Most of us are familiar with the traditional story of Thanksgiving where William Bradford, of Plymouth Rock, proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the survival of the Pilgrims in their second year in the New World, as well as an abundant harvest that they had reaped with the aid of the Indians. However, most people don’t know that the first American Thanksgiving didn’t occur in 1621 with this group of Pilgrims who shared a feast with a group of friendly Indians. The first recorded thanksgiving actually took place in Virginia more than 11 years earlier, and it wasn’t a feast. The winter of 1610 at Jamestown had reduced a group of 409 settlers to 60. The survivors prayed for help, without knowing when or how it might come. When help arrived, in the form of a ship filled with food and supplies from England, a prayer meeting was held to give thanks to God. You would think that after seeing so many of their loved ones die due to the hardships of the New World, they would not feel that thankful. However, the opposite was true. They realized they had much to be thankful for.
We ourselves often don’t realize how blessed we are, or how thankful we ought to be, until what we have is threatened to be taken away. It is good and fitting that as Christians, we ought to celebrate Thanksgiving for God has certainly been good to every singular one of us. Someone once said that gratitude is the source for all other Christian virtues. If that be the case, then perhaps we need to reason that ingratitude may well be the source of all, or at least many of our faults as well. When we begin to take for granted what God has done for us, then we become calloused and filled with pride and then God can no longer use us. For a Christian, every day ought to be a day of thanksgiving.
Here in the passage of scripture that I read this morning, there were ten lepers who met Jesus and had a life changing encounter with the Lord. When you break this story down to it’s simplest elements, that describes every Christian. We were outcasts from the Kingdom of God, on our way to certain death, but then we had a life changing encounter with Jesus. While we should never look back on the pleasures of sin, we should never forget where the Lord has brought us from. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said: Isaiah 51:1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. In other words, look at where God has brought you from, remember what God has done for you. Visit again in your mind the place where you first met God and His mercy and grace. However, what is so significant about these lepers who were healed is that out of the 10, only one returned to say thanks. There were nine who did not take the time to say thank you. If you were to infer the truth of this story on general humanity, we could say that nine out of ten people never really pause to give thanks for what they have. One man named Charles Brown, gave several suggestions as to why the other nine never returned to give thanks. Keep in mind that these are only suggestions, but they reveal a whole lot about human nature.
· One waited to see if the cure was real.
· One waited to see if it would last.
· One said he would see Jesus later.
· One decided that he had never had leprosy.
· One said he would have gotten well anyway.
· One gave the glory to the priests.
· One said, "O, well, Jesus didn’t really do anything."
· One said, "Any rabbi could have done it."
· One said, "I was already much improved."
And then there was one who returned to give God thanks. I want to share with you this morning several truths from this passage of scripture that I hope will cause us to truly give God thanks for what all He has done for us.
I. NOTICE THE LEPERS’ CONDITION.
1. Most of us have heard stories of the horrors of having leprosy in Biblical times. It was a horrible disease to have. Not only was there the pain of the disease itself, but there was also the stigma that went with having the disease.
2. The Mosaic Law pronounced a leper as being “unclean”. They were not fit to enter into the tabernacle, or later, the Temple to worship. They could no longer live with their families, but the law required them to live outside the city (Num. 5:2-3). The Law required that they rend their clothes as a sign of extreme sorrow, that their faces be covered and that they cry out “unclean” when ever anyone came close to them. Their faces were hidden, representing that no form of intimacy could be known to them. In Hebrew tradition, the face was seen as being the most intimate part. You could not truly know someone until you could see their face. When the Jews were commanded to seek the face of God, they were commanded to seek His presence for the same Hebrew word for face, is the same word for presence.
3. To be a leper meant no intimacy with anyone, no friendship with anyone, you were isolated and a total outcast. Leprosy was regarded as a disease which the Jews supposed to be inflicted for the punishment of some particular sin, and to be, more than other diseases, a mark of God’s displeasure. If you were a leper, you essentially lost everything, your family, your job, and your money.
4. Note that verse 12 of Luke 17 describes these lepers as standing “afar off”. Rabbinic tradition said that they had to stand at least 100 paces from anyone else. They could not even come close to Jesus.
5. The reason I have spent so much time in describing leprosy this morning is because it is a picture of sin and what Satan wishes to do to every singular one of you here today. Eaton’s Bible Dictionary says of this disease. “Leprosy was "the outward and visible sign of the innermost spiritual corruption; a meet emblem in its small beginnings, its gradual spread, its internal disfigurement, its dissolution little by little of the whole body, of that which corrupts, degrades, and defiles man’s inner nature, and renders him unmeet to enter the presence of a pure and holy God”.
6. I’m not going to equate leprosy with sin, but there are important similarities between them. Like the leper, we too were isolated from true intimacy, like the leper, we too were outcasts (from the Kingdom of God), like the leper, we too were in the process of loosing everything to sin, and like the leper, we too were being destroyed by that which was in our bodies, the law of sin and death.
II. NOTICE THE LEPERS’ CRY.
1. In verse 13, we are told, as Jesus was about to enter into the city, that these lepers, who had to stand afar off, began to cry, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”.
2. That was all that they could do. No physician could heal them, no medicine could cure them. They were completely helpless before the onslaught of this deadly disease.
3. We like to think that we are sufficient, that we are capable of handling life, but the truth is, we are born helpless into this world, and we are helpless to stand before sin and Satan. We stand condemned by sin and we are totally helpless.
Romans 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
4. Here in the Greek, to be without strength means to be totally helpless. Like these lepers, we were helpless to stop our destruction. All we can do is cry for mercy.
5. Here the Greek word for mercy is "eleeo" {el-eh-eh’-o} have mercy or compassion on. Some of you have heard me give the different between mercy and grace because they are often confused. I’m going to give it again. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve and mercy is not getting what you deserve.
6. Remember that mercy is not getting what you deserve. I believe that these men realized that they were sinners and whatever they had received, they deserved. Yet now they are crying out for mercy, for relief from their torments.
They are begging the Lord to have compassion on them, to help them in their time of need.
7. Their only hope was placed on this man Jesus. Everything had come down to this moment, to this encounter with Jesus. Aren’t you glad that when your only hope is placed on Jesus, He will be more than enough. Jesus had compassion on them and told them to go and present themselves to the priests, as the law commanded. The priest would inspect them and give them a clean bill of health so they could rejoin their communities and families (Lev. 14:2).
8. Why did Jesus tell them this? Why didn’t He just say, “be healed”? Because faith is always required of the helpless. Naaman the Syrian had to act on faith in the OT to be cleansed. The story of the leper in Matthew 8, who came to Jesus confessed faith and that is why Jesus healed him by just touching him. They went on by faith and as they did, they were healed. They heard the Word of Christ and they believed and they were healed. This was by faith. They were not healed first and then told to go to the priests, they had to act on faith. However, how simple that was.
III. NOTICE ONE LEPER’S CELEBRATION.
1. We are told that as they began their journey to the priests, they were cleansed or healed. What is significant is that out of the 10, there was one who reacted differently than the rest. The Bibles says that he saw that he was healed, he turned back and glorified God, and he came to Jesus and gave Him thanks.
Why did this one react differently? Here is the meat of my message this morning. This is a sermon within a sermon. There are three distinctions between him and the others.
A. Note the perception of gratitude.
2. The Bible says, “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed”. The Bible says that he saw he was healed. Now the others no doubt knew that they were healed, but there was something different here. The Greek word used is one that we have came across several times lately. It is the word eido, and it means to know, see, or perceive. He took the time to note that he had been blessed. He realized that something wonderful had happened to him. He was sensitive to the power of Christ working in his life. His perception had entirely changed.
3. There is an old Jewish story that illustrates this point. There is a man who goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?" The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you." The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week." A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "We cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy." The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week." A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat -- only the nine of us." The situation was the same as at first, but now his perception had changed. He realized that he was blessed to begin with.
4. Do we really perceive the ways that God has blessed us? Not a one of us is hungry, not a one of us is naked, but most importantly, if you are a Christian, you have been given everything through Christ Jesus our Lord. The devil will do his best to keep your mind off the blessings of God. He will constantly tell you how bad you have it, of how everything is wrong in your life. You see, it’s when you begin to realize how much you have in the Lord, that you will truly begin to be thankful, and when you are thankful, your heart will abound with love for the Lord that has so graciously given all to you.
5. An unthankful Christian is a defeated Christian for he/she has lost their joy.
B. Note the priority of gratitude.
6. When he saw that he was healed, he turned around. Now the Lord had given the command to go to the priest but he delayed, he turned around and went back to the Lord. Why didn’t the Lord rebuke him for this? The reason is because this man realized the priority of gratitude and worship. Remember a couple of months ago, we talked about the importance of worship, of how it is the main thing. God has called His church to give glory to Him above everything else. I believe that this man fully intended to obey what the Lord had told him to do, but he realized that he had a higher calling that must first come first. If you don’t give God thanks, it won’t be long until your obedience just becomes a job to do, you lose the meaning of what God is wanting you to do. You become unthankful. It is fitting and proper to give thanks and praise to the Lord for what He has done in your life.
C. Note the perfection of gratitude.
7. As he drew near to where the Lord was, he glorified God. The Greek means that he made the Lord glorious, he manifested the worth of the Lord. He came to Jesus and fell down before Him in perfect submission and gave Him thanks. The Lord asked the question, Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Then note what He told this man, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith has made thee whole.”
8. This was something that the others did not receive. One scholar said that a new power was given to him that day. He had faith, not just to be healed, but many commentaries state that he had the faith to follow Christ. All people are blessed of God, but not all follow Christ. This man’s thankful heart responded in faith and he was perfected as a disciple of the Lord.
