The Nine Unclean Lepers

Bright students did not just want to learn a list of steps, they wanted to see how it fit and why it fit. They could learn the steps for a single test, but if they never understood why, they would never remember for the midterm or the final. God did not design us to memorize disconnected facts and steps. He made us in His image with a remarkable capacity to understand and we get really frustrated when we don’t.

As we fall into this weird gap between Christmas and the first sermon of the New Year, I decided to do a stand alone sermon. If you are new here, I normally preach in series through books of the Bible, because we think that the Bible was written by God, and every word is put in every place in a particular way to convey the message God wants to send. Good preaching does not come up with ideas and make you think “Wow, isn’t he clever!” Good preaching exposes what God has said, so that you may say “I have never seen that before,” but you will be able to say “I see it now.” Going through books of the Bible lets me train you to read the Bible for yourself, so that you don’t have to eat my secondhand slop. Next week, we will pick up in and enter into some of the most practical teaching in the Bible and work through it, line by line for about eight weeks. It will challenge you, it will inspire you, and prayerfully it will shape you.

Today, we are taking a different approach. I am going to take a passage of Scripture that, if you grew up in church, you have probably heard abused. Many sweet Sunday School teachers, looking for a good way to encourage those no-good-rotten kids these days to use their manners, have turned to and found a story about 9 ungrateful people, and one grateful one. The grateful one gets an attaboy from Jesus, and so - she told you - you ought to use your manners too.

I love manners. I say “sir,” “thank you” and “excuse me” to kids, dogs and sometimes inanimate objects I kick inadvertently. But that kind of interpretation ought to have a big red flashing “No!” above it. The Bible is not written to bring you some advice about how to live, even if it is good advice. The Bible is written to show you who God is, and who you are. When given a list of “do this” and “don’t do this,” like the Emily Post of the Kingdom of Heaven, we get as frustrated as my kids did in Pre-Calculus. But if you will give me a few minutes to really let you see what God is doing in this rich story, I promise that it will change your whole perspective, your whole attitude, and get you ready to face the new year.

The reason your Sunday School teacher felt the need to approach the text in that way is that kids are snotty, ungrategul brats (present company excluded). They do not recognize what has been done for them, and so they do not respond as they should. But before we come on them too hard, are we any different? Do we really see the big picture of what God has given us in comparison to what we deserve and respond accordingly? Our big idea this morning is simple, and might seem as moralistic as the Sunday School version. But don’t tune me out. Let’s take the time to prove that:

Big Idea: Look to Jesus and He will change you from a scoffer to a worshipper.

Turn to , toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, between some different disputes with the religious leaders of His day. He is going to die on a cross for the sins of the world, but on His way, stops for a gang of lepers. Would you stand with me if you are able for the reading of God’s Word?

Luke 17:11–19 KJV 1900

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Prayer

Explain

Imagine the scene. Jesus, with His face set on Jerusalem to go and to die, is passing through this predominately Gentile territory, swinging through the border around Samaria. In the distance, ten men are shouting. Their bodies are covered in deep, contagious sores. They are scarred and deformed, partly because of the disease itself and partly because the disease destroys nerves, so people - insensitive to pain - burn or injure themselves without realizing it. Under the Law, they were required to shout “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn people of their passing.

Thabiti Anyabwile wrote: “How difficult it must have been to be required to be the prophet of your own uncleanness, the herald of your own unworthiness before God. Imagine the burden of having to tell everyone you encountered that you were “unclean.”

Luke 17:11–13 KJV 1900

For obvious reasons, people with leprosy were not able to work to provide for themselves, and lingered outside of cities, far enough away to avoid contagion, but close enough to beg. As they cried out “Mercy, mercy!” Some of the people walking by might drop or throw coins or food for them to live on. Probably many more figuratively rolled up their windows and refused to make eye contact. But when they see Jesus, and call Him “Master” or “Lord” and beg for mercy, they are asking for more than money. They believe this is the one who is able to heal them, even though they cannot get close. Everyone else rejected them, but they believed that Jesus would not. There is the first point in your notes:

Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in Luke (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2018).”

The Unclean Turned to Jesus

This is the theme over and over again of Jesus’ ministry, but in his classic book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey tells a true story from a worker with the downtrodden in Chicago that illustrates the disconnect between Jesus and His people:

The Unclean Turned to Jesus

Illustrate

“A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter—two years old!—to men...” He continues: “At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

What struck me about my friend’s story is that women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Has the church lost that gift?”

Argue

Let me take it from Yancey’s words to our situation. The lepers, like the notorious sinners, knew that they could find acceptance in Jesus, if nowhere else. In Alvin, is that the way people think of AMBC? Or do they think of us at all? The unclean turned to Jesus and they ought to turn to us.

Yet, most of us would be more comfortable at a dinner party with the Pharisees than the places Jesus went. We would want to shower if we rubbed elbows in the places Jesus seemed to be some comfortable. His enemies called him a drunk and a glutton, although He was not, and a friend of sinners, which He was.

But those who were pushed away by everyone else were drawn into Jesus. And how natural that they should fall in love with the One who loved them so much that He came to give up His life for them.

Apply

If you are not a Christian, I want you to know that you ought to feel drawn to Jesus. There is no disqualifyingly grotesque sin, where He will not hear your cry. It makes no difference what people think of you - you only need to identify the person and cry out “Jesus! Lord! Have mercy on me.”

As a church, we must let that idea catch fire in our hearts. The body of Christ is a port for the storm tossed with nowhere else to flee.

As individual Christians, are we aware of those that we push off? Who is “unclean” to you? For conservatives, it might be immigrants, gun-control activists, BLM, those who kneel for the flag or liberals in general. For liberals, it might be the hyper-wealthy, Fox News hosts, people who fly the confederate battle flag or conservatives in general. For Christians, it might be homosexuals, Muslims or women who have had abortions. But do you realize that, without agreeing with the opposite side of the aisle, no one is beyond the reach of Christ's nail-pierced hand? Jesus did not agree with the sinners or endorse their sin, yet he opened himself in such a way that they came to Him and were transformed. How far from our posture of “you are unclean, stay away from me!” is Jesus. The unclean turned to Him, and knew they would find acceptance.

So when He does accept them, as they knew He would, how do they respond?

Luke 17:14 KJV 1900

And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.

Explain

In , there is a 32 verse procedure for what to do once someone had been cured of leprosy. It involved the sacrifice of a bird, the release of a life bird, a ritual washing, a seven day waiting period, oil on the top of the ear and several other things besides. It showed that this unclean person was now fully restored to the community. And, as far as we know, it had never been used for the millenium and a half between the giving of the Law to Moses and the coming of Jesus Christ. Moses’ sister had been cured of leprosy before the giving of this law, but there is no other explicit reference to any Jewish person being cured of leprosy in the whole Old Testament.

So, when Jesus sends these men to the priests to be declared clean, He does so as a dramatic sign to the priests that something incredible is happening in the world. Something new is in the neighborhood. But, of course, the order is the real drama of the scene. These people cry out to Jesus for deliverance, and Jesus tells them to go to the priests to be healed, before He heals them! It is when they trust that they are healed, and go to show it publically, that their healing becomes visible. Faith is the key. To spell it with a “T” for the next point in your notes:

From Trust Comes Deliverance

Illustrate

One of the most famous Sunday School stories in the Old Testament describes the Syrian general Naaman, who came to Elisha looking for healing. Elisha told him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times and the seventh time Naaman would be cleaned. Naaman left angry, because he had expected Elijah to cure him, rather than simply sending him to wash. Washing, of course, was part of the elaborate ritual for someone who had already been cured of leprosy, not something which could take it away. But his servants convinced this mighty man to do it. So Naaman went down into the Jordan River and immersed himself seven times. Six times he came out of the water a leper, the seventh time he came up clean.

It was not that the waters of the Jordan River had been pumped full of clofazimine and dapsone, where he just needed a few doses of the antibiotics. His deliverance came because of his faith: he trusted Elisha, and the God who stood behind him. These lepers, just as dramatically, trusted Jesus. If He told them to go and show the priests that they had been cleansed, then they must be on the brink of healing. They knew that they could turn to Jesus, and now they could find deliverance in their trust.

Argue

Why is this so hard to accept? We want to see results and we want to respond to what we see, but God wants us to respond to what we believe. If we trust Him, then hearing His Word is as good as seeing its results.

Apply

If we took Jesus at his word here, how would our marriages be different? Imagine if we looked at what the Bible says, about submitting to one another by husbands loving their wives and wives following their husbands, to raise up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If we all said, it maybe difficult, but God says this is the path and simply believed Him - how would our families be transformed?

If husbands took their responsibility to lead their families seriously and made that a priority in their lives, not because they believe they are better or smarter, but because they trust God, how would the pride that leads to chauvinism vanish?

If when you went to work, you really believed your work was for God, no matter how menial or meaningless it seems, how would your coworkers, boss and employees see you? Would they say “There is something different about her?” Faith sees what is not yet, and God responds by bringing it into being.

Imagine, these lepers who moments ago were crying out for help, turn to go to the temple, and look down and see their sores healing with every step. The dead skin falls off, the hair regrows, the numbness vanishes. Their sight came just behind their faith (although, it is not always that quick, is it?) What would you do? How would you react, when this one you called on has now delivered you?

Luke 17:15–16 KJV 1900

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.

Explain

Notice the punchline that Luke has saved for the third act of this story. Of the ten men with leprosy, only one returns - and the one who does is a Samaritan! As in, the half Jewish/half Gentiles who had corrupted the true faith, who were universally despised, to the extent that a Jewish person would burn a wooden cup if a Samaritan had pressed his lips to it.

Like in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus turns the prejudices of His audience on their heads. Those who they believed were the good ones walk on without any gratitude, and this despised Samaritan returns to bring glory to God. He is the one with all of the gratitude.

If Jews and Samaritans despised each other so much, how could it possible be that this Samaritan would live among them? The answer is clear: what difference does it make, when you are all lepers? When everyone is an outcast, the distinctions that seemed so important are far less so. That brings us to the next point in your notes:

We All Need Transformation

We are not in need of a minor remodel, like the Jews of Jesus’ day often believed. We are not better than others. We are all lepers, and all need a dramatic cleansing. The other men with leprosy recognized that they were all in the same boat, although we often pretend that there is a much broader distinction between us and other sinners than there really is.

Illustrate

In 1981, when Ronald Reagan was shot, he famously said before he entered surgery: “I hope you’re all Republicans.” His surgeon, a Democrat named Dr. Joseph Giardano, said “We’re all Republicans today.” Crises dissolve normal barriers. In more recent history, we can talk about 9/11. The political, social and economic barriers which seem unscalable during normal time all vanish during a crisis. When we truly come to an awareness of who God is, what sin is, who we are and what Jesus has done for us, the distinctions with other people flatten into meaninglessness.

Argue

Earlier, I asked how you respond to the unclean. But, following Luke’s lead, I held the punchline for the end. You and I are the lepers. We are the sinners, separated from God, crying out to the Lord Jesus for mercy. Whatever you and I might try to subdivide: prostitute versus liar, Republican versus Democrat, luster versus adulterer, citizen versus stranger, rich versus poor - all of these little variations are drowned out by the cry: “Unclean!”

Apply

You immediately see how this connects to our lives. There are meaningless distinctions, which seem so meaningful to us, and there is the one meaningful one. The issue is not that he was a leper - they all were. It was not that he was a Samaritan, although that throws the absurdity of the whole thing into sharp relief. But this false worshipper with the wrong race, the wrong temple and the wrong traditions received the same response from Jesus that any faithful Jew would have. The only distinction which really mattered was His final response to Jesus.

Is that how we judge people? Your past, your job, your family, your race, your taste in music or the style of your hair will not matter one speck ten thousand years into eternity. The only distinction is our response to Jesus. We all need transformation, and there is only one who can bring it.

Do you see yourself on the same level as those who are dumber, uglier, poorer, more notoriously sinful than you? Do I create boundaries, like lepers counting their sores to see who is the “least unclean”? It is as meaningless as taking the temperatures of corpses to see who is the least dead. The unclean can turn to Jesus - and we are all unclean in need of transformation. But if we trust Him, He will make us new.

Further, this Samaritan foreshadows an incredible theological insight. Jesus had sent him to the priests and the temple to be declared clean, but which temple? The Jewish Temple on Mount Zion or the Samaritan one on Mount Gerizim? This Samaritan cuts through it all, and comes to Jesus as the place where the presence of God dwells to be worshipped. Could he have heard of Jesus’ dealings with the Samaritan woman at the well in , where Jesus said (ESV) “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” It certainly can’t be proved, since Luke does not describe this encounter at all. But since the Bible tells us many Samaritans believed after that encounter, perhaps it explains why these lepers knew who Jesus was. Regardless, this Samaritan did the right thing, when everyone else did the wrong.

Explain

He responded with gratitude. Let’s see how Jesus reacts.

Luke 17:17–19 KJV 1900

And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

This Samaritan foreshadows an incredible theological insight. Jesus had sent him to the priests and the temple to be declared clean, but which temple? The Jewish Temple on Mount Zion or the Samaritan one on Mount Gerizim? This Samaritan cuts through it all, and comes to Jesus as the place where the presence of God dwells to be worshipped. Could he have heard of Jesus’ dealings with the Samaritan woman at the well in , where Jesus said (ESV) “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” It certainly can’t be proved, since Luke does not describe this encounter at all. But since the Bible tells us many Samaritans believed after that encounter, perhaps it explains why these lepers knew who Jesus was. Regardless, this Samaritan did the right thing, when everyone else did the wrong. He knew that Jesus was the source of His healing, and that Jesus was the proper conduit to worship God, not any manmade building. Here, God was come down.

Jesus marvels at his gratitude, but look at the last line: your faith has made you whole. That Greek for “made you whole” is literally “saved you.” I think that Jesus meant more than that His faith cured his leprosy. This one, who recognized Jesus for who He was, has been truly saved from His sin. God has given him a new heart to match his new skin. He has come to Jesus, and is praised for His thankfulness, but it is not His thankfulness which saved Him. That work of coming to thank is just the natural expression of a heart made over by faith.

He has come to Jesus, and is praised for His thankfulness, but it is not His thankfulness which saved Him.

Illustrate

Jesus used this same phrase elsewhere in Luke. Most important to us this morning is when he spoke to the woman who washed his feet with her hair. When Simon, his Pharisee host, saw it, he thought that Jesus must be a fraud. If he knew the wicked hooker at his feet, He would never let her touch Him. This was no prophet, or so Simon reasoned. But Jesus answered his heart.

Luke 7:44–50 KJV 1900

And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

She is not forgiven because she washed Jesus’ feet. She is not saved because she was moved with tears of gratitude. She was forgiven because of her faith! And she wept and washed His feet because she was forgiven. This leper, the unique one, was not saved because He returned and used his very best manners. He was saved because He believed that Jesus was God come down to take away his sins! And once he was saved, he was moved with gratitude.

Argue

The next point in your notes:

Outer Response Reflects Inward Truth

shows that when God has changed us, we bear fruit. So, the original outward distinctions are meaningless. Jesus loves the outcast, when they come to him they will be forgiven, there is no difference. But once that inward change has been made, it results in a real and meaningful difference. Primarily, love for God and for His people. It makes perfect sense: faith begins in our hearts, and bleeds out in the way we praise God and love people. If we realize who Jesus is, and realize how far He has brought us, do we have any excuse to respond in any way short of total adoration? Of course not.

Apply

As we enter the new year, we want to be a people who live with a constant posture of gratitude. Gratitude does not ask “how far do I have to go”? That is me telling Ana to say thank you, when she wants to shrink away and is frantically trying to figure out the minimum that will get her out of this situation. We don’t have to ask “how good do I need to be to go to Heaven?” Since God has offered us salvation by grace alone, that Jesus has gone down into the leper colony of humanity, where none of us were any more worthy than anyone else, and said “Whoever calls on me can be cleansed and saved,” our attitude is simply: “thank you.” The fruit of a transformed heart.

Conclusion

If I were to tell you that I was the richest person in the world, what would you think? Well, since I am a preacher, you would think I was being poetic. But assume some normal person, who says normal things in normal ways, said “You know, I am a multi-billionaire. Sure, my children have holes in their shoes, my parents are eating Alpo and my wife wonders if we are going to have power on any given day in July, but I am exorbitantly wealthy.”

You would think that I was either crazy, a liar, the cruelest man who ever lived, or some combination of the three. What kind of a person would have all of those resources and not use them? If I had them, they would show! And if I didn’t, they wouldn’t.

If you have a heart which has recognized that you are a sinner, no better or worse than any other and that you can turn to Jesus for acceptance when everyone else turns you away, that will leak out into your life. If you walk around with no works, it is because you have no faith! If we really believe God, we will follow that with action. And if we really know Him, we cannot help but be transformed.

Would you stand?

Friend, if you are a Christian who has been living a half-hearted life, looking down on others and looking over your Savior, I want you to step out as we sing and come and leave it here on these steps. Coming down here will not change you, there is nothing magical in the aisles. But stepping forward, showing that you are ready to come to Jesus like the grateful leper, will help you to make a dramatic leap in your heart.

If you are not sure that you have ever been saved, I want you to know what these lepers knew. That no one is too far gone for Jesus. That if you recognize that you need cleansing, and believe that He came down to us to die on the cross for you and for me, that He will transform you right now. You don’t have to clean up your life first, in fact, you can’t ever get your life clean enough. But if you will come to Jesus now, the change in your heart will begin to show in your life. He will give you a new heart, and then new skin.

All you have to do is pray where you stand. Just like there is no magic aisle, there are no magic words. But you can pray something like this: “Lord, I know that I am a sinner. I believe that you are the one who will have mercy on me, because you died for me. I don’t ask for a feeling or a sign, I believe your Word and call on you now. Forgive me, Jesus.”

If you prayed that prayer, won’t you come down and make it public, to show him your gratitude? If you have more questions or business with God, won’t you come as we sing?

What's So Amazing About Grace? Contents

A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter—two years old!—to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable—I’m required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

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