Luke 17

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0:00 I want to think about that story of the ten lepers together. If our gospel leaves us in the day, if you've been following along with us, we're doing the readings that the church has assigned. And so this morning the gospel reading the day of science in Luke's accounts is the gospel. In Luke chapter 17, Luke chapter 17, remember, we've been in Luke a couple of times the gospel readings have been walking us

0:33 through Luke's account for the gospel. And here he tells us this story that maybe you've heard before, maybe not, but I'll read that. He's told to the kids that I can read it for us. It goes like this, on the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between the area and Galilee. And as he entered the village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and Jesus' master of mercy on us.

1:08 And when he saw them he said to them, go and fill yourselves to the priest, and as they went they would climb. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, he turned that praise and God with a loud voice and he fell on his face that Jesus had feet, giving himself to the name of his Samaritan. And then Jesus answered, we're not ten twins, where are they now? There's no one's found to return and give praise to God except his foreigner.

1:39 And he said to him, rise and go on your way. Your face has made you well. Thank you for a minute on this. Thank you for this story. It finds its way through us. Thank you for the recording it. I've reserved it with Luke. Forgive us ITC and the heart to receive the reality of what it means that you found your way into the person of Jesus and Nazar.

2:10 And you set your reign loose on earth and you can partake of it now. Give us faith to receive your blessings with grateful hearts in Jesus' community. So a couple things to remember that, Luke Matthew, who was one of Jesus' twelve. Mark was like just right after that group, maybe just a little bit younger than the twelve, but in the group. John the Christ the dog, who was one of the twelve. He probably wrote it later in life.

2:42 Luke is the one who's a Greek speaker first. We think he follows Paul on some of his missionary journeys. And when he decides to go back and write the license Jesus, he goes and gets a first hand account. But because he has this like Greek history, he's always kind of pulling in pieces for us to show us all the different folks that connect to the story of Jesus. And so it's conspicuous at the beginning where he says he's on his way to Jerusalem, passing along between Samaria and Galilee, coming down through these groups of people.

3:17 We talked about the Samaritans like last week. Was it last week that we talked about the Samaritans? Yes. We talked about this Samaritan last week and I was recalling last week some concepts for us on who the Samaritans are. Remember that we can't go through all of it in this morning. But we went through it last week and briefly, the Samaritans are the group of people. When Israel was one country, it split into two, ten tribes in the north, two tribes in the south,

3:51 the ten tribes were conquered and the way the people that conquered them dealt with the land was they repopulated and exported some people out so that those ten more than tribes in Israel all kind of melded into the other nationalities of the world and the other nationalities of the world melded into northern Israel and the remnant there that stayed through all the southern kingdom in Judah, away in Babylon, exile in back of Jerusalem to rebuild, that stayed and tried to hold on to the worship of the one true God, where the Samaritans.

4:22 They had other things in the worship, the five Jerusalem, the heavy, big, significant, no-tent. I looked it up and tweaked their all-tilt Samaritans. They took left with a thousand, they're still trying to track this and their historic worship sites, but the Israelites did not like the Samaritans because the Israelites had come back from Babylon attempting to preserve the historic face of their people while they were in exile. They came back and had the chosen place to root from where the heart of the covenant had been,

4:53 where the temple had been, where the holy of holies was. They were the poor, the Samaritans were the germs. They did not like the Samaritans. Swiped up, stopped in at Hebrews until the terrible about the good Samaritans, and while Luke mentioned that Hebrews was coming through the Samaritans. Because it's unoften misunderstood idea that somehow God would have set apart Israel to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

5:24 That his intent was to say Israel and not everyone else. But when you read the story well, you recognize that God established the relationship of Israel in order that the rest of the world would be brought back to him. The reason it's worth mentioning that God's intent is real because hello, that is intent with you. That the church today is saved not at the exclusion of the rest of the world, but for the sake of the rest of the world. That by saving you, God's elect, he establishes relationship and lifts you off like a city on a hill that all the world would seek how much sense it makes to have a God of creation in life, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as your dog.

6:05 How life makes things. A couple of readings called that when you have life with God, your life is characterized by love to a patient's kind and a safe and safe and safe control. And so when Luke said that Jesus is walking through Galilee and Samaria, it's not for nothing. It's been continuation with the mission that the God has been on for the whole story of Scripture will draw all the world back to himself and it's a clue for me and you.

6:36 Because he's going through Samaria and Galilee and as he entered the village, he was met by the lefors to sit on the distance and lifted up their voices and Jesus, Master of Mercury on it. We talked about lefors with the kids a little bit. Brian Paulton, who's loving all those children right now, thank you, Brian Carlson. But he and I have talked about Brennan Manning a couple times. I don't know if anybody's seen anything by Brennan Manning and some with us anymore, but he's this amazing teacher.

7:11 He's written a couple of books. He really understands the gospel and he's connecting to God. And one of when I was in college reading some of his books and trying to find out where was his guy. And sometimes he was living in a leper colony somewhere in Eastern Europe. There are still those apparently. This is what Jesus is walking through a leper colony. And like I told the kids, like it's not only exclusionary and meaning it's also good sense probably in the first century to have all the lepers grouped together.

7:47 We don't want the skin, the disease that rocks off our flesh to run through the whole town. Let's compare it with a group of people. Right? That seems sensible or hard. And Jesus is walking by them and this is what got me the most out of the story. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. This is about the sum of my prayer lately.

8:20 And it's about all I can find it as worth to say and prayer lately. Jesus, Master, have mercy on me. I don't think it demonstrates really any particular, particularly special knowledge. On behalf of the lepers that they called you, this Master, he's clearly a rabbi who's got a group of people following him. He looks like a rabbi. They're just calling him a Master and asking for some help.

8:51 But the interesting thing and what they didn't barge along is that Jesus is the kind of Master who forearms mercy is a core ask for peace. Like if you were to go to Biblegawa.com and type in mercy like I did earlier, you get hundreds of medicines. Mercy is all through the story of scripture. Right at the beginning of this book, just hold your fingers here, Luke chapter, wherever we are. Seven days and look off at Luke chapter one.

9:22 Luke chapter one. It was the end in verse 50. Oh, yeah. Mary is like explaining when she finds out that she's going to have Jesus in the Magnificat. And so she says, my soul magnifies the Lord for he has looked on the humble, a state of the servant, for 49, for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name in verse 50.

9:57 And his mercy is for those who fear me. His own strength is his arm. He has brought down the mighty from his Romans and exalted the humble of state. He's filled the hungry with food and the rich and sent away onto his pulpit servants. Go down to verse 58, 57. And now the time came for Elizabeth, the burden bear son and her neighbor and relatives. They rejoiced him for his own great mercy to her. You were to read through Luke and see all the places that mercy shows up.

10:27 It's in two places, passing both. It's in people, passing God for mercy. And then consistently and persistently, it's God coming back with mercy. The whole point we're talking about the good Samaritan when the Pharisees are asking Jesus what the good neighbor is, and we just said the one who says, burnt. Then a couple weeks ago we talked about the prayer of the tax doctrine.

11:00 Who goes up to the church and goes up to the synagogue to pray. The presence of God is where there's a system for how you get into right-standing with God. A group of animals, there's a sacrifice, there's a way that you do it. The Pharisees follow the law. The tax collector goes up, stands in a corner by himself in a place where no one else can hear me.

11:35 And with this, I have mercy on me as dinner. And that requires mercy on me as dinner, gets him justified and writes in. Now these 10 records, hopeless, clueless, standing out by the town without another answer, hope or prayer. These, this master, have mercy on us. Guys, I think half of the struggle of faith is realizing how hopelessly broken we are.

12:24 I think half of the struggle of faith is realizing mercy is itself good for the lepers who are outside of the town without any hope in the world to address this situation. That I am more like the lepers in this story than I am not. I don't think the answer is a hard question of love. I can't endure for my family what a future will look like.

12:56 I cannot gain experience. I cannot muster up enough love and capacity to be the person I would like to do. Not to mention the people other people would like me to be. I can't do it. I can't say what will have to force all death or say what comes after the grave. In the large and the small questions of the life, life, the lepers, I am hopeless.

13:27 Thought for the night I have done you. And I hate to be the one to tell you this morning, but the thing is for you. This morning you may feel capable and competent. You may feel the master of your future, but I am telling you, talk for the mercy of God. But you, like the lepers, like the heavens, me, have only in the end of mercy.

14:12 And Jesus gives praise me. I'm telling you, I do not think these lepers are. One step above Dummy. The step above Dummy was they realized they needed mercy. That was it. They did not know who Jesus was. They did not accept their knowledge. Their words were not something unique or perfect. They just had a really, a recognition of their failure and they were willing to pass the right line.

14:49 And so he says go and get clean. There's an interesting thing there that they do. It doesn't say that you feel them and then send them to the temple. If you look back at it with me in Luke chapter 17, when he saw them, you said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest. That's it. He said, Jesus, master, I have mercy on us. He looked at them.

15:19 He said, you're so, you're so, you're so, you're so, you know, they would go show themselves to the priest to get a mitten back in the town because they were healed. But it doesn't seem like they were healed in that moment because the guy notices that they're healed later. So there is some, this is the depth of their despair. They have nothing else to lose. Jesus tells them something to do. They might as well take it because what's the word that can happen? They send them back out so they can't where they're already living.

15:52 Like they might as well. And this is where I'm saying like it is. This is like most of the struggle of being a Christian is to believe that you've got nothing else. That bought for the mercy of God. So when God said this is what you are doing, mine will take it. And see where it goes. These 10 letters on the outside of town, he tells them to run into town all full electricity and go to the tree who judge and take it out and condemn.

16:25 Just go to the tree. Now as they were cleaned, the priest was certified. They go back in, but they are not clean when they go. I'm telling you that the awareness of the mood was such that they realized they had nothing else to lose. They might as well take this up on it often. And when they do, I told you he abounds in mercy. And as they went over time, then one of them, when he saw the view, he turned back, praising God in the loud voice and he saw it on his face as he was giving and thanks.

16:58 And Luke punched out now he was a Samaritan. The one y'all don't like, who doesn't get it, he got it. Now maybe when they're hearing this story the first time, they'll be like, oops, he couldn't tell because they all had the lefry scene robes on. He didn't let them all talk one on one. He didn't realize he had the lefry scene. He better put it back on now, Samaritan. The Samaritan doesn't get the deliverance in Jesus, but of course Jesus is liberal with mercy.

17:29 Generation of syncretism and false worship doesn't disqualify this one. So this is a lesson that's worth saying out loud that you probably all know, but you can't get so far gone that the mercy of God is just strong enough to deliver the healing, the deliverance that you need. That the mercy of God is specific for you, no matter where you've been or what you've been up to, but also for your cousin and your brother and your friend.

18:00 The mercy of God is sufficient for all even the lefry's Samaritans hanging out on the outside of town trying to pass as a Jew. The mercy of Jesus will cover that in three years. If the American comes back to Jesus and Jesus says, oh, I don't know, we're going to go alone. When no one found, when no one, once no one found to return and get paid to God except the performer and he said to him,

18:31 rise and go, you're going to, your faith has made you win. I hope that you pulled off the feeling from the other ones. But come on, how good would it be to have your deliverance look you in the eye? Oh, well, the mercy of God goes out for his liver that the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.

19:04 God is ridiculously generous with his mercy, specifically so for those who ask periodically, but for the ones that come back, who recognize where mercy comes from, what mercy a accomplice is, and find their way back into the, towards the person, into relationships they get resistance to. They get eye to eye contact. They get individual affirmation.

19:35 If the American minded wondered for the rest of the flow, if he pulled Jesus and got mercy that wasn't for him, but he came back to Jesus and got the individual who worked no young American, the mercy is for you as well, go and be well. This is why we come back over and over again. Because we swim in the mercy of God, we want to find places to ask for it specifically, and when we come back so that we get the individual personal affirmation. Yes, God's mercy is for you.

20:06 You need it? It's there for you. That's all you get this morning. That's a simple story. It's cool that Luke got it in there for us. It's not complex, but something we need to hear it over and over again. We are loathrous and but for the mercy of God, mercy comes freely. It's a system for all and it's a signal for you. Come now, I'll forget it again.

20:38 That's my favorite part. What's the appropriate response to the free gifts of God? Come back and get it again. When you realize you have been a benefit, a benefit, a grace you did not deserve, how do you appropriately respond? Come back and get it again. Just like this American. Let me pray that we could do that, and then we'll move on this morning. Thank you, Lord, for the American and the other nine. Thank you for Jesus and his generosity.

21:09 Hey, Holy Spirit, come and open my heart and monitor me. Through my broken masses, through my need, I could ask again and again for your emergency. This morning and tomorrow, this week. This day you'll pray. Amen.