September 28, 2022
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
September 28, 2022
“On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and
Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who
stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master,
have mercy on us. When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show
yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then
one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God
with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him
thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten
cleansed? Where are the nine? Was not one found to return and give
praise (glory) to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise
and go your way, your faith has made you well.”
Luke 17:11-19
One of the words that we recently considered in the Sunday school
hour was the word, Grace. We have been going through the book by Dr.
Packer dealing with different important Bible words. No one would argue
that all of the words that we find in that book, 18 Words are important.
Certainly the word grace is one of the most important words in our
Bible. It is used to define who God is, God is a god of grace. It tells
us about Jesus the law came by way of Moses, but grace through the Lord
Jesus Christ. When we pray we think of the means of grace; prayer is
called the means of grace; we go to the throne of grace.
Another
word that I would put right up there is glory. Grace is a very important
significant Bible word and so is glory. If you look for that word glory
in your Bible you would find it mentioned in almost every book in the
Bible. In the book of Romans twenty some times. We could shape our
prayer by the concept of glory. Remember Moses made that prayer request,
“Show me your glory.” When God manifested himself to Moses, he passed
before him and he had this train of attributes, he showed him his glory.
Every day we see God’s glory in terms of creation. The Bible
says that the world that God has made, the heavens declare the glory of
God. We have good reason to thank God every day; just the fact that we
can see his glory, the glory of his created world.
When it comes
to living the Christian life think of glory. Remember what Paul tells us
in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “We are to eat and drink for the glory of God.”
That is the ultimate reason for our existence. Why did God make us? So
that we could proclaim, that we could be people who broadcast his glory.
We were made to glorify God. We see Jesus here, in this story of the
ten lepers; that is obviously in the upper part of his mind, he is very
concerned about God’s glory.
But even before we come to that
think of the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be your name.” That’s about God’s
glory. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, “Our Lord Jesus is teaching us by
that prayer, the prayer of prayers, that the whole world may come to
know God in this way; and that the whole world would have a burning and
deep desire for the honor and glory of God.”
Coming back to that
Luke 17 passage, that’s the heartbeat of our Lord Jesus Christ. These
ten lepers come to Jesus for healing, he heals all of them, but only one
comes back. Only one came back to thank God or to glorify God. And
Jesus wasn’t very happy was he? Where are the nine? Good question, where
are the nine? Why haven’t they come back to glorify God, except this
one foreigner. You would expect the other nine would have been ones who
would have recognized the need to glorify and honor God.
So when
you think of ourselves, not in terms of the physical so much but the
spiritual, God has healed us from the leprosy of leprosies, sin. That
should give us reason, brethren, to praise and glorify God every day. We
are to glorify God for what he has done, past. We are to glorify God
for what he is doing, present, he continues to work in our life. But we
are also to glorify God for what God will do in the future. Think of the
day of wrath, the final day when Jesus will appear. We are told over
and over again in his glory. Why do we want Jesus to come back again? To
rescue us from this wicked world? That’s legitimate. But if we are
praying the way we should pray in terms of God’s glory. We should be
praying, “Lord, come, come quickly. Because I want men and women, boys
and girls to see your glory.” They will see the glory of the great judge
of all the earth and they will see the glory of the one Savior of the
world.”
How many times do we pray, “Lord Jesus come.” Not just
come, but come quickly. Why? So men, women, boys and girls will see
God’s glory. That will be a manifestation of Jesus’ glory in a way that
no one has ever seen it before.
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