Luke 17:1-19 • Moved by Gratitude
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
It is the gospel that I want to take you to this morning, and I'm going to ask that you look in your Bibles at Luke chapter 17.
Luke chapter 17.
When last I was with you, we were looking at the holy, holy, holy passage in the book of Isaiah.
As we understood that that revelation of the great glory of God led to first the prophet's apprehension of His need for grace and then His understanding of God's provision of grace.
And that provision of grace in the face of great holiness led Him also to then seek to proclaim God in mission.
Glory led to grace led to mission. It is the progress of the gospel, not just in our hearts as we see how great is God's holiness and how wondrous His grace so that we want to share it. It also is the consistent pattern of worship in the Scriptures. You'll see it again today, and it breaks a lot of our pragmatic thinking of what worship is. You know, many people come to worship and they think, you know, what's the music and the prayer and all the preparation about? Well, you know, you're supposed to wake them up, then warm them up, then settle them down, then send them out.
Well something far more poignant and powerful is happening. As we weakly represent the gospel in the way that we worship, we again say, "Here is the greatness of God." And having seen that greatness, we are broken and recognized we can't stand before Him. But having acknowledged that weakness in sin, we say, "But look at the grace." And as Pastor Carey was having us do, repeat to one another, "He has cast our sins into the midst of the sea." So what do we do? We respond in thanksgiving and praise and want more instruction of how we might carry this gospel out. Glory leads to grace, leads to mission. You're going to see it again in this passage, that consistent gospel pattern in the Scriptures, but in two very unlikely people put together. In this passage of Scripture, Jesus first tells us of a man who refuses to give thanks.
And then He tells us of a man who must give thanks. They're put right together, and there's a message in that if we'll see it. You ready? Luke 17, we'll read verses 1 through 19.
"And he that is Jesus said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin."
Pay attention to yourselves.
If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times saying, "I repent," you must forgive him.
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you."
Well any one of you has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he comes in from the field, "Come at once and recline at table."
Will he not rather say to him, "Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink." Does he thank the servant because he did what he was commanded?
So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, "We are unworthy servants.
We have only done what was our duty."
On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 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."
When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests."
And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet giving him thanks.
Now he was a Samaritan.
Then Jesus answered, "We're not ten cleansed." Where are the nine?
Because 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."
Let's pray together.
Father, we bow before your word.
Recognizing there is the truth that is divine and yet you give it to human hearts out of your great grace that we might be healed by the mystery and the wonder and the goodness of the gospel that is there. So work in our hearts we pray.
On this day, Father, I pray for two others in particular, two friends. Saeed Abedini, a pastor in Iran who for most of the last year has been put in jail for sharing his faith and in most of this last month in solitary confinement.
The family who prays for him is now joined by this church family praying for him. Father, would you minister to Saeed?
And for Kenneth By, one of my own students, Father, who is now in prison in North Korea because he went on a ministry of mercy to help people in Christ's name.
Father, he's now the center of world attention, but for those of us who know him, we recognize a gentle and quiet man who simply wants to reflect his Savior in all he does.
For both of these men, Father, faithful to you, be thou their vision this day and give them hope and confidence in the gospel they love, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Mom, on strike.
That sign appeared in a lawn near us.
Michelle Trebow, 36 years old, Belleville, Illinois, had had it up to here with the backtalk and the lack of cooperation in her household, and so she moved out of the house to the tree house in the backyard and put the sign out front. Mom, on strike. And she vowed she was not going to come down until a few things changed in the household.
Because the sign was planted out front, a local news team caught wind of it and actually aired a story about Michelle Trebow. They interviewed the family. I particularly wanted to see what the dad was going to say.
Here's what he said.
"I've told the kids to cool it with the backtalk.
I've told them to do their chores. We're doing everything we can to get her to come down."
You know, it just makes perfect human sense, you know, that if you've done something to offend, if you've done something wrong, you make amends. You do what you should to make it right.
It makes perfect human sense.
And no gospel sense at all.
Because what Jesus is doing in this portion of Luke is making it clear to us that our faith has to be something else entirely than in our good, our deeds, our repentance, our making amends.
Our faith has to be in something other than ourselves. But the way he says that is shocking and difficult until you get to the wonder of the gospel at the end.
As he begins to explain what is actually needed to make God love us, to, as it were, come down from whatever heavenly treehouse we might think he is in to bring his power into our lives, we begin to struggle with what Jesus is saying because he begins to tell us not only of a God who needs to come down, but of a standard that is so high, it makes it almost impossible, it seems to us, to think that we could do anything that would make God respond. The statements about the holiness of God appear again in this passage, different terms, but you'll recognize them. If you look at the first verse, "Jesus said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come." It would be better for a millstone to be tied around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
Listen, what we all want is for the power and the presence of God to be in our families, to be in our church, to be in our lives, but how do you get God to come down when his standards are so high, when he just begins by saying, "Cause no little one to sin."
Whether you're a mom or a grandmother, a dad or grandparent, whether you just are responsible for the care of others, you begin to look at your own life and you begin to say, "Listen, could it really be that I have caused by example or oversight, caused no one of those for whom I am responsible to sin?"
And Jesus is just getting started.
For if you'll continue in verse 3, he says this, remember, "Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him.
Not only should you cause no sin, you should confront others in their sin out of concern for them with an understanding the reality, the consequences of sin in their lives when you see others who are on a hard path, warn them, acknowledge, rebuke what is wrong."
And still Jesus isn't done. For he continues in verse 3 saying this, "And if he repents," that one that you rebuke, "If he repents, forgive him.
And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him.
Cause no sin, confront others sin, forgive any sin, even if it's against you and it happens over and over and over again."
In a time when our nation is focused on the victimage of young people for a decade made captive and sinned against, how could we possibly say that this is something that we could or would do or would even desire to do? And yet these holy standards of God cause no sin, confront others sin, forgive any sin. If somebody comes to you and repents no matter what they have done, how many times forgive them, we can hardly bear to think that this is what God would be requiring of his people to make amends and make it up to him so that he would be present and powerful in our lives.
It's not just that we ourselves are put off by these commands, even the apostles begin to struggle. And so the apostles say in verse five to the Lord, "Increase our faith." If these are really the standards of God, Jesus, you're going to have to help us out here. How can we have faith in a God of these requirements? How can we possibly give ourselves to him? If these are his standards, how can we ever be right with him if this is what he requires?
Jesus responds in verse six saying, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed," just a little bit of faith, "you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey you." Jesus is saying in essence, "You're asking for faith to fulfill the requirements of God?" Well, you're right. It is a matter of faith.
But of course the question is, faith in what?
Faith in what is going to make us right with God?
And Jesus now begins to tell us, what is the content of that thing in which we ought to have faith in order to be right with God? He tells a parable, remember it? Suppose if one of you had a servant who he sent out to plow or care for the sheep, and after that one has worked all day, he comes in and what does the master say to him?
"Fix my dinner." He doesn't say, "Sit at my table." He says, "Serve me."
And when the servant has done all that, the master doesn't even give thanks. He just says, "You've done your duty."
Verse 10 is the summary. "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We've only done what was our duty."
Now, we have trouble with this. I mean, this is Jesus saying, "This is spiritual requirement for you." And to me, this applies to us when we've done everything that we were told to do. We've just done our duty. God doesn't say thanks. He doesn't actually even commend us for only doing our duty. He says we're actually unworthy servants when we've done everything, even these things, everything that we should. Now, we can help ourselves a little bit by maybe some modern comparisons. I mean, just imagine that you and your spouse had worked hard all day, both of you worn out, so at the end of your day, you go out for dinner. And you go out to the finest international house of pancakes.
Come on, when you're worn out, there's nothing better than pancakes, right?
And you sit down and you are served, and you know, as you are served your heaping plate of pancakes, just imagine that at that point, the waitress puts another plate down and pulls up a chair.
Now, listen, she's been working all day too.
She's tired too. But if she pulls up the chair and you say, "What are you doing?"
She said, "Well, you know, I served you, so now I'm going to sit at your table." What would you say? Now, wait a second. You were just doing your job.
That doesn't give you a place at my table.
The point is even more starkly made if you recognized in an ancient Mid-Eastern culture that if you were to sit at the master's table, that would mean you had the privileges of the household as though you were a member of the household yourself to be treated with that honor and distinction. We might make a better comparison by recognizing that the servant is now by sitting at the table of master being identified as a member of the household himself. I mean, we might make a comparison. A lot of you know that we're moving the middle of this summer and we purchased the home. Just imagine this, okay? The moving van has pulled up to our home. We've unpacked the furniture. The moving van goes out of the driveway. And just as the first moving van goes out of the driveway, another moving van comes into the driveway.
And in the passenger seat is our realtor.
And we say, "What are you doing?"
And the realtor says, "Well, I helped you buy this home, so I'm moving in."
Wait a second.
You are just doing your job. That doesn't give you a right to my house.
And what Jesus says with as much clarity to us, when you've done everything that you should do before God, you have only done your duty and that does not give you a right to the household of God.
You are not going to get to heaven. You are not going to be made right with God on the basis of what you do. Your deeds are not what are going to qualify you. I mean, you already know this if you just kind of think through the things that you understand about the Scriptures. Remember the thief on the cross.
Jesus said on the very day that that one who had confessed his understanding of who Jesus was, what did Jesus say to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise." How many good works had the thief on the cross done?
Well, that wasn't what qualified him for heaven. It's not deeds that qualify you. That's the point. We struggle with this a bit because we recognize that we're called to holiness and many of us can kind of recount the things that we have done. Their families have done well. We've served with integrity. We've gone to church. We've done all these good things, but we recognize the Bible tells us something about our good needs. Remember Isaiah 64.6? "All our best deeds are only what to God."
Filthy rags. Now, just imagine, if you will, we're all at some point going to be walking up toward the pearly gates. They're not really in the Bible, but imagine what I'm talking about, right? Okay? We're heading toward heaven in a spiritual state and we're walking on the path up to the pearly gates. And just imagine that you happen to be on the path beside the one who was the thief on the cross.
And you say, "Hey, what are you bringing to get in?"
And the thief on the cross says, "I got nothing.
I got nothing.
What do you got?"
We say, "Well, I got this full wheelbarrow full of good stuff."
He says, "Really?
What good stuff?
Well, I got this whole bunch of filthy rags."
Now, at this point, the thief is feeling pretty good because he recognizes that by comparison, he's no worse off than you are, which is, of course, the point.
You must recognize the fact that we can make sense of Jesus saying, "You don't owe thanks to someone who's just done their job." It does not mean it is any less offense to the disciples.
Remember, Jesus is talking to his apostles, those who have given up family and work and home and pass faith in order now to follow Jesus. And Jesus is saying, "You can have this wheelbarrow full of your good works." And that is not what's going to make God come down. His favor, his acceptance, his love is not based on your deeds. Listen, we have to recognize that in the church, don't we? That we are not better than other people as the basis of our standing before God. We lose all basis of comparison if the deeds that we do are not what make us right before God.
Not only do we lose the basis of comparison with others, we lose leverage with God.
"God, I did good stuff. Now you owe me." God says, "I will be no man's debtor.
What you do was only your duty.
And when you've done all that you should do, that does not make you a member of the household of God. I know some of us will say, "But look, God, it's all this good stuff." And all God has to do to you and me is say this, "Oh, really?
Did you cause no sin?
Have you confronted others in their sin for their sake?
And have you forgiven any sin that's been against you even when it happened over and over again?
If you haven't done that, what are all these good deeds you're claiming?"
Well, if God is not moved by our deeds, what does move Him?
We're told. Verse 11, "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." Why do they lift up their voices? Why are they speaking loudly? Do you remember? Because they're what?
They're lepers. And in that culture, if you were a leper, you could not stay in your home to get care. You had to leave your home unless the contagion touched any other. You had to leave outside the gates of the city, and you could not even go to a place of worship. You had to leave family and work and home and faith. You had to leave it all. And lest anybody get close to you, what did you have to shout out?
"Unclean!
Stay away from me! Unclean!" And now these lepers in this desperate state of not being able to touch anyone, not know the warmth of human affection, not even know the succor of a spiritual church, they had to go and say, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Because their desperation is so great, and when they call out to Him, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" What does He do?
He does have mercy on them.
That is the point.
Our God does not move according to our deeds. He moves according to our desperation. When it is acknowledged, when it is claimed, and we're saying, "God, I don't claim any good in me. I'm not claiming my rights before You. I am claiming I just desperately need You." And it's that that touches the heart of God. We can move beyond just kind of a theological truth to the way our own hearts react when we recognize how desperation moves us.
I think of a friend of mine, he's a pastor and his wife, and there's struggles with a son who for years has lived in rebellion, and each time he gets caught in some act or antique, he says it's not so wrong, and he protests that he really didn't do it, and he's going to fix it.
I remember a few years ago when the police brought him home, and the dad met the police at the door and had the conversation with them as the son was being delivered, but the mom, she just couldn't take it anymore.
She walked out of the living room and just left, not to hear the excuses and the justifications again.
Eventually, the father completed the conversation with the police and they left.
He went on to bed, and the son just sat in the living room and just had something to do, begin to kind of flip through the family album on the coffee table and look at the pictures that were there, and stopped on one page.
And his mom was crossing the room to go on to bed herself, he just stopped her from "Mom, when I look at this picture, I know why you can't love me anymore, because in this picture, I'm young and you're young, and in your eyes, as you look at me, there is such hope that you have for me, but mom, I've dashed all your hopes, I know it. I've dashed all your hopes."
And it was then that her heart broke for her own son again, not with the protestation that he was all right, not with the excuse, not with the rations, but with the desperation. I don't have any basis for you to love me, but I ask that you love me. And it was then that her heart poured out and her love poured out and she wanted the son again to know the wonder and the goodness of her love. It's the way heaven operates, not when we're saying to God, "Look what I did. Look what I brought to you." But when desperation actually claims us, it's when we have the message of the gospel that not only penetrates our own heart, but begins to have a chance of penetrating the hearts of our own families and people around us. Do you recognize that it is desperation that the world is actually hearing in its own ears over and over again as people are striving so much to find some way to be satisfied and happy and sometimes we are saying, "Well, it just depends on what you do." And they've tried that and they know that doesn't work.
I think of years ago watching a man on TV, a man dying of AIDS who was being interviewed. And at some point he said, looking at the TV camera, "There are people who condemn me for my lifestyle, but I will tell you now, I would have loved anything that loved me back."
And I think to myself, "Is that man in that acknowledgement of desperation closer to heaven
than I am on the days that I'm so proud of my preaching, my appearance, my acceptance, my family?" Here's a man who knows desperation. And when desperation really captures you and you have nothing but heaven to turn to, do you recognize how good heaven looks then?
When we have the ability as a culture, I know we can look across and say, "Look at the terrible things, look at the awful things." Do you recognize the moment we have in time to express hope for the gospel?
As we look at people who are jobless and desperate, as people who are caught up in addictions of sexuality and chemicals, as we look at people who are simply wondering, "Well, tomorrow have anything for me and they are desperate." Do you recognize for the church what a moment this is? To say, "Look at how many people are so close to understanding the gospel." They are desperate. And for us, it is the moment in which we can speak, not as those people who say, "I got it figured out. Look at me. Look at my life." No, no. It's we who say, "I know a God of mercy who lifted me out of the mire when I had no hope." It's when I still believe, not that I am made right before God on the basis of my deeds, but simply because I was willing to say, "Jesus, have mercy on me," knowing that when that happened, he would.
This is the gospel.
It is what we have the hope and the willingness to say to others when we recognize we would be desperate apart from Christ's work in our behalf as well. And when it happens, when we truly begin to understand this gospel has moved because of our desperation, not because of our deeds, something in us changes. We become so grateful to God because the misery that we're in is now compared to the wonder of the mercy we have received. It's just exactly what happens here. Do you remember in verse 15? One of these lepers, "When he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with what?"
A loud voice.
How did he call out to Jesus in the first place?
With a loud voice.
The measure of his desperation is now the measure of his appreciation.
Do you get it? Until our sin, until our desperation is truly bitter, then grace is not sweet at all.
But when our state has become bitter, then the wonderful provision of the mercy of God is so sweet and so good that we have to praise God. Something changes. We're not after our good anymore. Now we are wanting to praise God for his good. We're wanting the world to know. It's what this leper does. He falls down at Jesus' feet, bringing attention to Jesus and praising God.
Now, you have to recognize the motivations in this man as he's coming back to Jesus. He's no longer pursuing personal gain. Now, I want you to think what he's doing. He's risking so much.
He risked first a change in his health.
Remember?
The Scriptures are saying, "As he was going," look at the wording, verse 14, "Jesus said to the lepers, "Go and show yourselves to the priest, and as they went, they were cleansed." And then what? Verse 15.
"When he saw he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice." Here's the image.
If I can just get to that temple, there is a priest there who will declare me clean, and I can go back to the temple and back to the town and back to my family.
I can know the warmth of human touch again. I can know love again. I can be a part of a community again, and yet this leper risked it all to go back to Jesus because you know what's changed so quickly, his health, could change back just as fast.
But he risked it because he's got to give praise. He's not concerned for himself anymore. And of course, he doesn't just risk a change in his health. He risked a change in his healer.
The one who went back was a what?
Samaritan. And Jesus is a Jew. How do these two groups get along? Samaritans and Jews.
These are not kissing cousins.
Angry, bitter, hostile toward one another. And yet our picture is apparently there was just one Samaritan amidst this group of Jews that has been healed.
And the Samaritan comes back. I mean, for all he knows, Jesus, the Jew, will say, "Oh, it was a Samaritan who was healed." Well, I didn't know there was a Samaritan who was healed. Forget you, you're not healed.
But the man goes back because he's got to give praise and thanks because his heart has been changed by the mercy of Jesus.
It's the way it works. When we recognize mercy toward us, we are filled with the need to praise and give thanks, not for our good, but for another.
I remember years ago telling you of a friend of mine in Detroit, a pastor who talks about a time when his daughter went to school for Valentine's Day, I think it was, and she came home from Valentine's Day at school with a chocolate teddy bear.
Left it in her room, went to school the next day. And at some point while she was at school, her mother went into the room to find a preschooler brother in the room, who when mom entered the room, backed against the corner like a cornered criminal, the evidence of his crime all over his face, "Oh, mom, I'm so sorry."
Well, mom wasn't going to let the confession of having been caught get him off the hook. So she said this, "You are going to tell your sister what you did."
"Oh, what torture."
You know, he's got to wait, you know, hours, you know, and just imagine, you know, every minute going by, seeming like another hour until his sister comes home. And finally, you know, when she comes through the door, he's so anxious about all, he just throws himself at her and says, "Oh, Sally, I'm so sorry. I hate your chocolate teddy bear."
But this was a daughter, a sister, who'd always been looking for a chance to love up this little brother.
And to this one who had just confessed his sin, she picked him up in her arms and she said, "I will love you anyway and always."
You know, when he heard the words, he just began to giggle.
And even as the tears were coming down his cheeks, he just hugged her for all he was worth. He was just so full of joy.
It's a wonderful picture of the Christian life. As we who recognize that before a holy God, we have no basis for standing.
And yet he, through the work of Jesus Christ, who shed blood on our behalf, took the penalty for our sin as far as the east is from the west and cast them into the midst of the sea.
That God says, "I will love you anyway and always.
Though your best deeds only filthy rags, I will have mercy upon you." And when we know it, when we know it, our hearts are full of joy.
It's incredible how this man responded.
Do you remember Jesus says to him in the parting words, verse 19? "Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well." You think, well, no. I mean, it's a nice sentiment, but what faith? What faith makes him well?
He didn't repeat the Apostle's Creed.
There's no recitation of Isaiah 40. You're the Savior. You're the Messiah. None of that. All he did was he said, "Jesus, everything that's right about me, you did."
Well, you say that's not very much faith.
Well, you know, that's just practically a mustard seed of faith.
But Jesus said if you had faith as a mustard seed, you would see the power of God.
Some of you are wanting to see it right now.
I want the power of God in my family, in my home, in my heart.
You know where that power comes from?
People who say, "I got nothing.
I got nothing.
Everything that's right about me, Jesus did.
My faith is in him."
Father, would you so work your gospel into our hearts?
Those of us who may struggle to believe that you could be so good, teach us again the wonder of the gospel, that you're not waiting for us to parade our good works, but rather to confess our desperation.
For when we do, you bring the power of forgiveness and healing into our hearts.
So do that work again. This is our confession.
Jesus, master, have mercy on us.
This is our prayer, knowing that when we make it, you will.
So work in our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.