Where are the Nine?

The sermon text this morning comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

We'll be reading verses 11 through 19.

This morning we're going to look at the topic of thanksgiving, giving praise, giving thanks to God for his blessings, his mercies in our life.

This is a story, a true story, of ten men who had a deadly disease, the disease of leprosy, who were desperate for healing.

And so they went to Jesus.

And we read, on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.

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.

When he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priest.

And as they went, they were cleansed.

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.

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?

And he said to him, Rise and go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

This is the reading of God's holy word.

The psalmist said, Open my eyes that I might see things in your word.

And should we not pray that this morning as well?

Oh Lord God Almighty, open our eyes.

Open the eyes of our hearts that we might see wonderful things.

Things that are not too good to be true because you said them.

Change us this morning, Spirit of God.

Make us praising people in new ways.

We ask for the sake of Christ.

Amen.

On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus passes along what a paraphrase might say, no man's land.

The border between Israel and Samaria.

No man's land.

And he comes to a village, met by ten lepers.

Some of us know a little bit, not by experience, certainly, but by reading, the life of a leper was a hard life.

You lived outside the city, you never lived in a town, you never lived in a city, you never lived with your family.

Your contact with your family was completely shut off.

Cut off, most likely for the rest of your life.

And you wore torn clothes.

You never put your good clothes on.

You didn't have good clothes.

And your clothes were torn to communicate to anybody that happened to come near you that you had a serious, deadly disease and stay away because I'm unclean.

And of course, back then it wasn't like, okay, I just can't have any physical contact, but I'll have communication and I'll pick up my phone and I'll check in with my family, I'll check in with my friends.

No, of course that didn't happen.

I mean, you had no communication.

And misery loves company, so we're not surprised to see ten lepers gathered together, probably living some kind of a little refugee camp outside the city.

And anytime somebody came close to you, you needed by law to yell out, unclean, unclean.

Don't touch me, don't get near me.

You don't want what I have.

And that's why the text tells us that they stood at a distance.

It was required by law that they were to stay at least 100 paces away.

That would be somewhere between two and three hundred yards.

That would be beyond the length of this sanctuary.

Can you imagine?

I mean, that's as close as somebody would come to you.

That's why you needed to shout.

You didn't whisper unclean, you shouted.

Unclean.

Can you imagine having a conversation with somebody further than me to the back of the sanctuary?

Ten lepers came to Jesus.

The text tells us they lifted up their voices.

Well, that's why.

But also because they were desperate.

And they cried out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

How did they know?

How did they know to acknowledge Jesus as master?

Well, they must have heard, but who told them?

Did someone tell them before they contacted the disease?

The story doesn't inform us.

But they they believed that Jesus was able to heal them.

And that must have been hope against hope.

Can he really?

I mean, it's not likely that they were aware of him healing other lepers.

I mean, perhaps by now he had, as recorded by other gospels.

They lifted up their voices.

Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

Verse 14.

When he looked at them.

Do you know 40 different times the Gospels point out that Jesus looked at people?

You might say, well, what's the big deal, Tom?

I think it is.

Most of the times that the Gospels point out that he looked at people, it's with definite purpose.

Usually it's suggested in the context that most people would not be looking at the people he looked at.

Because the people that he looked at most of the time were in pain.

They were suffering.

It would have been inconvenient to engage these people.

You know, like tomorrow when you go downtown and you're on the street and you're walking from your parking lot or from the metro, you're walking to your office, and they're street people.

Most people don't take the time to stop and engage because, among other things, it's inconvenient.

It'll cost time and maybe more than time.

Jesus looked at them.

He saw them.

It's easy to divert your eyes on the streets, to stay disengaged.

Jesus did not ignore their problem.

The lepers wanted Jesus to see their uncleanness.

Whereas many people today are trying to cover their uncleanness.

I'm struck by that.

Many people today are trying to cover up what's wrong with them.

Isn't that true?

They're not taking it to Jesus.

They're not taking it to God.

It's almost like, okay, either they think that God can't handle it, which is not true, or they don't think that God would ever do anything with it.

Jesus engaged them.

He said, Go, show yourselves to the priest.

Well, Jesus is directly appealing to Old Testament law.

That if anybody was ever healed by the leprosy was healed or an infectious skin disease, they were good to go to the priest.

The priests were the public health examiners.

The priests were the ones, and it was an eight-day process.

When you went to the priest to show, look, I had a disease, but look, I'm healed, right?

You can see.

No doubt it would have been like being in the doctor's office.

Take off your clothes.

Let me examine to make sure that make sure that you're really healed in eight days before you could be pronounced clean.

And as they went, because Jesus said, go, well, that required faith.

It's interesting what he didn't say.

He didn't say, I'm healing each and every one of you right now.

And because I'm healing you, go to the priest, go to the health inspectors.

He just says, go and show yourself to the priest.

What were they thinking at that moment?

I'm healed?

Is he saying I'm healed?

Required by law.

Charles Spurgeon talks about what kings did in his day, actually, not before his day, talking about London.

He writes in his journal, I was reading only yesterday of what happened at Westminster many years ago when the king went along the highway.

There were crowds of poor lepers on either side of the road.

A shocking sight to see this in this dear city of ours.

And the king of England, in his tender mercy, simply passed a law that the lepers should not come near the road again.

To hook his gracious majesty with their misery.

That's a line worth thinking about.

That they should not hook his gracious majesty with their misery.

This is all that the king had to do for them.

But not our king.

Our king handles lepers very differently, doesn't he?

Yes, he does.

And so they go.

The ten leave.

But verse 15 says, But 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.

How far did he get?

That one.

How far did he get?

Did he get ten yards?

Did he get a hundred yards?

He must have not gotten too far because he found Jesus where he left him.

This was not ours.

This was not a long time before he came to his senses and realized, I need to go back and thank him.

He went back.

Jesus says, no, he was a Samaritan.

Read the story.

You can't hear the story without realizing the point that Jesus was making.

The Samaritan, the foreigner, the one that didn't grow up in Israel, the one that didn't grow up in Judaism, the one that didn't know of the laws, all the laws and the prophets of the Old Testament, the one that you wouldn't expect got it.

The ones that you would have expected didn't get it.

By the way, that's still true today, many times over.

Now he was a Samaritan, and he went back praising God with a loud voice.

He fell at the feet of Jesus, giving him thanks, and Jesus says in verse 17, but where are the nine?

It's almost like Jesus is saying, I'm so glad you came back.

I'm so glad you came back.

But where are the nine?

Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

And when he says this foreigner, he's not saying it disparagingly.

He's just stating truth.

The one that you wouldn't expect to come back did come back.

The ones that you would have thought would come back didn't.

He says to this foreigner, rise.

And you know why he said rise?

He was on the ground.

His face was in the dirt.

He fell right before Jesus.

His heart was filled with gratitude.

And Jesus said, Get up, rise, and go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

This is very Luke-like.

In Luke chapter 7, verse 50, he said, He said to the woman, the woman with a reputation in the town, your faith has saved you.

Luke 7:50

Go in peace.

He said to the woman with the hemorrhage, the woman who had bleeding for years that no doctor could cure, when Jesus healed her, he said, Daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go.

Hear me, friends.

Our faith is essential in our healing.

Our faith is essential in our healing.

It's never the cause of our healing, spiritually or physically.

However, it is the instrument that God uses in our healing.

It's the means that God uses.

Jesus came to heal the diseases of our souls.

Jesus came to heal and to die and to atone for the greatest, harshest disease that anyone sitting here has.

And that's our sin.

It's not our leprosy, it's not the infectious skin diseases that we might contact that keep us from God.

It's the disease, the blackest disease of all of our heart, our sin.

The broken, the unclean, the decaying parts of our lives that desperately need healing, Jesus says, bring it.

You read the gospels, and that's what you read on every page.

Bring it.

Come.

What in you needs healing?

Bring it.

Many people today have what might be called spiritual neuropathy.

You know, neuropathy, you lose feeling.

Whether it's your feet or your hands, you lose feeling.

A numbed soul that perhaps cannot even feel what we're supposed to feel.

That happens.

Trust me, I know as a pastor, I see that many times.

When people talk about, I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel.

I can't even feel.

Jesus doesn't purify or cleanse what is already clean.

He only heals what is unclean.

What we confess needs healing.

What we confess needs clean.

Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew's gospel?

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Now, lest you think that there he was referring to people that really are well spiritually, that don't need a spiritual physician, lest you think that he's suggesting that there are people like that on this earth.

No, that's not what he's saying.

Some people will never go to the doctor.

Are you one of those people?

You just don't go to the doctor.

You just don't like doctors, so you don't go.

Well, if something's wrong in your body, you better go.

If something requires a medical intervention, you better go.

Or it's going to cost you dearly.

Jesus said, I didn't come for those who have no need of a doctor.

I came for those who understand that they do need a spiritual doctor.

He says, I can help them.

I can't help anyone else.

If you don't see the need, if you don't experience and feel the need to bring whatever is hurting, whatever is uncleans in your life, if you don't feel the need to bring that to Jesus, he can't help you today.

He can't help you until you bring it to him.

And I say that, friends, whether you are not yet a Christian, you come to Jesus for salvation.

I say that, friends, to those of us who are Christians, but are not going to the doctor.

We're just trying to deal with it on our own.

We're trying to fix it on our own.

It doesn't work that way.

Where are the nine?

I'm going to close with three points that I hope might be effective handles for you to think about giving praise and thanks to God this Thanksgiving season.

By the way, we praise God for not only who He is, first and foremost, or we should praise God every day for who he is, but we also praise Him for what He does for us.

We praise Him for what He has done for us.

We give thanks to Him.

First of all, the priority of praise.

The priority in my life of giving thanks to God every day.

Why are there so few of God's people who live lives of thanksgiving?

Charles Spurgeon said of this, the world is dry of thankfulness to God.

We do not praise the Lord fitly, proportionately, or intensely.

He says we have received, we Christians have received a continent of mercies, and we only return an island of praise.

That's so Spirit-esque.

We receive a continent of mercies.

Is that not true, Christian?

And yet so often we only return an island of praise.

All ten lepers prayed for healing, but only one praised the healer for the healing.

That's the point of this.

Don't miss it.

All ten prayed.

When you come to Jesus and you say, Master, please heal me, prayer.

All ten prayed, but only one praised.

Isaac Watts, the great hymn writer and theologian, put it like this.

Hosanna's language on our tongues and our devotion dies.

Do you know that's true?

That's it does.

When Hosanna's language on our tongues, when we never really get to the point of expressing our praise, our thanksgiving, when it just kind of gets stuck inside.

It never gets formulated.

And we don't express it.

When Hosanna's language on our tongues, our devotion to Jesus does die.

That's why this is so important.

Too often we pray far more than we praise.

We don't give thanks for our answered prayers.

Again, Spurgeon, prayer is for time.

Praise is for eternity.

Praise therefore deserves the first and highest place in our lives.

Have you ever thought about it like that?

I mean, as important as prayer is, it's almost like God understands, because we have such need, great needs, God understands that we're going to come to Him with needs.

I mean, we're just going to come and we're going to cry out and we're going to say, God please, I need a job.

God please, I need your healing in my body.

God please, I need to know what to do in this situation.

We just kind of instinctively do that.

But what we don't instinctively do so well is actually say, thank you and praise him.

John Kelvin said, We have short memories in magnifying God's grace.

Every blessing that God confers upon us perishes through our carelessness if we are not prompt and active in giving thanks.

And so the second handle I want to give you is the promptness of our praise.

Don't sit on it.

Don't file it away.

Some of you know I have that problem with responding to emails sometimes.

I get so many emails in a day.

Sometimes I read that and I think, okay, I'm going to respond, and then you know, and somebody comes in my office.

You know how that works.

I don't always respond promptly to my emails, but that pales by comparison to not promptly returning thanks to God for every blessing he gives me.

And gratitude is not a small sin, friends.

We may think it such.

We may think in gratitude, not expressing our praise.

I mean, I really should have done better.

You know, I need to work on that.

I'm going to tell you, I really believe this.

And it's true for me, and it's true for you.

That's a serious sin.

Paul says in Romans chapter 1 that they neither gave thanks to God, they never gave him glory, they did not give him thanks for what he had given.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

And the Bible calls that idolatry.

Why is it idolatry when we don't thank God for his blessings?

I suppose because what we're really doing is we're taking credit for ourselves.

When God gives us something and we don't thank him, aren't we effectively saying, well, I had something to do with it?

God forgive us.

The promptness of praise.

Where are the nine?

The Samaritans went back.

The Samaritan went back to Jesus immediately.

I mean, was he a hundred yards away?

Was he ten yards?

I don't know.

But the point is, is he didn't forget.

And as soon as it struck him, he did something about it.

Evidently, he didn't stop and think, you know, I wonder if I should go back because he healed me.

I wonder if I should go back.

How many times do second thoughts get in the way of our devotion to Jesus?

Do you understand me?

Second thoughts.

When you start to argue with yourself, when you start to reason with yourself, I could do that, I should do that, but God deliver us from most of our second thoughts when it comes to this.

Again, Spurgeon.

Ah, my friend, it is better to lay one brick today than to propose to build a palace next year.

Praise him now.

Praise him today.

Is the Spirit at work in you?

I mean right now.

Is the Spirit speaking to you through the Word of God?

Is the Spirit pointing out areas where God has been so gracious to you?

Praise Him.

By the way, that's why we give you an opportunity to do that before we go downstairs for coffee.

That's why we have songs of response.

That's why we call them songs of response.

So what the Spirit does through the preaching of the word, what the Spirit does through the worship of God's people, we pour out what God pours in in worship when the Spirit is working.

Only the foreigner gave thanks to the real priest.

It's like the Samaritan is saying, okay, he told me to go back to the priest of Israel, even though I'm a Samaritan.

He told me to go back to the priest of Israel.

Okay, I'll do that.

But again, along the way, he realizes, wait a minute, why would I go to earthly priest just to get a clean bill of health when I don't first go to the great priest?

The other nine did their duty, but only the Samaritan went beyond duty.

He went far beyond duty to devotion.

And that's worship.

Capture the praise.

That's what we're saying.

Capture the praise.

Express the praise.

How?

Yes, in public worship.

As we sing, as we give our money.

That's capturing the praise.

If you really are thankful for what God has done, you're not going to hold on to your money.

You're just not going to.

If you really believe that it's from God's hand, you're going to say, God, it's yours, take it.

With your voice, sing it.

Capture it.

Publicly.

Privately.

Say it.

Sing it.

Don't be ashamed.

Don't care.

Don't care what the person next to me thinks of my voice.

Don't care.

I lost that fear a long time ago.

Don't care.

Why would I care?

I'm not singing it to you.

I'm singing it to him.

Say it.

Some people rarely express appreciation for others.

Have you noticed that?

Their motto seems to be, just assume everything is okay in our relationship between us.

If I don't compliment you, that means that you're doing your job well.

Oh man, that's hard.

And I know our different personality types.

I get that, but this is more than that.

In marriage counseling, I learned in graduate school that for every 20, you need to say 20 things positively for every one negative you say in your marriage.

How are you doing, married people?

For every one negative critical thing you say to your spouse, if you're going to have a healthy marriage, you need to say 20 positive things.

That's just based on the research.

If I don't compliment you, that just means you're doing your job?

Really?

I don't think so.

Be prompt in your praise.

Be prompt in your giving thanks to God.

And I think there is a correlation.

I think that there is a correlation.

The quicker we are to give our praise promptly to God, I've noticed a correlation.

The healthier our marriages are, the healthier our relationships are, the quicker we are to thank other people and to express it.

And not just to think it inside.

Keep it inside.

The great hymn, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing, your loosened tongues.

You remember the next word?

Employ.

Only Jesus can loosen your tongue.

But he doesn't loosen your tongue until he first loosens your heart.

He has to get your heart before he gets your tongue.

That's the way it works.

Lastly, the power of praise.

The priority of praise, the promptness of praise, the power of praise.

When we praise God well, it fattens, it enriches not only our souls but others as well.

Praise is contagious.

It just is.

The leper fell on his face.

He praised God with a loud voice.

I'm going to ask you this.

Have you ever done that?

Have you ever praised God with a loud voice?

We do it with our sports teams.

Every time I'm at the Kennedy Center, I see it.

After a great performance, I hear a lot of loud praise at the Kennedy Center.

At NAD Stadium.

Surely the sanctuary of God deserves first place in our praising.

But so many of us, I think, struggle with conventional reserve.

Robert Murray McChane, the great Scottish Presbyterian pastor, said it like this: Conventional reserve is the great enemy to revival.

I wonder what he how he got there.

I think he's right.

The great enemy of revival is conventional above everything else.

I gotta look cool.

I gotta look like I'm in control.

I have to look like I've got it together.

Who told you that?

It's not true.

The gospels are filled with many accounts of many people who found that Jesus really could heal them.

And they let loose.

They didn't care.

Look, friend, you worship God to the best of your ability.

And if that means you raise your hands, you raise your hand.

If that means that you want to express it vocally with an amen, that's okay.

If that means you need to get down on your knees.

If you need to get down on your knees, there's aisles here.

I don't know how you would express your praise your way.

But as long as it accords with Scripture, and Scripture spends a lot of time describing many physical manifestations of the outpouring of praise.

Just read the Psalms.

Forgiven little, love little.

We talk about that at APC a lot, but forgiven little, praise little too.

What deserves the greatest thanks more than physical healing?

More than getting good grades, more than thank you, God, for my job?

What deserves our greatest thanks?

You've been saved, Christian.

And you've been saved to an abundant life and an eternal life.

And we will be praising the Savior throughout all eternity.

Let's do it well by God's Spirit now.

Let's do it well today.

Let me say something in closing.

Don't confuse personality with gospel transformation.

This is not about some people just being positive people or extroverts and they just naturally express things.

That's not what this is about.

Deep gratitude is expressed through and every personality.

When we are truly growing in the gospel, when we are growing in a gospel perspective, gospel joy transcends personality.

Believe it.

You're going to still be you.

Nobody in this room needs a personality transplant.

God's cool with you the way he made you.

He just wants you to praise him as you are, but if there's deep gratitude in your heart, you will express it.

You will sing it and you will say it and you will live it.

I love that about the gospel.

When we are truly growing in the gospel perspective, and oh yes, there will be emotion.

There will be emotion.

Another line I got from Spurgeon, let us hold praise meetings.

Church, we hold prayer meetings as we should, but let us hold praise meetings.

Well, guess what?

We are tonight at 5 o'clock, and we're going to ask the Spirit of God to free us, to lead us, to express how great our God is and what mighty things we've seen him do in our lives.

And as was read by the Reeves earlier, that doesn't mean that you wait until it all comes together for you.

Though the fig tree does not blossom, though I look on the vine trees in my orchard and there's no fruit, the olive crop failed, the flocks are puny, there's no cows in the stall.

I mean, he's a realist.

Sometimes this is what life looks like.

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

Because the Lord is my strength.

Please pray with me.

Oh, Lord, God, you are our strength.

The joy of our Lord is our strength.

Father, we know what that means is that we when we don't take our joy from you, we are weak.

Oh, we are weak.

But Lord, we want to leave this sanctuary today with strength.

Not because everything's changed on the outside, but because something is changing on the inside.

And only your Holy Spirit can make that happen.

So take your truth, Spirit of God, and drive it deep into our hearts and our minds this morning.

May we be ever more praising people.

May you be glorified by our praises now and even tonight.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.