Faith To Give Thanks

You may be seated. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your kindness and your mercy to us. We are by nature wretched sinners who do not deserve any of your kindness, but you have been most gracious, sending Jesus Christ out of your great love for us in order that we might have eternal life.

And so we thank you for this wonderful gift. We ask that you would fill our hearts with a full appreciation of it. And we thank you also for this access that we have to the throne of grace, this access that we have to you through the blood of Jesus Christ, that you would accept our worship today, that you accept not only our prayers, but our praises, our thanksgivings, our singing, our hearing of your word as an acceptable sacrifice to you.

We pray that it would be such that in Jesus Christ you would render our imperfect hearing of your word, our imperfect singing of your word, our weak prayers even, that you would accept all of these things as perfect in your sight, because they are offered up in the perfect Son.

We thank you that you accept our worship in Him. We come to you today knowing that it is not a guarantee that you would accept any worship that is given to you, but we have a great guarantee in your Son that it would be accepted.

And so we thank you for that. Lord, we pray that you would give us strength and boldness, that we might declare your name and thankfulness to others, that we might praise you in the sight of others, telling others of the wondrous works that you have done, not shying away from the truth of the gospel, but in boldness proclaiming it, knowing that on the last day that we will not be made ashamed, we who have trusted in the name of your Son.

We ask that you would give us endurance and strength in every hardship. For those who are dealing with particular troubles in this season, we ask that you would give them the strength they need. If there are those in this place dealing with particular sickness, dealing with particular relationship difficulties, we pray that you would give whatever grace is necessary in order that they might endure and be found faithful.

We pray that your gospel would advance to all lands, that others may be able to join with us in the praise of you, in worshiping your glorious name, and in fully appreciating the work that your Son has done and offering his own life, and appreciating not only the work that he has done, but he himself.

We look forward to that day when we will be all gathered together with him, enjoying him and enjoying each other. We ask that you would give us a clear sight of these heavenly realities in order that we would endure.

We ask for your grace during this season that we might endure. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, please turn in your Bible to Leviticus 26. We continue reading in this penultimate chapter of Leviticus, this rather lengthy chapter that addresses the blessings for obedience after all these various laws have been given, the blessings for obedience, and then also the curses.

These blessings are available to those who have obeyed him and the curses to those who disobey. And we will see the New Testament significance of this in a moment when we read in our New Testament passage.

Leviticus 26, beginning in verse one. You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.

You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary.

I am the Lord.

If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. I will give you peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.

And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase 10 ,000, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and will confirm my covenant with you. You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.

And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you shall not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules so that you will not do all my commandments but break my covenant, then I will do this to you.

I will visit you with panic, with a wasting disease, and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache, and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies.

Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.

And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you sevenfold for your sins, and I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your road shall be deserted.

And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins, and I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute vengeance for the covenant.

And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your supply of bread, 10 women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

But if in spite of this you will not listen to me but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters, and I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols and my soul will abhor you.

And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas, and I myself will devastate the land so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it.

And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your city shall be a waste. Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbath as long as it lies desolate while you are in your enemy's land.

Then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbath as long as it lies desolate, it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbath when you were dwelling in it. And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies.

The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. They shall stumble over one another as if to escape a sword, though none pursues, and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up, and those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquity of their fathers, they shall rot away like them.

But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers and their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Judah, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

But the land shall be abandoned by them, and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. And they shall make amends for their iniquity because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes.

Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them, so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.

But I will, for their sake, remember the covenant with their forefathers whom I brought out of the land of Egypt and the sight of the nations, that I might be their God.

I am the Lord.

These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

Amen.

Now, in the New Testament, please turn to Mark 15, beginning in verse 16. That can be found on page 852 if you're using the Pew Bible in front of you. Now, in this passage, we see Jesus being crucified and mocked.

And there's all different ways that he's mocked. He's made to wear purple clothes, mocking him as a king. They salute him as a king. They put a label above his cross that he is a king. They tell him he can't save himself.

He could save others, but can't save himself. Even the criminals next to him mock him. And all these things, including, you know, mocking him that he said he'd rebuild the temple and he didn't rebuild the temple.

All these things actually being true, that he is indeed the king, that he is capable of saving himself, that he is capable of rebuilding the temple and will, in fact, do in three days. All of this, all of this, him bearing the shame.

What is this? This is him bearing the curse that you just heard about in the previous passage. See, we are people who have not kept God's law. We do not deserve those blessings of obedience. We deserve, instead, the curses that are described there.

And the Bible explains that what Jesus did on the cross is in bearing all this, not only mocking, but the wrath of God himself. It's him bearing the curse in our place in order that we might enjoy the blessings of his obedience.

Mark 15, beginning in verse 16. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace. That is the governor's headquarters. And they called together the whole battalion and they clothed him in a purple cloak and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

They began to salute him, hail, king of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him.

And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull.

And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, deciding what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him.

And the inscription of the charge against him read, the king of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, saying, aha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.

So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.

Those who are crucified with him also reviled him.

Amen.

Please turn to hymn number 220, and we will sing in preparation to hear the proclamation of the word of God. May you remain seated as we sing hymn number 220. Will please turn to Luke 17. Preaching today will be in Luke 17, verses 11 through 19.

That can be found on page 876 of your Pew Bible. When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word. 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.

It 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.

He fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, we're not 10 cleansed? Where are 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.

Amen.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask today that you would bless the proclamation of your word, that this good gospel, this good news for the Samaritan leper would be good news for us. And we ask that we would have a faith like his.

One that is pure and trusting in your son, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen. So as we examine this passage and look to it, I'd like to start off with an observation that may not be obvious as you are reading through.

I know it's very difficult a lot of times to read the gospels and to keep track of what's happened narrative-wise. A lot of times I'll read a story, even stories outside the Bible, I'll read or watch a film and have trouble kind of following where are we and what has happened before.

At this point, this statement is very unexpected. This narrative is very unexpected because it is coming out of order, okay? In Luke nine, Jesus had already passed by Samaria. In Luke 10, Jesus had already made it to Bethany, which is near Jerusalem.

Okay, so he's nearing Jerusalem, he's getting closer, and yet at this point, Luke, the one who is setting all things in order for Theophilus, chooses to put this narrative here that belonged seven chapters before.

Okay, seven or eight chapters before. What is his purpose in doing this? You have to ask yourself, why would he put this here? It can't be that it has to do with Jesus's miraculous healings. He's healed lepers before in this.

It can't be with a statement about foreigners because there have been healings of foreigners before. It also can't be his sympathies for a Samaritan. We've seen that before in this gospel as well. Instead, the key to all this is in the passage we looked at last week in the previous part where Jesus said the following.

The apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith. And the Lord said, if you had faith like a grain of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.

And so the reason why Luke chooses to include this narrative here and not earlier as he very well could have done is to give us an illustration of what that looks like to have true faith, to have faith of a mustard seed.

Now, if anyone would have small faith, it would be someone who knows the law of God very little, someone who is foreign to God's people. It would be someone like a Samaritan. He has very little faith, and yet his faith is one that makes him well.

And so the question for us as we are reading this is do we have true faith? What does our faith look like compared to the faith of this man? And how can we have true faith? So beginning here in these first verses, 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, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Okay, so Jesus passes between Samaria and Galilee. He's met by these 10 lepers.

Okay, so leprosy is some kind of disease of the flesh that would cause an off-coloring of it, a whiteness to it. It's described in the first five books of the Bible and the books of Moses and the law as being something that makes people unfit for society.

Okay, so it is something that is physically damaging. It's something that is socially damaging. And it is very clear throughout scripture that it's something that's representative of the effects of sin in our life.

The Bible speaks of sin as an uncleanness just as it speaks of leprosy, this uncleanness. And so to think of ourselves, we don't need to think so much of our physical sicknesses as we need to think of our spiritual sicknesses.

And that's been clear throughout the gospels too that the real healings that Jesus is doing are spiritual ones. The outer physical ones are illustrations of the spiritual ones that are happening inside.

And those who are afflicted by sin, those who are conquered by sin, are indeed physically damaged, or excuse me, are spiritually damaged, are physically, excuse me, spiritually unable to accomplish the things that they would need to be able to accomplish.

Hebrews 2 talks about the fear of death binding men so that they are constantly enslaved. And that is the case for people. Those who are marching their way towards death, they are not able to pursue the things of God and freedom.

Rather, they're desperately trying to look to their own needs, trying to solve what they can in the short lifetime they have. If instead you know that the life that you have is eternal because Christ has promised that he will raise you from the dead, there's no reason to grasp on like that.

And there is great freedom to serve the Lord and to do what is good, to do that which has eternal value. And people who are plagued by death and sin, they're overwhelmed by anxiety, they're overwhelmed by guilt and shame.

And the bitterness that they harbor affects their relationships so they can't develop good and holy relationships. Maybe some of this description describes you. If that's the case, your problem is sin.

You need to deal with sin. Now Jesus has the answer for sin. He has made the payment for sin. And the way to receive access to that is through faith. Faith is the instrument by which we are made right with God and we receive all the blessings of Jesus Christ.

Now sin also affects us socially. Apart from a true faith that makes us clean from sin so that we would be acceptable among the people of God, there can't be true fellowship. And a lot of people, they form their own societies of friends thinking that they can have some real fellowship outside of the fellowship of the saints.

The truth is that whatever draws them together, whether it be some hobby, it be their blood ties and family, all of these things are temporary holds that cannot hold them together. They're things that ultimately will fade away and they cannot produce a lasting society.

So any society that you might pursue outside of the people of God, though you might have some externals, some appearances of true fellowship, it can never be true fellowship. And then on top of that, if you come to the church looking for true fellowship, but you are not right with the Lord, you have not been cleansed from sin, you will not find true fellowship with God's people.

Now I don't mean to deny that there are times when churches are inappropriately unwelcoming, but the reality is many people feel unwelcome by churches, not because the church was not as welcoming as it ought to be, but because they simply do not fit, because they are unclean, because they are lepers spiritually.

Now the church is open and welcome and eager to receive penitent sinners, those who want to be cleansed from their sin, but for those who are hanging on, hanging on to their filth, hanging on to that sin, unrepentant of it, there is no ability to fit in.

It's like if you imagine a set of magnets all in order, all lined up, and then one facing the opposite direction trying to fit in, wondering why it's not blaming all the other magnets. No, it is the one that's in the wrong direction.

If you do not have the blood of Christ, you do not have what is needed in order to be united together with brothers and sisters. But if you do have that, then even through hard times, and there are hard times because we are not perfect, because sin still gets in the way, but through all that, the power of Christ to cleanse us makes us acceptable in his holy society that is being built up right now.

God is building a holy society, and you can be part of that through the blood of Christ that cleanses sin. Now these lepers clearly have heard of Jesus before. His reputation at this point is well known enough that they know that he is able to cleanse them, that he is able to free them from their sickness, and so they call out, Jesus, have mercy on me.

Now while they're all calling out, Jesus, have mercy on me, Jesus, master, have mercy on me, and that word master being a significant key to the previous passage where it talked about the servant's relationship with his master.

All of them say this, but only one of them will embrace this to the full such that he will be made spiritually well. Okay, all of them receive the outward cleansing, but at the end, it is only for the Samaritan that Jesus pronounces, your faith has made you well, signifying the spiritual cleansing.

And so there is a difference between the faith of the Samaritan and the faith of the other lepers. And once again, you must ask yourself, what kind of faith do you have? Do you have the true faith? Even if it's small, even if it's the faith of a mustard seed, is it true faith?

Because the disciples were concerned. They think they need more faith. They think they need a deeper understanding and conviction about these truths and a vaster and wider knowledge. But the reality is that none of that is true.

If your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the full power of faith because the power of faith does not come from the one believing, but from the one in whom that faith is placed. And then on top of that, the attitude that says, well, I need more, this is hard work, I feel like I'm owed something for all of this that I have to supply, this lack of thankfulness, lack of joy goes away as well because the one who trusts in Jesus Christ understands how precious a gift he is, understands how much God has supplied and therefore is able to appreciate and enjoy that salvation to the full.

And so we see this faith here or this question of faith in this next passage. When he saw them, this is verse 14, when he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest. 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? Okay, so it begins here with him giving instruction. They say, have mercy on us, and he tells them, go and show yourselves to a priest.

Why would they go show themselves to a priest, to the priest? The answer is, in Leviticus 14, it describes the process for being declared clean from leprosy involves presenting yourself to the priest outside the tent of meeting, so for them, the temple here, now that a temple's been established, and to be declared clean.

And so they go, anticipating that they will indeed be healed by Jesus, and indeed they are. Now, once again, there's a distinction in the faiths. We will see that eventually. Luke 8, you have the picture of the four soils, right, the good soil, the dry soil, the soil that the seeds are just taken away from, the thorny soil.

In that dry soil, or the rocky soil, rather, the faith does not take root, right? There's no roots underneath, and so when the wind comes, it blows away. Now, what I'm trying to point out there in this passage where Luke has previously spoken of faith and the quality of faith, faith on the outside can look very similar, even without knowing what's underneath.

So the question is, what is underneath? They all have some kind of faith, they all believe that they will be healed, and so they go to the temple, they don't sit around saying, ah, nothing's gonna happen.

They've seen Jesus do these things. Many people have come and they've seen Jesus do all kinds of miracles. You see John 6, where people are excited that Jesus is making bread for them, and Jesus says that they don't have real faith, even though they're excited about the signs and they believe he can do signs.

Those are not, that's not real faith, just believing that Jesus can do signs. Now, the fact that this extends to the Samaritan, on one hand, that shows the, yeah, the quality of the faith of this man, that he, though not knowing, not knowing the law of God and the detail that a Jew would, you know, the other nine, certainly they know the law of God far more than he does.

The Samaritans do not have the fullness of revelation that the Samaritans would. Samaritans primarily, just looking at the first five books of the Bible, he does not have all of that. So his faith, whatever it is, is not one that is full of all kinds of understanding, it's just the faith, the faith of a mustard seed.

Now, one takeaway from this is that Jesus is hinting to us the fact that the gospel is going to be going out to the nations, right? It's not just going to be going to the Jews, those who know the Old Testament well, it's going to be going out to the nations.

Now, if you've ever been discouraged because you think that, yeah, only those who understand the faith well can actually believe, this is not the case. You should believe that there is a blessing on evangelism that as you take the gospel, as you take the good news of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice that he has made to those who have never heard, that there is a promise of blessing, not saying that every interaction is going to result in some kind of conversion, but that there is a great blessing as God has determined that not those with just much understanding, but rather those who hear the good news and believe would be converted.

And those who reject this, those who do not share the gospel because they think that someone else wouldn't understand or wouldn't be receptive because they know too little about the situation or maybe they haven't heard about Jesus before and the task of explaining is just too hard, what they are doing is rejecting this truth that even faith the size of a mustard seed is sufficient.

All right, what they're saying is that, oh no, it's something else. What God supplies could not be enough, they need something else on their own. And it's a denial of the gospel in itself. That's why a lot of people are not eager to share the gospel with others, is in an implicit denial of the gospel or a doubt of the power of the gospel.

The power of the gospel is not in the one who believes, once again, it is in the one who is believed in, it is in Jesus Christ. Now there are two ways that this leper, the Samaritan leper, trusts in the Lord Jesus that goes beyond what you see with these other 10 lepers.

The first is that he understands him as being the way to God. Now there is something interesting here in that they are to go to the temple to be cleansers, to show themselves to the priests. And it's not really clear where the Samaritan would go.

Now he goes with the others, so presumably he's going to Jerusalem. But consider, if you will, the words of John 4. If you turn there, it might be helpful to read this together in John 4, just several pages over.

John 4, beginning in verse 20. This is the Samaritan woman speaking to Jesus. It lets you know a little bit about the Samaritan religion at that time. The Samaritans have broken off of Judah a long time before.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say, and this mountain being Gerizim, okay, so a different, they worship on a different mountain. They've got their own little place of worship elsewhere.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where the people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. And so what Jesus tells this woman is, yes, the Jews have an understanding of God. We worship what we know, you do not know. However, when it comes to the place of worship, there is coming a time, and that time is now here, when those who truly worship him, it will not be based on where they are.

It will rather be based on spirit and truth, because Jesus Christ coming into the world brings a gospel that is for all peoples. Breaking down this access to him in a particular location, but through his own presence, being Emmanuel, God with us, and then when he leaves, sending the spirit, that the spirit would be with us in order that we would have a way to God, gives us access to the Father through him, through his spirit, so that we can worship him in spirit and in truth.

Now this Samaritan is headed to Jerusalem, trusting in Jesus, but he's one who would normally be worshiping in Gerizim, and so he's trusting Jesus in this way, but when he is cleansed, where does he go?

What temple does he go to? He does not go to the temple of Gerizim, he does not go to the temple of Zion in Jerusalem. He goes to the true temple, he returns to Jesus, because he knows that that is where he worships, in spirit and in truth.

And he does that without a full-blown theology of what it means to worship in spirit and in truth, but he knows that Jesus is the true access to God in a way that the temple cannot provide. Jesus is the true temple.

As we worship, we should worship in spirit and in truth, not superstitiously trusting in a particular location, not superstitiously trusting any kind of forms and ceremonies, though the ways God has given us to worship are certainly good.

But we should worship him in spirit and in truth. So in spirit, I mean really meaning it, a lot of people go through the motions of praying something or doing something or singing something, thinking that it will bring God's blessing.

If it's not with the spirit, it's not with the spirit of God in your heart moving you to truly believe the things you're saying, it's not pleasing God. In fact, it is displeasing to him. This is what I was talking about earlier with the third commandment.

So many people, when they come to church, especially singing the songs, listening to the prayers, they're taking the Lord's name in vain because it's not attended by the actual spiritual zeal that's required for true worship, right?

They're just going through the motions. Now maybe you don't think of yourself as one who goes through the motions and is ritualistic like that. Maybe that's just Roman Catholics with praying the rosary or over and over saying Hail Marys or something like that.

But this is true even of Protestant evangelical Christians as well, that it's very easy to get wrapped up in going through the motions and not thinking of God's name. And let me say this too, this is especially true of you children, okay?

You children who hear the word of God and you come and you sing the songs, it's easy to just go through the motions and just say these things. You need to actually be thinking about what those words mean, trying to understand them and making that the prayer of your heart.

When you pray, you should really mean it. When you listen to the word of God, you should do so with zeal, eager to hear what God is telling you, okay? So if you're a kid, don't think that this is something for adults, all right?

This is something for you too. Your heart should be engaged. You can understand what the Bible is saying. You can understand the joy of singing and of praying to God. This is not just something for adults.

Now, the task of going to these different temples, you know, these are long journeys that the people are going to, to get to Jerusalem, to get to Gerizim. But that hike that is required to go all the way up a mountain, only to find that it is clouded over and there's no view, isn't it better just to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ in whom there is a perfect view, a perfect understanding of the goodness of God that is not clouded by our own failure to understand where these truths come from, right?

They come from him. Now, on top of worshiping in spirit, we also need to worship in truth. You know, there's a lot of people who worship with a lot of zeal. Now, I'm not gonna say it's from the spirit of God, but a lot of real meaning and zeal, but without truth, right?

Where they're singing very empty songs that any religion could sing, right? Stuff that doesn't acknowledge the truth of Jesus Christ, stuff that just kind of talks about God very blandly. It's important to worship him in truth.

So even though faith the size of a mustard seed is sufficient, that does not mean that false things can be good substitutes for truth. It doesn't mean that emptiness is a substitute for truth. We are to worship in both spirit and in truth.

So don't think that you can get away with one and not the other. And then on top of trusting Jesus as the way to God in himself being the temple, he also trusts in him as a priest. What is the job of the priest?

The job of the priest is to look at the man, examine him, declare him clean. What does Jesus do here? He essentially declares him clean. And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well.