Expressing Gratitude

**Joshua Kirstine** (0:00)
It's a blessing to be with you this morning, Church family. Grateful for the Lord's provision for us to gather on this day, to worship him together, to pray, to testify of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Lord's Supper, to study his good word for us. Grab your Bibles with me, Church family, and let's turn to the Gospel of Luke, continuing our journey through this amazing Gospel, this hundred and fifth sermon, has us in chapter 17, looking today at verse 11 through 19
Excited for what's before us today. Look at verse 11 with me and consider the setting for Jesus' interaction with 10 lepers that we will study today. Luke 17, 11, on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. Here in verse 11, Luke gives his readers yet another reminder that Jesus is steadily in route to Jerusalem. Reminders that we saw in chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter 13, here again in 17 Luke's mention of this again is meant to heighten the sense of expectation about what awaits Jesus in Jerusalem, where he will be arrested, where he will be murdered, where he will be resurrected for the salvation of his people. See with me that Luke's not describing a straight line journey to Jerusalem. Jesus had already traveled through Samaria as noted in Luke 9 Now, he portrays Jesus back in that Samaritan and Galilean region. So the journey to Jerusalem really was more in and around the city provinces, a little bit of back and forth as the Lord's accomplishing his goodwill and work. I say, praise God for Jesus, his faithfulness to remain steadfast on his course to redeem us. For without his atoning sacrifice, none of us would have any hope for salvation in life with God. Next, Luke turns to record a special encounter that Jesus has in a nearby village, the focus of our morning today. Look with me at verse 12 and 13 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. At first, it seems somewhat interesting that 10 men were together with the same disease. But there's reasons why lepers were found gathered in groups in that culture. It's mainly because it was the only companionship that they were permitted to have. Once a person was diagnosed with leprosy in the ancient Israel time, they suffered the worst of quarantines. Not a quarantine that would last a week or two, like many quarantines we might go through with great illness. No, theirs would last the rest of their lives unless they were cured of their leprosy. Lepers were considered a social pariah, were sentenced to a life removed from the community, removed from family, removed from the religious institutions, so they could only fellowship with each other. So on this day, 10 of them stood together, and from a distance, desperate, they call out to Jesus for mercy. The term leprosy in Scripture describes up to 72 different kinds of various skin diseases, essentially that would rot the body. Skin diseases came in various forms of lesions, swollen areas. The impact was severe though. Not only decaying the outer skin, largest organ we have in our body, but corrupting the blood, rotting the bones, literally decaying the functions and the parts of the body. I can't believe this so long ago, but in 2012 Elder Rob and I, accompanied by one of our disciples, joined a team of people who did some grassroots ministry in Vietnam. One of the first places we visited was a leprosy compound outside of Ho Chi Minh City, in the countryside where these lepers lived. You can see in the picture here, if you look closely, not only are Rob and I very young looking, even though they're no longer contagious, the disastrous effects of their leprosy has done its damage on their extremities, on their bodies. Many parts of their bodies simply eroded, no longer present. It was our honor to serve these people by bringing them 100 wheelchairs, so that they no longer were relegated to drag their broken bodies along the ground, but to have an ability to roll and transport and move about the compound that they lived in. What was shocking though was to come to understand, even though modern medicine had helped the disease to stop its demise, making them no longer contagious, they were still relegated by that society to stay away, to live in this countryside compound and not enter the city providence. It's an important clarity that the separation that's required in the Old Testament times was not necessarily for the reason of transmission or spread of disease, as was the fear in Vietnam or other times and places around the world, but more for the sake of spreading impurity. Let me take that down now. The disease in particular was used by God as a form of punishment for sinful impurity. We can read more details about this later, Leviticus chapter 13, 14, as well as some other places throughout the Old Testament where God is testified as using the disease as punishment for sin to accomplish his purposes. And it makes it clear that he alone essentially can remove it. Leviticus 14, 34, numbers 12, 1 through 15 And so, on this day, 10 lepers at a distance call out, Jesus, master, have mercy on us.