Sunday 1st September 2024. Trinity 14.
Pastor Pete Myers explains Luke 17:11-19.
Does your faith work?
Does your faith work?
Does your faith work?
Have you ever been put off by someone who seemed to be a Christian but then didn’t continue or didn’t behave in a way you expect?
It can be off putting, can’t it, when people claim to have a Christian faith that doesn’t seem to work in their lives …their faith doesn’t seem to change them …their faith doesn’t seem to express itself in their behaviour.
Many conversations I’ve had with friends outside the church… they have struggled when they see Christian faith that doesn’t seem to work.
And what about my faith and your faith? Do we have Christian faith that expresses itself through a Christian life?
Do we have faith that works?
As with everything else, this is not an issue that Jesus was blind to. Jesus also shared this concern. Jesus understands that Christian faith needs to express itself through a Christian life—and if it doesn’t there’s a big problem.
That’s something Jesus addresses in our Gospel passage today. Just look again at verses 17-19:
Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Ten lepers, only one of whom had faith that worked.
Jesus’ love gives and your faith receives
And there are three things Jesus reveals about faith in this story:
- Jesus’ love gives and your faith receives
- Faith perseveres and does good works
- Faith dies when it is replaced by works
Let’s think about the first of those,
Jesus’ love gives and your faith receives
Look again at vv. 11-12:
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
Jesus was travelling to Jerusalem because back in chapter 9 of Luke’s Gospel he had set his face toward Jerusalem.
And what that means is Jesus had made the costly personal decision to work out his faith by embracing a brutal death on the cross.
But, Jesus doesn’t take a direct geographical route to the cross. Luke tells us that Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee which means rather than going due South, he probably first travelled 20 miles inland.
This would have allowed Jesus to reach and preach to as many different groups as possible.
As he heads towards the cross, Jesus in his love is determined to give, so that as many people as possible can receive by faith.
And we see a striking example of faith in vv. 12-13,
he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”
Lepers were people who had absolutely nothing to offer Jesus:
No job
No money
No health
No social life
No skills
No hope
Everyone wants to be needed and valuable and essential and we can crave that from a church.
And while it’s true that Jesus has a ministry for every Christian, he gives us a purpose and a vocation, what these lepers teach us is that he does not need us—we need him.
This is the proper stance of faith to which we approach Jesus every day: Faith recognises that, like these 10 lepers, it receives.
But faith doesn’t just recognise that it receives, faith is confidence in the attitude of the giver.
Yes, faith has nothing, but faith rests in the God who has everything and gives those blessings away freely.
That’s why the lepers, though standing at a distance, were bold enough to lift up their voices.
Faith results in prayer only because faith knows the one we pray to is immeasurably generous and gracious.
And that faith these lepers have in Jesus’ kindness is not misplaced, look at v. 14:
When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.
The lepers were confident that Jesus loved them a confidence not based on anything they could offer him because they had nothing to offer him; a confidence that was proved true.
And so, because they trust Jesus, the lepers started to do what he commanded, they started to fulfil the Law and went to show themselves to the priests.
Now this starting to fulfil the Law has nothing to do with Jesus’ kindness to them.
Did you see that little detail, which is actually huge: as they went they were cleansed.
They were not cleansed after they went. They were not cleansed because they went. They didn’t earn their cleansing, or please God to get their cleansing.
As Jesus says so clearly in v. 19 to the Samaritan: it is his faith that has made him well.
Jesus’ love gives and your faith receives
And we see in this example that faith works: Faith starts to fulfil the Law.
Faith perseveres and does good works
That’s the second thing Jesus reveals about faith in this story: Faith perseveres and does good works
Look again at vv. 15-16:
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.
This leper had trusted Jesus: His faith had recognised his need for Jesus. And his faith had confidence in Jesus’ love for him.
And now seeing that Jesus had blessed him through his faith, the faith of this leper bubbled over into giving Jesus thanks.
And that makes sense doesn’t it? If the leper had confidence in Jesus mercy and grace, despite being able to offer Jesus nothing, then after receiving incredible blessing from Jesus, of course he would recognise that he only had Jesus to thank for it.
It’s a response, an outworking of faith, that Jesus clearly expects will always be present, which is why he says in vv. 17-18:
“Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
Jesus expects that: faith perseveres and does good works of thanks
And Jesus’ apostles,—the men he sent to explain and spread his good news—explain this idea further.
The Apostle Paul says this in Philippians 2:12-13:
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Works are not the reason we were saved. Nor do works become the reason why we continue to be saved. No, works are the way that our salvation expresses itself.
The Apostle Peter explains it like this in 2 Peter 1:10:
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
Faith believes God’s Word, and God’s Word tells us that through faith, we will be transformed and live in repentance. So by faith we believe we will do good works, and from that faith—we do them!
Peter explained in the previous verse that anyone who does not live in repentance has fallen from faith, because (v. 19):
he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
And in our Gospel story today: ten lepers lived as unclean men unable to come near to Jesus. By faith they were all cleansed, but only one of them then behaved like he was cleansed and so came near to Jesus.
Faith dies when it is replaced by works
So Faith perseveres and does good works. What, then, happened to the faith of these nine other lepers? Why did their faith not persevere through good works of thanks?
That’s the final thing Jesus reveals about faith in this story: Faith dies when it is replaced by works
All ten of the lepers were cleansed by faith, but, vv. 17-18:
Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
The sad reality we see on display here is that the faith of some will not persevere. Why? Why do people fall away from the faith? And why did these nine fall away from the faith that cleansed them?
Well there’s clues laced throughout the story:
v. 12 ten lepers, who stood at a distance
v. 14 “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
v. 16 the one who returned: Now he was a Samaritan.
v. 17 Where are the nine?
v. 18 Was no one found… except this foreigner?”
Jesus gives very strong explicit hints at the end of the story with his two questions: Where are the nine? Why was it only a foreigner who returned?
Before they were cleansed, these lepers had no status at all in the Jewish Law. Jesus told them to present themselves to the priests.
But, the priests hated Jesus and did everything they could to undermine his ministry.
And so once the Jewish men appeared to the priests,—no longer as lepers, as outsiders—they now have full legal status and so the priests convince them to remain and not return to Jesus.
The only one to return is the Samaritan, because the priests don’t care about him at all.
And the only thing the priests could have done is persuade these men that they were not healed by their faith in Jesus but by their works in obedience to the Law.
That’s where the nine are: still with the priests.
And that’s why only the Samaritan foreigner returned: because he was the one man the priests couldn’t claim had been healed by obeying the Law of Moses.
Faith dies when it is replaced by works. And that is exactly what has happened to these nine.
Decades later the Apostle Paul will deal with the same kind of problem arising in the church in Galatia, and he will write to them, Galatians 3:3:
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Faith perseveres through good works. But faith did not persevere in these nine, because: Faith dies when it is replaced by works
Does your faith work?
These ten lepers teach us three lessons:
Jesus’ love gives and your faith receives
Faith perseveres and does good works
Faith dies when it is replaced by works
So, let’s consider that question again: Does your faith work?
Do you have trust in Jesus’ love and goodness that perseveres in performing acts of love?
Or are works killing your faith?
Are you standing with the priests convinced that really you’ve done something pretty great
Because, a faith that works is a faith that lasts, a faith that turns to Jesus every day for undeserved mercy and grace, is a faith that returns to Jesus every day and expresses itself in works of thanks.
Because when we have this faith, this confidence in the goodness and kindness of Christ, he turns to us and says:
“Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”