The Power of Gratitude - Life of Christ Part 57

This past summer, Brenda and I celebrated our 20th anniversary being married. And that is a real testimonial to the grace of God, I just want you to know that, because I'm not an easy man to live with.

So how do you know that? Well, I know that because Brenda keeps telling me that I'm not an easy man to live with and I assume she knows what she's talking about. But we've made it 20 years and Brenda deserves all the, pat her on the back and tell her, God bless you lady, we're praying for you next time you see her. But I remember back to our wedding day and I remember, I mean, it's like encapsulated in my mind. I got some real fresh memories of it. I remember, for example, how nervous I was. Were you nervous on your wedding day?

I was. I remember how gorgeous Brenda was coming down the aisle and she still is, but I mean, you know, that's an enormous feeling standing in the front watching your bride come down the aisle. I remember how we were all up in the front and, you know, the groomsmen and the minister and all the bridesmaids and her father and she were just getting ready to come down the aisle and her dad, I found about this later, turned to her and said, now honey, he said, if you've got any doubt about this, we can stop this right now. It took him and I a while before we began seeing how each other was wired.

You know what I'm saying? And we were, I was married five years to Brenda before he ever told me he liked me. So, but we're doing okay now. So I've got some real precious memories and kind of some humorous memories. I've also got one really bad memory of my wedding. Say, you got a bad one? Yeah, I got a bad one.

Say, what is it? Thank you notes. Anybody got that bad memory? I mean, six months later, we were still trying to crank those babies out and I, you know, I said to Brenda a couple of times, look, it's been six months. Nobody even remembers they gave us anything. Why don't we just forget it? We've done our best.

He goes, no, no, no, no, no. Being grateful and showing it is very important. Write those notes. So I, you know, we cranked every one of those babies out. So it was almost a year to write all our thank you notes.

That's the one bad memory I've got. And maybe you can relate to that. Well, the reason I bring it all up is because in our passage for this morning, Jesus is going to communicate to us the same thing Brenda kept telling me. Being grateful and showing it is very important. Very important because of what it means in our lives, because of what it means in our relationship to God, and because of what it means in our relationship to other people.

And so that's the theme this morning, the power of gratitude in our lives. Let's look at our passage and then we'll come back and ask the really important question, which is, so what? Right.

Okay. Verse 11, chapter 17. Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. This was the last trip Jesus would ever make to Jerusalem.

When he got there, he was going to be rejected. He was going to be arrested and crucified. And while he was on the way, verse 12, 10 men who had leprosy came out and met him and they stood at a distance. Now in the ancient Near East, leprosy was one of the most dreaded diseases a person could get.

Hansen's disease is how we know it today. God knew that leprosy was contagious. And so in the Old Testament, in Leviticus chapter 13, he prescribed quarantine for anybody who had it. The rabbis filled this out by saying that a person with leprosy was not allowed to approach a healthy person within 50 yards.

Now that's half a football field. They could not get within that distance of a healthy person. And the rabbis also said that if you had leprosy and someone who was healthy began to get close to you, you had an obligation and a responsibility to scream out as loud as you could, unclean, unclean, to warn them that you had leprosy and they needed to stay away. It's hard to imagine the life that these people had to live, the life of isolation and loneliness and rejection and hopelessness that they lived in. And if you want a kind of a mental picture of it, all you have to do is recall one of the greatest movies ever made. What was that? Ben-Hur.

Thank you very much. And Ben-Hur, one of the greatest movies ever made. You remember when his mother and his sister got leprosy and they had, you know, to go to that leper colony and you remember how tragic all that was? Well, that gives you a little bit of a picture of what life was like as a leper. Well, these people had heard about Jesus, but they never thought they'd ever see him.

But here he is. Verse 13, look what they did. It says in verse 13, so they called out to him in a loud voice, Jesus, master, have pity on us. This is not a civilized conversation. This is not a genteel, sophisticated conversation. Here you have a people who are utterly desperate and in despair, shrieking out shamelessly at the top of their lungs.

Jesus, come over here and help us. Must have been quite a scene. I was flying to San Francisco on Thursday and we were on this big old DC-10 and we're flying and we were out a little ways and we hit this huge air pocket, you know, where you kind of, you know, drop. And I've hit a bunch of air pockets, but this was one of the biggest ones I ever recall hitting. It was so bad that whatever you had for breakfast, you got a chance to swallow again.

You understand kind of what I'm saying? I mean, it was a big one. And this woman sitting behind me, a couple rows behind me, I don't know what her problem was, but she went hysterical. She gasped out loud and then she screamed. And we weren't even on US air.

I don't know what she was worried about. And you know, I mean, it really shook me up. I mean, you don't hear people scream like that very often. I was working on the message at the time. You say you work on messages on airplanes.

I work on messages anytime I can, friends, believe me. So I'm right at this little point where Jesus is meeting them. And I thought, now, you know, if you took what that woman just did, multiplied it by 10, and then let it go on and on and on and on and on, we might have a little tiny picture of what it was like with these 10 people screaming out at Jesus. Now, you don't look all that impressed, but you didn't hear this woman scream on that airplane either. I want to tell you, this was a blood curdling scream.

I can only imagine what this picture must have been like. Well, what did Jesus actually do? Verse 14. When he saw them, he said, Go show yourselves to the priests.

And as they went, they were cleansed. Unless we know a little more information, this verse doesn't have the impact it should on us. In the Old Testament days, leprosy sometimes can go into a kind of remission. And in the Old Testament days, if that happened to you, you were told Leviticus 14 says you were to go show yourself to the priest.

And when the priest examined you and found that your leprosy was in remission, he would remove the quarantine and you could rejoin the nation of Israel. So what Jesus says to them is go show yourself to the priest. Well, the only reason to go show themselves to the priest would be if they've been healed. So in Jesus telling them to do that, do you understand was an implicit promise that he was going to heal them?

Otherwise, he had no reason to go see the priest. And it says as they were going, not before they went, as they were going, after they had responded in faith to what Jesus had told them, and taken the first step and started on the road to go see the priest, the Bible says, then they were healed. I should stop here and say that if you're here this morning, and you've never embraced Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and maybe you're not ready to do that, maybe you're still kind of processing things and you're coming here to think and listen. And that's great.

I mean, we're glad you're here. And we want you to come and think and listen and process. But at some point, at some point, you're going to have to do if you want to become a Christian exactly what these 10 lepers did, you're going to have to look at the promise of God, you're going to have to believe the promise of God, and you're going to have to make the first step by faith. And then God will prove to you the promise of God is real. See, we say God, you show us and we'll believe God says, No, I'm sorry, that's not the way it works. You believe, and I'll show you. And that's what he said to the lepers, you believe me, you start off to go see the priest, and I'll show you what I'm going to do. And so if you're here, and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, at some point, Jesus said, I stand at the door and knock, you've got to open the door, you've got to take that first step and let me in.

And then I'll come in and I'll show you all kinds of neat stuff. But you got to take that first step. You've got to step out and take that risk by faith. And really, it's not a risk, because God's going to do everything he said he's going to do.

It just looks like a risk. So I just want to challenge you, at some point, this is going to have to happen if you're going to become a Christian. And maybe you're not ready for it to happen today. But this is what at some point you're going to have to do by faith.

Well, let's go on. Okay, verse 15. Well, after they were healed, one of them, it says, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice, and he threw himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him and thanked him and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

He was despised by the Jewish people. He was a foreigner. And Jesus asked, hey, wait a minute. We're not all 10 cleansed? Didn't I cleanse 10 people?

We're the other nine. Is there no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Are you the only person who came back?

This is the real point of the story. And then he said to him, rise and go. Your faith has made you well. This one guy said, hey, the priest can wait.

I'm going back to say thank you for what Jesus has done for me. And then Jesus asked the very searching question, hey, he says to him, didn't I heal 10 people? I thought I healed 10 people. Didn't I send 10 angels or whatever out there?

How come only one? Where are the rest of these guys? How come they didn't come back with you to say thank you? You say, well, maybe they wrote him a thank you note. I don't think so.

I don't think so. This is the whole point is what was wrong with the nine that they were so ungrateful that they didn't come back to say thank you. Now, I was thinking this week as I was working on this, and this is a good week to think.

I mean, on an airplane, I can't get telephone calls. I don't have kids and it's a great time to think. So I got a chance to think this week. And I got to thinking how often I'm like the nine. I mean, it's easy to look at this and say, well, what a bunch of bums those guys are.

Man, if I'd have been there, I'd have been one of those guys to go back and say thank you. You know, you can depend on that. Well, would you?

I don't know. I got to thinking I'm like the nine more often than I ought to be. I mean, I'm like the nine sometimes when it comes to God, maybe you are too.

We get down on our knees and we pray, oh, God, I'm in the middle of a mess. Help me, God. Help me, God. Oh, God, if you just help me, God, I'll be grateful all my life.

Oh, God. And, you know, people make promises when they're like that, everything from stopping smoking to becoming a nun when they're down like that, then God moves and God helps and God answers your prayer. And he never hears from you again until what?

Until you want something. And then you're like, oh, God, oh, God, here I am again. I promise this time I will really be grateful, God.

I think this is a problem. It seems to me that we ought to be like the one who goes back more often and tells God thanks. I mean, just even our salvation. I mean, we had leprosy spiritually. God removed it. When was the last time we even went back and said to God, thank you for just removing the spiritual leprosy out of my life? I'm not here to ask for anything. I'm just here to say thank you, God. I don't do that enough.

Maybe you don't either. I think another area where we're like the nine is when it comes to our parents. You see, I was thinking this week, there was a time in every one of our lives when a week's worth of neglect would have killed us.

You understand what I'm saying? Or if we'd have been neglected for a week, we'd been dead. And that wasn't just for a month or two months. That was for years at a time when if we hadn't had the care and love and support of our parents, we wouldn't be here today. Now, many of us have aging parents and we look at them like they're a nuisance, like they're in the way. We look at them and we say, ah, you know, I just want to put them in a nursing home or whatever and get on with my life. And we're too busy to visit and we're too busy to call and we're too busy to pay for them to come visit us.

And I'd like to suggest to you that that's being part of the nine, that that's one of the greatest acts of ingratitude that the world has ever seen. I mean, for so many people here with aging parents, we ought to be real glad that they never treated us the way we're treating them or we wouldn't be here today. They would self-sacrifice, cared for us. And I want to tell you something, you and I were a lot bigger nuisance to our parents than they're ever going to be to us. You say, how do you know that? Because I've talked to your parents and I know about you when you were a kid. They told me all about you.

And you know all about me. King Lear said, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. Sometimes we're like the nine, third and finally when it comes to how we react to people. I mean, there are people in our lives, teachers, counselors, friends, doctors, relatives who have done things to help us that go beyond what money could ever repay. When was the last time we ever said thanks?

When was the last time we ever just wrote him a note or called him up and said, we want to thank you for that? This is Jesus' point, that we're all so prone to be like the nine. And Jesus wants us to grow up and grow out of that.

And one last thing before we switch to so what? You know what I find very interesting here is that even though those other nine didn't come back, Jesus did not revoke their healing. Isn't that interesting? I mean, if it had been me, I would have said, man, I'm going to whip a big old case of leprosy right back on those nine guys, man, just whapo and they're going to be white as snow again. That's what I'm going to do. Not come back and thank me? Oh, you watch what I do. Now, that's why I'm not God and you should be glad I'm not God. Jesus let the healing stand even though they never came back to say thank you. Just like he let some of the blessings stand in our lives even though we never come back to say thank you.

Why does he do that, Lon? Well, the only answer I can give you is God's sometimes merciful to us even when we don't deserve it. And thank God for that, huh? Thank God for that. But let's not presume on that.

Let's learn to be people who say thank you. That's the point of the story. And it leads us of course to the really important question and that is so what? Let me repeat Jesus's point that we're all prone to be like the nine lepers. God wants us to grow out of that. Not just because it's right. It is right. Not just because it's proper.

It is proper. Not just because it honors God. It does honor God. But also because it's incredibly beneficial and powerful in your own life.

It has benefit for you. And I want to close by giving you three ways in which a grateful spirit will benefit your life. Number one, here we go. Three ways a grateful spirit will benefit you powerfully. Number one, it will win people's hearts.

A grateful spirit will win people's hearts. Now I've got something here I want to show you. I've got them in my pocket.

I got two of them actually. And I'll hold them up. Anybody recognize what these things are? What are they? Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to be exact. Thank you. Now do you know how hot these babies are?

I mean did you read the article in the post? I've got a copy of the article in the post here and it tells about how hot these things are. People line up at toy stores. They get 9 o'clock in the morning and there's a mad rush to see if any came in overnight. They get two to three hundred calls a day per store asking about these things. I was over there one day talking to one of the sales clerks and she said honey, when I put these things out I run for my life. She said because people, you wouldn't believe what people do. And in the article it mentions one owner of a toy store who stopped carrying them because people got in fights in the toy store.

And they said it's not worth it. There was a tractor trailer truck stolen at gunpoint out in California. This is all in the article. They're selling for four and five times their retail value on the black market.

Unbelievable. You say well Lon, just out of curiosity, how'd you get those things? Well I have a whole set up.

As a matter of fact I have two whole sets up. And I got all the vehicles. In fact I got the original vehicles that they don't make anymore and the original people in the box which I'm saving for 20 years so I can retire on that.

That's true. Did you know an original GI Joe figure just sold for 56 hundred dollars in the box and originally sold for one dollar? Do you know an original Barbie doll in the box is 25 thousand dollars? You don't think I'm saving these in the box? Hey, you know how I was raised?

You're crazy. I got boxes of these things. You say well how did you get all this stuff?

I only got into this about two months ago. You say how did you get all this stuff? Well I'm glad you asked. I'm gonna tell you. My name was on a big list at Toys R Us, you know, I won't tell you which one.

And we were on from like March and when we got to about July or August Brenda said I'm gonna call up because we should have heard something by now and we called up and to make a long story short they had lost our name off the list and the lady was so apologetic she went back and checked she said oh my goodness we dropped your name by accident. You know I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I can give you one Ranger.

I've got one figure if you'll come in and get it. So I went in and I said you know I just want to say thanks. I mean I appreciate you doing that for us. She said I'm so sorry. And I said don't worry about it.

They're just pieces of plastic. Don't worry about it. You know anything you can do we're really appreciative of and this is fine.

This is neat. Well anyway then she started calling me up saying I got some stuff for you. Come on down.

This just really happened. And so I'd come on down. She had a whole set up and then she called me up the next week and said I got some more stuff for you. Come on down.

And I came on down. And I got a whole closet full of Power Ranger stuff folks. And she keeps calling me saying I got some more stuff come on down. And when I was there once and she had left and the manager took me to my stuff you know I said look I got to ask you this. Why is this woman being so nice to me?

I mean I just would like to know. She's treating me like I'm her brother or something. He said well you've become her favorite customer. He said you know he said she felt so bad when she lost your name off that list. But we get so many customers who are mean and nasty and unappreciative and ungrateful and rude that come in here. And you were so gracious. You were so appreciative that she even had one little person for you that she said you became her favorite customer and we all kind of have our one favorite customer. You're hers now.

My wife thinks she has a crush on me. But that's not true. Now that's not true.

I know that's not true. But he went on to say when we find somebody who's really grateful for what we do we want to bend over backwards to help them because there's so few customers like that. And I said oh I can use that. I'm going to remember that. And you know I want to tell you something friends if you need some Power Rangers for Christmas I'll be right down in the front right after the service come on down and see me.

I can arrange a great deal for you. Actually no they're mine. Here's the point I want to make. I don't want to take anything from these people. I want to give something to these people. I want to give them Jesus Christ and I'm just about to the point where we're ready for that to happen with these two people. But you know what created the whole opening was a grateful spirit that won their heart. And I believe they're going to listen when I talk to them about Christ. And so what does a grateful spirit do.

Man it wins people's hearts. Number two a grateful spirit brings the peace of God to our life. A grateful spirit will bring the peace of God to our life as Christians. Philippians Chapter 4. Let me read it to you. With prayer and supplication make your requests known to God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Now that's a great verse is only one problem with it.

Did you catch it. I left a little piece out. It says with prayer and supplication and what Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God and then you'll get the peace of God.

That's a very important little piece because you see I believe that Thanksgiving being grateful to God is the secret to tapping into the peace of God in every circumstance in life. And I don't care how bad you think your circumstances are. I assure you there is the mercy of God running through your circumstances somewhere. And if you look forward you can find it.

And if you find it and you thank God for it God will send you the peace of God even though your circumstances are not everything you want them to be. Maybe you're sick. Well thank God that you've got friends and loved ones who are there to transport you and stand by and help you. That's the mercy of God. Maybe you've been laid off. Well thank God that you had a savings account to support you while you look for a new job. That's the mercy of God. Maybe your car broke or your washing machine broke. Thank God that you had the money to pay to get it fixed. We around our house whenever we get a sudden influx of cash we just assume something's about to break. We know that. And God's sending us the money to pay for it.

But thank God we had the money. You know when we go up to Johns Hopkins with our little girl and go to the pediatric epilepsy center and we sit there in the waiting room and sometimes we sit there a long time in the waiting room and we watch other children coming in. You know if you don't think that the mercy of God's on your life and your family you come with us sometime to Johns Hopkins for the afternoon and just sit in that room and watch the people who come in. I mean little children in braces, in wheelchairs where they have to be tied in because they can't control themselves. I mean there's sometimes honestly where I just want to get up, go down to the car, sit down and cry. I mean that's the only way I know how to respond to some of this. And yet our little girl in spite of the fact she's not everything we want her to be in some respects.

She can walk, she can talk, she's not retarded, she can understand. Man I walk out of there saying thank you God. Yeah it's not what we want it to be. But God thank you for the mercy that still runs through the middle of this thing.

Folks it's there. And if you don't have the peace of God in your life about some circumstances I can almost assure you it's because instead of finding the mercy of God that's there and thanking God for it and unlocking the peace of God, you're complaining, you're griping. Listen a grateful spirit is the secret to the peace of God. Third and finally, a grateful spirit will protect you from sin in your life.

A grateful spirit will keep you from self-destructing in your personal life. Psalm 37 says wait patiently on the Lord. Be content where God has you right now and God will give you the desires of your heart when He's ready, when He knows the time's right.

Wait on Him. You know if Adam and Eve had been content with what they had we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now would we? And if David had been content with what he had he never would have run off with Bathsheba and ruined his life would he? And if Samson had been content with what he had he never would have got hooked up with Delilah would he? And if Lot had been content with what he had he never would have been down in Sodom and Gomorrah and lost his wife and lost the moral character of his daughters. And listen if Ted Kennedy had been content with what he had there wouldn't have been a Chappaquiddick. If Michael Milken had been content with what he had he wouldn't have ended up in jail. If Saddam Hussein had been content with what he had there wouldn't have been a Gulf War and if the average American were content with what we had we'd stay out of half or more of the trouble we get ourselves in. But we're not content. Ruskin the great philosopher said we only have two basic aims in life whatever we have to get more and wherever we are to go somewhere else. Those are only two aims in life. But that speaks to the lack of contentment in the human spirit.

I like the way Paul spoke to it. He said 1 Timothy chapter 6 people who want to get rich and who aren't content where they are in the circumstances of life fall into temptation and into many foolish and harmful desires that lead to ruin and destruction and they pierce themselves through with many a grief. Friend the greatest protection I have found against sin in my personal life is to be grateful where God put me and stay put.

Grateful with the money I have, grateful with the wife I have, grateful for the children I have, grateful for the possessions I have, grateful for the prestige I have, grateful for the position I have just to say thank you God for what I've got and stay put. It's the greatest protection against sin in an individual Christian life. You say well Lon I hear what you're saying how am I going to get this kind of spirit?

Well I'm glad you asked because I want to tell you in closing. A grateful spirit is an act of faith. A grateful spirit is an act of faith. I have a good friend a lady who his is her favorite quote. She's always using it on me. Maybe she thinks I always need it I'm not sure. She's always saying Lon where you are is where you're supposed to be while you're there.

Alright where you are is where you're supposed to be while you're there. There's a lot of wisdom in that. You say that's just a statement of fatalism. No it isn't it's a statement of faith. It's a statement based upon faith in the teachings of the word of God that number one there's a God who's in control of every detail of my life that number two this God loves me that number three this God has given me what is best and number four if there were anything better for my life than what he's given me he'd have given it to me and when anything else becomes better he'll give it to me then. Those are faith statements and when we have those kind of faith statements and that kind of world view friend then we've got the basis on which to have a grateful spirit. We'll never get a grateful spirit until we learn how to walk by faith in a loving sovereign God who's running our lives until we learn to look at our circumstances through the eyes of faith. And where are we going to get this faith? Where are you going to go to get it? Say Lon tell us something novel tell us something profound.

Where can we go get this? Well I'll tell you something that's not novel or profound I tell you it's right here right in the word of God. You read this book and you see how God did that very same thing for everyone else in this book how the people who were content got God's blessing and the people who weren't got themselves in trouble and you saturate yourself with the promises of God in this book and God promises to be true to them and then you get on your knees in prayer and commune with God in spirit that's how you get a grateful spirit. Say Lon that's not new and profound I know it isn't but the Christian life's not new and profound friends it's as old as the Bible itself. Where you are is where you're supposed to be while you're there and when we believe that we can have a grateful spirit. A grateful spirit that will protect us from sin that will bring us the peace of God and will open the hearts of people so that we can share Christ with them.

Pretty powerful thing huh? And that's what God wants for you and me. So I hope you'll take a look at your life and say how often am I like the nine and kind of how often am I like the one and may God change your life and my life by what we've heard today. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father I'm reminded as we pray that there's not a one of us here who doesn't have some circumstances in his or her life that we'd like to see different.

But I could start and I'd have a pretty long list and so would most people here. But that doesn't mean we can't be grateful for right where we are. Lord ambition and gratefulness are not necessarily mutually exclusive. We can have sanctified ambition that says yes I have ambition but only when God's ready only in God's timing do I want to see that ambition fulfilled. Father I pray that you would forgive us for how many times we let the world talk us into seeing our circumstances through its eyes instead of through the eyes of faith. Dear God help us to believe you and trust you and rest in you and give us grateful hearts that will keep us on the path Lord that will not end us up in the ditch and will keep us on the path where the peace of God rules our heart and will keep us on a path where people see us as blessings and where we have opportunities to share Christ with them because they like what they see in our lives. This is my prayer Lord for me and for all of these people who are listening. May the Spirit of God change our lives because of the word of God to our hearts today and I pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. You