One Leper's Exception

My sermon title is One Leper's Exception. He was the exception to the rule. I got to looking up some things.

C.S. Lewis said, with the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere. And so I thought, well, I'll go do a little science study here. Refresh my memory about the equator. And the equator is that circle that's an invisible circle that circles our earth between the North Pole and the South Pole. And it's an imaginary circle. It's not a factual circle.

It's just an imaginary circle. And so with the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere. James Thurber said, there is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception. You know, I thought, well, that's true, isn't it? Carl Sagan said, extinction is the rule, survival is the exception. I saw that in this sermon that I'm gonna be preaching to you about survival. But the one I really, really liked was an effective leader allows exceptions to the rule for exceptional results or when circumstance demands.

An exceptional leader allows exceptions to the rule. I think that's pretty evident, isn't it? The one I laughed about, and some of you will remember this guy. And really, I was pretty young to even, I don't remember him much. Maybe he came out of Vaudeville stuff, I don't know. I can remember his face, Groucho Marx. Y'all remember Groucho Marx?

Groucho Marx said, I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll be glad to make an exception. You know, I thought, boy, I could relate to that. So I'm gonna pray this morning that as we walk through this sermon and we study this one leper's exception, he is the exception to the rule. And we'll see that here as we walk through this. Here's the question I want you to wrestle with in your mind. Am I the exception to the rule in the culture I live in today?

Am I an exception to the rule? And as we walk through this, I think that'll make a little bit more sense to you. So turn to Luke 17, verses 11 through 19.

And I wanna read this to you. I'll make some observation, and then we're gonna just walk through it real quickly and make some points. And it came about that he, this is speaking about Jesus, was on the way to Jerusalem. Now, we know all the way back, I think, in chapter nine that he set his eyes toward Jerusalem. He is headed to the cross. He's got this whole thing mapped out. He wasn't forced to go to Jerusalem.

He was set on going to Jerusalem and making atonement for mankind. He was on the way to Jerusalem that he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. Galilee is part of the Jewish nation. Samaria is on the other side of that border. And Samaritans were those that intermarried with Jews when the Babylonian conquest took place and they took these people out of Jerusalem, then there started intermarriage, which was prohibited. And so the true Jew had this deign for those that had intermarried with people from the land. They had forsaken their commitment to staying one people.

And so there was great hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans, and the Samaritans hated the Jews just as much. And what's interesting is Jesus chooses that pathway as he's headed toward Jerusalem to work in and out of those cities in Galilee and Samaria. He's intertwining the mix of sharing the gospel with all those people. And so he is passing between Samaria and Galilee, crossing back and forth across those borders. And as he entered a certain age, 10 leprous men who stood at a distance met him. Now, I'm not gonna go in detail about leprosy. We've already studied that in another sermon, but leprosy was a disastrous disease.

And when you became a leper, you were put out of your family, you were put out of the community of faith, you were literally put out on your own, and your only association then became with other lepers. They formed colonies of lepers. And lepers had to walk down the streets where there was normal people, and they had to shout, unclean, unclean, because they were contagious. And there was no cure for leprosy other than a miracle from God. There's some of those miracles in the Old Testament. And Jesus, in fact, historians and theologians say that Jesus probably eliminated from Israel the disease of leprosy during his ministry. Lepers, by the hundreds, flocked to him, and he healed lepers.

But here's these leprous men, and they stood at a distance. They weren't about to come close to him. They just stood at a distance from him. I don't know if, I know that at least one is a Samaritan. I don't know if they were all Samaritans, or what's the intermingling between Jews and Samaritans. Probably both is what I think there, because, you know, hatred falls when you have a common problem. And the problem here was leprosy.

It didn't matter if you were a Jew or Samaritan. If you were gonna have any integration in any kind of society in a leprous community, it could have been Jews and Samaritans joined together, simply to have relationship with people. We're built to have relationship with people. And so they stood at a distance from him, and they raised their voices. Now, they didn't just quietly. A lot of your Bibles might say they shouted, saying, Jesus, master. The word had spread that Jesus was healing lepers.

Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Now, I want you to notice here. Did they say, heal us? No. Now, certainly that was a part of that petition, to have mercy, but they just pleaded for mercy. They pleaded for mercy. You ever been in your life where you just needed the mercy of God to fall on you, and you knew that?

I think all of us, and I'll talk about that in a minute, we come to a place in our life where we just say, God, have mercy on me. Woe is me. I am a sinner of, I am a man of unclean lips.

Undo me, God. Have mercy on us. And when he saw them,

boy, we could just spend hours talking about him seeing us. He saw them. He sees right through your heart. He doesn't just see your shell. He sees into your inner being. He saw them. He knew.

He knew the history of leprosy. He knew the consequences of leprosy. He knew that they were outsiders, and not only were they sick, but some of them were Samaritans. They were even an outsider's outsider. Jesus saw them. He said to them, this is interesting, go show yourselves to the priest. Go show yourselves to the priest.

He didn't walk over there and touch them. Earlier in Luke's gospel, he did touch a leper and heal a leper to show the identification to that. He didn't walk over there and touch them. He just spoke to them. Go show yourself to the priest.

In Leviticus 13 and 14, if you can go read that, it talks about the rules of leprosy and how to treat lepers and how lepers could get a certificate of cleansing and enter back into society. It goes through all these steps. But what's interesting was very little of that probably happened with the priesthood. Unless you got a miracle from God, you didn't get healed from leprosy. You died through the process of your body just falling apart, you losing fingers, and you're losing your nose, and losing your ears, and just your face is contorted. It eventually took your life. And so you were excluded.

From the point you were contagious, you were excluded into a leprosy lifestyle. That's where you were. And Jesus says, go show yourselves to the priest. I'm gonna tell you that when they showed up at the priest, the priest are going, if you go on and read there, it says that while as it came about, that as they were going, they were cleansed. They're walking down the road. And I can say, my finger just came back. Well, look, my nose.

My nose is not falling apart. My ears are healed. I have toes. They are being cleansed. And they show up at the priest.

We're lepers. But we're not lepers. We're healed. And the priest, by those Jewish laws, were the only ones, they were like the health department. They were the only ones that could give a certificate of cleansing. And I'm gonna guarantee you, the priest, they hadn't seen that in hundreds of years. There's very few cleansings or healings in the Old Testament.

So that's just something that was written down. And one says, hey, there's something about that back in Leviticus. I bet they called a committee meeting, don't you? That's what we do in the Methodist church. Oh, wait a second, we gotta have a committee meeting on this. We can't just write this certificate of health now.

Who healed you? How did this happen to you? Well, that guy, Jesus, you see, he's testifying to the priesthood through their healing. That guy, Jesus, healed us.

Won't you know when it upset the priesthood? It rattled their box that night.

They had to go to the press shop and get some certificates of healing made up, don't you bet? You know, I think about all the churches that I pastored, and I'd be running into the secretary's office and say, Can you get on that computer and print me up a certificate of health so I can give it to that person? So I get up and they can come back to worship on Sunday morning and I can give them formally the certificate of health. They're healed! I'm going to tell you, that's what's going on. He says, Go show yourself to the priest. And as they go, that's what's so interesting, as they go, they are healed.

Sometimes healing is not instantaneous.

Sometimes it goes through a process.

You know, if the guy who'd been healing lepers, and I had been a leper, and he told me, You go show yourself to the priest. I would have gone, Well, he's got a pretty good reputation.

Well, I guess I'll walk back down this road and go show myself. I guess I'll do that. So as they're going, the Bible tells us that they are being cleansed. Now, one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, One, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice. Now, I'm assuming, and it doesn't directly say that, I'm assuming that he probably went on to the priest and then he turned around and went back. He probably had a discussion with those other nine. You know, I'm going back.

And they're going, I'm going to see my family. I'm going back to my community. I'm going back to my job.

I'm going back to the other things in this world. I'm not going back down that road again.

When he saw that he had been healed, turned back. Notice what he was doing. Glorifying God with a loud voice.

Everything else that could have been a priority ceased to be a priority. His priority was to return to Jesus. And on the way, he's making a lot of noise about it. He's glorifying God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at his feet.

Now, if that doesn't describe the posture of redemption, I don't know what does. He fell on his face at his feet. Giving thanks to him. Write that down. Giving thanks to him.

And he was a Samaritan. This leper, he not only had leprosy, he was a Samaritan. He had two strikes against him.

He was unclean. And on top of that, he was a messed up inbreed. He was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? Now, I'm thinking if I'm that leper, you're not blaming me for them not coming back, are you? Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine, where are they?

Where are they? Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God except this foreigner? We know it's a Samaritan. And he said to them, Rise and go your way. Your faith, write that down. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you well.

Bow with me just a second. Lord, as we walk through the rest of this sermon, help us do honest reflection in our lives.

Are we like that leper that was the exception? Are we like those lepers that were the exemptions? In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

In verse 19, here's our focus. Jesus said, Was no one found that turned back to give glory to God except this foreigner? And we know that foreigner is a Samaritan. Now there's a profound lesson for us here contrasting the one and the nine. Or you might say the minority and the majority. We see a description of the nine who exempted themselves from turning back and giving glory to God. And we see the one, the only one, the exception that did just the opposite.

Don't we? He returned to Jesus loudly praising and glorifying God. You think while he's going back down that road and he's making a spectacle of himself, people are going, isn't that that leper?

Where's he going? Listen to what he's saying.

The exemptors, that's what I would call the nine. That may not even be a word, but I wrote it. The exemptors, those that exempted themselves out of going back, demonstrated misguided ingratitude. While the acceptor, is that a word? Gianna, you'll probably say, Carrie, you really made up some words today.

Okay. The exceptor demonstrated marvelous gratitude. Let's take a look at this for just a second. Ingratitude. Verse 17. And Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed, but the nine? Where are they?

You know, I got to thinking about ingratitude and I thought about the origin of ingratitude and I'm not going to go into detail about this, but I think about at least one case can be made for the origin when Isaiah talks about, in verses 12 and 14, talks about Lucifer's rebellion and fall from heaven. He says, But you said in your heart, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, which were the angels of God. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. Now this is the devil saying this. I will make myself like the Most High. You see, Lucifer himself, the devil, was created by God, designated as a top of the line angel. In fact, the Bible says that he was the star of the morning light and the sun of the dawn.

Now, I went, wow, that's, that ranking and designation's pretty big, isn't it? This angel had position in the kingdom. But he was ungrateful.

He was possessed with ingratitude. It spewed from his ego. Did you hear that? I will make myself like God.

And let me carry it just a little further.

This serpent broadcasted ingratitude. The Bible says that he was conniving and crafty. You ever met him? Where he was tempting you with his craftiness? If we're honest, all of us have to say, I've been in that position. Where the temptings of Satan were right in front of me. In his conversation with Eve, that spread to Adam, he planted the seed of ingratitude.

Did God tell you you couldn't eat of any tree of this garden? Did God tell you that? Did he tell you you would die if you ate from that tree? The tree of good and knowledge? Did he tell you that?

Why, you won't die.

You won't die.

Satan's greatest tool is to get us to question and doubt God's word. And when we begin to do that and listen to Satan, we'll begin to go, well, you know,

this is just a little bit unfair.

He's holding back on me. You know, that serpent said, I'll be just like God if I'll eat from that. Sound familiar? The fall was, I'll just be just like God.

There are consequences to ingratitude. Romans 5, 12 says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. All of us have fallen into that trap of ingratitude because we're all sinners. I got to thinking about, well, what's some good examples of that? Well, I think one of the first ones was when God led Israel out of Egypt. Those of you that do the seedbed every morning, Kim and I do together, the guy that's teaching right now out of the book of Exodus, the first half of the book, he said, that's getting Israel out of Egypt. But the second half of the book is getting Egypt out of Israel.

I can remember, I went and preached a sermon revival back years ago at First Methodist Church down in Brownfield. And that church was split right down the middle and they were fighting like cats and dogs over issues. And I thought, Lord, maybe I can say some kind of healing, corrective word to this church while I'm here.

So I went to the breakfast. I was preaching at early morning breakfast. And God said, I want you to talk from Psalm 77. And I'll talk about this to you someday, but it's what I call my give a rip sermon. Give a rip. Remembrance, intentionalism, and persistence. And when I started that sermon there, and there's 150 people there at that breakfast, both groups.

And I talked about verse three, when I remember God, then I'm disturbed.

When I remember God, then I'm disturbed. I'm convicted. When I remember the days of old, you know, this leper that went back, I want you to see this leper that went back. You know, he's walking by a certain big old rock and got a tree behind it. And he'd go, you know, that's where this finger grew back. That's where I saw the deeds of the Lord working.

And he walked on 10 more feet. And maybe there was a little pool of water. He said, you know what, that pool of water, that's when my tongue got healed. I can taste food now. One of the gifts that you have in your life is the gift of memory.

My mother used to say, she said, I don't know which is best. My body go first, or my mind go first. That was her concern when she got up in her later years. Is my body going to go? Is my mind going to go? And I said, Mother, I'd rather my body go than my mind. I want to keep my mind.

I want to keep that faculty working. Verse 11 says in Psalm 77, I shall remember the deeds of the Lord. Surely I shall remember the wonders of old. When you, when you begin to get a gripey attitude, stop and just go. I'm going down memory lane one more time.

You hear what I'm saying? Memory lane's not a bad road to walk because it reminds us of the deeds of the Lord.

That opens the gate to what I want to talk to you real quickly about, gratitude. When I remember the moment I got saved in that bedroom when I was 19 years old, when I remember that, it draws me right back into the grace of God. In verses 15 through 16 here, I'm not going to take time to read that this morning, but they can throw it up on the screen and y'all can be looking at it. There is some steps to a grateful heart. The number one step is this. Acknowledge your need. Acknowledge your need.

Verse 13. I want you to look at that. Verse 13. And they raised their voices saying, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. You want to start a life of gratitude? You acknowledge your need. You acknowledge your need.

Lord, have mercy on me. I am a sinner.

Number two, be obedient to his command. Verse 14. And when he saw them, he said to them, go show yourselves to the priest.

All 10 of them went back, didn't they? All 10 of them went to the priest. Return to the Lord.

Return to the Lord. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back. If you want to make a case for repentance, it's right there. The word metanoia in the Greek is turn back and return to the Lord. This guy had been healed physically, but he wasn't completed yet. You hear what I'm saying? God might do a miracle in your life, but have you returned?

Fourthly, worship the Lord.

Glorifying God with a loud voice. And he fell at his feet, giving thanks to him. Isn't that amazing? You want gratitude in your life? You acknowledge your need. You be obedient to his commands. You return to the Lord.

You worship the Lord. Amen, Lord. Time for me to wrap up.

And I'm going to. In conclusion, let me just share three words with you. I wish that when we read this, we knew Greek because we would see the very process of redemption. I want you to see this here. In verse 14 and 17, the word cleansed is used. Did you notice that? They were cleansed.

The Greek word is katerizo.

In verse 17, it is ek kateristion. Both simply mean this. Physical healing and restoration that only the priest could give them by giving them a certificate of cleansing. They were cleansed. They were restored back into the community of faith, into the world, into their jobs, into their families. There was a physical restoring. In verse 15, the word healed is used.

Cleansed, healed. The Greek word is amai. It means restored to physical health, whether medically or miraculously. The third word used, and it's down in verse 19, you are made well.

You hear that?

Some of your Bibles might say you are saved. The Greek word here is sozo.

The word healed you. Now, here's the case I want to make to you. Nine were physically healed.

One was saved.

You see that? Nine were physically healed, but one was saved. Romans 10.9 says, if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

Sozo. Now, I want to be cleansed, and I want to be healed. I pray for cleansing and healing in Prodigal Church all the time, but the greater miracle is that somebody will go back home praising God, falling on their faces at his feet, and worshiping him, and they shall be saved. Now, are you part of the majority, or are you part of the minority?

There's a wide road the Bible talks about, and there's a narrow road.

Many are called.

Few are chosen. Now, chosen there doesn't mean, well, I select you, but I leave these out. That doesn't mean, it means saved.

You know, we have to ask ourselves, do I just get carried away with the signs and wonders, or do I get carried away with the Savior?

Guys, I'll never quit praying for signs and wonders, but they give evidence that he is the great physician.

You'll not find this story in any of the other Gospels. Did you know that? It's not in Matthew, and it's not in Mark, and it's not in John.

What did Luke do for a living? He was a doctor, and he treated a lot of people that got cleansed and healed, but Luke's concern, I think that's why he told this story. There's much more. There's salvation in the name of Jesus.

Aren't you glad you're saved? You're not just cleansed. Kim and I have already said, and some of you may be at that point, too, it's not easy getting older.

I still want to be able to run like I could run at 40 years old. I can't do that, but I'm saved. I'm saved.

We've got family and we've got friends that have experienced the miraculous of God. Encourage them. Maybe you can travel down memory lane a little bit and fall at the feet of Jesus with gratitude that you're one of his children.

Amen? Let's bow together in prayer. Lord, I thank you so much for this day. Lord, there's so much. I didn't even chip the iceberg on what's in this story, but God, help me be an exception to the rule.

Lord, help me be a part of the minority, and help me reach out to the majority. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.