Hi, good morning. My name is Brandi and I am so glad that you've joined us this morning. Here we are now in week seven of quarantine and it's so weird because certain things are becoming normal to us. Like seeing people walking around in face masks talking and using social distancing, zooming and e-learning. These are all things we hadn't even heard about a couple of months ago and now it's like they're part of our norm. In fact, I was on the phone with my sister yesterday and we were FaceTiming and she was kind of acting weird and stiff and I asked her if she was okay and she just blew it off and said, “Oh yeah, I just have a Zoom neck, you know, ‘Zoom neck’. Like that's a thing.” And I knew what she was talking about and I even have multiple friends who have suffered from eyeball pain.
It's a real thing. The little muscles in your eyes get strained from focusing too much on the computer. But you know, there are more serious things about this too that are increasing. One of those things is fear. Our levels of fear are rising and it's palpable. And you know what? That's a normal response. Fear is a normal emotion to an abnormal life-threatening situation. So if you're taking a look at the news and your fear starts to rise, if you're out in public and someone starts coughing next to you and you feel that surge of fear, those are normal responses and that's one of the reasons that we're going to be continuing in a series that was just started last week. Faith Over Fear. I love how Pastor Steve quoted last week that we tend to move toward what we're focused on.
So what are we going to be focusing on? Or maybe the better question is who are we going to be focusing on today? We are going to have a message that I titled Increase My Faith. I need a faith that's bigger than my fear. We're going to be referencing a story that comes right after a time when the disciples themselves were walking with Jesus and point blank asked for a faith upgrade. These were the people that had walked with Jesus for three years at least. They had seen all the great miracles and yet even they reached a point in their journey where they needed a faith increase. So listen, if fear is starting to get the best of you, don't think poorly of yourself. Don't punish yourself. We just need to do what the disciples did and go to the source of our faith to ask for the increase.
We're going to be taking a look and focusing on a story that is meant to increase our faith. Turn to Luke 17 and we're going to be looking at that together because this faith thing is so important. In fact, not only does scripture say that it's impossible to please God without faith, meaning we have no ability to please God apart from faith, but it also depicts faith as a shield in our spiritual armor against the battles that wage war against our soul. In Ephesians 6 when it starts talking about all the different pieces of our spiritual armor, faith is what's called the shield that actually extinguishes the flaming arrows that are thrown our way. These were literal arrows that were pointed to the enemy and they were literally on fire with the intent to destroy the other person.
Yet it's the shield, this covering, that they'd actually dip in water so that the fire wouldn't catch fire. And that shield was the covering that saved them from permanent destruction. See, to be clear, this faith is not a faith in a what? It's not a faith in a circumstance. It's a faith in a who. It’s a faith in Jesus Christ. My prayer for all of us today is that by the end of our time together, our faith in Jesus will increase as it did for the people that we're going to learn about today. So Luke 17, let's go ahead and read it together. It's just a really short handful of verses and it's only told in one of the gospels, and not surprising, it's told by Luke and Luke was actually a doctor by trade. So when we get into the details of the story, it probably won't be surprising to you that a story that included such miraculous physical healing would have impacted Dr. Luke so much.
But it is a short story in one little spot of the Bible and it is power-packed, action-packed with miracles, healing,movement, and best of all, an increase of faith. So let's take a look at it. I hope you're as encouraged and inspired by this story as I've been, as I've studied it. So we're going to read it together. Here we go, Luke 17:11-19, it says
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[a] met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
I love what it says that Jesus said, he says, rise and go. Your faith has healed you and saved you. Isn't that awesome? So we have a lot to learn about the story and we're going to go right back to the beginning and break it down so we have a better picture of what's really going on. First of all, it starts by saying, now on Jesus' way to Jerusalem, and it's really important to kind of jog your memory...a few weeks back we talked about when Jesus was entering Jerusalem, it was that Palm Sunday. And what he was doing was he was announcing himself as the promised King and Messiah, and he was showing himself to be God's son. And then he would follow that path right to the cross, dying on the cross so that we could accept his forgiveness. He became sin even though he knew no sin so that we could accept him and become the righteousness of God. So he was making that peace between us and God. And this journey to Jerusalem, He knows that he is getting ready to head directly to that. And before he does, he's got a couple last minute biggies to teach the disciples that he's getting ready to leave. So it's important to also notice some things about leprosy. You know, it's weird because when I think about everything that we're going through with this COVID-19 I sometimes imagine what it's going to be like to try to explain this kind of thing to the next generation.
I wonder if you've thought about that, how is the next generation going to be able to wrap their minds around the fact that the world kind of stopped? How are they going to wrap their minds around the fact that we would have to stand this far in the Target line and wear masks everywhere we went and children had to just wave to their neighbors from the other side of the road and couldn't play. I've been actually taking pictures and documenting things so that it'll be easier for the next generation to wrap their mind around all the different dimensions or dynamics that this one virus affects in society and it's helping me understand a little bit more about the dynamics and the dimensions of leprosy in a society. In fact, when I started studying about leprosy, I was shocked how many parallels there are to what was going on with that of a person with leprosy and that of someone with coronavirus.
Just listen to some of these parallels. First of all, you'll notice that it said that 10 lepers were standing off in the distance and were yelling at Jesus. Well, the reason there was a group of 10 of them is because they were in sort of an isolated camp and they were not allowed to enter the village where everybody else was living. The reason why was because leprosy was an incredibly infectious, degenerative, and highly contagious skin disease. I won't get into the details cause I know we have lots of different ages watching right now, but trust me, if you want to get into the details, it is a horrific disease and one that is obvious that someone has just by looking at them. So you can imagine the psychological damage that would be done to a person in addition to the physical pain and the doom and the despair.
Because this was also a disease that was known to be incurable. I mean if you were diagnosed with leprosy, it was basically a death sentence, not just a death sentence physically, though it was, but it was also emotionally and socially a death sentence as well because you were ostracized from normal society. So the reason they were probably hanging out together is they probably begged together and lived together. And the reason they had to keep a distance from Jesus is they literally by law were not allowed to get near clean people. In fact, it's very interesting because when people with leprosy would talk, they were supposed to cover their upper lip and look down so that they wouldn't be breathing on other people. Okay, so we're talking about the first face masks. There were no fancy fabrics here. They had to do this, and guess what else?
I read in a commentary that they had to keep a distance of at least four cubits apart and you will not believe what that translates to. Four cubits translates to six feet. If we had studied these aspects of leprosy a long time ago, it might've been much harder to wrap our minds around what their life was like, but all of a sudden we can find ourselves very much visualizing some of these aspects. Talk about quarantine, talk about social distancing, talk about a scary infectious disease. These people had it and so this is why they're yelling in a loud voice and begging for Jesus to take pity on them, which is interesting. You notice they didn't actually ask Jesus to heal them. And I would say that's most likely because they didn't see any hope for healing. This wasn't something people got healed from.
So the best they could do was ask for pity. And actually the word pity translates to deep concern or great compassion. And I love what it says because when they ask him to take pity, it says that Jesus saw them. Now it's easy to just glaze over that when you read it in scriptures. I go, of course he saw them! It's 10 guys yelling at him. But actually that word “saw them” means “to perceive”. In other words, Jesus perceived what they really needed. He saw them and he had deep concern and compassion. And that word “saw” also means “attended to”. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where you're like, you know, I don't think you're listening to me? And they're like, I'm listening but I'm also cooking or something. And you're like, no, listen to me. And what you're saying is I want you focused on me.
Cause I want you to hear not just my words, but what I'm really trying to say. And that's the exchange that took place here. When it says that Jesus saw them, he was focused on them, he perceived their need and he attended to them. And I think it's really interesting because when they first yell out for Jesus, they don't just say Jesus, they say something very unusual. They say, Jesus, master. Now that word master is really weird because actually that word is not used in any of the gospels except by the disciples. The only people that used that particular word for master was the disciples. Trust me, this gets really, really interesting because right before this story that we're studying, the disciples were learning a lot about what it was really going to take to follow Jesus. And they had been hearing about the true essence of forgiveness and love and faithfulness and the political and religious temperatures were rising.
And there was a lot of persecution and life was getting hard. And this is what led them to ask Jesus to increase their faith. But the way Jesus responds to this request at first seems peculiar and almost odd. In fact, kind of comical. Because what Jesus does is first of all, he looks at him and says, actually, you don't need that much faith. He tells them they just need a little bit. You've probably heard of a mustard seed of faith, like the size of a grain of sand. What he's saying is it just takes a teeny little bit and then Jesus seems to go off in this odd other direction and he tells this random fake story about the relationship between servants and masters. You ever been with somebody, maybe a family member, a coworker, or a neighbor that when you start talking it's like all of a sudden they take that conversation and they hijack it and go a completely different direction and it almost seems like they just want to tell you random stories.
It has nothing to do with the topic. Well, at first glance, if you're just reading the story, that is exactly what it seems like Jesus is doing. They asked for an increase of faith. He says, you don't need much. And then he starts telling this story about servants and masters. It's weird, but the longer I have journeyed with Jesus and the more I've studied scriptures, the more I realize these moments where it seems like Jesus is kind of out there and missing the target. I'm noticing that the way he's answering is a lot more like a Mr. Miyagi approach. And if you don't know who Mr. Miyagi is, it's from the movie the Karate Kid. And if you haven't seen the Karate Kid, that's part of your quarantine bucket list, okay kids? But for the rest of us who are older, we know who Mr Miyagi is.
He not only gets to the heart of the issue and he takes the question and starts with the root of it, but he also throws him into a situation where the Karate Kid has to learn the answer for himself. That is exactly what Jesus is doing. Because when he tells this really random story about the relationship between a servant and master, he basically depicts this picture or the servant coming in from a hard day of work and then demanding that the master now serve him because of what he did. Now it's your turn, Master to feed me and serve me. And of course Jesus is getting them to see that that is not how the relationship works and they get it. It just doesn't seem to be totally related. Except that all of a sudden they're going to walk into a front row seat of a particular scene.
And the first words on this scene, out of the mouth of the lepers, are Jesus master. Okay? So that should get our attention because he just told this weird story about servant master relationship. Now all these guys are calling out master and it's really interesting too. It's almost like calling someone...you know, I was raised by a basketball coach. My dad was a basketball coach. So I remember hearing people who weren't actually on his basketball team would refer to him as Coach Wilson. That's what they're doing. It was actually the disciples who were being coached and mentored at the time by Jesus. But here are these people who are out of the loop referring to him as Jesus master. There's almost an inclination here, but they want to be part of the discipleship team. That seems to be what's indicated when they say this word.
Of course then they ask for pity and Jesus sees them and he perceives their need and he attends to them. And of course this is where the really great miracle happens. Jesus tells them to go on and show themselves to the priest, which of course he would do that because the priests at the time were the ones that were able to examine a person with leprosy and deem them clean enough to reenter society. So without doing that piece, they were not going to be able to rejoin society. But what's interesting is they had not yet been obviously healed by their own human eyes. So it's interesting because there is a true faith element here and an obedience element here because Jesus tells them to go and do something that frankly they could have gotten in a lot of trouble for doing. It was against the law to go into the city if you are unclean, and at the time they start walking, they are still technically unclean. But as they're walking, they are cleansed. I mean, talk about a literal walk by faith, right? And that right there should tell us some things in order to walk by faith, you may not have any true understanding just yet. Obedience will often precede the miracle. We see that in this very story. I believe that this is showing us how Jesus rewards both the request of us and also the obedience. There is fruit that comes from an obedient life, but we need to hear his word, trust his word, and walk in it. See, just like the story we learned about Peter walking into the water, it was him saying, Jesus tell me to come. So Jesus tells him. So then he comes. Jesus says, go show yourself to the priest, and they did.
We need to know what Jesus is telling us. How do you imagine that we're going to walk in faith if we're not hearing from Jesus? If you are a Jesus follower, how will you go where you don't hear him telling you to go? And so how are we going to hear from Jesus? Well, the most obvious place is through his word. So one way to increase our faith is to increase how much we're in his word so that we can hear his voice. And of course then when we hear his voice, we know what to do. And then when we walk in that, that obedience is rewarded. You know, faith, without faith, it's impossible to please God. But it also says: And you must believe that God rewards those who seek him. But let's move on because the real increase of faith happens in this latter part of the story.
And I think it's really interesting because when we imagine that we want an increase of our faith, I wonder if we could just really get honest with ourselves and ask, well, just how much of an increase would we like? Seriously, when you're asking God to increase your faith, how much should that increase be? Increase it by 30%, go from unleaded to premium, medium to large. How much of an increase, what if the increase was all the way? What if the increase in faith was a faith that completely saved us and made us totally whole because that's what happened to the one that came back? And I want to take a look at that because after these 10 miracles, I'm sure they did what a lot of people would do. They enjoyed the miracle. Suddenly they've got health, they can return to society and I imagine the average person would probably do the same thing they all did. By the way, this ratio is nine to one. So before we go any further and imagine ourselves, the one who returned, we probably should look at the ratio. Nine to one. So let's not immediately fashion ourselves as the one who would surely come back. Nine to one is a pretty startling ratio. That means most of us naturally, in the natural, do exactly what these people did with our blessings. We grab the blessing and we run with it. We get the gift and we play with it. We get our healing and we enjoy it, but these healings are meant to bring us to the healer. These blessings are meant to bring us to the one who blesses. Our miracles are meant to bring us to the only one that can give us the miracles. All of these things are avenues that are supposed to lead us back to our father. In fact, that's the entire point of this whole story because here we see the one who came back, it says, but one of them when he was healed, came back. It says, he came back, praising God in a loud voice and he threw himself at the feet of Jesus. The others got a healing that was skin deep.
This man got a healing on a soul level. He got the full upgrade. He got the healing that would save him from eternal destruction. And I tell you what, I've heard this story a lot in my life because I've grown up in church and I read this story quite a bit, and most often I hear this story as if it's a story about gratitude. And surely gratitude is an aspect of this story, but Jesus does not actually call what this man did gratitude. He didn't. He called it faith. Don't you find it interesting that we're reading about a man who's thanking God and praising him, but Jesus says, your faith has healed you. What do you think he would call it? Gratitude, your thankfulness, your appreciation? But let's really look at this because it's not just gratitude. He didn't come back to Jesus with a thank you card and a Starbucks gift card, you know what I mean? He's not like, Hey, I just wanted to let you know before I get on with my life, I really appreciate what you did for me and I just want you to know that, you know, that's thankfulness and it's not just praising him. He didn't just come back, sing a song to Jesus and move on.
What we're really seeing with this man is not just thankfulness or gratitude. What we're seeing is a relationship between a servant and a master.
One who's been saved and the savior. One who is returning back to Jesus, not just for miracles, but he's laying himself down. You know, back then when they laid themselves down, they were bowing down. In fact, the old Testament word for worship was to bow. It is how someone showed, I place my life into your hands. I'm obeying your commands. Some people would bow down to Kings and some would bow down to idols and some would bow down to no one. And really don't we see people doing the same thing today? Oh, we may not physically lay down to show who it is we worship, but the posture of our heart will often tell us who we’re really bowing down to. What this man did when he came back and threw himself at Jesus' feet, was he worshiped. He was showing Jesus, I get it.
You're the master and I'm placing my life in your hands and it is your command that I now listen for and I will now obey. The cool thing is in the old Testament, worship meant to bow down. In the new Testament, the most frequent word used for worship was actually proskuneo and it meant to kiss. So there's an intimate relationship that's transpired here in the new Testament word for worship. But what's so interesting is that intimacy does not lose its submission and its order in a relationship because that word kiss actually means more like a dog kissing the hand of his master. So see in Jesus we have a relationship with God that is intimate. In fact, Jesus even said, even though he told the disciples this random story about the relationship between a servant and a master, just a little bit before that he was telling him, a servant doesn't know his master’s business.
And he says, but mine do because I don't call you servant anymore. I call you friend and I'm telling you because you're my friend, every single thing the father has revealed to me, Jesus keeps nothing from us and yet we do not lose our relationship of authority. See, the reason it's such a big deal, the reason it's such a big deal that this guy came back is because that is the number one agenda of God. I don't know where you are in your spiritual life and maybe some disappointing things have happened in your life that have led you to not even want to have much to do with God. Maybe you've been burned by church or Christians who have been a bad example, or just your own disappointment or apathy. I've been there, I think most of us, if we're honest, have, but do you know that every blessing that God gives us is meant to turn us back to see him.
It's something he's doing to ingratiate you to him because he knows in him you are permanently saved and made whole. And honestly, even our path of pain and our trials and our vulnerabilities are also meant to lead us to him as a reminder that we can't do this on our own. Both our blessings and our pain are simply avenues meant to lead us to the one who wants to from the very beginning, the whole purpose he made us. If you don't know why he made humanity, it was so he could be with us and that's why he sent his son Emmanuel. God with us. He wants to be with us. It was also the motivation behind why he went to the cross. He wants to be with us and so the reason this one guy ended up receiving and exemplifying a faith that will save him is because his miracle led him to place his faith and worship in Jesus.
His whole agenda is for us to return to him because he is where life is found. Zechariah 1:3 way back in the Old Testament, it says,
Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty.
He doesn't force it. And as we see in this story, he won't give blessings even to people that will never, ever come back to him. But you know, we're all going to get through this COVID thing. We're going to get through it and we're going to have hard times in the future too. What's going to last, what's going to outlast all of the pain that we face in this broken world that's riddled by sin? What's going to outlast that? It's going to be our place in heaven with God.
That security comes by grace through faith. It says that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And that word save...sozo...to be made whole, complete, forever protected. It's the same word that he used when describing the one who came back. Friends, this is not just a gratitude story. This is a faith story. And why does Jesus say you only need a little bit of faith? How come? Why does he say it's just a little bit of faith? Because the faith is not in us or in our abilities. The faith is in one person. That faith is in Jesus Christ. You know, I remember at times whenever we were trying to teach our first born Hannah, I remember when we were trying to teach her to swim and she liked the water, but she was terrified of getting her face wet and it was keeping her from being able to want to swim.
And it was the kind of thing where I just knew if she could get accustomed to this water and overcome her fear, she's going to be swimming like a fish. It's going to be her favorite thing to do. So this one time sticks out in my mind because she was just a little toddler and we were at our friend’s house. When we were there, we were swimming and Hannah wanted to swim, but she was scared and wouldn't jump in. I remember so vividly sitting on the deck and my husband Neil was standing in the pool. Now mind you, this is an above ground four-foot pool that wasn't even filled up all the way, so probably three and a half feet. My husband's over six foot, so you can imagine more of him is sticking out of the pool than what's in the pool.
Okay. And my husband was a competitive swimmer, so you know what I mean? Like there was no risk here and he's asking Hannah to jump into his arms and I mean this must have went on for, I don't even know how long. And she would get really close and then she couldn't do it and then she'd cry and then she would throw a tantrum and then she would claim that she needed something to drink or eat. And I mean this just, oh man, this went on and on and on and on. Her fear was because she knew that the water was over her head and she knew that she couldn't swim. Honestly if my husband wasn't in that pool, those are things I want her to fear. I want her to be afraid of jumping in a pool that's over her head if she can't swim, but, what I wanted her to have was a faith that her dad not only could catch her and was able to catch her, but he would catch her because he loved her.
His abilities matched his affection for her. I'm sure if you've been in or near a situation like this, you can imagine how the rest of the day went. Eventually she did work up the nerve to jump in. Of course then you know what happened? It was just one after another after another after another and I think we were there all day and she swims like a fish of course now. But the point is the thing is not in us. That's why it actually doesn't take much. The faith is in our father that he's able to save us, that he's capable of saving us and even more so that he wants to, that he has affection for us and that is actually his motivation. His affection is for us. It is on you. No matter what you've done, no matter how far from God you feel, his only desire is for you to come back. And if you are someone who feels far from God, I want to point out one final thing about this story. Back in Bible times, leprosy was synonymous in their minds as that you had done something wrong, that you had sinned. And in fact, you had sinned so greatly that God had cursed you.
Not only did you have to stand off at a distance, but if anyone came near you, you had to warn them that you were unclean. These people were made to feel like they had no grace with God, that they were far removed and could never be in his good graces. Again, I don't know if you're noticing what I'm noticing, but it seems like when the COVID thing started, there were kind of these bullet points for who was technically vulnerable to this disease. And at the time it was people who had traveled, people with lung issues or the elderly. And it seemed like we had a pretty good grasp on who might be vulnerable right to this disease. But the further we get into this, and I think this is one reason fear is rising, is that those who are vulnerable, who's vulnerable, everyone on some level, everyone is vulnerable. Leprosy, I think Jesus used this story and specifically leprosy to show something because a Samaritan was a foreigner who was also known. A Gentile was known to be kind of out of God's graces in society. So when Jesus says this, one person has been healed and saved, and Jesus points out once again, even what Luke pointed out, and this man's a foreigner, this man's a Samaritan.
Luke loves in his gospel to pepper us with reminding us that there is an inclusion in the salvation message that all who call on the name of the Lord can receive salvation. You know why? Because every single one of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3:22 says, this,
This righteousness is given through faith in[a] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile.
It is by grace through faith that we have been saved, made whole, protected forever. And that faith, that shield, that piece of armor is to protect us from the fiery darts, meaning the ones that were meant to permanently destroy us. Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ yet? Do you know for sure that you are saved? Sozo made whole and protected against the fiery darts of not only this world, but from permanent destruction and separation from God.
Perhaps the most significant visual picture of this entire story is the fact that 10 men, 10 men, were standing off at a distance from Jesus at the end, the one who placed his worship and his faith in Jesus Christ. He is no longer off in distance. He's near to God and he will come near to you. As Neil pointed out right before I spoke, we have a special time where we're going to be connecting with God. And I ask you to come near to Jesus right now. If you've already placed your faith in God, come near to him yet again with praise and worship, and even during that praise and worship, if you just know, I need to get right with God, or I need something miraculous, or I feel off at a distance and I need to go, we have people who believe in prayer and who care about you and they are waiting in the zoom breakout rooms to pray for you. You don't even have to wait until the song's over if you don't want to, but make this time before you turn your computer screens off. Make this time a time to come near express and once again, place your worship in Jesus Christ.