Sermon Tone Analysis

/A thankful heart is the parent of all virtues./

/Cicero / \\

 

Luke 17: 11 ¶ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.

12  As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy {The Greek word was used for various diseases affecting the skin--not necessarily leprosy.}

met him.

They stood at a distance 3  and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" 14  When he saw them, he said, "*/Go, show yourselves to the priests/*."

And as they went, they were cleansed.

15  One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.

16  He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan.

17  Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed?

Where are the other nine?

18  Was no-one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

19  Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

A woman leaving the worship service said to the minister, "I enjoyed the sermon."

"Don't thank me.

Thank the Lord," said the minister.

"It wasn't that good," the lady replied.

n      Robert S. Smith, Kane, Pennsylvania, Christian Reader, "Lite Fare."

Don’t make the mistake of writing yourself into this story as the central character.

You are most likely one of the extras.

Where are the nine?

One waited to see if the cure was real.

One waited to see if it would last.

One said he would see Jesus later.

One decided that he had never had leprosy.

One said he would have gotten well anyway.

One gave the glory to the priests.

One said, "O well, Jesus didn't really do anything."

One said, "Just any rabbi could have done it."

One said, "I was already much improved."

-- Charles L. Brown, Main Street Monitor

 

/You say grace before meals.

All right.

But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

/

/ /

n       /G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Christian Ministry (July 1983).

Christianity Today, Vol.

34, no.

17./

/ /

/Our biggest problem in the church today is this vast majority of Sunday morning Christians who claim to have known the Master's cure and who return not [at other times] to thank Him by presence, prayer, testimony and support of His church.

In fact, the whole Christian life is one big "Thank You," the living expression of our gratitude to God for His goodness.

But we take Him for granted and what we take for granted we never take seriously.

/

/ /

n       /Vance Havner in The Vance Havner Quote Book.

Christianity Today, Vol.

31,  no.

17./

/ /

/It is probable that in most of us the spiritual life is impoverished and stunted because we give so little place to gratitude.

It is more important to thank God for blessings received than to pray for them beforehand.

For that forward-looking prayer, though right as an expression of dependence upon God, is still self-centered in part, at least, of its interest; there is something we hope to gain by our prayer.

But the backward-looking act of thanksgiving is quite free from this.

In itself it is quite selfless.

Thus it is akin to love.

All our love to God is in response to his love for us; it never starts on our side.

"We love, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

/

/ /

n      /William Temple, from 3000 Quotations on Christian Themes.

Christianity Today, Vol.

32, no.

17./

 

 

 

!

A Sense Of Need

 

I must be poor and want, before I can exercise the virtue of gratitude; miserable and in torment, before I can exercise the virtue of patience.

/ /

n       /John Donne,  Leadership, Vol. 10, no.

2./

 

Ø    Tends to unite people

 

Perhaps we could use a greater sense of need in the church.

There were 10 lepers in the story – most likely 9 Jews and one Samaritan.

Neither liked the other in terms of their race and yet they were comrades in misery and in need.

When people share things in common relationships develop and yet there are so many petty barriers that divide the church today, things that are so small and petty that they would grieve the heart of God.

Probably the greatest evidence that the self-sufficient person or a collection of them parades their sufficiency before God and then with half a heart and tongue-in cheek we tell God that we need Him.

I need thee O I need thee – every hour I need, O Blessed Holy Spirit I come to Thee . .

.

A sense of self sufficiency tends to divide people because we start to believe that we no longer need one another.

So we assume that we have the luxury of bidding one another good bye at the slightest hint of disagreement and we walk away from each other saying “Who cares?”

Ø    Tends to bring people to Christ

 

The ministry of Christ was always focused on people who were needy.

They were those who were overlooked by society in general.

People that others who were self assured and contained had already cast on the scrap heap.

We do the same thing today – we will labor with people to a degree and then we will cast them aside and label them in order to make ourselves feel better.

People who hold high position have a greater responsibility.

I have heard the words “He’ll never amount to anything.”

-  too frequently in my life.

The tragedy is that sometimes people will believe that – you might believe that about yourself today because someone in a position of authority made that pronouncement over your life.

Shake it off.

For every Christian person your abilities are not limited in Christ.

In Him you can do all things.

Ø    People expect different things from God

 

I think that this was the case with the ten lepers.

Perhaps they were more consumed with the consequences of their disease then they were with the disease itself.

A good number of people are sorry for the mess that they are in and mindless to the nature that resides within them that lead them to the mess and will take them there again.

The great thing about a relationship with God is that he deals with both consequences and the nature.

He’ll forgive your debt but he’ll do something to set you free from returning to that state.

These men were most likely consumed with the fact that their disease had made them outcasts from society and to be reunited with friends would be the first evidence of healing.

The one man, a Samaritan

 

Ø    Most people get what they expect

 

 

 

!!

A Show Of Negligence

 

It’s amazing how quickly we forget the miracle of answered prayers.

Our need draws us to Christ and brings sincerity and fervency to our prayers.

Even regularity and yet we forget our need quickly even as we receive the answer and fall back quickly to our ungrateful patterns.

We are much better pray-ers than praise-ers.

The glory tends to fade as time passes.

I guess that’s normal.

There are several barriers to gratitude:

 

Ø    Entitlement –

 

I deserve it

 

Ø    Grievance –

 

I’ve been victimized and it’s about time that I am compensated

Ø    Self-centredness –