Faith To Give Thanks

You may be seated, and 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 1. 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 ten thousand, 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, ten 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 Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemy's land.

Then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your

Sabbaths 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 into 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 it. 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 Gilgatha, 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. You may remain seated as we sing hymn number 220. Well, 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 ten 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.

And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered,

Were not ten 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 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. In Luke 9,

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 about 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' 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 ten 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 ten 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 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 relationship so they can't develop good and holy relationships.

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 is 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, were not ten cleansed?

Where are 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 and 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 has 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, 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.

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. 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.

What they are saying is that 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 ten 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 cleansed.

They are to show themselves to the priest. 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 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 truth.

Now this Samaritan is headed to Jerusalem trusting in Jesus but he is one who would normally be worshiping in Gerizim.

And so he is 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 is not with the spirit if it is not with the spirit of God in your heart moving you to truly believe the things you are saying it is not pleasing to 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 are taking the

Lord's name in vain because it is not attended by the actual spiritual zeal that is required for true worship.

Right? They are 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 is just Roman Catholics with praying the rosary or over and over saying

Hail Mary or something like that. But this is true even of Protestant Evangelical Christians as well that it is very easy to get wrapped up in going through the motions and not thinking of God's name.

Let me say this too this is especially true of you children. You children who hear the word of God and you come and you sing the songs it is 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. If you are a kid don't think that this is something for adults 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 these are long journeys that 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 is 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.

They come from him. Now on top of worshiping in spirit we also need to worship in truth.

There are a lot of people who worship with a lot of zeal now I am not going to say it is from the spirit of God but a lot of real meaning and zeal but without truth where they are 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 is important to worship him in truth so even though 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 the man has been made well the man has been made well and he is free to go now so Jesus the great high priest is playing the role of the priest here and he is telling him that you are declared clean this man does not go to the temple this man does not end up getting that declaration from the priest the declaration from Jesus Christ is good enough now a lot of people they want to be cleansed from their sin they want to be cleansed from their guilt but they want to be declared clean by others they are looking for the approval of their parents they are looking for the approval of their peers they are looking for some kind of approval and they are not just going to the doctor who can heal them they are going to others who have all kinds of old wives tales ways of healing them or are not capable of giving a right diagnosis of addressing the real problem when the doctor is here the great physician is available and accessible there is no reason to go through other means that would not get you the desired results rather go directly to Jesus go to him and have your prayers answered have your guilt removed if you are saddled with guilt he can take that away his blood is sufficient he has paid the penalty his blood was not of a limited value such that it does not cover your sins a lot of times people feel like my sin is too great what you are saying is

Jesus' blood was too little his blood was sufficient for you now on top of that not only recognizing him as the way to God he recognizes him as God consider some of these things that are said here then one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back praising

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

God and what does he do? he falls on his face at Jesus' feet just the pronouns here suggesting that this is the

God that he is worshiping that he is praising and he is falling at his feet now and then afterward he says

Jesus said were not ten cleansed? where are the nine? was no one found to return and to give praise to God except this foreigner?

right? and so as he is worshiping him as he is on his face at the feet of Jesus bowing down who does

Jesus say that he is praising? he is praising God he recognizes God as being the master he recognizes

Jesus as being the master the Lord he recognizes him as being God himself and he returns knowing the goodness of Jesus you know not just knowing the goodness of the blessing but knowing the goodness of Jesus and praying and praising with a loud voice this is something that we should think about in our praise too we should praise

God loudly you know when we're gathered here together and we're in the presence of Jesus our praise should be loud when you say the amens at the end of the call to worship at the end of the scripture reading you know when we're singing the amens those amens should be hearty loud amens when we're singing it should not just be you know kind of barely mumbling through the words of someone who's not excited about what

God has done it should be something that recognizes the greatness of not just the blessings God has given but of the one we sing of himself of Jesus Christ that sings loudly and we should come near to him this

Samaritan you know though he was standing far off right as he entered the village he was met by lepers who stood at a distance before they're all standing far off now it says he comes near to him he falls at Jesus' feet and gives thanks no we should come near to Jesus eagerly come into his presence now there's no reason to hold off a lot of people want to wait until they're cleansed from their sin in order to come to Jesus you will never be cleansed of your sin if you wait until you come to Jesus only in coming to Jesus that you can be cleansed of your sin come to him he will declare you clean do not wait until you're right in some other way in some limited way you will never be holy enough though you might get a few things tidied up you will never be clean enough for his presence unless he declares you clean and he will if you come to him in real repentance and love and here we are on this special day now you can have the presence of Christ through you know calling out to him he will give you his spirit so that he will be present with you but here when we are gathered we are gathered in a special way and we have

Jesus' presence in a special way it talks about this several times in the Bible it talks about this in 1

Corinthians 5 where the spirit of Christ is with the people as they gather Matthew 18 20 famously abused it says wherever two or three are gathered there

I am among them okay that's not talking about just any time you're with another believer it's talking particularly about the church of God the church is referenced in that passage the church of God gathered for worship there's one passage

I'd like to read to you to give you a sense of what's going on here as we gather not on any particular mountain or any building but where we choose to gather together that we have

Jesus' presence in a special way that should fill us with an excitement and zeal as we come to his feet

Hebrews 12 22 and I know I quote this passage often but I'm going to quote it at longer length than I usually do but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

God the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel so when we are when we are gathered together you know the

Bible refers to in the New Testament it refers to the church as Zion because Zion is that mountain where the temple of God is where you come into his presence why is the church called

Zion because this is when we are gathered you know we stop beforehand and prepare our hearts to enter into the presence of God that's because something real is being accomplished here as we are really coming into the presence of God consider some of these things that are said we are coming to the city of the living

God the heavenly Jerusalem to innumerable angels and festal gathering even 1 Corinthians 11 talks about the angels being especially present in worship you know there are spirits of God that are especially present here in ways that they are not elsewhere when we are just going about our life this is a this is a sacred assembly that's more than just us you know if you were to count up those beings in this assembly it would be more than the number of heads here and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven you know talking about the saints across the world and those who have gone on as well that we are counted as gathering together on this day with them together and to God the judge of all the

Lord is here and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and those are the ones who have gone on and to Jesus the final one listed here and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant into the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of evil excuse me blood of able we have come to Jesus and to his sprinkled blood all right so this is what we are gathering and enjoying here is the presence of Jesus Christ himself and if you embrace that reality if you realize what that is that is the faith of the

Samaritan he recognizes where the worship of God is at the feet of Jesus it's not now the mountain really it really did have a special presence of God it was not some superstition that they came up with but he understood that that was not the source the source is

Jesus himself you know you don't go reject the you know the clean waters at the top of the mountain and go trust the water at your spigot because you like that better when you should know that the water is coming from that mountain you know it's purest up there it's cleanest up there don't it would be insane for him as it was for the nine to reject

Christ by going to the mountain where you have this less magnified presence of God and same here we have here a special presence of God do not neglect this opportunity that you have at his feet to truly worship him and so true worship a true faith understands

Jesus as a faith that focuses on Jesus those those truths you may understand from scripture you know if this is true faith there is so much faith that people have that is in the things of God but divorced from Jesus because they do not understand how it relates to Jesus this is what

Hebrews 5 talks about when it talks about milk and meat and says that you need to move on from the elementary things you know washing and laying on of hands resurrection from the dead repentance from dead works etc what he is saying is we need to understand more about Jesus because he is about to explain there sorry if this is too much of a tangent he is about to explain there

Melchizedek the high priest or the priest and how that explains

Jesus' high priesthood and so he is saying you have got you cannot just know what the Bible says in these isolated ways that fail to recognize the true importance of them which is found in Jesus Christ true faith is one that is focused on Jesus Christ part of the reason why people can have such a great faith that is not a true faith right so much understanding and not truly know

Jesus is because it is all divorced from him right because they know all these little elements details but not as they are to be known in light of him just like these people know that they are to go worship on this mountain they probably know way more about the temple than the

Samaritan understands but the Samaritan understands Jesus he knows that he is to come to Jesus and the true faith thinks this way of blessings as well it does not just enjoy those blessings as divorced from Jesus as though he is just this dispenser of blessings that we go to to get these things rather he is the blessing itself he is the one we are to appreciate himself a lot of people are looking forward to an afterlife to a heaven that is very

Jesus -less you look at depictions of heaven and media and they are all very

Jesus -less depictions of heaven not that I am saying they should depict Jesus I think maybe they should stay out of it but but if you think that the great blessings are what

God gives and not he himself in the person of Jesus Christ you are missing out on the greatest blessing you know imagine there is some exotic island and they want to invite people tourists to come visit the island right and they have a they give you a free stay in a hut right and so you come and you come visit this island hut and you hang out the whole time in the hut you know in this sweaty hot hut you know made of sticks and stuff and you don't enjoy the exotic island have you really enjoyed what the gift was that was given you are missing out on the whole purpose of it was to enjoy the island not to enjoy the hut you know and this is this is what happens when we enjoy the various blessings of God as we follow him and we receive his goodness but we do not contemplate he himself and how how these things are just representative of his goodness right these people who have come to Jesus they've received this healing this cleansing and they appreciate that but they have they have failed to appreciate

Christ himself to truly and more fully have the joy that is the joy of salvation and this salvation seen here in this passage when

Jesus speaks to this man tells him rise go your way your faith has made you well earlier on in Luke 8 48

Jesus had used this phrase before to speak of the woman with the flow of blood and she said your faith daughter your faith has made you well go in peace go in peace now if you do not have peace in your life because of the sin that that keeps you at war with God it can be cleansed by the blood of Jesus you can have peace with him and moreover this is talking about salvation a full salvation this is this being made well is more than the others who have been made well right they've all been made well you know when he tells this man he has been made well something more is intended in fact some translations say that your faith has saved you because the word here is sozo it is the word for salvation he literally says your faith has not just healed you not just made you well it has saved you this is a a saved man who is appreciating this more than the others and keep in mind it was just a little earlier in this particular narrative section that began in verse 14 or excuse me chapter 14 that Jesus gives the parable of the lost coin right what's the story of the lost coin the woman has 10 coins one is missing she goes find it what's going on here there's 10 lepers you know that one comes back there does seem to be a connection between these two that this is one who is lost and being saved right he is experiencing the true salvation not just the outward cleansing but the true salvation he's being made well so that he is not so that the way that sin oppresses it keeps people bound by anxiety bound by their fear of death their inability to serve

God because they're too consumed with other concerns that loom over them he is free of those things and he is able to serve

God fully and he is able to join in with the people of God this one who is a Samaritan and not only a

Samaritan but a leprous Samaritan who has to stand far off he's fit for society now able to join with the people of God you can join with the people of God and have a richer and deeper fellowship a brotherhood than any of you have ever known through the blood of Jesus Christ and then more over than that he has great gratitude he has a gratitude for what has been done you remember this previous section this previous section

Jesus was talking about the disciples misunderstanding of faith thinking that they needed a large faith when he's telling them you just need a true faith even the faith of a mustard seed one of the illustrations he gives of that is a master who says to is a servant who says who thinks that his master owes him something when he's done all his duty and so he's not he does not recognize that that the master has provided enough that the master has been good to them good to him and so anything that the master might give on top would not be appreciated because it would feel owed rather this is one who recognizes that nothing is owed to him he when he says

Jesus master he says it in a really mean and all the others acknowledge him as master in some outward way but this one is one who's willing to say

I am an unworthy servant I am an unprofitable servant anything I receive from you is far beyond what

I deserve and so I'm able to appreciate it fully and enjoy it in a way that those others while they might be dancing and skipping their way home are not able to enjoy they are not able to appreciate because they have missed out on the greatest part of this gift you know we receive so many answers to prayer that we do not thank

God for and then we don't even thank him for the one from whom those blessings come let us thank

God not only for for the blessings that he gives but also for Jesus Christ the one who has purchased those blessings on our behalf you know it's the one who receives mercy who is not owed something who comes in real thanksgiving if someone earns a large paycheck you know they might say thank you to the one who hands them a paycheck but that's just a formality right the one who is in desperate need and receives not only what he needs in order to survive but beyond that just wondrous riches he's going to break down in tears of thankfulness full of joy for what has happened and what

Jesus is telling the disciples here is that if you have the right kind of faith the faith that is focused on Jesus you can have that upwelling of joy that's not full of complaint and ingratitude but that's full of joy and gratitude as you serve your master whose yoke is easy and his burden light that one who has come and given not just many good things but even his own self and so if you come to Jesus and recognize him as both the way to God and as God himself if you recognize that you have a wonderful privilege of being before his presence at any time by the power of his spirit within you which he has given to those who have put their trust in him but then also here in this assembly that we have the ability to worship

God with zeal to fully enjoy his presence you will have a joy and gratitude that goes far beyond those who are going through the motions who are appreciating the outward blessings and the outward cleansings and not appreciating

Christ himself the greatest gift that goes beyond all the gifts that come from him let us pray dear heavenly father we thank you for Jesus Christ we thank you for your spirit in whom we have his presence we thank you for this assembly in whom we have