Greater Thanks (Luke 17:11-19)

[Sermon from Vineyard Columbus, Ohio] [Click HERE for the audio of the sermon]

This Sunday marks the beginning of the Advent season. In the church year, Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner!

I love this season. I really do. I love to see families and friends come together to celebrate and catch up after a year of being apart. I love to decorate the Christmas tree and drink $10 cups of holiday drink from Starbucks. But you know what I am beginning to hate more and more every year? I’m sure many of you here will relate to this. I hate the crazy long lines no matter which store you go to. I don’t know where these people are during the rest of the year, but they all show up at the one store that I want to go to, and of course, they buy the very things that I am trying to buy.

Somewhere in history, Christmas has become the best friend of the retail industry. The National Retail Federation expects consumers to spend $437 billion this Christmas. Compare that number to $2.7 billion that was given to victims of hurricane Katrina or the $2.8 billion that was given to 9/11 charities.

Advent originated as a period of fasting in preparation for Christmas. And while many Christians still do practice fasting during Lent in preparation for Easter, this practice of fasting in preparation for Christmas has largely been forgotten. Advent is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It is the celebration of Immanuel, God with us. Advent is also a time to meditate on the second coming Christ. But somewhere along the way in history, Advent has been trumped by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What should be a season of waiting and fasting has become a season of stuffing.

We live in the midst of the greatest wealth this planet has ever known, and yet, we are some of the most miserable people that have ever lived. It appears that somehow, as we’ve become more efficient in living life, as we’ve become more adapt at doing things faster and better, as we’ve become more affluent, we are paying the price in the loss of deep and meaningful relationships, we are paying the price in lack of civility, we are paying the price in taking life for granted. And the greatest price we are paying as a civilization is that God is being pushed further and further into the margins of society.

For the past 11 weeks we have been doing a series called “Your Gospel is Too Small.” You and I have been given this incredible gift, this miraculous gift of salvation, this amazing invitation to become a new creation in Jesus Christ and to partner with the creator of the world to make all things new. And we have taken this great gospel and have turned it into religion. We know just enough about the gospel to make us conscious of our sinfulness, but we haven’t dived in fully, we haven’t surrendered fully, we haven’t been drinking fully of the abundance that awaits those who dare to risk it all for the kingdom of God, to experience not merely the suffering, but as Paul says, to experience the “power of his resurrection.” This gospel of Jesus Christ embodies the fullness of love, healing, forgiveness, generosity, justice, compassion, and welcome. And today, as we conclude this series, I want to talk to you today about what I believe to be one of the most important, and yet also the most neglected, practice of an authentic Christian, and that is thanksgiving, gratitude, saying thank you to Jesus! So today’s message is entitled, “Greater Thanks.” Let’s pray.

Please turn with me to the book of Luke 17:11-19. If you do not have a Bible, please feel free to grab a Bible from either side of the stage. We are going to be really digging into these 9 verses today.

Luke 17:11-19
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 met him. They stood at a distance 13 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.”

The Setting
Let’s look at this verse by verse. In verse 11, we see the setting of this story.

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

We see Jesus traveling along the border between Samaria and Galilee, ultimately to his final destination, Jerusalem, where he will be crucified on a cross. For 33 years of life, including 3 years of public ministry, everything in the life of Jesus has been leading him here. Jesus is on a mission to establish the kingdom of God here on earth. But first, “he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.” Jesus knows that there is a cross that awaits him at the end of this journey, yet his focus is resolute. There is an urgency in his walks now. His aim and his goal is clear. He can see on the horizon, a cross. So it is with this backdrop that this story we see today is taking place.

The Ten Lepers
And as he is walking with resolve, with purpose, with a sense of urgency, as he is walking, Jesus encounters ten lepers and he stops.

Luke 17:12
As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance

We are introduced to ten men with leprosy. We are given no other details about these men other than the fact that they have leprosy. We are not given their names. We do not know how old they are. We do not know if they had family. All that we are told is that these men have leprosy. Leprosy is their identity. The whole of their existence has been boiled down to a disease. And there is good reason.

Leprosy is caused by bacteria that attacks the nerve endings and destroys the body’s ability to feel pain and injury. Leprosy would begin with little specks on the eyelids and on the palms of the hand. Then it would slowly spread over the whole body. And once it reaches the nerves, it will take away your ability to feel pain so that you won’t know if you are stepping on a nail; you won’t know if your hand is too close to the fire; you won’t know if there is a cut in your body that needs attention. So over time, one by one, your fingers and toes become shortened and deformed and your body becomes covered with injuries. You are literally wasting away.

But even with all of these physical ailments that a leper would experience, the greatest punishment of leprosy is not physical.

In the time of this story, since there was no treatment of any kind, lepers were confined to leper colonies, forced to live outside the walls of the city, and there, far away from the rest of humanity, you were sentenced to live out your days. And if you ventured out of the colony, you had to walk at least six feet away from other people. And to do this, you carried bells or clappers to alert others while yelling, “Unclean! Unclean!” You were not invited to parties or weddings. You were not allowed to enter the temple courts to worship. And if that wasn’t bad enough, people thought that anyone who was suffering from leprosy was experiencing the divine wrath of God. So not only were you rejected by society, but you were also thought to have been rejected by God himself. Leper’s life is one marked by rejection and isolation. It was such a horrific disease that in the Bible, leprosy is often used as the ultimate expression of an outcast. The greatest punishment of leprosy is not physical.

So here are these ten lepers, destitute, despised, and desperate. Have you ever felt that way before? Maybe some of us feel like that right now. And if that speaks to you, I have some amazing news for you! Jesus came to seek and save people just like us! You see, this is exactly what the gospel is all about.

The gospel is the gospel when it heals the sick and the brokenhearted. The gospel is the gospel when it sets the captives free from sin and bondage. The gospel is the gospel when the orphans, the widows, and the immigrants in our midst are loved and taken care of. The gospel is the gospel when the hungry are fed and the homeless are given shelter. The gospel is the gospel when the weak are made strong and we speak up for those who have no voice. The gospel is the gospel when the prodigals from every corner of the earth run home to the open arms of Jesus. The gospel is the gospel when the kingdom of God is ushered in not just in our churches, but in our homes, in our schools, in our slums, in our companies, in our streets.

Do you know this gospel? Are you living this gospel? Jesus is inviting us to experience the power of this gospel. Jesus is inviting us to drink deeply from the life of this gospel. But we so often settle for mere trickles. The gospel is so much greater!

The Desperate Cry
These ten lepers, without a name, they hear that Jesus is going to be walking by. And we read this in verse 13:

Luke 17:13
and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

The ten desperate lepers have no concerns about propriety. They don’t care about saying the right things, or asking in the right way. They don’t care about what someone else might think of them for behaving in this crude manner. They don’t care about any of that. Desperation causes people to take drastic measures. But in our age of affluence, we are often too proud to admit that we have a need. For some of you, you feel this desperation in your heart for Jesus, but your pride will not allow you to say, “Jesus, I need you!” And to you, this is what Jesus says in Matthew 5:3:

Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

The kingdom of heaven belongs not to the proud, not to the self-sufficient, not to those who can pull themselves up by the bootstraps. No, the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit does not mean weakness, or shyness, or gutless. To be poor in spirit does not mean that the person thinks that he or she has no self-worth. But a person who is poor in spirit is someone who humbly acknowledges his unworthiness before God, someone who realizes that they have absolutely nothing within themselves to commend them to God. Desperate, the poor in spirit kneels before God in humility because he knows that that is the entryway into the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit.

Some of you need to cry out to Jesus today. Some of you need to swallow your pride, set aside what others might think of you. Like the lepers, some of you need to cry out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on me!”

The Miracle of Healing
And Jesus, with love and compassion in his heart, responds to the ten lepers, and they experience the miracle of healing. Verse 14:

Luke 17:14
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

The sight of these ten lepers fills Jesus with love and compassion. He stops from whatever he is doing and he interacts with them. He treats these lepers with dignity and love - something they have not felt in a very, very long time! He tells them to go see the priests. And in commanding the lepers to show themselves to the priests, Jesus was simply following what was required by the law as we see in Leviticus 14. The priests would carefully examine the person who had any sort of infectious skin disease, and if the priest deemed that he has been healed, he would declare that the person would be restored back to society.

So when the ten lepers hear this command to show themselves to the priests, they know what this means. Can you just imagine what’s going through their mind? Can you imagine the expression on their faces? Can you see hope rising in their hearts again?

And we read that it was as they stepped out in obedience that they were healed.

Luke 17:14
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

There is an interesting contrast here from another leper that Jesus healed earlier in the book of Luke:

Luke 5:12-13
While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

Here, we see another leper who encounters Jesus, and his healing is very different. It involves physical touch, and the healing is immediate. But for whatever reason, which we are not told, Jesus takes a different approach to healing here. I think we can safely say that Jesus will heal in any way that he sees fit.

But going back to the ten lepers in today’s passage, what is noteworthy is that they were healed as they stepped out in obedience. There is something incredibly powerful about being obedient to God regardless of our circumstances.

The Grateful Samaritan
Let’s read on. Verses 15 and 16.

Luke 17:15-16
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.

So here is the heart of this passage, the very central teaching moment of this whole section. This is the very reason why this story is in the Bible. And it is about gratitude, about thanksgiving, about saying thank you to Jesus! Something so elementary, so simple, so small, and yet, so incredibly important, so incredibly powerful, so central to what it means to be a Christian.

My wife and I are the proud parents of two incredibly energetic and passionate boys. The oldest, Elliot, is three years old. And the younger one, Isaiah, is one. And believe it or not, while they may look like angels, kids are born with this amazing ability to make their parents go bald. And for you who have not yet experienced the joy of parenthood, you may not believe this but kids don’t always listen to what you have to say. It’s like they have a mind of their own. Parenting is by far, hands down, the hardest thing that I’ve ever done. All the sleepless nights, all the worrying about their health and development, all the prayers for their safety and protection, all the fears about whether or not you are actually a good parent or not, do you know what makes it all worth it for me? It is that illusive, rare moment when one of them would look me right in the eye and say, “Thank you, daddy!” No matter how crabby of a day I may have, no matter how worried I may be about our finances, our future, our ability to provide for them everything they need, no matter what, when I hear those words, “Thank you, daddy!” my heart just melts! And here is the thing: I know that they don’t fully understand what they are saying, especially the one-year old, who can barely even say the words. It doesn’t matter. Something in my heart leaps when I hear those words. Simply put, “Thank you!” is one of the most powerful things that you can say to someone!

So, what is it about gratitude, about thanksgiving, that makes it so powerful?

The Definition of Gratitude
The word gratitude is derived from the Latin gratia, meaning “favor,” and gratus, meaning “pleasing.” All derivatives from this Latin root have to do with gifts, generosity, and of giving and receiving. The French language is especially rich in expressions having to do with gratitude. And the term “reconnaissance” comes from a French word meaning investigating and exploring for the purpose of gathering information. While we may be familiar with its usage in a military sense, when used in the context of gratitude, it means to investigate and explore one’s life for the purpose of seeing to whom thanks should be given. Did you catch that? Gratitude means to investigate and explore one’s life for the purpose of seeing to whom thanks should be given. So gratitude is the active work of recognizing and acknowledging. It is more than just being polite. It is more than just being nice. Gratitude is hard work! It is to do the work of reconnaissance of our lives to recognize and acknowledge, to actively seek out where thanks should be given.

And at the heart of gratitude is the recognition of the relationship. Gratitude is inherently interpersonal. For there to be gratitude, there needs to be more than just one person involved. In other words you cannot thank yourself! “Well, Insoo, I want to thank myself for buying myself a brand new iPhone for my Christmas present. That was unbelievably generous of me! Thank me! Thank me! Thank me so much!” So, if you find yourself thanking yourself a lot, maybe, you probably don’t have this gratitude thing down just right.

The Necessity of Gratitude
So if gratitude is the active work of recognition and acknowledgement, why is it so important? Why is gratitude necessary?

In recent years, there has been a tremendous amount of study being done on the issue of gratitude. And one of the foremost experts in the field is a man named Robert Emmons who is a professor at the University of California, Davis. And he and a few of his colleagues have done groundbreaking research in this area and what they discovered is that experiencing gratitude leads to increased feelings of connectedness, improved relationships, and even altruism. They found that when people experience gratitude, they feel more loving, more forgiving, and closer to God. They also found that grateful people are less lonely. In other words, gratitude is literally one of the few things that can measurably change your life!

Gratitude is how we train hands to stop reaching for more. Gratitude is how we train our hearts to stop desiring after more. We tend to lose sight of all that we already have, for the want of what we wish we could have. This is that sinful part of our human condition. Wasn’t that, after all, what happened to Adam and Eve in the garden? Gratitude empowers us to want what we already have! Gratitude empowers you to live life with an open hand instead of a closed fist!

Centuries ago, the philosopher Cicero argued that among all the virtues, gratitude is “the parent of all the others,” a virtue that begets other virtues. Learning to become grateful has transformational effect on every part of your character. To put it another way, gratitude is one of the primary ways that you and I can become more like Jesus. So, do you want to be a more patient person? Work on gratitude. Do you want to become more compassionate? Work on gratitude? Do you want to experience more peace and joy? Work on gratitude. Do you want to grow in kindness? Work on gratitude.

Jonathan Edwards, arguably one of the greatest theologians, noted that what one believes about God is far less important than the feelings one held toward God. For Edwards, gratitude was the sign of true spirituality, the yardstick by which authentic faith could be measured. You can know all the doctrines, the creeds, and Scripture of the Christian faith, but if that knowledge doesn’t lead to gratitude in your heart towards God, then all you have is information. Relationship, on the other hand, takes a lot more than just data.

The theologian Karl Barth wrote that:

Grace and gratitude go together like heaven and earth.

It is simply impossible to profess to be a Christian and not have a profoundly grateful heart, for at the heart of the Christian faith is the cross of Jesus Christ. At the heart of the Christian faith is the humble acknowledgment that what truly matters is not what I do, but what Jesus did on that cross. How can we not be grateful? How can we not praise God in thanksgiving? How can we not fall at the feet of Jesus and say, like the Samaritan, “Thank you, Jesus!”?

The Sin of Ingratitude
We see in 2 Timothy 3:2 that ingratitude is one of the sins of those who have fallen away from the faith:

2 Timothy 3:2
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy

And we read this in Romans 1:20-21:

Romans 1:20-21
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. 21 For although they knew God [information], they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.

Ingratitude is a sin. Just as gratitude begets other virtues, ingratitude also begets other vices. Ingratitude leads inevitably to a confining, restricting, and shrinking of the person.

The Cost of Gratitude
In choosing to return to Jesus, the Samaritan was making a costly decision. What awaited the ten lepers upon being examined by the priest was the invitation to be restored back to society, to be normal again, to be accepted again. And when this Samaritan returned to Jesus, he was, in actuality, saying that thanking Jesus was more important than anything else in this world. While the nine were obsessed with the gift of healing, this one Samaritan was obsessed with the giver behind the gift. Seeking the giver and not the gift; to thank God not merely for what he has done but who he is. This is the greater thanks! This is exactly why we see over and over again throughout the Bible this refrain: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Greater thanks is not merely a delight in the benefits that God gives, though that is part of it. Greater thanks is more than merely counting your blessings, though that is part of it. Greater thanks is rooted in something else that comes first, namely, a delight in who God is. A sign of a mature Christian is that he or she seeks after the giver more than the gift.

Look at these two verses with me:

Ephesians 5:19-20
speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:18
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Give thanks in all circumstances! All circumstances! Always give thanks to God for everything. You cannot do that if you are merely counting your blessings. In order to give thanks in all circumstances, you must look beyond the gift to the giver. It is the relationship that will empower you to give thanks in all circumstances.

Let me share quickly share just three things to help you grow in gratitude:

First, become a generous person. Generosity and gratitude go hand in hand. Grateful people are generous people. One great paradox of gratitude is that gratitude increases as you give. If you are finding it difficult to sense gratitude, this holiday season, I want to challenge you to give. Give of your time, give of your energy, give of your talents, give of your money. Give as much as you can as often as you can, and when you think you can’t give any more, give some more! Become a generous person.

Second, set aside just 15 minutes at the end of each day to do a reconnaissance of your life, to actively examine your life to see to whom thanks should be given. Before going to bed, examine your day. What happened? Who did you see? What did you say? What didn’t you say? Do you need to reconcile with anyone? Do you need to thank someone?

Third, regularly confess your sins to God. The power of confession or sins is that we are reminded not merely how sinful we are, but how gracious our God is. True confession leads not to despair, but thanksgiving!

The Thankless Followers
So this Samaritan, this foreigner, this leper, comes to Jesus and thanks him. And here is what Jesus says in response:

Luke 17:17-18
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?”

So the question for us today is this: Are you a grateful person? If you were to ask someone who knew you well, would they say that you are a grateful person? How much of your prayer life is devoted to saying “Thank you!” to Jesus? Do you regularly come to God with a praise of thanksgiving, or do you find it difficult to give thanks to God? Are you the one or are you the nine? Maybe, right now, you are in the midst of chemotherapy, desperately fighting for your life. Maybe, right now, you are in the midst of getting a divorce from your spouse of 25 years, or maybe you are desperately fighting for your marriage. Maybe, right now, you are struggling financially, and you are desperately trying to make ends meet. And if that is you, my challenge to you is to practice radical gratitude - choose gratitude anyway! Choose to give thanks through the pain. Choose to worship God through the suffering. Choose to love God through the trials. Choose to be obedient to the very end! No matter what! No matter what! Why? Because God sees. Why? Because God knows and he understands. Why? Because radical gratitude moves the heart of God. Why? Because Jesus is alive! He is alive and he has overcome the world! How can we not praise God? How can we not thank God? How can we not love God?

The Miracle of Salvation
And while in verse 14 we saw the incredible miracle of healing, here in verse 19, we see an even greater miracle, the miracle of salvation.

Luke 17:19
Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Did you know that you can be physically healthy and not be well? Did you know that you can be in perfect physical condition and not be well? You can have buns of steel and everything! Did you know that you can run marathons and compete in triathlons and still not be well? Did you know that? In order to be well, the healing must go deeper than just our skin. What Jesus is offering is not merely healing, but a transformation from the inside out. This is the gospel!

This Advent season, let me challenge all of us here today to make it your goal to become a radically grateful person. Let us not remember merely what God has done, but who he is! How can we not be thankful? How can we not be grateful? How can we not say “Thank you, Jesus!” Let us give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love endures forever! Let’s pray.