Thankful To Know The Passage's Real Meaning - [Luke 17:11-19]

Well, it is Thanksgiving weekend, of course, and if you had to pick a passage from the

Bible that you regularly hear on Thanksgiving from the pulpit, what passage would that be?

What are the passages in the Bible that talk about thankfulness? Certainly you could go to Ephesians chapter 5 to discuss it.

Maybe 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, it's God's will for you to give thanks. But what's a passage that people regularly go to to preach you should be thankful?

Well, let's turn our Bibles to Luke chapter 17 and find out if in fact this passage is talking about thankfulness for its key emphasis.

This is going to be a test. Here's the test. Are you sure this passage is really about thankfulness?

Is that the primary thing that Luke, the writer, wants you to understand? When we go to the

Bible, of course, here's what we're after. What's the main point? What's the author's point?

Anything you read, you should say to yourself, what is the author trying to convey to me? And the same thing happens in this narrative called the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke.

So I'm going to read you these verses 11 through 19 and then ask yourself as I'm reading them, and then at the end, what's the main point?

What's authorial intent? We finished Jonah last Sunday. I hated to leave

Jonah. So the next few weeks will just be in a variety of different passages, doing some exposition. And since it's

Thanksgiving weekend, I thought we'd go to Luke 17 verses 11 through 19. What does

Luke want you to understand? Verse 11, on the way to Jerusalem, he,

Jesus, was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by 10 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' feet, giving him thanks.

Now, he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, we're not 10 cleansed, we're 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.

If you had to teach that passage, how would you teach it? If you've taught that passage, how did you teach it?

And I'll let you know ahead of time, if you taught this passage with the emphasis, with the primary intent of the author, so that you would show thankfulness, that the people who listened to you would be thankful people, then you've missed the point.

Somebody just rolled their eyes, I won't tell you who. Let's think about hermeneutics, the science and art of biblical interpretation.

Let's think about how we interpret the Bible, how we interpret epistles, narratives, the book of Revelation.

When you're trying to interpret, here's the goal. What is the author trying to say? We're trying to dig and find and ascertain the meaning of Scripture.

What is the meaning here? And as you're pulling out the meaning, you're using your hermeneutical principles to actually do exegesis.

Exegesis where we get the word exit, to pull, to go out, to pull out. What is the author trying to tell us?

And as you do that, you can run into some problems. Let me just give you two out of the 20 problems when it comes to interpretation.

Hermeneutic, hermeneutical problems. One is spiritualization. Matthew 28, the angel rolled the stone of way.

You've probably got stones in your life that need some rolling away. And maybe it's doubt.

Maybe it's the stone of anxiety. Maybe it's a stone of fear. And we're gonna roll some of those away.

That would be called spiritualization. You've probably heard sermons like that. I've probably preached sermons like that.

Jericho, seven times they march around and the walls come tumbling down. And there's some walls around your life that need to be destroyed.

And God's gonna destroy these walls. They're gonna come tumbling down. He's gonna knock them down.

Jesus calms the sea's storm. You've probably live a life that's got some stormy elements to it.

And Jesus is going to calm the storms of your life. That's a hermeneutical problem called spiritualization.

But there's another problem that we tend to run into more often in our circles. And that's the problem of moralization.

To make morals out of biblical stories. And let me give you a couple examples before we look at our text today.

Basically with moralization is you have a Bible text and then you get some do's and don'ts.

By the way, David, he picked up some stones and he stood in front of Goliath and he was so courageous and he killed

Goliath. And you need to be courageous too. Five easy steps to be courageous. You know

Boaz? He was such a nice man. He was such a kind man.

Do you know it's nice to be nice? It's good to be good and you ought to be like Boaz. And let me tell you a few reasons that you should be like Boaz.

Because I want you to be kind. That's called moralization.

I think I need to confront someone. So let's go to the passage where Nathan confronts David. And if you'd like to confront somebody then you ought to craft your confrontation in a parabolic kind of way.

You are the man. This is how you should confront. Four ways to confront someone. That's called moralization.

Jesus cleanses 10 lepers. One comes back to say thank you. And you ought to be thankful people.

And that is called moralization. What is the point of the passage?

And the point of the passage is not primarily you should be thankful. What is the point of the passage?

I'm glad you asked. Let's take a look at Luke chapter 17 verses 11 through 19 and ask and answer the question so you can see with your very own eyes and understand with your ears that we're after authorial intent.

We're after what does the author want to convey to us? And if we're not careful, we could do moralization with nursery rhymes, with Esau's fables.

We could go to Little Bo Peep. Remember MacArthur would always do Little Bo Peep preaching. Little Bo Peep lost her sheep.

There are a lot of lost people in this world, right? Lots of lost people. Can't tell where to find them.

But they'll come home. Oh, they'll come home. Wagging their tails behind them.

See, we don't want to be sloppy with the Bible. Cults are deceptive with the Bible.

And sometimes we're just sloppy. But if we're not careful, the effect of the cult and the effect of sloppy hermeneutics is the exact same thing.

I was in New York City the past two or three days and people on the streets sell DVDs of like brand new movies.

They're not even released yet practically and they've got the DVDs out there. They're peddling fake things.

They're deceptive because number one, they're illegal. Number two, they're not very good quality. And 2

Corinthians 2 verse 17 says, we are not like many, Paul said, peddling the

Word of God. Deceitfully claiming one thing and delivering another. That's what the cults do.

But friends, moralization in effect ends up being the exact same thing. Ignoring sin, ignoring sovereign grace.

So what does the text mean? Let's find out today and I think you'll be thankful to know the text's real meaning.

Happy Thanksgiving. I mean, I did some study. Some people call this passage the importance of gratitude.

By the way, I'm all for gratitude. Amen for gratitude. Some people say that this should make us truly thankful people.

I'm after that. But I don't wanna miss the point of the passage.

So let's think big picture for a second. Every time you see a passage in the Bible, in this particular case,

Luke 17, 11 to 19, you should ask yourself, what book is it in? And it's in the book of Luke.

What's Luke's real title? Well, the gospel of Luke. Well, it's not really the gospel of Luke.

It's the gospel, our good news of Jesus Christ, according to St. Luke. And so Luke is going to be writing to us about Jesus.

Guess what Luke is about? It's about Jesus. Matter of fact, go with me if you would, to Luke chapter one.

Keep your finger on Luke 17. And the way you do biblical interpretation is the first thing you wanna do is say, what's the context?

And so there's a close context. What does Luke 17 say? Just before it and just after it.

And then there's a wider context, a bigger context, the context of the book. Why is

Luke written? And Luke tells us why it's written in chapter one. Sometimes there's a purpose found later, like in the gospel of Jesus, according to John, that you might know, that you might believe in him.

That's in chapter 20. But here it's kind of nice. Luke chapter one gives us in his prologue, in his preface, why he wrote this historical account.

Remember, he's a doctor. And so everything's very much in order, very specific. He writes orderly, lucidly.

And it says in chapter one of Luke, verse one, in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.

And we're gonna soon find out that these are the things that are accomplished by Jesus among us. Just as those who were from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us.

Verse three, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent

Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

I am going to write you, Theophilus, a letter so that you might see the order detail of who

Jesus is, what he's done. And in fact, that he's gonna be the Messiah, the son of God, the human, more than human, but still human

Messiah. And I'm gonna write an orderly way so that you might have certainty, that you might know for sure this is the

God -man. I want it to be reliable for you. Now think about it.

Matthew, the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew, he's a king. Jesus is the king, the king of the

Jews. Mark, no genealogy, Jesus is a servant.

John, Jesus is God. Luke, Jesus, self -designation of Jesus, the most popular one that he called himself was the son of man.

Here is the son of man who, remember, at dinner with Zacchaeus, he said, I came to seek and to save those who were, what?

Lost. So let's go back to chapter 17 and say to ourselves, 17 fits into Luke.

Luke's big purpose is a systematic orderly way to show you that Jesus is the Messiah. So Luke 17 must contribute to that larger picture, to persuade you that Jesus is the

Christ, to persuade you that you should believe that the Lord Jesus is who he said he is.

And if you're sitting here today and you're a Christian, you've been persuaded. If you're not, I think this text will very much cause you reflection, and I hope it persuades you by the

Spirit's awakening power to say nobody is like that. Nobody acts this way, nobody talks this way, nobody does these things except God in the flesh.

Now, the far context is Luke 1. The close context, take a look at chapter 17, verse 7.

It's always good to read part of the passage before and after hours. And so just let me read a few verses because you'll see a key word to tie in to the rest.

Luke 17, verse 7, and then we'll get into the passage. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table?

Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink and afterward you will eat and drink?

Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that were commanded, you were commanded to say, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty. And in Luke 17, we see the writer

Luke tell us through the words of Jesus that no one's worthy. God owes the sinner nothing.

And then we jump into the passage. Look at verse 11 and it just flows. You just feel like you're sucked into the vortex of the passage.

On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing between Samaria and Galilee.

In chapter 9, verse 51, Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem. We see in the gospel of Luke that there's a lot about his infancy.

Why? Because this book is trying to show us that Jesus is human. It shows a lot with the genealogy because Jesus is human.

He goes to Galilee to minister and then in 9 .51, he sets his face towards Jerusalem because he has a deadline with the cross.

It's determined, it's set up. The time is exactly the way it's supposed to be and he will have to go to the cross and he's moving to Jerusalem.

But here in this DMZ zone between Samaria and Galilee, he encounters some people.

And typically when you're in this area, there could be some trouble. Is there any trouble in the gospel of Luke with Samaritans?

He sent messengers ahead of him. Luke 9, he went with them, entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations, but the

Samaritans did not receive Jesus. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said,

Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume the Samaritans?

And then Jesus rebuked the disciples. What will happen here?

Will there be a confrontation? Verse 12, as he entered a village, what village?

It doesn't matter which village name it is. It matters who was in the village. He was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying,

Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Now we're gonna learn soon enough that Jewish lepers and Samaritan lepers get together.

They have a common bond. They have a common affliction. And so they're all together and they're far off because remember what does the

Leviticus say? When you're a leper and you see other people, you're supposed to cry out what to them?

Leviticus 13, unclean, unclean. What is leprosy?

Well, there's a variety of different kinds of skin diseases that would be under the rubric of leprosy.

But leprosy just in Greek means scaly, something scaly. Where did it come from? Some people think that some kind of bacillus from an

Egyptian mummy gave people leprosy. We don't really know, but it was a bad thing to get.

One author describes leprosy this way. The skin, especially around the eyes and ears begins to bunch.

Deep furrows between the swelling so that the face of the afflicted individual begins to resemble that of a lion.

Fingers drop off or are absorbed. Toes are affected similarly. Eyebrows and eyelashes drop out.

And then you can tell with all your senses when you meet a leper. One can see the person is a leper.

By touch of the finger, one could feel it. By even smell, you could know they were a leper because they emit a very unpleasant odor.

And the voice of the leper has a grating, rasping sound because their throat is affected.

Their voice box is affected. Leprosy starts off simple enough. Some skin ulcers, some skin diseases, kind of leprous snow like white.

And then it gets inside your system. Mental decay, coma, ultimately death.

10 years, 20 years, 30 years later, you're eaten away from the inside out.

Numbers 12, when Miriam got leprosy, it said, oh, do not let her be like one dead whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother's womb.

This painless hell that Dr. Brand describes is this eating away from the inside out.

And here's the thing, you're not just ostracized socially from this, but you're ostracized in every other way, including religiously.

Standing at a distance, and doesn't that reflect itself in our text? 10 lepers, verse 12, who stood at a distance.

Well, they're not supposed to get too close. I mean, even when you study Leviticus 13, burning their clothes, shaving their heads, covering their lip, quarantining them basically.

Verse 13, what does it say though? They lifted up their voices. They probably lifted up their voices together because it's hard to shout if you're a leper with advanced leprosy because your throat, your voice box, your vocal cords, it's all messed up.

And so maybe with all one accord, they're trying to get enough decibel level to make sure Jesus, who's far away, sees them.

I guess they could wave banners, they could put up a smoke signal, or they could just all yell together,

Jesus, and what do they call Him? Master, have mercy on us. How did they know it was

Jesus? Well, we have no idea. But these lepers seem to know. These Jewish lepers, this

Samaritan leper, they seem to know who Jesus is. And there's a nice foil here in the book of Luke because there's lots of people who don't recognize who

Jesus is, and they should. But these people do recognize it. Gurgling throats, maybe their palates have been destroyed, and they're saying,

Jesus, Master. That word Master there, super rare word, used in Luke 5 where Simon Peter said,

Master, we toiled all night and took nothing. It means this, you're superior, we're subordinate, and you have enough power and credibility that you could do something for us.

We need help. Really, they're saying, heal us, have mercy on us. This is an urgent request.

We think you can help us, Jesus. We think you can do something for us. I'm sure they've been to other doctors.

And by the way, how do you treat diseases back in those days? It wasn't too pleasant. They would take from animals blood, urine, milk, hair, ground up shell and bone.

They would use minerals, salt and bitumen. They would have incantations, magic rites, prayers.

They would use frankincense, myrrh, perfumes, herbs, wine.

Jesus, help us. Verse 14, this is really, it's almost weird.

If you read too fast, you don't get it. Verse 14, when he saw them, he said to them, be cleansed, be healed, or come over here so I touch you and can heal you like I did to that leper in Luke 5.

Remember Luke 5, he touched the leper. If you're willing, cleanse me. He said, I am willing, you're clean.

But that's not what the text says here. This is a weird one. When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priests.

It's funny, a little boy, about three years old, the hallway in between services came up to me.

He's like, Pastor Mike, like, yes. He said, you said a bad word when you were preaching.

Like, wow, pray for me. I thought, well, what is it? He didn't want to tell me.

I said, it's okay to tell me the word. If I said it when I was preaching, it must be holy. You can say it.

I couldn't figure out what it was. I thought maybe I said stupid, because that's a bad word for most kids.

And so this is the only thing I could think of that he thinks when I said this is weird, that somehow

I was talking about the scriptures that the scriptures were weird. This is the only thing I could think of.

What I mean is this is unexpected. This is strange. So you're far off.

You're with nine other lepers. Could you please heal us? You are a master. You're Jesus, the

Messiah. They get it. They've heard. They understand. They may even have seen.

Jesus can heal people. Heal us, please. Jesus said, go show yourselves to the priests.

What? Go show yourself to the priests. Why don't you just command it and I'm clean?

Why don't you just pronounce me clean? So what you're telling me is you will, and by the time we get to the priest to do what

Leviticus says regarding kind of the health inspector role of the priest, by the time we get to the health inspectors, we'll be cleansed.

Yeah, that's exactly what the text is implying. And as they went, look at verse 14.

They were cleansed. Wait a second. You mean to say, you can heal people at a distance?

It's one thing to heal people. It's another thing to heal lepers. It's another thing to heal lepers at a distance.

Who can heal lepers at a distance? Now, Luke has already told us in Luke 7 that Jesus healed the centurion servant at a distance.

I'm Jesus. I'm under the law. And the law says when you're healed of leprosy in Leviticus 14, go show yourself to the priest.

Go show yourself to the priest. And by the time you get there, you'll be healed. Ray Pritchard said, what if it went like this?

Why bother? Once a leper, we're always lepers. Off they go, shuffling band of sufferers, marching off to see the priest.

Step one, still lepers. Take two steps, nothing happens.

Third step, the leprosy clings to their limbs. But on that fourth step, something wonderful, something unbelievable, something they never dreamed possible happened.

With that fourth step, they were all healed. Instantly, miraculously, all at the same time.

Every single one of them. I imagine they looked different, they smelled different, walked better, cured.

What's the point? What's the point of all this? If we only stop there, I think we would understand.

Luke is trying to show you that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus is the Messiah who can heal.

He can raise from the dead, He can forgive sin. This is the Messiah. Do you believe that Jesus is the

Messiah? Now, if you're thinking like a

Jewish person, who can heal lepers? Who can heal foreign lepers?

Who can heal foreign lepers from a distance? Turn with me to 2

Kings chapter five, and we're gonna see Nahum and the commonality between Luke 17 and 2

Kings chapter five. Of course, there's an Old Testament and a New Testament, but the

Old Testament is a Christian testament. This is a Christian book from start to finish. And here we see this continuity that helps us.

What happened in the Old Testament gives us insight to what happened in the New. It is only

God who could heal in the Old Testament, and Jesus heals in the New Testament. Jesus is God.

Do you believe it? 2 Kings chapter five, verse one. I'll just kind of read through it a little bit so you see the tie -in, even though this needs an hour for exposition.

Let me just highlight a few things. 2 Kings 5, one. Nahum, the commander of the army of the king of Syria, he's not

Jewish, he's Gentile, was a great man with his master and in high favor because by him, the

Lord had given victory to Syria, sovereign over even the Gentile nations.

He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Now, the

Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Nahum's wife.

Nahum's wife. She said to her mistress, would that my Lord were with the prophet who was in Samaria.

He would cure him of his leprosy. So Nahum went in and told his

Lord, thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, go now and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.

So he went, loaded, taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6 ,000 shekels of gold, 10 changes of clothing.

Brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, when this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Nahum, my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.

And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to make alive that this man sends me word to cure, to me to cure a man of his leprosy?

Only consider and see how he's seeking a quarrel with me. Hey, we've got kind of this uneasy truce between Syria and Israel.

And now he's gonna say, okay, we're gonna be friends if you just heal this guy from leprosy. I can't heal him from leprosy.

This is a setup. Only God can do this. Verse eight, but when

Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king saying, why have you torn your clothes?

Let him come now to me that he may know that there's a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house.

I love this part here. Now, Elisha sent a messenger to him. He didn't even go himself, sent the messenger. Go and wash in the

Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored and you should be clean. Just go do this and you're gonna be cleansed.

Go show yourself to the priest. By the time you get there, you'll be cleansed. What do you mean?

Verse 11, but Naaman was angry and went away saying, behold, I thought he'd surely come out to me, stand and call upon the name of the

Lord his God, wave his hand over the palace, cure the leper. Some kind of magic phrases.

Are not Abana my hometown river and Farpar my hometown river in Syria, the rivers of Damascus.

We got better rivers in this muddy Jordan, better than all the waters of Israel. Could I not wash in them and be ritually cleansed?

So he turned and went away in a rage, but his servants came near to him and said, my father, it's a great word. Verse 13, the prophet has spoken to you.

Will you not do it? He actually said to you, wash and be cleansed like physically cleansed, not just ritually.

So he went down, dipped himself seven times in the Jordan according to the word of the man of God and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child.

And he was clean. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him.

And he said, behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.

So accept now a present from your servant. Only God can heal.

And God healed a leper. And God healed a non -Jewish leper. God healed a non -Jewish leper at a distance.

The commonalities between 2 Kings and Luke 17 are amazing. Now on your way back to Luke 17, stop off at Matthew 11.

It's right there in the middle. Stop off at Matthew 11 and see the credentials of Jesus.

How do you know Jesus is the Messiah? What are the credentials? You just show up and say you're the

Messiah and you can't back it up with actions or words? John the Baptist needed to know what the credentials of Jesus were.

And Jesus himself told him, and I think you'll be encouraged slash affirmed in your belief.

Matthew 11, one, when Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he went off from there to teach and preach in their cities.

Now, when John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, are you the one who has to come or shall we look for another?

Are you really the Messiah? Jesus answered them, go and tell John the

Baptist what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight. Who can do that but the Messiah? The lame walk.

Who can do that but the Messiah? Lepers are cleansed.

Who can do that but the Messiah? The deaf hear. Isn't that sufficient proof to tell you that the

Messiah is here and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them?

Why does Luke place this account of healing the lepers in Luke 17? In Luke at all?

Because he's trying to show you that Jesus is the God man. Jesus is the Messiah. Now let's go to Luke 17 and wrap this up.

Luke 17 and wrap it up. What do you do if you are healed? How do you respond?

How does this leper, how do these lepers respond?

Luke 17 verse 15. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed turned back and there's three actions that he does.

Praising God with a loud voice, fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

So let's think about these three things. In light of the context of Luke, in light of what Luke's trying to say, do these three things give us any insight into the personal work of Christ?

Number one, praising God with a loud voice. Now Luke talks about that a lot.

That's what you do. You praise God. He likes that expression. But wait a second.

Can't you just praise God wherever you are? Can't you just go to the priest and praise

God there? Remember the song when you were a kid from Acts? He went walking and leaping and then praising

God. Can't you just get healed and praise God? Why do you have to go back to Jesus to praise

God? Answer, because that leper knows Jesus is God.

That's exactly right. Number two, falling at his feet. Worship, fear, reverence.

This is God. This is God in my very presence. Giving him thanks, number three.

Giving him thanks, you think, that's not a big deal. This is the only place in all the

New Testament where thanksgiving is directed to Jesus rather than God the Father. Did you hear me?

This is the only place in the New Testament where thanksgiving is directed to Jesus rather than God.

Listen to Acts chapter 10. Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him,

Peter. But Peter lifted him up saying, stand up, I too am a man. You don't worship men.

You don't fall down at their feet and worship them. And yet this man did to Jesus and Jesus did not rebuke him.

Jesus did not say, stand up, I'm just a man. I'm the JW's God. I'm the Mormon's God. I'm not this eternal son of God.

Get up. No, he accepted the worship. You don't worship men. Herod found that out on the appointed day.

Acts 12, Herod put on royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, delivered an oration to them. The people were shouting the voice of a

God and not a man. The voice of a God and not a man. Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give

God the glory and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.

But here, praising, bowing, thanking,

Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. All homage goes to Him.

Verse 16 goes on to say, kind of like a, can you believe it?

Can you imagine it? He was a Samaritan. Now he was a Samaritan.

The Jews knew more about the oracles of God, the law of God, the covenants of God, the promises of God, the temple service, according to Romans chapter nine.

But this Samaritan, he got it. And of course we know

Luke is writing to show that Jesus is the Messiah and He's a Messiah that saves all kinds of people, not just Jews, but Gentiles as well.

Verse 17, Jesus then answered, we're not the 10 cleansed.

Here comes three rhetorical questions in verse 17 and 18. We're not the 10 cleansed.

We're the nine. He did not answer, say, get up, stop worshiping me.

I don't deserve it. He says, there should be nine other people at my feet praising me and worshiping me as the

Messiah of Israel. Where are they? Where are the nine? Literally that second rhetorical question is, the nine, where?

Where's their gratitude? Where's their acknowledgement that I'm the Messiah? Verse 18, here's the third rhetorical question.

He's not looking for answers. He's indicting them. Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

People say, well, Jesus, you know, yeah, He did acts of God. He forgave sins. He granted eternal life.

He raised people from the dead, but He never called Himself God. A cursory reading of the

New Testament with one verse in mind, verse 18, solves that problem forever.

Was no one found, these are Jesus's words, to return and give praise to God. He's calling Himself God.

Jesus is calling Himself God. And by the way, you can get killed for that. You can get stoned for that.

You should be killed for that unless it's true. No one came, returned, gave praise to God except this foreigner, except this pagan, just this heathen, only the heathen comes back.

He rebukes them. Jews should have known better and the

Samaritans showed them up, just like in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Verse 19,

Jesus said to him, rise, go your way, your faith has made you well.

Literally, your faith has saved you. That's the literal Greek rendering. Your faith has saved you.

Your faith saved you. These other men got the common grace of God.

They got healing of their bodies. But one day those bodies would decay again in some other way, shape or form and they'd stand before the living

God for their sins. But this particular man received the common grace of God, the goodness of God in physical healing and he also got eternal life.

He got heaven. He was made born again. Regularly, when you see this word in Luke, saved you, these two words, saved you, it's tied together with eternal life.

It's tied together with forgiveness of sins in Luke 5. It's tied with entering

God's kingdom in Luke 18. And it's dealing with inheriting eternal life also in Luke 18.

You get saved from physical things. Nine, the one gets saved from physical things and eternal things.

There's a question. When you've been looking at this passage the whole time, it seems like there's 11 people and 11 people only.

The 10 lepers and Jesus. Yet look at chapter 17, verse one. He said to his disciples.

Chapter 17, verse five. The apostle said to the Lord. 17, verse 22. He said to the disciples.

Luke has set it up in such a way that you see no one except Jesus. The spotlight is on Jesus. The other spotlights just all focus and converge on Jesus.

The spotlight is on Jesus. The reader of the book of Luke, Theophilus, are you coming face -to -face with Jesus?

Do you believe He's the Messiah or don't you? So that's the question really at hand.

For those of you who are Christians, God has let you see that Jesus is the

Messiah and you've trusted in Him. And His work on Calvary confirmed by the resurrection. You've said,

I know I'm a sinner. I know I want to try to get to heaven by my baptism.

I think that counts. I think my confirmation counts. I'm a good person. That's counts.

I'm faithful in my marriage. That's counts. I don't steal at my job. That counts.

And then you realize by the spirits working for those real Christians that are here, you've come face -to -face with your own sin and you realize there's nothing that can cleanse you from sin except Jesus' death on Calvary.

That's the only way you have access to God. There's no access to God. The veil that was rent in the temple that gives access to God is through Christ's work alone.

And that's what faith is. Faith is, what is faith rather? It's trusting in God's Word, taking Him at His Word.

And so Christians say, I have seen Him for who He is by the Spirit's power. And then secondarily as an application, thank you.

For the Christian, of course you should thank God for your salvation. Thank God for your forgiveness. Thank God that you can see these things.

Of course, thankfulness is there secondarily. But primarily, it's to show that Jesus is the

Messiah. And if you're not a Christian here today, who else can heal lepers?

Who can heal them from a distance? Who can forgive sins? You really think that you're a good enough person to merit heaven when

Jesus had to be killed? Why kill Jesus? If your baptism and some water on your head, dunking you in the water of Jordan seven times, nothing can save you.

You have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Because the only other option is, no,

He's not. He's a liar. He's pompous. And He is basically a demon.

He's a loon. He's a demon. He's something else. He's not who He said He was.

And all of Luke, not just chapter 17, but all of Luke is to try to convince you that there's a sin bear for people like you.

And when you cry out like the lepers, God have mercy on us. Jesus master, have mercy on me.

Not because I've got a physical problem, but because I've got a sin problem. And I've been told through Luke and I've been told through my grandmother and I've been told through other preachers that if you call upon the name of the

Lord, you shall be saved. Master, have mercy on me. Let's pray.

Father, I'm thankful today that you give us your word. I'm thankful that we can see your compassion and mercy.

I think of Luke six, that you're kind to ungrateful and evil men. But true salvation mercy is through your son,

Christ Jesus. There's a belief that doesn't save, we know that. Even Luke talks about people who believe just a little while.

Believing enough just to try to keep them out of hell. I pray father that you would just erase all that, get rid of all that.

And so every person here could be trusting in, not themselves, not their religious works, not their good works, but trusting in Jesus, the

Messiah. He was born of a virgin. He was fully human, so that he could be our representative.

And he was fully God, so that he could have an infinite amount of forgiveness to bestow and righteousness to cloak us with.

Only he could raise himself from the dead. And I pray everyone here would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and grant them saving faith.