How to be saved and how to react if you are

Text: Luke 17:11-19 Time: 17/07/13 Place: Childs Hill Baptist

This evening I want us to look at the brief story of Jesus and the 10 lepers, that’s lepers not leopards. I remember reading a story about a little boy who thought it was 10 leopards! No, 10 lepers it is.

The Bible uses the word leprosy for various serious skin diseases. It is not entirely sure whether the word was used in exactly the same way as we use it. Leprosy, as you know is a horrible and debilitating illness, which in its different forms leads to various levels of disfigurement. Today it is more often known as Hansen’s disease and can be healed relatively easily through a course of medication – provided the patient is willing to keep up the tablets. Sometimes when the disease is quite advanced a person will have serious problems in being rehabilitated.

In Jesus’s day there was no cure for leprosy and lepers were obliged to live apart from society, on their own. It was a wretched thing for a person to get leprosy, therefore. It meant the end of regular contact with family and friends and society in general and a bleak future with practically no hope of recovery. Whenever we read about it, it reminds us of our own wretched state by nature. This story of Jesus miraculously healing a group of lepers reminds us first of all then that despite these facts there is hope for all who will come to him in faith.

1. Remember your wretched state by nature and how to be saved

1. By nature we are all in a wretched state. That's the first thing to take in. These lepers give us a striking picture of sin.

1 Diseased. Riddled with disease. By nature we are systemically diseased. We are riddled with sin. It is something that we are born with. Sin manifests itself in different ways in different people – some are more disfigured than others - but the truth is that we all suffer from it. It begins subtly but there is no permanent way of stopping its daily advance. In the end it leads to death. At the very heart of our souls something has gone seriously wrong and there is no known cure for it. Oh, there are things designed to produce relief. Some claim they can cure you through various rules and regimes but the truth is that the heart is desperately wicked and beyond cure. Our situation is hopeless by nature. Do you realise that?

2 Cast out. Cut off from God. As I have said lepers were outcasts. They were not allowed to live in society once they contracted this terrible disease for fear of contaminating others. Now because in this world we all have leprosy that sense of being an outcast is not always there. We need to remember, however, that as large as the world is it is nothing so much as a great leper colony where we are living out a wretched existence but for the grace of God. This is a fallen world, a world cut off by nature from the presence of God. We have no right to heaven, no right to come into the presence of God. This is one of the reasons for the sense of alienation that people often feel. Are remembering that fact?

3 Far off. Far from Christ. At the beginning of the story we read how these lepers stood at a distance from Jesus. They knew they had no right to approach anyone, least of all Jesus. Again that is our position, in one sense. What right have we to draw near to God? What right have we to come to Jesus? None at all in ourselves. However, and this is the amazing thing. We can draw near to Jesus today and we can ask him, as these people did, to have pity on us and to rescue us and to save us from sin.

These things are true not just of some of us but of all of us. We know that nine of these men were Jews and one was a Samaritan. However, they all had leprosy. There was no difference. And so whatever differences there may be among us, we are all united by this – we are all wretched sinners.

2. The only one who can save us is Jesus Christ. This is the second thing we need to underline. As I have said, leprosy was incurable at this time and these men knew that their situation was hopeless. However, somehow they had heard about Jesus’s power to heal and so when they encountered him they saw their only opportunity and cried out for mercy. We are told that at this point (11) Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, but at that point was travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee. Jesus was headed for the cross. It is by his death that he has won an atonement for sin. It is because of that death that your sin and mine can be taken away. He was at this moment on the border between Samaria and Galilee. Jesus is often found on the borders – at the margins of life. He is seldom centre stage. He can be found at the edges of life.

We too need to see that Jesus is our only hope. Because of his death on the cross there can be forgiveness for all who come to him. Are you aware of the burden of sin? Do you have a sense of its misery, its power over you, the way it is spoiling everything in your life? There is no way to be rid of sin in the ordinary way. Jesus Christ is the only one who can deliver you. He alone can save you. There is no point looking in any other direction. Jesus alone can save. Come to him then, come to the margins and find him.

3. Cry out loudly to the Lord and seek his pity. We read (13) that these men called out in a loud voice, Jesus, Master, have pity on us! These men knew how wretched they were and so when Jesus came by they cried earnestly and loudly. They were determined not to miss this opportunity. They acknowledged Jesus as their Master and they pleaded for him to show pity. That is how to go to Jesus. If you know how bad things really are then you will cry earnestly for forgiveness. Look to him for mercy!

4. How to be saved. And so what did Jesus do? There are really three things. They show us how he deals with all who come to him in faith.

1 He sees us, so take comfort. Jesus could have ignored these men, I suppose. He could have looked the other way or passed by on the other side. He doesn’t, however, he sees them. He sees us too. He sees you and he sees me. He knows our need. He understands.

2 He commands us so obey. It is (14) When he saw them, then that he said, Go, show yourselves to the priests. What is this about? Well, some of you will remember those OT laws that explain how anyone with signs of leprosy is to go and show himself to the priest. It is the OT priest who is able to pronounce a man clean or unclean. Jesus planned to cleanse these men and so they need to go to the priest and be pronounced clean. No doubt it would have crossed their minds that this was going to happen but they still had to obey. We too are under an obligation to obey. Whatever Jesus says we must do. He calls upon us to repent and to trust in him. This we must do. Are we doing it?

3 He cleanses from sin so be glad. It then says And as they went, they were cleansed. It is in the path of obedience that Christ meets us and saves us. Jesus did not say to these men ‘If you obey me I will cleanse you’ nor does he say today 'if you do this I will save you'. No, in both cases he says ‘Do this’ and as it is done so he cleanses and saves. Here is reason to be glad then – Jesus can cleanse and he does cleanse as we obey. Obey him, therefore, and be sure of salvation.

That is the first part of the story then. But there is more. There is the story of how one of the lepers, and he a Samaritan, comes back and says thank you. Now just on the face of it there is a lesson there about thankfulness. But I think there is more. Surely there is a lesson for believers here on how to live, now that we have been saved by grace.

2. Remember to be grateful now if you have been saved

1. Here is an example to follow.

1 Come to the Lord. We are told that of these 10 men (15) One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back. It seems that as these men went on their way they were healed. The nine simply carried on to find the priest. One of them, however, was so thankful to the Lord for what he had done that he went straight back to him to thank him. If you are a Christian, if you are repenting from sin and trusting in Christ then surely you have an obligation daily to come to Christ. There is never any excuse for neglecting him.

2 Give him praise. This man came we are told praising God in a loud voice. No surprise there. What a deliverance he had experienced. What a change! And it was all due to this one man, to Jesus. Shouldn’t we have the same attitude too? What reason we have to give praise to God.

3 Humble yourself before him. 16a He threw himself at Jesus’ feet. When did you last do the same? He knew that he owed everything to Jesus. He was therefore willing to humble himself before the Lord. Isn’t that the attitude that we ought to show to the one who has shown us such loving kindness?

4 Give him thanks. This is the most obvious thing and thanked him. Christ had given him life. He had delivered him from disease and misery and separation. Imagine how thankful he was. The same sort of thankfulness ought to be typical of the true believer. What good things God has given us. How kind and how compassionate he has been. What mercies we have known. We ought to be thankful every day and yet how often we are not. How often we fail to give thanks.

2. Hear this rebuke to the many. Listen to these words of rebuke then (17, 18) Jesus asked, Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no-one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? (Remember he was a Samaritan). Nine tenths of those lepers did not come back to give thanks and the one who did was the one who was perhaps least instructed in the way of righteousness. Perhaps it is the same today. How many believers are as prompt and as thorough as they ought to be in giving thanks. It may be that those who are most thankful are those who we would least expect. Perhaps it is not the ministers and the missionaries, not those who have grown up in Christian homes but those from the outside. They seem to be very ordinary Christians in many ways but they are thankful people. Oh how thankful they are to God. How they praise him! We do not know who the most thankful are but God knows. He sees. What about us who believe? How thankful are we? Thanksgiving ought to seep into every part of our lives.

3. Hear this encouragement for the few. The final thing to notice is what Jesus says to this unnamed individual, this good Samaritan. 19 Then he said to him

1 Rise. Rise. There is a word to lift him up. It is right that we humble ourselves before God when we think of all that he has done for us. It is also right that we rise with confidence too when we know our thanks and praise have been received.

2 Go. And go. We must also go. We cannot spend every moment in prayer. There are things to be done, lives to be lived. There ought to be regular coming to Jesus to give him thanks but also regular going out in his name and strength.

3 See that salvation is by faith. Your faith has made you well. Jesus wanted this man to see the importance of faith. Whether it was true in the same way of the others or not it was certainly true of this man that it was his faith in Jesus that had led to his healing. If you are a true Christian then it must be by faith. It is because you trust in Jesus that your sins have been forgiven. It is very important then that you go in faith. It is by faith that you have been saved – in faith you must go on, looking only to Jesus in all things.