4 30 Turning Back Luke 17:11-19
God doing what God does
- Traveling about (while in human form anyway)
- Making and building relationships with people
- Healing the hurting
The lepers doing what lepers do
- Pushed out to the margins
- Separated from the decent, healthy folks
- They were seeking help
- They were crying out for mercy
- They needed healing
- They needed to know someone cared
- They craved human contact
- Many, MANY others have ignored their cries, made standard responses (bless your hearts, praying for you, will give to the telethon,…etc)
Jesus did what Jesus usually does
- Something very different from what us self-absorbed and weak faithed people do
- He healed them
- Not with a flourish
- Not with many words
- Not with mud and spit
- Jesus sent them to the priests and healed them
- “AS THEY WENT”
- We should NOT overlook this phrase!
- Jesus sent them to the priests and healed them
The lepers showed an extraordinary faith that most do not possess
- They were still sick and afflicted
- Nothing had changed
- They Started towards the temple
- They believed
- They were healed AFTER they started their journey
9 lepers, well FORMER lepers, did EXACTLY what most people would do:
- Took the GRACE God had given them and went on their way
- No looking back
- No thanks
- No sustaining relationship developed
- Just “I got mine…for now”
- What makes the Dead Sea dead?
- Because it is all the time receiving, never giving out anything.
- The Dead Sea is 1,412 FEET BELOW sea level.
- Mineral laden water flows into it, but evaporates or is absorbed leaving behind a liquid nothing can live in for long.
- The Dead Sea is dying, shrinking at what is termed an “alarming rate”
- Why is it that many Christians are cold?
- Why is it that many Christians do not serve the Lord?
- Why is it that many Christians do not GIVE to God through His church?
- Because they are all the time receiving
- Never thankFULL as the one leper
- Grace flows in and either evaporates (goes unnoticed) or is absorbed
- never giving out anything
- only wanting to receive
- Leaving life evaporating at an alarming rate
1 leper, well FORMER leper, did something different
- He TURNED BACK
- He changed his path
- He went to Jesus and GAVE HIM THANKS
- He was THANKFULL for the GRACE he had been given and desired to praise Jesus
- Praising God with a LOUD voice
- FELL at JESUS’ FEET
One fact makes this SUBMISSION, HUMILITY and GRATITUDE even more amazing:
- He was a SAMARITAN
- They were haters of the Jews
- They didn’t get along
- By the Old Testament the Samaritans were contaminated by bad blood and false worship.
- We all remember the story of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament.
- Based on their Samarian homeland today we might call them Muslims or Palestinians….(south of the Sea of Galilee and North of the Dead Sea…between Jerusalem and Nazareth
- Still enemies of the Jewish Nation today
- But here, healed by Jesus Christ, THANKFULL
- Never give up on a person or a people!
- God can do greater things than you
Jesus healed and encouraged this Samaritan and sent him along his path full of praise, worship and FAITH in Jesus Christ.
- Today maybe Jesus is asking “Were not more cleansed? Where are the rest? I gave my life for all but how many return thanks?”
- Have you been cleansed?
- Have you lived thankFULL lives?