Luke, The Orderly Account of Truth - What God Demands of You - Luke 17:11-19

Glad you're here. We are in our series in Luke

called The Orderly Account of Truth, looking at Luke's careful

examination into eyewitness testimonies about the life and the ministry

of our Lord and Savior Jesus. So I'm glad you

all are here as we continue in that and today

we're looking at a time when Jesus was met by

ten men on the road to Jerusalem that were afflicted

with a terrible disease and they sought healing from it.

This story's going to show us examples of faith, both

in what Jesus can do and in who Jesus is.

But more importantly, what I'm going to do my very

best to show you is how God both rightly demands

and deserves our pray and worship. He rightly demands and

deserves praise and worship, and not only from us, but

from all of his creation, for all that He's done

and for all of who he is. So, if you're

taking notes, the title of my servant today is what

God demands of you. What God demands of you. Everyone

have their Bible ready, Jake Scott it, Oh you're already there. Nice,

I remember everyone anyone else, anyone spend time in the

VBS growing up or a Wana. I always had those competitions.

Who could get to the Yeah, who can get to

the scripture the fastest? Jake just won. I don't have

a prize for you, but we're gonna be in chapters.

Do you have a sticker for him? Nice? Thanks Jesse,

see Jesse after service. Jake for your sticker. But turn

with me in chapter seventeen. We're gonna read through verses

eleven through nineteen. If you need a Bible, we have

them available at the resource booth. Just out passed those

double doors. Let's read it first and then we will pray.

Chapter eleven eleven, Chapter seventeen, Verse eleven. 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 priests. 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's feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, we're not

ten cleansed. Where are the nine? Was no one found

to return and give praise to God? Accept this foreigner,

and he said to him, rise and go your way.

Your faith has made you well. This is God's word.

Let's pray. Lord, I thank you that we can be

here to learn from and be changed by the truth

of your holy word. Lord, I pray that your Holy

Spirit would just guide me in what to say, that

my words would be yours, that the truth of this

text would change us, that we would learn from it,

and that we would also apply it. Lord, that we

would see that you you deserve our praise and our worship,

That you demand praise and worship for all of who

you are, for everything you've done. Help us to see

that and to also humble ourselves as we strive to

do it. Ask all this in your name, Amen. So

we're gonna read through the first three verses again and

just kind of pause there. We're gonna dig into those

first three verses because having a bit of context of

what's going on here is gonna help us out a

lot then verse eleven, 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. From other translations, we

know that it was ten men with leprosy that approached Jesus.

But what's actually going on here? What's actually going on

with these ten men? With these ten men plagued with leprosy?

Why are they standing at a distance from him? Why

are they not approaching him? Why are they crying out,

lifting up their voices to him and in desperation. So

to understand that, we need to talk about leprosy for

a minute, because again having the context of their physical

state and their social position will help us understand their desperation. First,

this isn't the very first time Jesus has encountered someone

with leprosy. We talked about it back in chapter five.

If you recall, a man plagued with the same disease

came to him begging to be healed, begging to be

freed from this disease. Now, if you don't remember that encounter,

or my little history lesson of leprosy. It's okay, it

was well over a year ago. I'm not going to

hold it against you. And also don't worry because I'm

going to give a lesson again right now. There is

no extra credit though. First of all, leprosy today is

very rare, actually known as Hanson's disease. Now, it's very rare.

It's also curable now. Back in ancient times, there was

no cure for leprosy at this time in the story.

If you had leprosy, the only thing that you could

do while your body rotted away or meant, was to

make yourself as comfortable as possible. And I'm emphasizing all

of the us and the yours to make a point.

If you had leprosy, you were on your own until if,

or when the disease left you, which back then was

only by a miracle. As I said earlier, there was

no cure. You were cast out. You were alone. And

this wasn't because you would look icky or even because

people in these times thought it was contagious. You were

cast out because it was a command. It was a

part of God's law, which you can read more about

in Leviticus thirteen if you're interested. According to God's law

given to Moses, the Jewish people were to be set

apart from all other customs and cultures and anything God

deemed to be unclean. If you had leprosy, it didn't

mean you were no longer a part of the children

of Israel. It just meant that you couldn't remain in

the camp, which, by the way, is where the literal

presence of God dwelt. You couldn't remain in the camp

while you were unclean, because God is holy. Because God

is holy, he required his children to be holy. If

you had leprosy, you were unclean and separated from everyone

around you, your family, your friends, the very presence of

God himself. You were totally alone, with the exception of

anyone else plagued with the same disease, or when you

came to the priests, who would wash you and determine

if you were still unclean or not. That's the kind

of life these men were living, being separated from friends

and family, being separated from their city, being separated from

the temple. For however long they've had this disease, they

lived in isolation and likely agony. That's why these men

were so desperate to be healed. That's why they kept

their distance. They were afraid to approach him, and with

great need and desire to be healed, they cried out

to Jesus. When they saw him, they lifted up their voices, saying, Jesus, Master,

have mercy on us, Have mercy on us, have compassion

toward us. Heal our affliction. And that's exactly what Jesus does.

Turn with the go to verse fourteen with me. If

you have your Bible with you, it'll be on the

screen as well. It says when he saw them, he

said that he said to them, go and show yourselves

to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. Now,

if you were to only read the first verse, in

the first sentence in this verse, you might be thinking, Jordan,

I thought you said Jesus was gonna sho him mercy.

I thought you said he was going to show them compassion.

So why did why did he send them off? But

in the next sentence it says as they went they

were cleansed. Okay, so what's actually going on here? Thanks

for asking. I'm gonna tell you. When Jesus tells them

go and show yourself to the priest. It's a command,

a command that accomplishes two things. First, this is a

command that affirms the validity of God's law. It's a

command that affirms the validity of God's law and Jesus's

adherence to that law, his adhereen it's to the law,

and his fulfillment of it. The priests back in this

time acted as a kind of local health inspector. Part

of their job would be to examine these men and

determine if their leprosy was truly gone from their bodies

or not. It was part of their job to determine

if these men were clean or unclean, ultimately deciding if

they could rejoin their community again. What's important about this

command from Jesus his affirmation of the validity of God's

law is he's doing exactly what he said he had

come to do. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus said, do not

think that I have come to abolish the law and

the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but

to fulfill them. Because Jesus never broke the law of God,

and in never breaking the law of God, he never sinned,

not once. Apologies my throat is super dry today. So

first jesus command to these ten lepers is an affirmation

and adherence to the law of God. The second thing

Jesus command to them accomplishes, and what go and show

yourself to the priest. Ultimately, what's happening is a test

of faith, which is my first point. If you're taking notes,

it's a test of faith. Sometimes Jesus healed someone out

of compassion for them, like earlier in Luke we saw

he healed a widow's dead son. He raised to life

again a widow's dead son. Sometimes he healed someone to

make a point, like when the Pharisees were challenging him

on doing good on the Sabbath, he called forward a

man with a withered hand and healed him. Sometimes, like

in this instance, Jesus healed someone on account of their

faith in him. Jesus's reasons for healing someone might differ

from situation to situation as you read through the Gospels,

but it's always to accomplish the purposes of God, the

Father who sent him. His reasons for healing someone might

differ from situation and situation, but it was always to

accomplish the purposes of God, the Father who sent him,

and this is especially important for us to remember that

God's reasons for doing anything are his own. God's reasons

for doing anything are his own and are always to

accomplish his purposes. That's something especially important for us to

think about. It's very important for us to consider that

because sometimes maybe a lot of the time, we can't

wrap our brains around or understand why something is happening

in our lives, or why something is happening in the world,

or maybe why something is not happening. That can be difficult, right,

that's when faith comes in. Those are the times when

God tests the faith of his children. I need you

to hear and understand this. If something you're asking God for,

if something you are trusting God for, praying to God

for didn't happen or isn't happening or hasn't happened, it's

not because your faith isn't great enough. Greater faith does

not equal you getting the results that you want to see.

Greater faith does not equal you getting the result you

want to see or what you're hoping or praying for.

If something didn't happen the way you wanted or expected

or prayed for, it's not because your faith was too small.

And maybe you're thinking, well, then, Jordan, why why is

this bad thing happening to me? Why hasn't God healed

my body? Why hasn't God healed my mind? Why hasn't

God given faith to my spouse, my friend that I'm

praying for? Why am I being tested? When James Chapter one,

James wrote, count it all joy, my brothers, when you

meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the

testing of your faith produced His steadfastness, and let steadfastness

have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete,

lacking in nothing. In both the Old and New Testaments,

the word test means to prove by trial. So when

God tests his children, his purpose is to prove that

their faith is real, and not to himself. He knows

all things. He knows whether your faith is real or not.

He's proving to us that our faith is real. He's

proving to us that we are truly His children, and

that no trial will overcome our faith in Him. It's

not about the size of your faith. It's not about

how great or small your faith is. It's about placing

your faith in God, placing your faith in God's plan,

placing your faith in God's purposes, in his will, because

he has a plan, He has a purpose for everything.

What we need to do is have faith in his plan,

and ultimately his plan is what's best for us. Whatever

happens is according to his purposes, and it will accomplish

his will, not our own. And I know that's a

hard thing to come to terms with. I know it is.

It's hard to see. It's hard to see what God

is doing in the moment, in the hard moments, it's frustrating.

But God's word tells us that he works everything. He

works everything out according I'm blinking on the verse now,

thank you, works everything out according to the counsel of

his will. His plan will come to pass. It's up

to us to put our faith in him, to trust

in him, to trust in that plan. In Jesus's plan here,

according to the Father's own divine purposes, tests the faith

of these ten leprous men. He tests their faith in

his divine power and ability to heal them. And by

obeying Jesus' command, these ten men both demonstrated faith in

Jesus's power to heal them and fulfillment to their obligation

of God's law to go and be seen by the priests.

And what's more, this is a side note, but I

think it's just ironic and hilarious. The priests that would

examine these men are the same priests that have been

pushing back on Jesus, had been ridiculing him, have been

trying to kill him, have been mocking him. Those are

the same priests that would have to receive these men

and say, oh, they're healed once again. This man Jesus

did what he said he can do and prove that

he is who he said he was. And for anyone

else who's like high justice like me, that's just a

sweet justice filled little fact that I think is cool.

They would have to kind of face to face with

that again, and they couldn't. They couldn't put they couldn't

pin anything on him because of it. He obeyed the law.

He sent them to the p to be checked out.

This is cool. Take that, Pharisees. When Jesus saw them,

he said to them, go show yourselves to the priests.

And as they went, they were cleansed. They were katha

rizzo in the Greek meaning made clean, cured, made clean,

and cured. Ten unclean lepers boldly and desperately cried out

to Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Ten unclean faithful

lepers obeyed. They obeyed Jesus' command to go and show

themselves to the priests. Ten faithful now ers see free

men walked away and were cleansed of their afflictions, and

one faithful leprosy free man returned to Jesus. In verse fifteen,

it says, 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 thinks now he was a Samaritan. The last sentence

is interesting because he would be the last one to

be expected to return to praise Jesus. Samaritans and Jews

hated each other. Samaritans were considered half breeds, and technically

they were half breed. He'd be the last person to

recognize who Jesus was. But it was a Samaritan that

came back. All ten of the men that walked away

were no doubt full of amazement how Jesus had cleansed them.

All ten of them were no doubt full of joy

at being cleansed of their affliction, at how they could

rejoin their community at last. But only one of them

returned to the source of that amazement, the source of

that joy. All ten men showed obedience toward what Jesus

commanded them to do. All ten men showed faith in

what they believed, what they believed Jesus could do for them.

But only one man returned. Only one man returned to

express thanks or gratefulness and praise to God for being healed.

Only one returned to the source of his healing, the

source of his joy and amazement. Only one man returned

to offer praise, return to worship God by falling at

his face, falling on his face at the feet of

God in flesh, God incarnate Jesus Christ. That's a big deal.

At this point in time, the only place you could

worship God is by going to the temple. So by

this man falling at his falling on his face before

Jesus meant that he saw Jesus as God. Because God

is the only one worthy enough to fall on your

face before. It's a big deal. Why is this signific?

Why does this matter? Is it even a big deal?

All ten of the men had faith that Jesus could

heal them. So why does this one man returning matter?

Why does it matter? Because offering our praise and our

worship to God matters to him. Offering our praise and

our worship to God matters to him. That's why this matters.

Just look at what Jesus says in response when this

one man returned Verse seventeen. Then Jesus answered, We're not

ten cleansed. Where are the nine? Was no one found

to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

Where are the Jewish men who should know better? Why

was it this foreigner? This Samaritan? Now these are obviously

rhetorical questions that Jesus is asking. The point that Jesus

is making. What he's really asking is why did only

one man come back to praise me? Why did only

one man return to fall at his face, on his

face at the feet of Jesus in worship? Why did

only one come back to worship Jesus for healing him?

Praising God, expressing thankfulness and gratitude for what He's done

for who he is matters because he demands our praise

and rightly deserves it. Worshiping God bowing down before him,

physically bowing down, also laying your life down. Worshiping him

for what he's done, for who he is matters, because

he demands our worship and is rightly deserving of it.

My next point is God demands our praise and worship

because he demands and deserves them both. He demands our

praise and worship because he demands and deserves them. Both.

God and God alone rightly demands your praise and worship.

It's in the Ten Commandments, the very law of God.

Exodus twenty verse two. Did you find it yet, Jack,

God said to Moses, you shall have no other gods

before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved

image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,

or that is in the earth beneath, or that is

in the water under the earth. You shall not bow

down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord

your God, am a jealous God. Wait. Did God just

say he's jealous? Yeah, but not in the way our sinful,

puny minds understand or comprehend jealousy. Not in that way.

When we read that word, we automatically think of it

in the sense of wanting something that someone else has,

a possession, an electronic someone's good looks. That was my

tempt to get in Brownie points later. Did it work?

All right? I go, that's my wife, by the way.

But when we hear jealousy, we think like, I give me,

give me, gimme. I want that. I don't have that.

I want it. I want I want this person's ability

to run a faster mile, or to run a mile

at all. My knees can't take it. I want that

person's success. I want that person's house. I'm jealous of them.

But that can't be what God means here, because God

isn't sinful like us. It's also the tenth commandment to

not covet, so that can't be it. When God says

that he's a jealous God, he is reinforcing the fact.

And he says this in verse one of Exous twenty.

He's re reinforcing the Not only not only did he

free them from slavery in Egypt, he also created the

ground they're standing on. He created the food that they ate,

the food that provides them a sacrifice for the sins

they commit against him. He created the sun that gives

them light in the daytime, the moon that reflects that

light in the evening. He created the stars in the

expanse of space. He created the flowers that bloom in

the spring, and the rain that nourishes them. What He's

commanding is, do not make an image of my creation.

Do not make an image of my creation, and offer

your praise and worship to it, because I alone am

worthy of it. I am God, I am the Creator,

and my creation will do what it was created to do.

Worship me. Look at the Psalm sixty six. Shout for

joy to God. All the earth sing the glory of

his name. Give to him glorious praise. Say to God,

how awesome are your deeds, So great is your power

that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth

worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises

to your name, all of the earth. We forget that

too often we get distracted with things. I do it too.

We forget that all of creation was made to worship Him,

and that means us too. Pastor Duncan talked about us,

spoke about this last week, that humanity was created to

serve God for his glory, and like the rest of

God's creation to worship him for his glory. And not

only does God demand our praise and our worship, he

deserves it. And Psalm one it tells us great is

the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness

is unsearchable. He demands our praise and our worship. He

deserves it. Sometimes when I forget that, I just walk

outside and just look. Sometimes I have to look above

the city skyline. I remember we were flying home from

Texas over Christmas and I looked out, and we live

in a beautiful state. That moment, you look out the

window and you fly in over Mount Rainier, and then

you fly over the Puget Sound and you see off

in the distance the Olympic Mountains, and you think wow.

In that moment, you feel so small. And if you

think about it long enough, you realize God is so

worthy to be praised. And how great is it that

someone as small as us he offers the gift of

salvation to so we can offer him praise and worship

for all eternity. Among the ten lepers that Jesus healed,

only one return to praise and worship God. Only one

saw that Jesus was God. In flesh and saw that

he is great and is to be praised greatly. And

what's more, in verse nineteen, Jesus says to the man,

rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well.

And this is another cool side point. Ten men had

faith in Jesus's ability to physically heal them, to cleanse

them from the leprosy, and he did. He cured them

and made them clean cath Rizzo. But the one man

who returned, he saw that Jesus is God and returned

to praise and worship him, and his faith made him well,

made him sodso in the Greek sodso to save or

rescue from danger or destruction. I don't know if you're

like a word nerd like me, but that how cool

is that first he had faith that Jesus could heal him,

and Jesus, in his compassion, healed his mortal body, and

by returning to praise and worship Jesus as God, by

recognizing and having faith that Jesus was God, Jesus healed

his immortal soul. That's that's really cool to me. Is

this a cool bonus of the story, But there's a

lesson in it for us too. We should desire and

ask and have faith to be healed physically. We should

desire and ask and have faith in God for the

things we need. And like we talked about earlier, God's

will his purpose will come to pass and it's always

what is best for us. But what's more important than

that is that we put our faith in Jesus. That

Jesus is God, that he lived a perfect sinless life,

that he died a death in our place, that he

rose again three days later and ascended to heaven and

sits at the right hand of God. Because being cleansed

of our sin, which affects our eternal destination, is far

more dire than being cleansed of anything affecting us here

and now, can I get the band to come up?

These verses? These verses showed us how we are to

put our faith in Jesus, not only for our physical needs,

but our spiritual needs as well. I want you to

remember that it's not the size of your faith that matters.

What matters is the one you put your faith in.

Put your faith in the God that loves, cares for,

and provides for his children. Put your faith in the

God who has a purpose and plan for all things,

even when we don't see the plan or understand it

in the moment. But what these verses have ultimately shown

us is that God demands and deserves our praise and worship.

We're gonna have an opportunity to do that right now.

We're going to sing another song of praise to Him.

You can worship Him with your finances if you came

prepared to give. We can offer our praise and also

our needs to Him and pray myself the pastor duncan.

If you're not too busy, we'll be on either side

of the room to pray with you. But God does

not demand and deserve our praise and worship on Sundays

only when the sun shines and the birds sing and

the flowers bloom. They're doing exactly what they were created

to do, and they do it unto the glory of God.

And that doesn't happen on Sundays only. You imagine if

the sun took a week off, we'd all literally die.

But the command and the expectation from God to praise

and worship Him isn't just for right here right now,

It's for all, all of the time, for all time.

So praise him with song, speak gratitude to him in

your prayers, worship him, Worship him by obeying his commands

in humble submission and humble gratitude, and do it all

for his glory. Do it all for his glory all

of the time. Let's pray. Lord, I once again asked

that you would help us. Lord, give us faith where

there is doubt. Increase our faith, help our unbelief in

the times where we do not understand what your plan is,

where we don't see it, Lord, help us to see it.

But when it's not for us to see, Help us

to put our faith and our trust in you and

in your plan and your purposes. Lord, I thank you

for showing us, with your creation, how it is made

to worship you, how it is made to praise you. Lord,

Help us to remember that we are a part of

that creation too, that we are to offer our praise

in our worship to you all the time. Lord, humble

our hearts. When we become too prideful, Help us to

rest in your grace. Help us to always be offering

our thankfulness and our gratitude to you, and our prayers

and our speech. Help us to worship you in spirit

and truth to worship you. Through giving it all to you,

I ask all this in your name Father, Amen.