank when we realize that what was done for us could not have been done by us.
When someone does for me what I could have done for myself had I taken the time or been motivated, I will probably still say “thank you”. But when someone does for me what there was no way that I could have done for myself, that produces extreme thankfulness. It produces the “Wow!” factor. You know what the “Wow!” factor is, don’t you? It’s the kind of reaction that Lorenna will get on Christmas morning when Niketta finds a brand new car wrapped in a bow waiting for her in the driveway. From her perspective, she could have never gotten that car on her own. It’s the same kind of reaction many of us husbands who can’t cook will give when we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. We realize that the wonderful meal spread out before us is not something that we could have accomplished on our own.
These lepers knew that there was no way that they could provide healing for themselves. That’s why they cried out to Jesus. He was the only one who could help.
The Bible records that our salvation is something that we could never earn. (Eph 2:8-9 NIV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. (Titus 3:5 NIV) he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, God did for us what we could have never done for ourselves. No matter how hard we tried, how sincere we were, how much we gave, it would have never been enough to overcome the debt that we already owed.
5. We think to thank when we concentrate on the giver instead of the gift. (vs. 15-16)
Another way of saying this principle is thanks is forgotten when the receiver overlooks the giver because he becomes preoccupied with the gift. Christmas morning is fast approaching. The biggest shopping day of the year will be this Friday. I remember many a Christmas morning that I spent as a child. The anticipation had been growing for weeks. I would look at each gift, feel them, shake them, and sometimes try to pull off just a piece of two of tape to find out what was inside. By the time that Christmas morning arrived, I was so excited that I would just rip into the presents. The problem with that is that as I ripped off the wrapping paper, I would fail to first notice whose name was on the tag as the giver. After I had already opened it and was thrilled with what was inside, my mother would ask, “Who was that from?” I would have to go hunt up the wrapping paper that had surrounded it to find the name tag that had been on it. It’s not that I wasn’t thankful; it’s just that I was so excited about the gift that I forgot about the giver.
I think that is what happened to the nine lepers who were healed that day. As they were going toward the priests, they began to notice changes in one another. Splotches of skin that had been black because they were dead suddenly began to change back into that beautiful living flesh. Sores that had been bloody and full of puss dried up and were healed before their eyes. Perhaps they had begun their journey by walking or hobbling because of their weak limbs and lack of strength. But the more that they saw the healing take place in their bodies, the faster they went until they were running at the top of their ability. The only thought on their minds was, “I can go home! I can hug my kids again! I can love my wife again! I’m going to live!” It is not too difficult to understand how they could forget about the one who healed them with such a gift as that placed before them.
But one of them, the Samaritan, stopped in his tracks, turned around, and went back to Jesus. When he got to Jesus, he fell down at Jesus’ feet and glorified God with the same loud voice that he had used to call out for help only a short time earlier. He didn’t allow the gift to turn his attention away from the one who gave it.
It is very easy to let the gifts that God or others have given us take up more of our time and receive more of our love than we give to the one who gave the gift to begin with. “Sorry, honey. I can’t spend any time listening to how your day went. I’m playing this new computer game that you gave me.” “Sorry, mom, I can’t help with dinner right now. I’m talking to one of my friends on the new telephone line that you and dad got me for Christmas.” “Sorry, God, I can’t spend any time reading your word and talking with you. I’m too busy with painting this new house that you gave me and preparing for the new job that you enabled me to get.” Matt 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” When we keep our focus on god not on the gifts that He gives us, then the level of our thanks will stay high. You see, no matter how great a gift you may receive on Christmas day, that gift will eventually rust, break, shrink, fade, go out of style or otherwise lose its value. But the person who gave that gift will remain long after the gift is tuck away in a closet. Make sure that your focus is on the value of the one who does the giving not on the value of the gift.
6. We think to thank when we realize how much hurt we create by a lack of gratitude. (vs. 17-19)
It is not difficult to hear the disappointment in Jesus’ voice as he says these words. There were ten men that He gave healing to, and only one of them returned to say “thank you”. Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that I am not God. If I had been in Jesus’ shoes, I would have been tempted to undo the healing of the thankless ones. “You take for granted what I have done for you! Well, I’ll just show you. Bang! There you go; now you have your leprosy back! How do you like that!?” But Jesus was not like that. Even though they were thankless, He still was gracious toward them.
The thankless person hurts other people. He destroys their motivation for doing good to others. But the thankless person also hurts himself. In some way, and I haven’t quite worked it all out in my own mind yet, the giving of thanks and the possession of peace are closely tied to one another. (Phil 4:6,7 NIV) Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Col 3:15 NIV) Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. I can’t say for sure what the connection between peace and thankfulness is. Maybe thankfulness evidences a contentment with what God has given me in my life. Maybe it recognizes that I am not the one in control and therefore, I am not responsible for how my life ends up. I am simply responsible to be obedient to God and thankful to Him for all that He sends my way. Those who are thankful evidence an attitude of satisfaction with what God and others have given them and a recognition of their debt to those givers.
Norman Vincent Peale told about a man by the name of William Stidger who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The man had been a very vital, dynamic person; but he had become an empty shell of his old self. A friend suggested the way for him to avoid further breakdown and to be healed was by the therapy of thanksgiving and by the practice of what is called "the attitude of gratitude." His friend advised Stidger to sit down and to make a list of all the people who had helped him through the years. Then he was to fill his mind with thankfulness for all these and for all they had done for him. His friend asked if he had ever thanked anybody. "No," he said , "I never really made much stress on that."
Next, his friend advised him to think of someone who especially had blessed his life and to write that person a letter thanking him or her. He thought of a school teacher, who was now a ver old lady. Stidger sat down and wrote the teacher a letter telling her that he remembered the inspiration she had given him, how he had never forgotten her across the years, and how much he loved her. A few days later he received a letter written in a trembling hand. Using his boyhood name, it said, "Dear Willie: When I think back over all the children I have taught in my lifetime, you are the only one who ever wrote to thank me for what I did as a teacher. You have made me so happy. I have read your letter through my tears. I have it by my bedside and I read it every night. I shall cherish your letter until the day I die."
This did so much for him that he thought of someone else to write and then someone else and before he was through, had written five hundred unexpected letters of thanks. the therapy of thanksgiving had much to do with curing him of his depression. He was so grateful for every new day, and he lived it to the fullest. - Jerry Songer, "`Tis the Season to Be Thankful," Proclaim, (Nashville: Sunday School Board, Oct-Dec, 1996) 35
7. We think to thank when we realize how much the gift cost the giver.
It is gratitude that prompted an old man to visit a broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket. Many years before, in October, 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life. Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean... For nearly a month Captian Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark...ten feet long. But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred.
In Captain Eddie’s own words, "Cherry," that was the B- 17 pilot, Captain William Cherry, "read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off." Now this is still Captian Rickenbacker talking... "Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food...if I could catch it."
And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. You know that Captain Eddie made it. And now you also know...that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset...on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast...you could see an old man walking...white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls...to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle...like manna in the wilderness.
("The Old May and the Gulls" from Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story by Paul Aurandt, 1977, quoted in Heaven Bound Living, Knofel Stanton, Standard, 1989, p. 79-80
CONCLUSION
Is giving thanks really all that important? Yes, it is. It is one of the evidences that you are controlled by God’s Spirit (Eph. 5:20). It is commanded by God (1 Thes 5:8). The lack of it hurt Jesus, and the lack of it characterizes those who have turned their back on God (Rom 1:18-21).
My challenge to you today is this: be content with what you have and thank God that He has given you so many blessings. When you sit down to your Thanksgiving meal, give the same amount of thanks to God regardless of whether you will be feasting on a giant turkey or a bologna sandwich. Use the same big mouth to praise and thank God that you used to beg Him for His mercy and grace.
