Gratitude - Fullness of Life

Gratitude

Fullness of Life

Luke 17:11-19

Series Slide

As King David once said, “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the Lord.” (Psalm 122:1) It is a good day when we can gather in God’s house together, Amen. Blessing of the Boxes, all the prep for the Bazaar on Tuesday, Thanksgiving celebrations on Thursday, Plum Pudding next Sunday, and – let us not forget, the Community Thanksgiving Service this evening at 6:00 where I get the opportunity to share the gospel message of Jesus Christ again… What an amazing day and week we have before us.

Last week, we talked about the fact that there are forces at work to divide us… and it has worked. We are more divided than we have ever been, but there is also something that can and will unite us… that is giving thanks. This is the time of year that we are to pause and give thanks. We are to stop what we are doing and acknowledge that we are to live a life of gratitude. That is what can and will unite us as followers of Jesus Christ, thanking God for one another and thanking God for Jesus Christ. I recently heard our friend Terry Jacobson share a quote he has heard before, “This Thursday, when you are carving the turkey, don’t forget about the lamb.”

Sermon Slide

Today, we are going to wrap up this idea of gratitude as we prepare for Thanksgiving. We need to remember that gratitude is an essential ingredient as we journey toward the fullness, the abundant life promised in Christ Jesus. So, as we get started, let us pause in prayer.

<PRAYER>

Luke 17:11-13

So, here is Jesus, minding his business on his way up to Jerusalem, when these 10 Lepers come hollering across the field at him… “Jesus, master, have mercy on us.” “Have pity on us!”

Now keep in mind the culture of the times… these 10 lepers were unclean… they were ceremonially and ritually dirty, unaccepted in the Temple or Synagogue and anyone that came in contact with them would become unclean as well. So, they kept their distance because it was the law. It was a law that made them easy to ignore… kinda like the people at the intersections asking for help… as long as they stay off to the side, they are easy to ignore, right? You know what I’m talking about… we pull up to the red light and think, if I don’t make eye contact, then they won’t see me ignoring them.

Luke 17:14

But Jesus doesn’t do what we do… Jesus didn’t do what most did… No, Jesus saw them and acknowledged them. Jesus didn’t see them as lepers, he saw them as people, he saw them as they were, beloved children of God. Then, he does something interesting. He didn’t touch them. He didn’t perform some act, he simply told them to go and show themselves to the priests… and as they went, they were made clean. They were healed.

Luke 17:15-18

We can speculate about this next section of the passage. We can guess based on the customs that 9 were maybe Jews who knew that they would have to be declared clean by the priests, so they were obedient and went to the priests. But we don’t see any evidence that they showed gratitude when they realized they were healed, but one did. A Samaritan. A dirty, filthy, foreigner… one of those half-breed Samaritans. He returned and fell on his face and gave thanks to Jesus. The actual word for “thanks” here is eucharisteo. It is the same word that we get Eucharist from, one of the names for the Lord’s Supper, Communion. At the root of the word is Charis– the word for grace… one of the more than 170 times Grace is seen in the New Testament. This one Samaritan received the mercy he asked for… he received the grace of God… and he went back and returned grace with grace… he gave thanks and praised God. Do you remember what we said last week,

Thanks and Praise! The recipe for building the Kingdom of God. When we live a life of gratitude, we are building the Kingdom of God. When we return grace for grace, we are perpetuating the abundant life that Christ promised us. That is what this Samaritan did.

Luke 17:19

After this man returned to Jesus and gave thanks, Jesus did something a little odd. He disregarded what he had told the other men and said, “Go on your way, your faith has made you well.” The first healing was a physical healing. They all received the physical healing, but only one received the free gift of grace from Jesus and offered it back… He received a second healing, a true healing, the gift of his salvation.

And that is my first point today.

Thanksgiving is an extension of our belief in Jesus, an extension of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

What we see here, in this passage, is a replica of other stories and teachings in the Bible. It is the theology of God’s grace, which is accepted through the practice of eucharisteo, via belief, or as Paul said it in Ephesians, “By grace, through faith.”

We see that all the lepers fully believed they were healed. They saw their healing, they felt their healing, they believed they were healed, and they went to show it to the priest. But, instead of showing their belief to Jesus, for Jesus, inJesus, they show it to others without so much as a thank you to the one who had healed them.

But one leper gets it. He turns back, falls on his knees, confesses his belief in Jesus through thanksgiving and praise, and shows Jesus that he has received God’s grace. This leper not only believed that he was healed and received the healing, but by his actions, we read that he believes in the one who brought his healing to reality.

His thanksgiving for his healing was a confession and an affirmation of his belief in Jesus.

He believed, in his heart, and the others did not. Some would call that “Atheism of the Heart”

Atheism of the Heart.

Although the passage does not directly state the others were not made well through their faith, it is implied. The nine lepers responded with their lips, the one leper responded with his heart.

We tend to avoid the word atheism unless we are talking about someone who does not believe in Jesus or in God. But the meaning of the word is much deeper. To not believe in something, by its nature implies you actually do believe in something else – you believe in not believing.

An atheist who says they don’t believe in God as the creator of the Universe believes in science. Science becomes their god.

Others don’t believe in Jesus for their salvation, they instead believe in themselves for their own salvation… they don’t need God, because they have made themselves gods in their own mind.

Atheism of the heart is to know of God and to choose not to glorify Him as God. It is to accept His grace, his healing, his provision, his goodness in our life, but never acknowledge that they come from His hand.

In an atheistic heart there is no obligation to show a response for what God has freely given. There may be a belief in a God who freely gives, there may be an acceptance of His gifts, but there is no expressive response to His gifts.

Few passages expound on an atheistic heart like this passage written to the early Roman church by the Apostle Paul.

Romans 1:20-23 (2 Slides)

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Atheism of the heart is one thing, but so often it leads to the next…

Atheism of Life

When we choose to ignore the wonders of God… when we ignore the evidence of God in the world around us, we not only have an atheistic heart, we live an atheistic life.

When we live an atheistic life, we receive God’s mercies and refuse to give God thanks. Like we just read: for although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

How did their atheistic lives mimic their atheistic hearts? They did not honor Him or give thanks. They chose not to receive and respond to God’s grace. Therefore, they exchanged God’s grace for backward lives, full of sin, and pain. And that is our next point.

An atheistic lifetrades an attitude of gratitude for a “me, mine, and myself” mindset.

What is the result of this life? Listen to this from the rest of that passage from Romans:

Romans 1:23-32

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

When we make ourselves our own god, we walk away from the abundant life offered in Jesus Christ and find ourselves filled with a life that is far from God. Just look at the world around us to see the results. This passage reminds me of a description of Hollywood and Washington DC. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are good people in both swamps, but my point remains valid.

But, there is another option. We don’t have to live into that passage from Romans.

We know we are living a life of gratitude when the fruits of the Spirit freely flow through us.

What does that look like?

Galatians 5:22-24

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Let me repeat that last line there…

Those who belong to Christ Jesus…

When we give ourselves to Jesus something happens in us… we crucify the flesh with its passions and desires.

Where does crucifying the passions and desires of the flesh begin?

It begins with a response of gratitude to God for his mercies.

From this place of gratitude, we find the strength to choose God, to allow the Holy Spirit to live in us… to receive the Grace offered in Jesus Christ and offer that grace back to God and others.

Sermon Slide

The leper returned grace with grace, he lived Eucharisteo…

And he received the promise of Jesus Christ… a full and complete life… an abundant life… an eternal life.

Jesus told us in John 10:10 that he came that we might have life, abundant life. We don’t find the fullness of life in ourselves… we only find it by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ.

So, this week, as we carve the turkey, may we not forget about the Lamb. As we gather with family and friends, may we enjoy the full bellies, but more than that, may we seek the fullness of life only offered through Jesus Christ.