Luke 17:7-19 • A Thanksgiving of Joy
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
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As we turn to this month's second message by Covenant Seminary President Dr. Brian Chappell, I recognize that you may be listening to this tape in your home or perhaps in your office or car. Wherever you may be, you need not look very far to see someone who is despondent, the beggar on the street corner, the lonely neighbor, the quiet student in the classroom, someone who is ignored or overlooked, and all the while, acclaim and attention are heaped on those who are considered high achievers, those who excel in sports, entertainment, or politics. In this second message, Thanksgiving of the Unworthy, from the biblical account of Jesus' dealings with the lepers, we see that the tables are turned. It is not our deeds which turn the hands and heart of God towards us, but ultimately our utter desperation. And now, Dr. Chappell. And would you look in your Bible this morning at Luke the 17th chapter.
Luke chapter 17, as we'll be looking at verses 7 on through 19.
In our church recently, we had a made-for-each-other couple who stopped dating.
They stopped sitting in the same pew.
They stopped coming to the same service.
And then after a few months, suddenly there they were together again.
And there was a message in that.
And all the matchmakers in the church knew it.
At our General Assembly this year, there were two leaders of opposing sides.
And during one of the plenary sessions, they sat together on the front row.
And there was a message in that. Being together can carry a message.
And that's the message here in Luke 17. It's two messages of Thanksgiving. One about a master who does not give thanks,
and the other about a leper who does come together.
And there's a message in that. Look with me as we prepare to receive it. Luke 17 verses 7 on through 19.
Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep.
What do you say to the servant when he comes in from the field, "Come along now and sit down to eat"? What do you not rather say, "Prepare my supper"? "Get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink"? After that you may eat and drink.
Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?
So you also, when you have done everything that you were told to do, should say,
"We are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty."
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and they called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, master, have pity on us."
When he saw them he said, "Go show yourselves to the priest."
And as they went they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back. Praising God in a loud voice he threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked him, "We're not all ten cleansed." Where are the other nine? "Was no one found a return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?"
Then he said to him, "Rise and go. Your faith has made you well." Let's pray together.
Father, we ask that you would lead us into truth, into faith,
into thanksgiving and gratitude for the wonderful work that you have done, but take us along the proper path.
That we might, Father, know there the mercies that you intend to give
by your grace, not by our seeking of gain.
This motive can be far from us. The motive that you desire in many ways foreign to us.
And so we pray for that work of your spirit that makes us your own, receptive and ready to receive what you would offer. For this we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Mom on strike.
Did you hear that news report last week? Michelle Trebo, 36 years old, Belleville, Illinois, tired of the back talk
and the whining and the uncooperation from her family moved out of the house into the treehouse in the yard.
Put a sign in the yard next to the street, "Mom on strike." And she vowed not to come down until her family cleaned up their act.
And it wasn't just the newsworthiness of what the mom said that caught my ear. It was the interview with her husband.
As he said, "You know, I'm trying to get the kids to do their chores again. We're trying to make amends so that she'll come down."
You know, it makes perfect human sense when you have offended in some way, when someone is upset with what you have done, when you recognize you've not met the standards of their expectations, that you would in some way try to make amends so that they would renew their relationship with you. But when you bring that thinking to God, you know you're in trouble
because what he expects is so high. The standards that he requires really seem so far above us that if we would ever attempt to make amends to get God to come down,
we recognize the hopelessness of our condition. And it's really what the disciples are being forced to see here as well. If you would just back up to the beginning of the chapter 17, you will see how high is the hurdle that God has put before his disciples if they are really going to make amends to get him out of his heavenly house to come be with him. Jesus says to his disciples in the first two verses that you must not cause any to sin.
If you get to the third verse, he says you must also confront any who do sin.
And then when you get to the fourth verse, you find that he says, and you must forgive any who do sin even up to seven times a day.
Facing those standards, the disciples say in the fifth verse, "Whoa, increase our faith, Lord," which is just a sanctified way of saying,
"Help us out here." If this level of faithfulness is really what is required to have God come down into our presence to be real and working in our lives, then if that faithfulness is required, "Lord, increase our faith."
And he says, "Well, faith really is the issue." If you get to the sixth verse, which troubled us maybe more than anything else, he says, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the seed, and it will obey you." Faith really is the issue. If you want to see the power and presence of God in your life, then faith is required.
But now, of course, the challenge is to make sure we know faith in what?
What will really move God to be present and powerful in our lives?
And the parable that follows is to make sure we know what is the motive behind God's goodness. Jesus making clear that we know it is not the works that we do. God is unmoved by the works that we do. The summaries in verse 10 of all the parable, you know it already, Jesus says now to the disciples, "So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, "We are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty."
You remember the scene?
There's a worker, he's working in his field, and in the master's field, he comes in, and it's been a full day's work, and the master says, "You're not done. Set my table. Fix my meal." And when the man has done it, Jesus says, the master doesn't say, "Thank you. Come now and sit with me." He says, "You've only done your duty." I suppose we could compare to a modern setting, you know, when you're coming back from a long weekend or camping trip or something like that, and you pull into a busy restaurant, and you recognize there's a waitress there who's been working all day, and she serves you her food, but you don't expect her having served you now to pull up her own plate and chair and sit at your table. I mean, she hasn't earned that right simply by doing her job, and the picture made more poignant by what we know of Jewish culture, that for the servant to sit at the master's table
is actually to have the rights and the privileges of the household, to be recognized in the place of honor simply by having done his duty, and Jesus says, "Simply by doing your duty, that doesn't make you a member of a house. That doesn't give you that sort of privilege and standing."
If we were to really see it in the terms of the day, it would say some realtor has helped you purchase a home, and after your truck has come up and moved into the home, somehow the realtor's furniture now starts to arrive on the porch, and he begins to move in. "Hey, I sold you the house." "Well, that didn't give you a right to move into the house."
You're not worthy of that simply because you did your duty.
But because we can make some sense of it is not to lessen the offense of it.
Who's asking for this clarity? It's the apostles.
Lord, we've been good. We've tried hard.
Just tell us, increase for us now what's needed so that we can really get God to recognize us.
And Jesus is saying, "Do all you can. Do all you should do."
And it won't be enough. It's not what you do that makes you worthy before God. It undercuts all that we want to do to present our trophies of goodness to God and say, "Surely, God, this will move you now."
Instead, we end up recognizing the best things we can breathe don't really move God at all. In fact, they may negatively move God if we think that somehow the trophy is worth putting before him. A few weeks ago, I spent time in a pastor's home in the South, and as I walked in the living room, there were some very obvious big game trophies in the room, a zebra skin on a wall and an antelope skin over a chair, and this huge elephant's foot that was made into a stool.
And, you know, obviously you say, "Well, where does it come from?" And he began to explain the trophies. He said, "Well, you know, my father-in-law some decades ago was a big game hunter, and that's when we got all of these things." But it was curious what began now to follow, because he knew what was in my mind and everybody else in the room. We're also concerned about animal rights and rare species and all of that. And so even as he portrayed the trophies, he now began to apologize. Well, you know, it was a few decades ago. It was before they were endangered species. It was before the hunting was following the disfavor.
And even as the trophies were there, he had to apologize for them. It's somewhat the attitude the Lord is putting before us. Here, you put your best works before God. You'd better be ready to apologize, because they are not sufficient before God. For you to compare yourself with any other. That's what the apostles wanted to do. Calvin says it simply this way, "To man we may assign only this, that he pollutes and contaminates by his impurity the very things that are good. However perfect a man may think he is, whatever he has is defiled by some spot. Therefore the Lord will call to judgment even the best of human works." See, our temptation is to make amends. Lord, I've offended in some way, or I want to make things right with you. I want you to be powerful and present in my life. And therefore I'll present to you these good works.
And God is reminding us that they are unworthy of any joining of his household, of his favoritism toward us.
And if we think they are, they're actually condemned by God. They're worthy of praise, actually condemned by God.
That hurts us, as it must have the disciples, because it not only removes our basis for comparison with others, it removes our bargaining chips with God.
We want our goodness to be currency with God, and yet God says, "I will be no man's debtor." And it undoes the economy by which we want to work with God. I want to say, "Lord, I've been good, so surely you will grant me success.
I've studied so hard in seminary, so that you'll provide for me a ministry position. We've been consistent in our family devotionals, so surely we will have good family relationships,
and you will keep our family safe."
I do it myself. Sometimes I, in my mind, though I know theologically it's not right, I still feel it, that I want to be good, so the Lord will take care of the seminary, so that the Lord will take care of my family. But somehow I have to recognize, "I better not be depending upon my goodness. I better be depending upon God's goodness,
because my goodness has no currency with God."
As God begins to remind us here that He is unmoved by our deeds, we wonder, "Well, what is He moved by?" What does make Him respond? And that's, of course, the following account of Jesus dealing with the 10 lepers. He's not moved by our deeds. He seems to be moved by our desperation.
You know the condition of these lepers as He was going, verse 11, to Jerusalem. He traveled along the border between seminary and Galilee, and as He was going, 10 men who had leprosy met Him. They stood at a distance. It's just a thumbnail reminder of the condition of the lepers, and you've been in Sunday school classes and churches long enough to know the desperateness of their condition, removed from their houses, removed from their families, not able to get near anyone, not able to worship in the places of sanctity and holiness, even having to stand at a distance and calling out, "Unclean, unclean, deprived of love and of touch and of worship." They're in an awful condition, and it's not just their condition that's evident here. As Jesus is looking at them, He is responding to the desperateness of their cry. You remember what it is. They stood at a distance, and verse 13 called out in a loud voice, "For Jesus, master, have pity on us."
And what does He do?
He has pity on them.
It's not their good deeds.
It's their calling out in desperation that moves Him. Parentally, we understand, I and my wife were at a conference this past weekend in which we listened to a couple begin to talk about their reuniting with an estranged son, a child who in his teenage years, for four years, had lived in rebellion, and how the parents over time had even hardened up in resistance to their own son to be able to tell him what to do, their own backbones straightening and hardening up against him to deal with the rebellion of his child. But finally, what reunited them was His looking in a photo album of his own family one day and coming across a picture of himself with his mother when he was just a small child, and Him saying, "I saw, Mom, in your eyes, your look of hope for me." In the picture, what wonder you had in your eyes for all that you hoped I would be.
And I recognize now how I have dashed all your hopes.
When we said that, I recognized I am so desperately wrong, how much I have wronged you. It was when it was the call of desperation
that her arms went out to Him again, and she held Him.
It's the nature of the Gospel that if we are presenting our good works to God, God says, "That's not good enough." But it's when we cry out in desperation to God that we know He hears. Now, I will tell you that can be offensive in itself, because that really means that God is moved by desperation rather than our deeds. It may mean that when I am watching the news, and I see a homosexual dying of AIDS,
who says, "In great candor and honesty, it was not the sexuality that tempted me. I would have loved anything that loved me back."
But that desperation may actually be closer to heaven than I am on the days that I am so pleased with my lifestyle
and my preaching and my goodness.
Absolute desperation before God is what He listens to.
Now we begin to say ourselves, "Well, I'm in a dilemma now, because if what God is listening to is desperation rather than deeds, why do I do good deeds? I mean, if they don't really move Him, why do them at all?"
We have to search not just for what are God's motives, but what then are our motives. What are the motives of our goodness?
The account of the leper helps us as well, reminding us first that goodness, if it truly has a Christian motive, is a turning from any gain for self.
The leper, as he goes, remember, is healed. Jesus says, verse 14, "Go, show yourself to the priest and the Greek, as they were going, on their very way, they were healed, they were cleansed." And then verse 15, "One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice." The implication being, he hasn't even made it to the priest yet.
And he turns around and comes back. You must recognize what a risk this is for him.
If you had been for months, maybe even years, deprived of home and family and love and place of worship, and now you recognize you are cleansed, and just a few steps beyond, there is the priest who will declare you can re-enter home and have the touch of your family and worship God again, and he's just there,
would you risk not going ahead?
It's so much to your gain just to proceed.
But self-promotion is not his aim. It doesn't seem to be the reason that he's going to return. In fact, you must recognize there's a risk even in returning, because the man who does return is of what nationality he is, a Samaritan. And the account makes much of that, of course, because verse 16, he threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him, and the narrator tells us he was a Samaritan.
But Jesus knows it too. Verse 18, "Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this for him?" I mean, there's just not the risk of a change in the man's health. There is a risk and a change in Jesus' demeanor. This Samaritan has been, among other lepers, apparently of Jewish nationality. And as the group, Jesus has sent them away.
But now Jesus, a Jew, must be confronted by the Samaritan that he has sent to the temple. And the Samaritan will say, "Thank you," putting himself at great risk. He can now be singled out by a Jew, such as those who mostly hate him, and say, "Oh, you were in the group?"
There is great personal risk.
And yet Jesus is going to praise this thanksgiving of the Samaritan, reminding us of things that if the reason that the motive by which we are serving God is either for self-promotion or self-protection,
it's not of God. It's what the leper has turned away from, both of those things. Those of you who have me in class know that I say this repeatedly, that so often for the average Christian, the reason they are serving God is for self-promotion. I'm going to get more good stuff either in this life or the life to come, or for self-protection. I'm going to be good so the ogre in the sky stays off of my back.
In which case, whether our goodness is done for self-promotion or self-protection, it's just sanctified selfishness, in which it's not service to God or holiness at all.
And the leper in receiving the praise of Jesus now is being praised as it were for turning away from both of these things, any attempt to gain.
So why does he turn? If he's turning away from personal gain, what is he turning to?
The need to express gratitude and open on a bashed delight in praising God. That's what he does. As you begin to recognize the passage, you recognize in verse 13, he calls out with the others, raising up their voices to proclaim who Jesus is. But now, when they call out, have pity on us, recognizing their desperation so loudly, recognize the echo that occurs now later in verse 15. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice,
seeming to express to us that the level of desperation we feel is ultimately the level of appreciation we will give.
If we have not felt that level of desperation before God, then we are not really going to appreciate the wonders of His grace.
Stephen Andrews is a pastor in Chicago Land, and he tells me account of his daughter, a ten-year-old, who brought home from school a Valentine's package, cards and gifts from others in her class. And among those Valentine's gifts was a chocolate teddy bear that she stored in her room.
Two days later, after bringing that home, the mother walked into the room, and there was a three-year-old little brother in the Valentine's sack. No, actually had been in the sack, and in the chocolate teddy bear.
It showed on cheeks and hands, and he knew it. Caught red chocolate handed, he backed against the wall, knowing that awful things were about to happen.
And his mother, undaunted by the tears that now broke out on the boy, took him to his sister and said, "Judy, you took your teddy bear."
And the sister, who could have been so angry, was actually looking for opportunity to love up her little brother.
She took him up in her arms, and she said, "It's okay. I love you anyway and always."
And now the little child, through all the tears that were coming down for his shame, before his guilt began to giggle, and he right through the tears, he began to laugh because of what was this joy of having been forgiven, of having to be received, despite the goodness that he did not have.
And in microcosm, it is the picture of what is to be happening to us, as we would be approaching to God that there must be these tears, the desperation of our condition recognized.
But at the same time, to recognize what he has said is, "When you recognize your desperation, I love you." When you're not trying to buy me off, when you're not somehow trying to make me your debtor,
but you just come fully indebted to me, the love of God is poured out.
It is in short form the path each of us must follow. If we would truly know the wonders of the Gospel, that we must know deep, profound sorrow for our sin.
But we must also know great and deep joy in the Savior's love for us, because it is the joy out of the sorrow that produces gratitude, as when the little boy now falls on his sister's neck and hugs her with all of the strength.
So it is that joy, that gratitude that ultimately is the stimulus, the power for Christian service. It happens even with the leper. Do you remember what he does? Verse 16, he's praising God in a loud voice, but he threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. Here is servanthood that comes out of gratitude. It's not servanthood to gain anything. It is complete openness and submission to the will and the purposes of God, because of full gratitude for what God has done. For you and for me, what that means, if we will let this text move us,
is that we must be willing to become desperate again to own our own demons.
I'm in seminary, and yet I still struggle with anger toward my own family.
I come here to portray holiness before God's people and to prepare to proclaim it, and still I face dishonesty in the way I do schoolwork even in seminary.
I have not rid myself of my lust. My ambitions still motivate me. I get angry and jealous of other people's gifts, and that is me. I look the demons in the eye, and I say, "You are mine."
I don't make light of it. I don't callous up against it. I look the demon in the eye, and I own it as mine. I am desperate in my condition before God because of that which truly characterizes me.
But it's not merely owning the demon. It is claiming the joy. And yet when I acknowledge this desperation before God, what I recognize is He hears my cry.
And because of that, I am overwhelmed. I cannot be overwhelmed in gratitude if I have not acknowledged the depth of my own sin. And I say that not just for you and for me, that we will be motivated by a gratitude that is the true empowerment of sanctity and holiness in the Christian life, but because all of you here are preparing to lead God's people as well. It's not just the path we must go from sorrow to joy to gratitude to servanthood. It's the path we must lead people on all the way to the end,
because our great temptation will be only to leave partway down the path.
There are those in ministry of various sorts, whether counselors or pastors or parents,
who are wonderful at making people feel guilty and think that is the call of the Gospel.
But guilty pastors are what produce guilty people.
It is pastors who are guiltless, who produce shameless people,
who will not face their sin or are not concerned for holiness. We must present both, because ultimately it is pastors, ministers, counselors, filled with gratitude, who create encouraged people, zealous for the Gospel.
And I must ask you what you'll be, because you have a path to follow, and others will follow you down that path.
Ultimately, the leper is said of Jesus to have been cleansed, and we don't understand it. Your faith has made you well. What faith?
All he's done is said thank you.
But you see it reminds us that gratitude is the heart of faith, that I recognize it's God who has provided for me what I could not provide for myself. And when I do that, when I am overwhelmed and gratitude forgot, it is the greatest act of worship, because it is faith full fruit.
I am grateful for what you have done that I could not have done for myself. He said, but it's so little. All he does is say thank you. It's practically just a mustard seed.
But a mustard seed brings the power of God into our lives. It is faith in what God does.
You see, what we want to do is make amends so we can bring God down.
God says the faith that is great is to recognize he has already come down.
And we are so grateful for it. Zeal comes from such faith.
For 30 years, Jim orders was a trustee of the seminary. Some of you met him just last year about this time, and it was about this time that he was diagnosed with a fatal cancer.
When he said at the December meeting to our board of trustees, what he had, he said with a smile, "I always wondered how the father was going to take me home."
And you might think that for saying it that way, he was now in resignation.
He was not. He was in a race. Because now, knowing his time was short, he began to write books of God's grace in his business, of God's grace in his family, of God's overwhelming care for him. Because somehow he was going to barter with God, and he would slap me down if I told you that. He would say, "I do this for one reason or the Lord has rescued me out of my desperateness. By his grace alone, by his mercy all, he has made me his own child, and I am so overwhelmed by that. I want to make it the cause of my life. Even the message of my death that my family and my friends and my business and my church and the seminary know how wonderful is my Savior.
It is the way it should work that our gratitude becomes the power, the motive, the strength of our holiness. Because if it is not, nothing we do makes us worthy.
But when we recognize God has done all that is necessary, despite our desperation,
our gratitude becomes the heart of faith and the strength of service.
May you find it again by facing your demons,
acknowledging your desperation,
and in doing so, praising God, that he has rescued you from it, for it will be the power of God to motivate you to serve him, for him, and not for you.
Let's pray together.
Father, we would be moved by the wonders of your grace,
and we would be saddened by the horrors of our sin,
but not that we would be mired in the horror, rather that we would be moved by all that you have done by your mercy to make us your own. May even in these moments we be willing to cry out of our desperate condition,
that we may be moved to gratitude and the service of love. Here is our power, here is our hope.
Lead us in this path, and may we lead others in it as well.
For we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. That concludes this covenant tape of the month. Designed for your practical use and edification, we encourage you to duplicate this tape and share it with others who can benefit from its messages. If you would like more information about the ministry and programs of Covenant Theological Seminary, or want to know more about Covenant Tape of the Month, please call 1-314-434-4044, or write to Covenant Theological Seminary at 12-330 Conway Road, St. Louis, Missouri, 63141.