WWUTT 2451 Jesus Heals Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11-19)

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Jesus healed 10 lepers and only one of them came back to worship

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Jesus and thank him for being cleansed and because he did he received an even greater healing when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

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Word of God in context promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke we're in chapter 17 and reading today of Jesus cleansing 10 lepers.

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Let me start reading in verse 11 we'll go through verse 19. Hear the word of the Lord. On the way to Jerusalem he 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

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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.

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Then one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back praising

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God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus feet giving him thanks.

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Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered we're not ten cleansed where are the nine?

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

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And he said to him rise and go your way your faith has made you well.

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And that's really the key line to this account that his faith made him well specifically or more literally his faith has saved him.

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But there are some other things here that Luke means to highlight especially that this man was a

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Samaritan as said in verse 10. Why is that relevant? Well we will consider that as we go.

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You could break up this narrative into three parts. You have Jesus and his disciples entering into a village and the lepers calling out to him.

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Then you have Jesus healing them and one of them turning back to Jesus and then you have the exchange between that leper and Jesus where Jesus makes the point to him that his faith has made him well his faith has saved him.

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We start in verse 11 reading on the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.

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Now if you'll remember back to chapter 9 that's where it was first said that Jesus turned his face to go to Jerusalem.

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That's a major turning point in Luke's gospel even though it occurs in the middle of a chapter. Jesus is now on his way to fulfill what the

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Father has sent him to do and in going to Jerusalem that's where he's going to enter in there will be the triumphal entry he will teach in the temple there will be the temple cleansing as well he will he will have his last supper with his disciples where you have the ordination of the

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Lord's table that occurs there he goes out to the garden of Gethsemane with his disciples he is arrested there's that kangaroo trial he will be brought before Pilate he will be crucified buried and risen again that's what we refer to as Passion Week because that is what

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Jesus has set himself to go and accomplish and the majority of Luke's gospel is focused on that portion of his ministry that starts with him with that statement in chapter 9 of him turning his face to Jerusalem and then everything that's going to transpire in that narrative once we get there so occasionally we have these reminders that's where Jesus is going it starts in chapter 9 there was also an occasion in chapter 13 where it said as Jesus was going to Jerusalem and here we have it again in chapter 17 the author again reminding us that all of these things are taking place in that portion of his earthly ministry on the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee now if you need a mental map in your head of the region that Jesus is traveling and teaching in Judea is in the south

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Samaria is in the middle and then Galilee is above that now there are not definite borders it's not like there these are countries that are separated by borders and Jesus crosses the border into one it's kind of invisible lines it would almost be like this set of villages here marks the southern end of Galilee and mostly

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Galileans live there these villages to the south of those mark the beginning of the

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Sumerian territory and Jesus would be traveling in those villages or in between that place so he goes he might go from a village in Galilee down to a village in Samaria this is occurring in between which is why you would have among these lepers a

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Samaritan who would be with the rest of them who are likely Galileans or Jews it doesn't tell us the it doesn't tell us the ethnicity of the other lepers that don't come back but we know that this one is singled out as being a foreigner so the rest of them may have been

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Galileans but they were not allowed to be around the rest of the people they had to be separated out hence why this is not in the village like in the middle of the village it's as he's entering so they would be on the outside of the village away from the people or right there at the entrance on the borders that's where even the poor would sit and beg for alms so here these people that Jesus comes across are stricken with leprosy a very infectious disease we've talked about it before it's a skin blemish so they would be covered with all kinds of sores and really gross flaky skin they're probably they probably have a lot of bandages on to hide their their skin condition but nonetheless people know who they are it was required by law that they had to call out unclean so nobody would go near them if anybody was coming near them they had to say unclean unclean so that the people would stay away so Jesus goes to them though he of course being the

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Messiah being the great healer as he has done in so many places in Galilee and in Judea these men know that he can heal him so he enters a village and he's met by ten lepers that's the indication here that we have you know it's not in the middle of town but right on the edge that he's met by these ten lepers when coming in but they stood at a distance they lifted up their voices saying

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Jesus master have mercy on us and then verse 14 says when he saw them

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I don't know if Luke was trying to be specific about Jesus seeing them as opposed to hearing them but he notices them and he goes over to heal them we do know there are occasions that Jesus did not heal even when asked this was previously in Luke's gospel the first time that Jesus taught was in a synagogue in Nazareth in his own hometown and he says to the people there that he's not going to heal them he's not going to perform a miracle we have also in John's gospel how

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Jesus would not entrust himself to certain people because he knew what was in their hearts so he doesn't just go around healing everybody there's only select occasions he healed many many thousands of people for sure but he didn't heal anyone and Jesus surely had the power to just say everybody in that village is healed everybody in that village is healed remember with the centurion

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Jesus wasn't even in the centurion's home and yet heals his servant because the centurion asked to believe that by faith

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Jesus could just say a word and it would be done on this occasion he sees them and he has compassion on them hearing them say

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Jesus master have mercy on us and indeed

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Jesus shows them mercy and he comes to them and he says go and show yourselves to the priests so he doesn't lay hands on them he doesn't do anything like you know with the blind man that he mixed his spit in with the mud and then put the mud on the blind man's eyes you know there wasn't some sort of metaphor going on here or anything else he just simply tells the lepers you go to the priests and you will be healed well he doesn't even say that much he just says go show yourself to the priests so it's while they're on the way they obey the instruction that Jesus has given to them and while they are on the way to the priests they are healed why would

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Jesus tell them to go to the priests because everyone who was a leper was written down in a registry of lepers and this was in keeping with the

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Levitical law this was given in the law of Moses that a leper had to be registered and it would be a priest that would verify whether he actually had leprosy or whether he was even healed of that leprosy once he ends up on the lepers list how does he then get cleansed or how does he get off that list as being cleansed he has to go and show himself to the priest and if he can show himself cleansed then he gets removed from that list but then there's sacrifices of cleansing that he has to commit so Jesus is telling him in obedience to the law he's telling this group of lepers to go and show yourselves to the priests and obeying

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Jesus it's as they went they were cleansed and their obedience was a demonstration of their faith they believed that he would heal them and so they obeyed and as they went they find themselves probably you know looking down and saying oh my goodness

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I'm not leprous anymore look at you guys look at yourselves how about you and they're all noticing that they have been cleansed and surely would have been tremendously excited about this but only one of them turns back the rest of them go on their way one comes back to Jesus to thank him for his cleansing now before going on I mentioned something about how

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Jesus just simply says to them to go and show themselves to the priests and they'll be healed

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I mentioned the the blind man for whom Jesus made mud and put it on his eyes

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Jesus will have different ways that he will heal different people you notice that it's not always exactly the same every time and this would be to teach something to his disciples remember the exchange that happens in John's gospel where they come across a blind man who had been blind from birth and the disciples asked

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Jesus who sinned in this occasion was it this man or was it his parents because the belief or the understanding was if somebody is afflicted with this kind of condition it's punishment for sin

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God is punishing them because they did something wicked but this man has been blind from birth so what did he do to deserve this or was it because his parents sinned and do you remember what

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Jesus response was neither but so that you would know the power of God and it's it's with that man that Jesus makes the mud and puts it on his eyes this is that same account but it doesn't say anything about the man believing that he could see and then

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Jesus giving his sight it doesn't mention his faith there at all in fact and we have another occasion in John's gospel

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I believe it's in chapter 5 of the man at the pool of Bethesda to whom

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Jesus just simply says take up your mat and walk and he does and faith had nothing to do with it he didn't believe that Jesus could do it

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Jesus just has mercy on the man that all kinds of sick are around him he just singles out that guy and says take up your mat and walk and he gets up and walks and he's healed and he didn't believe to be healed he simply was healed so in this occasion you have

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Jesus instructing the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests and it's in obeying

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Jesus that while they are on the way they are healed but it doesn't mean that you have to listen and obey and if you obey then you will be cleansed or healed or or whatever else that is a specific lesson that's being drawn out here but it's not always the way that Jesus healed and I will hear some teachers say that if you want healing you have to do something you have to obey you like they will read this story they might say this account in some sort of sermon lesson that they are giving and say see if you want to receive your healing then you have to listen to the

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Lord and you have to obey him but again that's only this account where Luke has something that he is conveying to us here this is not the way that Jesus always healed so if you didn't receive your healing it's because you didn't obey there was something that you didn't do properly and you have to do that in order to receive your healing those those health and wealth believe and receive name it and claim it teachers that's often the way that they teach you have to do something and if you didn't receive your healing or your miracle or your relief from your financial situation or whatever else is because you didn't believe hard enough or you didn't do something again not always the way that Jesus healed in this particular occasion we do mean to see that this man's faith has healed him but that he's received a healing that the rest of the lepers he was with did not get so let's continue on as they went they were cleansed then one of them when he saw that he had been healed turned back praising

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God with a loud voice so the word specifically that they've been cleansed and we know that's an external cleansing their skin blemishes are gone the condition that they had in their flesh has been taken away by a miracle of God Jesus said it and it was done but it's only one of them who turns back he saw that he was healed he turned back praising

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God with a loud voice so he's going from this place where he notices that he's been cleansed he goes from there back to Jesus and the whole way he's praising

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God he's giving glory to God for the healing that he has just received by the

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God man Jesus Christ so comes and he falls on his face at Jesus feet giving him thanks as he should worshiping

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God because of this great and wonderful mercy that had been done in his life and then

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Luke makes a point to single out at the end of verse 16 that he was a

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Samaritan again Jesus is passing between Galilee and Samaria we're led to believe the majority of these men were out were either

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Galilean or Jews but it is it is just this man who is a

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Samaritan and regarded as a foreigner and in case I need to remind you Samaritans were not

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Jews they weren't even strictly Israelites although they had some Israelite heritage in their bloodline but they were really considered mutts the

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Jews didn't want to think of them as and even Gentiles didn't want to claim them as their own they were made up of those people that the king of Assyria had sent back into the land in the northern kingdom after it had been conquered the

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Mesopotamians and others who then intermingled with one another all these different nationalities they were prisoners of war they were sent back to occupy this particular land and as they as they intermingled with one another they became sort of their own people group that were mutts made up of different ethnicities and different nationalities and they became known as Samaritans because that was the land of Samaria remember the city of Samaria there was the capital of that northern kingdom of Israel there was idol worship that was going on there even after this people get sent back into the northern kingdom or that northern territory that once was

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Israel if you'll remember they were being devoured by lions and so the king said hey we've got to have somebody go back and teach them the law of their

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God because their God is surely angry with the people that are living there the only way that they won't get wiped out by these lions is that if they hear the law of God and they obey it so one of their own teachers comes back in and teaches them the law of God but you still have like this this syncretism that's going on there you have the worship of other gods as well as the worship of the

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God of Israel but the only books that they had that they considered to be God's Word was the

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Pentateuch the law of Moses Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy they didn't consider the rest of the prophets to be the

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Word of God so anyway that's a deeper lesson for another time but that's all just to say that they weren't really

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Jews and they weren't really Gentiles either nobody wanted to claim them they were kind of a people in and of themselves but still regarded as foreigners because they weren't

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Jews nor were they really Israelites they were just strictly Samaritans so when this man falls on his face at Jesus feet giving him thanks this man's a

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Samaritan it wasn't even the people that Jesus came to who are praising him not even the people that Jesus that Jesus lived among who were

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Galileans because that's where Jesus was from Nazareth was in Galilee but it's the

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Samaritan that comes back praising God and falling at Jesus feet to worship him giving him thanks and Jesus response in verse 17 was this we're not ten cleansed where are the nine was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner and one of the things that Luke means to highlight with this is that there are many from around the world who are going to come and worship

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Jesus foreigners in the sense that they are not Jews they are not of the people of God ethnically they are not of the the

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Jewish lineage from whom the Messiah came but there will be people from all over the world who will come and dine at the table of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as Jesus said and will worship the

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Messiah and he will be our God and we will be his people Peter even saying in first Peter chapter 2 once you were not a people but now you are

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God's people once you would not receive mercy but now you have received mercy just like this leper and we will be called a holy nation a kingdom of priests unto his name because we are

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God's people through Jesus Christ there is not there are not two peoples of God there's not the church in Israel there's one people of God and it's all who believe and follow

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Jesus so we have this next line here this next promise this really the greater healing and miracle that Jesus does for this man is in verse 19 and he said to him rise and go your way your faith has made you well and again as I said at the beginning your faith has saved you so at the start

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Jesus healed their physical condition but with this one man that comes back and praises

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God Jesus heals his spiritual condition and makes a man alive again because he believed in Jesus and is now saved truly saved we're given the indication here that these other men were not though they received the healing that they asked for though they even did their religious duty to go back to the priest and show themselves to the priest so that they would be declared healed of their leprous disease yet it's only this one man who praises

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God for it and comes back and falls at Jesus feet and worships him and it's this man who receives the greater healing everlasting life by faith in Jesus Christ no matter how other men might discriminate against this man again the

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Jews didn't want him the Gentiles didn't want him but Jesus receives him into his kingdom so it will be with everyone who calls on the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ there's no discrimination of the kingdom of God made up of every tribe tongue and nation on earth all who call on the name of the

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Lord will be saved and so we must go out with the message of the gospel to others that they too may hear the good news of Jesus Christ and be saved come to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and you will be cleansed first John 1 9 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness that's the cleansing that we most need not a healing of our physical diseases some of us will receive that many of us won't but even if your body is healed one day you're still gonna die and then what the greater healing we need is the healing of our souls the cleansing of our hearts the forgiveness of our sins and now having been forgiven what is your response to that do you go your way praising

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God every single day we praise God for the salvation that we've received in Christ our

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Lord and let that be the thing that fills us up with joy that sustains us even in difficult trials and circumstances we know this world is wasting away even our bodies are wasting away but the promise is given to us who believe in Jesus that we will have everlasting life and one day receive even a glorified body that is like Jesus risen body from the dead and we will dwell with him forever in his eternal kingdom where all these things will be no more all the sickness and disease that we have to struggle with difficult circumstances even as said in Revelation he will dry every tear from our eyes let us rejoice in God now for the salvation we have and look forward to that day we will celebrate him forever in his heavenly kingdom

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Heavenly Father we thank you for what we've read and I pray you continue to guide us in your truth that this would even be an account shared with us to give glory to you today we rejoice in God because of the salvation that we have received in Christ Jesus may we not be like those who would think we've received our salvation and then go away and not give

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God any praise or thanks for that instead we are do we just become grumpy and bitter about our circumstances let it not be but we rejoice in God because our souls have been saved we have the promise of everlasting life with you forever in your eternal kingdom and let that sustain us and guide us in our present day as followers of Jesus Christ it's in his name that we pray amen thank you for listening to when we understand the text with pastor

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Gabe Hughes if you'd like to support this ministry visit our website www .tt

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.com and click on the gift tab in the top right corner of the page join us again tomorrow as we continue our