Transcript
In your Bibles, will you turn with me once again to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, and verse 11? Luke chapter 17, and verse 11. Luke chapter 17, beginning to read at verse 11.
Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’
So when He saw them, He said to them, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.
So Jesus answered and said, ‘Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?’ And He said to him, ‘Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.’
Mark and Denise Lewis and their three children are from Athens, Ohio. And just this past March they were visiting right here in Dallas, Texas. While they were here we showed them great Texas hospitality, because someone stole their van and they had to get a rental car in order to go back home.
As they were on their way back home they stopped at Hope, Arkansas, deciding that they wanted to see the birthplace of President Clinton. As the whole family was sitting in the car at a traffic light they noticed a van sitting at the same traffic light but going in the opposite direction. That van was red like their van. That van had pin stripes on it like their van had.
And when the light changed and the van passed them they noticed that the van had Athens County, Ohio license tags, their license tags. There was a lot of screaming and yelling inside the car at about this point. And Mark Lewis turned the car around and began to follow the van. He followed it into a shopping center.
A lady got out of the van and pretty soon a man walked up. And the two of them went into the store together. So Mark Lewis, who just happened to have an extra key, unlocked the van, got in, and drove it off, trying to find a police station. Mrs. Lewis and the three kids, driving the rental car, followed him.
Unfortunately Mrs. Lewis lost her husband in the traffic. And as she was there in the traffic a car drove up beside her containing the woman that they had seen get out of the van and the man who had met her. And the man who had met her had a gun. Mrs. Lewis sped off and the gunman followed in hot pursuit.
Finally Mrs. Lewis drove up to a restaurant. She got out and she asked for help. The gunman overtook her, hopped out of his car, caught up to her, and put a pistol to her back. And you will never believe what the guy said to Mrs. Lewis. He said, “Where’s my van? You stole my van.”
Well, fortunately the people at the restaurant informed this gunman that they had called the police. And he and his female accomplice promptly ran off and were later arrested in an adjacent county. You will not be surprised to learn that the car they were driving was also stolen.
Now doesn’t that just about take the cake? A thief says to the owner of a vehicle, “You stole my van.”
Well, this morning, folks, I would like to talk to you about a class of people whose van has been stolen. And I’m not talking this morning about a literal van. Permit me a little freedom, a little preacher’s license, if you want to put it that way. I am talking about a spiritual van. I’m talking about a spiritual vehicle. I’m talking about a spiritual means of transportation.
And there are lots of people who have had that taken away from them. And on the possible chance that there might be somebody in this audience of whom that is true I want to ask you to ask yourself the following question. Who stole my van? Or to put it another way, who stole my wheels? You won’t be surprised to discover that that is the topic of my message this morning. That’s the title, Who Stole My Wheels.
You know I’ll never forget a night years ago when my father and my brother and I attended a major league baseball game in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. We drove into the parking lot and parked the car in the lot. And then we went in and enjoyed the game.
And when we came out it was kind of dark and we could not find our vehicle. And we looked and we looked and we looked and we looked and we simply couldn’t find it. And naturally the thought that crossed all of our minds was we are here in crime-ridden Baltimore, Maryland, and somebody has probably taken our car.
But we continued to look as the cars continued to fly out of the parking lot. And when about three quarters of the cars were gone we looked in a certain direction. And there was our vehicle, with all the cars around it having moved away, standing there just exactly where we had parked it. And we all got into the car and we drove joyfully away, because we considered ourselves fortunate. Nobody had stolen our wheels.
But I’m sorry to tell you this morning that the story we read just a few minutes ago from the Word of God is a story about ten men. And if you will allow me to put it this way nine of them had had their wheels stolen. And only one of them had good spiritual transportation.
Oh at first of course they all looked very much alive. All ten of them were lepers. And in ancient times the disease of leprosy covered a lot of skin ailments of various kinds, some very severe in which the limbs and joints were eaten away by the disease, others which disfigured the face or disfigured the body or turned the skin into an unsightly color.
And maybe each of these men had their own particular form of leprosy. But they were all alike because they were lepers. And under the terms of the Old Testament law, lepers were outcasts. They were not allowed to live in town. They were not allowed to live in their village. They were not allowed to live with their family or their friends. They had to live apart from the rest of society.
And naturally they tended to congregate around one another and to live with each other. And here one day comes the Lord Jesus Christ within view of these ten men. And because they are lepers and because Jesus is a distinguished rabbi and teacher they don’t dare go up close to Him. They don’t dare to draw near to Him.
And the Bible says that they stood far off. And they lifted up their voices. And with one voice they cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Jesus, have mercy on us.”
And do you know that there is a sense in which these ten lepers are an almost perfect picture, an almost perfect illustration of what you and I were like before we got saved? You see before we got saved we all had the spiritual form of leprosy, the disease of sin. We were all unclean in the sight of God.
We had no right to come close to God, no right to come close to the Lord Jesus Christ. And furthermore like these ten men there was nothing we could do about it. There was no good work that we could perform. There was no religious observance that we could commit ourselves to that would do anything at all for our leprosy.
We were totally and completely dependent upon the mercy, the mercy of Jesus Christ our Lord. Remember the story that Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector who went up into the temple to pray? And the Pharisee didn’t know he had spiritual leprosy. And so he bragged to God and he said, “God, I thank You I’m not like other men, unjust, adulterers, extortioners, or even like that tax collector over there. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of everything I come into possession of.”
But the tax collector knew he had spiritual leprosy. He didn’t even get close to the sanctuary of God. The Bible says he stood afar off, maybe in one of the corners of the court. He didn’t even dare to lift up his eyes to God. But he bowed his head and he threw himself on his breast.
And his prayer was very simple and direct. He said, “Lord God, be merciful to me a sinner.” You know what Jesus’ bottom line on that little story was? He said, “I tell you that this man, this tax collector, rather than the Pharisee, this man went down to his house justified.” Why? Because nobody can get saved as long as they think they are good enough to win God’s favor.
They must cast themselves completely, completely on the mercy of God. The Bible says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy, according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. But having been justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
And it is only when a person comes to God through faith in Jesus Christ in order to receive the free gift of everlasting life, it is only then when they cast themselves on the mercy of God that they are cleansed forever from their leprosy.
You know I really used to love singing the song that we sang so often in the little Southern Baptist church that I attended in Catonsville, Maryland many, many years ago. We sing it here sometimes too but we don’t sing it as often. But it’s got a tremendous message about the mercy of God.
“Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me He died at Calvary. By God’s Word at last my sin I learned. Then I trembled at the law I spurned till my guilty soul, o’erwhelmed, turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. Though my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary.”
We are saved by the mercy of God. So there they were crying out to Jesus for mercy. And when Jesus sees them He makes one very simple statement. He says, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”
Now every one of those lepers knew exactly what that meant. They knew that when a leper was cleansed from his leprosy he was required to go to a priest in Jerusalem who would declare him cured. And then he had to go through eight days of ceremony ending with sacrifices to God. And then, but only then, was he allowed to return to his family and to his friends.
So when Jesus said to these ten men, “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” it was like saying to them by the time you get there you’ll be well, you’ll be cleansed. And guess what, folks? Every one of these men, all ten of them, believed the promise that was implied in the words of Jesus. And all of them started out in the direction of Jerusalem in order to see the priest.
Now I don’t really know how far they had gone on their journey, whether they were halfway to Jerusalem or two-thirds of the way or three-quarters of the way. But somewhere, somewhere on that trip to Jerusalem the miracle happened. The promise of Jesus was fulfilled. And all ten of them were cleansed from their leprosy.
Now the Bible doesn’t tell us what they were thinking at the moment they were cleansed. But it’s not hard to figure it out. Nine of them were thinking something like this. This is wonderful. This is tremendous. The power of God has wrought a miracle in my body and I’m clean from my leprosy. I have got to hurry up. I get down to the priest because the quicker I see him the quicker I go through the ritual the quicker I’ll get home the quicker I’ll be with my friends and family.
And one of them was thinking, this is marvelous. This is wonderful. The power of God has wrought a miracle in my body. I’ve got to turn around. I’ve got to go back. I’ve got to praise God and give thanks to Jesus. And that’s what he did.
And as he approached the Son of God for the second time he lifted up his voice and glorified God. And when he reached the presence of Jesus he cast himself on his face at the feet of Jesus. And he said, “Thank You, thank You, thank You.”
You know what? This Samaritan was using the very best spiritual transportation that the world knows anything about. Will you allow me more preacher’s license to say that he was driving a vehicle which I would call a GTG, gratitude to God? It was his gratitude to God that brought him back from his journey toward Jerusalem and brought him once again in the presence of Jesus Christ.
And how about the other nine? They had lost their wheels. They had lost their wheels. Many years ago a pastor was reading his annual report to his congregation. And he included in his report a very shocking line. It said, “Nine persons lost at sea.”
The congregation wondered what in the world could the pastor be talking about. And when they inquired he gave them this answer. He said, “During the year eleven people came to me and they requested prayers for the safety of someone who was taking a sea trip. But during the year only two people came to me to suggest that I give thanks for a safe trip. So I assumed the other nine were lost at sea.”
A New York newspaper for several weeks before Christmas printed page after page after page of letters that children had written to Santa Claus asking for this and asking for that. And then after Christmas in an editorial they made this observation. That of all of the thousands of letters that they had printed only one writer wrote in to give thanks to Santa Claus.
Now folks it’s all right if you fail to give thanks to Santa Claus because there isn’t any Santa Claus. I’m not busting anybody’s bubble this morning by saying that. But there is a God. There is a Creator who gives us all things richly to enjoy. And it is serious when we fail to give thanks appropriately to Him.
A man was writing at a post office desk one time and an elderly man came up to him and asked him for a favor. He asked him if he would address a postcard for him. So the man who was writing at the desk said he’d be glad to do it. He addressed the postcard.
And after addressing the postcard the elderly man asked him if he would write a message on the card and sign the old man’s name. So happily the man at the post office desk did that too. And when he was finished he looked up at the old man and he said, “Is there anything more I can do for you?”
“Yes,” said the old fella, “would you add this note at the bottom: Excuse the handwriting.” Isn’t the way people are, aren’t they sometimes? You do something for them and you don’t know whether you’re going to get a thank you or a complaint that you didn’t do more or that you didn’t do it better.
And you know I bet that if we had a little informal gathering in a living room somewhere we could really stir up a conversation about how ungrateful people are, couldn’t we? I mean somebody could say, “You know people are terribly, terribly ungrateful today in this day and time.” Somebody else would say, “Yeah, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve done a favor for somebody. They’ve never said thanks.”
And somebody else says, “You know it’s the same way with welfare people. Instead of thanking the government for support they think the government owes it to them and they demand more.” And on and on and on it might go.
But it’s risky. It’s dangerous to talk like that. Because before you do you want to check your spiritual garage. And you want to check to see if you have a spiritual vehicle there called a GTG, gratitude to God.
You know what? I bet there isn’t anybody in the audience this morning who walked to church. We have a couple of gentlemen back here who drove a gigantic truck right onto our parking lot. And of course I drove my Cincinnati Reds red Toyota Tercel. And Lewis and fellas came in their burgundy Century, nice about a Century Buick.
And we didn’t come in our own vehicle. We probably came in somebody else’s vehicle. But hey, around four o’clock tonight we won’t have any transportation, some of us. We won’t be able to make it to the Lord’s Supper. And it won’t be because our Tercel or our Buick suddenly broke down. It won’t be because we don’t have any gas and don’t have the money to pay for it.
It won’t be because we sprung four leaks and our tires are all flat. The reason we won’t be able to make it is because we’re not driving a GTG. We’re not driven by gratitude to God. And if that fits you tonight you want to ask yourself the question, Who stole my wheels?
So there it was, folks, down at the feet of Jesus pouring out his thanks to Jesus. Guess what? He was a Samaritan. Did you get that? He was a Samaritan. He wasn’t a Jew. He wasn’t a member of God’s chosen race.
He wasn’t one of the nations that God had guarded and guided through its centuries of history. He was a mongrel race. He was a member of a race that the Jews despised and did their best to avoid. The man who came back to give thanks to God was a Samaritan.
And Jesus said, “Were there not ten lepers cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Oh what cutting words those are. “Except this foreigner.”
Tonight if you choose not to come to the Lord’s table, if you choose to sit down in your easy chair or on your sofa and turn on the TV, here’s something to think about when the commercials come on. But as you are sitting there watching TV there’s probably a foreigner somewhere, a Chinese man or woman who believes in Christ, a Christian in Nepal up in the mountains, a black brother in Uganda or South Africa.
There’s probably a foreigner somewhere at that very moment doing what you should be doing, worshiping God, maybe for the second, third or fourth time in the day. And then Jesus concludes his interview with this remarkable Samaritan with striking words. He says, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Now please understand that his faith had taken him from the direction of Jerusalem. He believed the promise of God. But when the miracle occurred he believed that God had done it. And he believed that God had enough dignity and greatness to deserve this thanksgiving.
Make no mistake about it. It was faith that took him to Jerusalem. And it was faith that brought him back to Jesus. Many, many years ago I was in a gathering on Sunday night. I don’t remember where it was but I’ll never forget it. There was a woman in the meeting that night, in the informal gathering, who had been a missionary for many years to the lepers I think it was in India.
She knew that bruce and she said something that night that I had never thought about about this passage. She said, “You know,” she said, “the ten men who headed in the direction of Jerusalem were cleansed of their leprosy. That meant that their leprosy was stopped. That meant they didn’t have the disease of leprosy anymore.
But if they had lost a limb it was still gone. If they were disfigured they were still disfigured. If their skin was full of blotches they were still full of blotches even though the leprosy was gone.” But she said, “When the man came back to give thanks to Jesus, Jesus didn’t just say your faith has cleansed you. He was already cleansed. Jesus said, ‘Your faith has made you well.’”
And with her face shining I remember that woman saying, “If he had lost a limb he had it back again. If he was disfigured in the face he was no longer disfigured. If his skin was covered with blotches they were covered with blotches no more. Your faith has made you well.”
May I say this? If you are a believer in Jesus Christ and have received the free gift of eternal life from Him you are cleansed from spiritual leprosy. But if you are an ungrateful Christian you are still disfigured by the marks of sin. Or to put it another way, the way to live a healthy, sound, fully vital Christian life is by being grateful enough to act on your gratitude toward God.
Who stole your wheels? It wasn’t the devil. It wasn’t your circumstances. It wasn’t your family. There is only one thief on the face of the earth who steals GTGs. His name is ingratitude, just plain down-to-earth garden-variety everyday ingratitude to God and to Jesus Christ our Lord.
The story is told about a little girl five years of age who attended kindergarten. And every day children were dismissed from kindergarten by the singing of the doxology. You know the doxology: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below.”
Well that little girl had her own way of singing the doxology. This is how she sang it: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here we go.”
You know what I wish for every Christian at Victor Street? I wish that they owned a brand new, fully gassed up GTG, gratitude to God. And then I wish that about four or four fifteen every Sunday night every Christian at Victor Street would say, “Praise God all creatures here we go,” to the Lord’s Supper.
The songwriter has given us plenty of gas for our tank, hasn’t he, with his very lovely words? “Thank You, Jesus, for love like that. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus, for grace so free. Oh thank You, Lord, for Thy cross of Calvary, for Thy blood that cleanseth me. Thank You, Jesus, that bowed Thine head. Thank You, Lord.”
Shall we pray? Father, You are worthy and the Lord Jesus Christ Your Son is worthy of all of the praise and gratitude and glory that we can give to You from our hearts. Make us grateful, we pray, in Christ’s name. Amen.