Mind Full of God • Luke 17:11-19

1:00:49 Teaching begins

Notes

Today Jesus takes ten men who exist while they are dead and gives them their lives back.

Nine of them go back to their lives, but they don’t go back to God. One of them realises that God who gives life, is greater than his own life.

Godlessness is death. Having a mind full of God is life.

1. Ten men have a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with Jesus.

A. In Luke 9:51 Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem for the last time. He’ll be there for Passover. He’ll be arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified. But not for Himself, for any sin of His own. He’ll die for those who are dead in their sins. He’ll become the sacrifice that pays for those sins. Those who believe He died for them are cleansed and made acceptable to God. He’s giving His life to give dead people life.

B. To go to Jerusalem He goes south from Galilee, and that brings Him to the border of Galilee and Samaria.

C. He enters a village and ten men meet Him.

1. They have leprosy, which in the Bible can refer to a number of skin diseases. What they have in common is that they are incurable.

2. In the Law of Moses is a whole chapter that deals with diagnosing these skin diseases. The priest would look at the symptoms presented and work through Leviticus 13 until he determined: this person has leprosy.

3. Leprosy attacks nerves and disfigures because you can’t feel what’s happening. You cut yourself without realising, the wound gets infected, you die.

4. Leprosy is a misunderstood disease. It’s used in the Bible as a symbol for sin, because sin acts like leprosy, it makes you insensitive to God and sin disfigures the image of God in you. Sin kills. Sin can’t be cured by man. But people have transferred the symbol to the disease and made it a stigma to have leprosy. It’s not sinful to have leprosy. It’s sad, like all disease, but it’s not sinful.

D. These ten men had all been diagnosed by a priest. They were all lepers. They all lost their lives.

1. They lost their relationships, their livelihoods, their possessions because they were quarantined outside cities and villages. They would have to call out, “Unclean, unclean,” so no one would come near.

2. They would beg to survive, wear rags, live away from people. That’s why there’s ten men together. They can try to look out for each other while they still exist.

3. They exist but they’re cut off from life. It’s a living death.

2. They ask for help, and they receive it.

A. They see Jesus and somehow they know who He is. Maybe they see the crowds following Him and figure out that guy must be the guy people talk about, Jesus, the One who can heal anybody.

B. So it’s understandable that they yell out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” It will never happen again, He’s here, now.

C. Jesus sees them, He hears them, He knows “have mercy on us,” means, “Please heal our leprosy.”

D. He replies, “Show yourselves to the priest.” That means, let him inspect you for cleansing and offering sacrifices.

1. After Leviticus 13, Leviticus 14 gives the law of cleansing a leper who has been healed. The priest inspects and then there is a ceremony and sacrifices to be offered.

2. Leviticus 13 was referred to over 1400 years to diagnose leprosy. Leviticus 14 was never used once since Moses wrote it. No Israelite was ever cleansed of leprosy. It is incurable by people.

3. God cured leprosy once in the Old Testament, but it wasn’t an Israelite, it was Naaman the Syrian. 2 Kings 5 shows that God can cure leprosy.

3. It’s interesting to see how Jesus gives the men their lives back to them.

A. He gives them a command: show yourselves to the priest.

1. They hear, they obey, only when they’re on the way do they notice they’re cleansed.

2. They heard Jesus’ word. They believed Jesus’ word, they acted on Jesus’ word. Jesus fulfilled His word.

B. This is exactly how God healed Naaman the Syrian.

1. Elisha the prophet didn’t even come out of his house. He sent his servant out to tell Naaman, “Dip yourself seven times in the Jordan River, and you’ll be healed.”

2. Naaman was furious because he expected more drama. He could have stayed home and washed in better rivers than the Jordan.

3. Naaman’s servant pointed out that if the prophet had commanded some difficult thing, Naaman would have done it, so why not do this simple thing?

4. He dips himself seven times in the Jordan and comes out the seventh time completely healed.

C. In the same way, these ten men hear Jesus’ word and do what He says. As they do it, they are healed.

D. Biblical faith is always hearing first the word of God and then obeying it. Then God does what He said He would do.

1. For many believers faith is a feeling, a tingle, an impression. It’s an experience.

2. But how do you know it’s God? You have to have a word from God, and then you know it’s God speaking and you can trust that God will carry out His word.

3. Hebrews 11 gives many examples of this principle: hearing the word, obeying the word, God doing what He said He would do.

E. We are to have a relationship with God through the Bible so that when He talks to us, we know it’s Him and we can respond in confidence, because we have this word from God.

4. Jesus has given the men life from the dead. They have two different reactions.

A. They run off and don’t go back to thank Jesus.

1. These men are excited practically out of their heads. They go back to their families, their possessions, their livelihoods. They most naturally resume their lives.

2. But it doesn’t occur to them the thank the One who did what only God could do.

B. Remember, nine of these men are Jews, and Jews are God’s people.

1. He chose Abraham and told Him He was going to make him a nation. They are a testimony to God in the earth. Here’s the true God, this is what He’s like. Here’s His Law, this is the Temple, here are the sacrifices, the festivals, the confession called the Shema: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” This is their life.

2.  For all the outward part of being God’s people, God has no part in their lives. Even while they exist, they’re dead. Godless equals dead.

C. One of the men is a Samaritan. As far as the Jews are concerned, he is a foreigner and a heretic, he’s not God’s person.

1. They are a mix of Jew and foreign people brought in by the Assyrians after deporting most of the northern kingdom of Israel.

2. The Assyrians also imported other defeated peoples who brought their gods with them. They worshipped their gods and the God of the land. They had priests who taught the ways of God and mixed that in with other gods.

3. When the Jews returned from the Babylonian Captivity they didn’t count the Samaritans as Jewish, they counted them as foreigners and heretics, no part of the Jewish Nation, no part in God.

D. Yet this man receives his life back from Jesus. He’s full of joy and gladness, he’s excited, and he comes back to glorify God with a loud voice, and he thanks Jesus. I received my life back, and You are greater than my life! You are God! Thank You, God, for giving my life back to me! You had mercy on me! Thank You, oh, thank You!

E. Do you see he loves the Lord his God with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength? He’s fulfilling the purpose of God’s people, to testify to the goodness of the one true God? He’s the opposite of godless. Godly equals mind full of God.

5. Look at Jesus’ reaction. Clearly He is disappointed.

A. Where are the nine? Well, they’re off living their lives and not giving God a second thought. I’m taking selfies and blasting them out over Instagram—“I’m back, baby! Woohoo!”

B. When someone does a good thing for you, it’s polite to acknowledge it. Thanks means, “You did a good thing for me. I appreciate you.” It’s right to give someone thanks.

C. If you don’t acknowledge that good thing, if you ignore what that person did for you, you send the message, “I don’t care what you did. I’m important, you aren’t.” It’s rude and offensive and arrogant.

D. They cried out for mercy and received mercy from the very God who called Abraham. And they ignored Him.

6. Jesus acknowledges the Samaritan’s faith.

A. It’s the right faith. You put your trust in Me and you did what I said. I answered and healed you. You and I have a good relationship.

B. Your faith in Me has healed you. That’s like saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

C. Since the nine didn’t return Jesus can’t commend them for their believing Him and obeying. They never heard Him say, “Well done.” He might ask, “Why did I heal you and give you your lives back so that you could stay far from Me?” Does that make sense?

7. So what?

A. Do you have a heart full of thankfulness to God?

1. Thankful means you grasp what God has done for you, a foreigner and a heretic. You don’t deserve anything God has done. He sent Jesus to die for your sins and take them away. He gives you continual cleansing, peace, righteousness, hope of the glory of God.

2. Do you take time to think on that and say to God, “Thank You.”?

B. Thankfulness is the first step toward God, unthankfulness is the first step away from God.

C. If you want to be thankful like the Samaritan, let Jesus give your life back to you.

1. You can confess your unthankfulness to God. That is godless. I’m praying that God convicts every person listening to my voice.

2. Turn to Jesus and say, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on me.” His word you are to believe is 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

3. Then you say, “Thank You.” You believe Jesus’ words and give thanks, trusting that He has taken away your sins. Thank You that You are faithful, thank You that You are true.

D. Keep living this way. Ask the Holy Spirit to keep you aware of His goodness. Look for reasons to thank God and you will be filled with Him. A mind full of God equals life.

Let’s pray.