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The Book of Luke, The Thankful Healed Leper - Lesson 192
Luke 17:11-19, And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? 18There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. 19And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
In this passage we are witness to a departure from a previous location by the Lord Jesus Christ as he continued his journey to Jerusalem while passing though Samaria and Galilee.
But the subject matter at this new location does not depart from what we have studied in the first 10 verses of this chapter.
For the first 10 verses of this chapter can be boiled down into this.
We are to learn that the basis of faith is the mercy and grace of God.
Now mercy is the door that allows God’s grace to enter.
Without mercy God’s grace cannot be extended.
But the Pharisees operated and chose to extend themselves on the basis of merit.
They saw themselves as worthy of God’s attention on the basis of their own righteousness and obedience to the law of Moses and the vast tradition that they had constructed through the centuries.
They chose to connect themselves to God based upon their race, their connection with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
This belief system continues to be the devil’s most popular among men as they boast about making points with God.
Do good works and make points.
Impress God by being in church on Easter and Christmas.
Chalk up God’s favor by contributing to the Red Cross and other worthwhile charities. But to a fallen race God does not operate on the basis of merit for there is no merit in men on which to operate.
Because of this God must operate on the basis of mercy and grace or their would be no operation at all.
The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
In other words there is no merit to carry us to the glory of God.
Since we all fall short of the glory of God, is there anything that we can do to carry us across that great chasm into the glory and presence of God?
The Bible declares to us an emphatic NO!
Only God can carry us across the great divide and he chooses to do so only by his mercy and grace.
If He did not do this there would be no hope for mankind has no merit to present to a Holy God.
So we have learned that forgiveness cannot be given on the basis of merit but must be given on the basis of mercy and grace.
We see that the benefactor of forgiveness is not worthy of forgiveness and if forgiveness is to be given it must be in mercy and grace.
So the great convincing of the first 10 verses of this chapter is that we are all unworthy of forgiveness and must depend upon God and God alone if we are to have anything of eternal value.
Upon this truth we will find the essence of gratitude.
Those who see themselves as worthy have no desire to express gratitude for they, in their minds are simply getting what they deserve.
But those who see themselves as totally unworthy will boil over with gratitude for they are receiving benefit without any redeeming quality on their part.
Those who see themselves as unworthy find that they have nothing with which to repay.
They cannot repay now and they forever are without ability to repay and that which comes their way is seen as coming by mercy and grace alone.
There is great blessing to see yourself as God sees you for only when you see yourself as you truly are, will you see the purity of God’s mercy and grace.
Whenever you complicate this process and include a little or much of what you think of as your own merit then God’s mercy and grace are dimmed in your sight.
The purity is lost when pride enters the picture.
Henry Ward Beecher who lived in 1813–1887, said this, Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grows. A proud man is seldom a grateful man; he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.
A proud man does not see grace, for in his mind he is worthy of anything that comes his way.
But only those who see themselves as unworthy are allowed to see mercy and grace in all their purity.
When King Uzziah died Isaiah saw himself as God saw him but in so doing he also saw God in all his glory and he reported the seraphim’s crying Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
And when Isaiah saw himself as a man with unclean lips, in other words a man with no worth, he then told us that his eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
Only when you see yourself as you are, unworthy, without merit, a sinner without anything to offer God, will you see God.
Jesus told this to Nicodemus by saying “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
And in Psalm 34:18 we learn that, The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite (crushed) spirit.
And again in Isaiah 57:15, For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite (crushed) and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
As Brother Ricky Dunsford said on Wednesday, there is a time to break down and a time to build.
Only those who have been broken, only those who have been crushed so that they see their own unworthiness, can be built up by God.
When Uzziah died Isaiah was broken and he was then allowed to meet God in all his glory.
We see in our passage a similar meeting with God by one of the lepers who had a broken heart of gratitude and because of this he saw and received the Son of God, but we also see the results of nine lepers who we are told were cured of leprosy but were not cured of sin.
And by this we will see that the reason for a lack of gratitude on the nine’s part most likely can be traced to their self defined standing with God by their connection with Israel.
For Luke is careful to point out that the leper who returned to thank Jesus Christ was a Samaritan,
And as a Samaritan he had no standing with God by a connection with Israel and found himself totally unworthy of such mercy and grace as extended by Jesus Christ.
For what you depend upon determines your gratitude.
The Pharisee who prayed thus with himself and thanked God that he was not as other men depended upon himself and therefore he was grateful not to God but he was grateful to himself for being so good in his own eyes.
And so the nine lepers depended upon their standing as Jews, the one thankful leper who was a Samaritan had no such standing.
Regardless of their standing we know that all ten lepers were healed and yet only one, the Samaritan returned to give glory to God and thankfulness to Jesus Christ.
Since this man “glorified God” and “thanked Jesus”, it would seem that he had come to recognize, to some degree, the deity of Jesus Christ.
At least he regarded his healing as having come from God through Jesus.
It was true that Jesus had commanded the ten to go to their priests and therefore the nine who did not return were only being obedient to what Jesus had commanded.
But Jesus knew their heart, and he knew that they would not return even after seeing the priest and therefore commended the gratitude of this one leper, but criticized the failure of the nine to do the same.
Luke is careful to point out that this thankful former leper was a stranger inferring that the nine unthankful former lepers were Jews.
It seems by this account of this event we are being prepared for the gospel to be proclaimed and accepted by the Gentiles, while rejected by the Jews.
These nine ungrateful receivers of God’s grace of healing are typical of the nation Israel, while this one grateful Gentile is a example of the many Gentiles who will believe and who will praise God.
Jesus’ words to this man sound very similar to those which He has spoken before Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. (verse 19).
The words, “has made thee whole” literally means “saved,”.
Jesus pronounced a blessing upon this one man, which was above and beyond that he gave to the other nine former lepers.
All ten men were physically healed but this man who had returned and gave glory to God and thankfulness to Jesus Christ was eternally saved for only the man who is saved is truly complete or whole.
For he saw himself as unworthy and therefore that one who had done so much for him was worthy of glory, praise and thankfulness.
Seeing himself as unworthy allowed him to enter into the arena of God’s mercy and grace.
But those who see themselves as worthy are on their own for they operate outside of God’s mercy and grace.
The true disciple of Christ is obedient to Christ and does not see that his obedience deserves anything from God for he knows that regardless of what he does he is unworthy.
After telling the story about the master and his slave in this chapter Jesus said: So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
We see by this statement that all men, even the most obedient of men, are unworthy of divine favor.
Since we know this to be true, then what we need is not a system of rules to keep, for in keeping them there is no merit, no reward.
If we are unworthy even at our best — even when we try to keep all of God’s commandments — then what we need is not Law, but grace.
Grace is God’s favor bestowed upon us because we are unworthy, not because we are worthy.
Grace and mercy are enacted by our unworthiness for we have no merit in which to earn God’s gratitude.
So we can easily see that the efforts of the Pharisees, and all legalists are foolish as they try to earn God’s favor.
We will never favorably impress God.
We can never put Him under obligation to us for he does not save us because of what we are but because of what he is.
If we would gain anything from God it will be on the basis of our unworthiness and on the basis of His grace.
And the way that these things are obtained is not by our works, but by His grace, through faith.
Faith, Jesus is saying, is operative only in the arena of mercy and grace, which is bestowed only on the unworthy.
It is the grace of God, poured out freely upon sinners, which produces gratitude, and it is this gratitude which serves to motivate the receiver of grace to also give it on others.
Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies. Charles Edward Jefferson (1860–1937) So just as God has forgiven us of our sins against Him, only on the basis of our confession of sin and repentance, so we are to forgive others on the same basis.
The disciples are being taught that it is not a greater faith that is required for them to forgive their brother but an understanding of the arena of mercy and grace in which that faith is to operate.
Faith will bring us to have gratitude for God’s mercy and grace and this is what moves us to forgive our brother and to worship and praise God.
If we cannot forgive our brother we truly do not have a clear understanding and appreciation of God’s mercy and grace.
The nine lepers obeyed God and were physically cleansed, but they never recognized Jesus for who He was, nor did they ever worship and praise Him.
They were the receivers of God’s grace, but did not respond to it in faith, worship, and praise.
This is a mini picture of the nation Israel.
Over the centuries God had mercy and poured out His grace upon the nation.
But even though they received multitudes of the blessings of God the nation never, as a whole, came to worship and adore God, and when God was manifested in the flesh, they did not know it was Him.
The nine ungrateful, unbelieving, unsaved lepers, while outwardly cleaned up, were still inwardly unclean.
The one Samaritan leper differed little from the other nine, but in a very important area.
He recognized that his healing was from God, through the Lord Jesus Christ not by any merit or standing that he had.
He not only obeyed Jesus’ command, but He returned to worship and adore Him, to give Him thanks, because He had come to recognize Him as God’s salvation.
Because of this, he was saved.
This man had not the bindings of the Jewish religion and could recognize Jesus as God’s salvation.
He trusted in Him as the Messiah and because of the mercy and grace of God he was saved.
The Jewish lepers obeyed and were blessed, but they were not saved.
This man obeyed Jesus, too, but his salvation came as the result of his faith, not his works.
So it is God’s mercy and grace, received with gratitude, which should motivate our forgiving others and our worship of God.
Legalism moves men on the basis of fear and guilt.
Christ moves us on the basis of grace and gratitude.
It is on the basis of this grace and the resulting gratitude which we are to express in our service to men and in our worship of God.
If we are to live a life of gratitude we must first start with our praise to God for everything he is and for everything he has done for us.
Peter in 2 Peter 1:3 reminds us that his divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
So many times we concentrate in our prayers on that which we lack but in reality we lack nothing if we have God’s mercy and grace.
If we desire to have a heart of gratitude to others our prayers must first be filled with praise and thanksgiving for God’s provision and from this will flow a heart for others. |