Jesus, Have Pity

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. My name is Mark, one of the pastors here. So glad that you are part of church this morning. And if you're joining us next door in venue, online or through Community Access TV, welcome to you as well. We are so glad that you are part of this.

I invite you to grab your message notes as we continue in our series, Authentic. And I want to begin today right out of the gate by proposing to you that there are three basic motivators in life, three ways to do life that drive us. They are guilt, gratification, and by that I mean self-gratification, and gratitude. Now you may be able to think of other things that motivate us, but let's just focus on these three. Guilt, gratification, and gratitude. Which one best describes you?

Now that's a little bit of a personal question, so I'm going to rephrase that, soften it up a little bit. "Raise your hand for me if..." Don't get ahead of me here. "Raise your hand if it's your desire to be driven by an abiding sense of guilt." You think that would be a great way to live life? All right, don't have any takers there. How about you're just honest enough to say, "Mark, you know what? It's really my bold ambition to make self-gratification the thing that I live for." Any takers on that? A few of you would like to have thought about it.

All right, now the last one, gratitude. Maybe just in terms of an aspiration, you might not say, "I am totally driven by gratitude," but I'd like that to be something that motivates me in the course of life. Let me see your hands for that. Good, all of you that raise your hands, you win the prize. That's the Sunday School answer. You are correct. And there's good reason for that. Because if you want to maximize joy in your life, if you want to be more aware of what God is doing in you and through you and around you, if you want to draw closer to Jesus or be happier, anyone down for simply being happier in life? Okay, it comes down to one word, gratitude.

Last year's Psychology Today ran this article, "Seven Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude." And these types of articles abound. But in this particular case, they pulled together all sorts of different studies and distilled the results down to these seven benefits, which are this: gratitude opens more doors to relationships. I mean, it turns out people like you better when you're grateful; you're more attractive.

Number two, it improves physical health. Grateful people tend to exercise more, take better care of themselves. Third, gratitude improves psychological health, for it increases empathy and reduces aggression. Would you agree our world could use a little bit of that benefit right there? Gratitude improves sleep. Turns out the key to a better night's rest may not be going down and buying a brand new $2,000 bed. Just be more grateful.

Gratitude improves self-esteem. It increases mental strength. I'm all for that. And these are just seven of the many, many benefits of gratitude. Bottom line is this: grateful people live better lives. So I ask you again, what kind of person do you want to be? Driven by guilt, gratification, or gratitude? Because each of these has the power to shape our lives in a very profound way.

Now I want you to hold onto that thought because as we continue in this authentic series and we look at the real prayers of real people, today we're going to look at a very simple prayer that simply goes like this: Jesus, have pity. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, what is pity? You have to do with guilt, gratification, or gratitude. Well, it turns out a whole lot. Because the issue really isn't whether or not God looks upon us with pity. The message of the Bible is anything. It's that God loved the world that He sent His one and only Son that whoever would believe in Him, trust in Him, would not perish but have eternal life. If that's not God taking pity on us, I can't imagine what is.

So again, that's not really the question. The question is how do you and I respond to God taking pity on us? To His grace, to His love, to His mercy? Now if we were to nuance this just a little bit, we might recognize that these three motives, guilt, gratification, and gratitude, they're really all at play in our life all the time. No one is 100% one or the other. But which one has the last say? Which one is more at play in your life? Because whatever it is, again, it will have profound, massive implications.

Let me show you what I'm talking about. Today we're going to be in Luke's Gospel, Chapter 17. So if you have your Bible, you might want to find Luke 17. You can use one of those pew Bibles in the rack in front of you or in some cases beneath you. Look it up on your Bible app or on the notes on screen. No shortage of ways to follow along. We're going to be looking at verses 11 through 19 this morning. And please follow along as I read.

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, 10 men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance, 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, "We're not all 10 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."

Don't you imagine this just a little bit? Luke tells us that Jesus is traveling the border of Samaria and Galilee. And if you know anything about the dynamic in this time, you know that the Samaritans and the Jews, they despised each other. So Jesus is literally walking in this religious and ethnic no man's zone. It's like the demilitarized zone that he's going through. It's not the kind of place that you would choose to live if you could help it.

In fact, when Jesus and his disciples arrived at this village, Luke doesn't even bother to tell us what the name of the village is. It's just a nondescript, dusty little border town. The exact kind of place you would expect to find people living on the margins of society. Fringe people, forgotten people, pitiful people like lepers. Now 10 of them have banded together even though at least one of them is a Samaritan. The presumption from the rest of the stories is that the majority of the others, if not all the others, are Jewish like Jesus. But you know when you're a leper, certain barriers cease to matter. You can't be too choosy about your friends.

Because in addition to the horrible physical effects of this disease, lepers had to quarantine themselves from the rest of society. To totally cut themselves off from everyone who mattered in their lives. Their parents, their spouse, their kids, everyone. So you can imagine the anguish behind their prayer when they say in verse 13, "Jesus, master, have pity on us." And when he hears them, Jesus simply says, "Well go, show yourselves to the priests." Jesus tells them this because the priests were like the health inspectors of that day. If you had leprosy, you would go and the priest, if you had been healed, would inspect you, look you over. And then they had to declare that you were clean before you could re-enter the rest of society.

But when Jesus tells these 10 lepers to do this, you can imagine that they're thinking to themselves, "Well, Jesus, I think you missed a step. You know the healing part? That would be nice." And yet Jesus is obviously calling them to faith, to trust him. And so having really no other option, they get up and they go. And that's when it happens. The skin that's been covered with lesions and knobby sores and fingers that have been deformed and faces that have been covered and hidden, suddenly they're healed. They're clean. They can hardly believe it. And they start to laugh and they start to hug and they're high-fiving each other. It's amazing. It's a miracle.

And now walking to find the priest will no longer do. Now they are running because any priest would do. Find the priest, become declared clean, and then you go home. You hug your kids. You kiss your wife. You feel the warmth and the intimacy of your own bed. Can you imagine the thrill that these men are feeling as they run to find the nearest priest except one? He's turned back, muttering something about finding Jesus. What in the world is he thinking? What does he get that the other nine do not? Because that is at the heart of this story.

Now if you're like me and you read this story, your response is, "Well, I want to be like the one guy, right? He's the hero." So moral of the story is be like the one guy. But it's not that simple, is it? Because again, I want to be like the one leper. But most of the time, I'm like the other nine. And I imagine I'm not alone in that. So let's unpack this a little bit. I turned to page two of your notes if you haven't already. This morning, I want to give you three aspects to this story. And it comes in the way of a very simple outline. So I just want to give you a simple way of framing this story.

And then as we go through, we're going to try to tease out some of the deeper implications in how it applies to our own lives. But let's start with the very first aspect. And we've already seen this. This is obvious. But number one, 10 called out, one came back, right? Now why is this? Because they all prayed the same prayer. Jesus looked upon all 10 of them with pity equally. And yet when 10 called out, only one comes back. And it's not like the other nine are a bunch of jerks. I mean, can you really blame them for wanting to get back to all the good things they used to have in their life, just to get back with their loved ones? You can't blame them for that.

And yet one of them responded just that much better than the others. One had just that much more gratitude. And it makes a profound difference. Now maybe this man had an advantage because he was a Samaritan. And being a Samaritan, he knew what it would be like to be an outsider among the Jews even before he was a leper. And so perhaps that gives him an advantage. He doesn't expect as much. In fact, if you were to ask the other nine, what's worse than being a leper? They'd say, that's easy, being a Samaritan leper. They look down at the Samaritans because 700 years before this man was born, the Israelites that were living in northern Palestine, the Assyrian Empire comes and conquers them.

It drags many of them back to Assyria, but eventually they repopulate northern Palestine with some of the captives and other peoples that they've conquered. And these people intermarry. The Judaism that the northern Israelites once knew, they kind of morph with these other religions. They just look at them with disgust. And when Jesus, a Jew, touches him and heals him, it affects him on a deeper level because from his lower status comes greater appreciation. And this is where the rub lies for most of us. These look around Twin Lakes Church, we're blessed. You may not feel blessed, but we are blessed. We live in paradise. We live a level of comfort that no other people in history have ever enjoyed.

You live better than most kings and queens and royalties that have ever lived on this earth. And if you are just, God has showered goodness and blessing upon us to the extent that we can become all too accustomed to it. Just take it for granted. And perhaps these nine, they felt just a little bit more entitled because of their heritage. Possibility. Let me give you a parallel. Two weeks ago I was up at a place called Cannon Beach Conference Center. It's up on the northern coast of Oregon and it's been a blessing over the last decade or so to be invited to speak there. And this time it was really cool because I went with my 11-year-old daughter, just the two of us. She ran the computer for me during the messages and it was that, that in and of itself was awesome.

But people come to this conference center from Oregon, from Washington, even as far away as Canada. Not to hear me speak, to be clear. They come because they want to go to the beach. It's a beautiful, beautiful coastline. And I've become friends with some of these folks over the years. One family in particular, they drive all the way from Edmonton, Alberta. It's a 19-hour drive. Clear on that. And the thing you need to know about this area when you think of a beach, it's not a tropical beach. Most of the time it resembles what we've seen a lot of this summer in Santa Cruz. A lot of gray sky, a lot of fog, a lot of cool misty days.

And so when the sun comes out in Cannon Beach, man, people hit it in earnest. And especially the Canadians. I mean, they are on it. They are out there soaking up every little bit of sunshine they can because, hey man, they're making up for living in the great white north. It's like they have a lot of cold days and it's just like, ah, drink it in. Now am I out there with them? Not really. In part because of my complexion. Of course, we've got sunscreen for all that. The real reason is because I grew up in Santa Cruz. And this summer notwithstanding, sunny days at the beach are not hard to come by. I mean, you live by it all the time. How often do you actually enjoy it? Because it's just always there.

And so, you know, I just don't appreciate a sunny day at the beach like my friends in Canada do. And again, I think that same dynamic is at play with these lepers. I know this much to be true. People who do not say thank you quickly often do not say it at all. You found that to be true in your own life? People who do not say thank you quickly often do not say it at all. You just get distracted. Maybe these other nine, they had the best of intentions, but their gratitude just quickly waned and they moved on to other things.

Allow me to just suggest this morning that if the words thank you rarely pass your lips, either an expression to the Lord or to other people, can I just humbly suggest that you might want to begin with this little simple prayer, Jesus have pity. Have pity on me, Lord, for not recognizing the abundance of blessings that you have provided for me in my life. Oh, Lord, I don't want to be just the person who calls out. I want to be the person that comes back and thanks you.

One aspect to this story is this: ten obeyed, one worshiped. Now would you agree with me? You know, it's one thing to obey out of sense of duty or obligation. It's another thing to obey out of gratitude, out of just this sense of deep-seated appreciation because duty will motivate you to obey, but gratitude will inspire you.

Let me give you an example from just the news this week. There's a man who works at Applebee's outside of Dallas, Texas. His name is Casey Simmons. And two weeks ago, Casey was on his way to work, but he thought, "I got to stop at the grocery store, pick up a couple items." And so when he gets there, he notices along with other customers that there's a woman who's clearly despondent. She's tearing up. She's crying. Casey decides to initiate conversation with her, just to try to cheer up and see how she's doing, let her know that somebody cares.

And they exchange some information. He talks to her about where he works, and she does not tell him that it's the third anniversary of her husband's death. She just tries to keep a stiff upper lip. But Casey's still moved with compassion for this woman that he says, "Okay, you know what here? You're buying your groceries today. Would that be okay?" He insists. And the bill is $17. So then she goes home, she gets on the phone, she calls her daughter, and she says, "I just met the most delightful young man. He was so kind. Not only did he talk with me, but he insisted he pay for my groceries. And he's a waiter at Applebee's. He's probably not a wealthy guy, but can you believe that that's what he did?"

And this woman's daughter now, she is so deeply moved. She is so grateful that she jumps into her car, drives down to that same Applebee's, asks to be seated in Casey's section. And when he gives her the menu, she orders the cheapest thing she can find: flavored water. A little while later, Casey comes back, brings her the bill. It's 37 cents. The tip, however, $500. Yeah, whoa. And along with that, she writes this on a napkin. She says, "On one of the most depressing days of the year, you made my mother's day wonderful. You insisted on paying. You told her she's a very beautiful woman. I have not seen this woman smile this much since dad died."

What a great, inspiring story. But I want you to think about it through the grid of these three motivations. If she's driven by guilt, what does she do? Does she go back to the Applebee's? Well, probably, because, you know, can't be beholden to someone. So she pays him at least $17, maybe even $20. If she's driven by self-gratification, does she even show up? Probably not. She's up doing whatever makes her happy. But if she's driven by gratitude, which she was, what do you do? You might even leave a $500 tip. Because generosity is lavish. It doesn't think in terms of, "Oh, I have to do this." It thinks in terms of, "I want to do this." And this is the same attitude this leper comes back with.

When he finds Jesus, he is not stingy with his praise. It says in verse 15 that he was praising God in what? Let me hear you, church. A loud voice. Where did we hear that before? At the beginning, when they cried out to Jesus. And so the passion behind his praise is equal to the passion of his plea. And if you know anything about your own prayer life, you know that that's special. Because it's very easy to say, "Oh, Lord, hear me now. Help. Do I have your attention, God? Because I really need you." And then when he answers those prayers, maybe not in the ways that we expect, but he answers those prayers. We know our prayer has been heard. Are we still as passionate when it comes to thanking him? Or is it kind of like, "Nicely done, God. I'll get back to you when I need something else."

This man's passion to praise God, it was obedience and love and adoration all coming together. Don't miss that detail of how he comes back. Because they all obey. They all obey. But he worshiped. And before we get onto this third aspect, if you're paying attention closely, you might be thinking to yourself, "Wait a minute. Time out, Mark." Because technically, only nine of them obey. Nine went and did what Jesus told them to do, right? Go show themselves to the priest. One, he just freelances it, right? He's like, "Well, I'm just going to go back and love on Jesus."

Well, let me respond to that in this way. First of all, I don't want you to change your outline and scratch out 10 there and put nine. There's nothing to suggest that this man didn't intend to go show himself to the priest after he talked with Jesus. He could have just as easily had that motive, but he makes sure that he does the most important thing first. And he goes and thanks him. And the other thing is this, and this is what's so beautiful about it, is that after praising God for what he's done and thanking Jesus, which is the essence of worship, by the way, praising God for what he's done for us through Jesus, after he does that, do you think this guy really has further need for some ordinary priest? I mean, he's bowing at the feet of the ultimate priest. He's worshiping the high priest of heaven, the only one who can actually truly declare us clean. Does he need to go off and find some dude in an outfit and say, "Hey, can you just validate what Jesus said?" Really?

That's why Jesus says in verse 19, "Rise and go. Your faith has made you well." Again, they all followed the rules, but he ended up with so much more. In fact, that phrase made well in the original Greek that this was written in, it's just one word. It's the word sotso. And that word can mean to be rescued or healed or saved. In fact, we get our word saved from sotso. And so literally he's saying, "Rise and go. Your faith has saved you." There's this deep abiding healing where he's made well, he's made whole, he is saved. And it is something that is said only of him.

Out of this well of humility came gratitude that expressed itself in faith and praise and action, and it made a massive difference. Third aspect of this story is this: ten were cleansed. One was changed. They all got what they asked for, but one was changed. And here's the thing, God can take pity on us in a million different ways. In fact, he has because let's face it, you wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be here if God had not already taken pity on us in more ways than we are even aware of. He can shower his blessings upon us, he can answer every prayer in the affirmative, but if it does not change us, then to what end?

If you're just driven by guilt all the time, you won't even be able to enjoy his blessings. It'd be like, "Oh, I don't deserve that." For self-gratification, you will drown in your own selfishness because of all the goodness that's available to you. But boy, you show me a changed heart, I'll show you a grateful heart every time. Now again, you can agree with me, you can affirm that, "Yeah, it's a great thing to be a grateful person. I want to be a more grateful person." The problem is only Jesus can change our hearts. And when he does, that's where the wellspring of deep gratitude flows from.

In fact, the big idea behind this entire story is this: 10 got the gift, one got the giver. That was so much better. You want to truly enjoy all that God has for you in this life. In fact, you want to make the most of this one life that God has given you. Do not let the gifts which are in abundance around us distract you from seeking the giver. Make it your prayer to... What it says here in Psalm 118:21, where it says, "I will give you thanks for you answered me. You have become my salvation." That's this guy's story in a nutshell. I will give you thanks because you answered me. You have become my salvation. Is that your story?

If it is, is there any limit to the praise and the thanks that you can offer God because of that? Will we ever really run out of reasons to thank Him for the forgiveness and the redemption and the hope and the purpose and the future, the everlasting life that we have in God through Jesus Christ who has become our salvation? If you could say that, you may have many other things going on in your life that are difficult, but that will be true of you forever. He is your salvation. All of those things that are vexing you will pass, but this will always be true.

If it's not your story today, then I invite you to think about that. I'm going to give you, in fact, an opportunity to respond to the way that the Lord has looked upon you with pity and bestowed His grace and love and mercy upon you. I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond to that in just a moment when we go to prayer. Before we do, I want to close with this story. As I look back on my college years, I'm convinced that the Lord, among many other things, was trying to impress a greater sense of gratitude into my heart. I know that's a shocker that a college-age male would need to learn gratitude, but I did.

He surrounded me by people who reflected gratitude in so many ways, and the lessons of their lives keep coming back to me. Among those people were folks that I worked with at a residential care facility for people with severe developmental disabilities. When I say severe, I encountered people in this facility who had levels of congenital birth disorder that I did not know existed. These are folks that you are not going to see in normal society. I mean, talk about, "Lord, Jesus, have pity." Some of them I can still see their faces, and they would live in a bed, immobile, unable to speak, unable to interact, unable to get out for their entire life.

And yet, they would laugh, they would smile, they would thank people like me for just even the most basic of human kindnesses. And so if I was ever to walk into that place, which I did on occasion, feeling sorry for myself because, "Oh, I'm a poor college student. You know, I haven't eaten another frozen burrito or top ramen, and I got a test coming up on Friday, and I'm so stressed." If I was ever tempted to do that, which I was, I would be met with the silent rebuke of people who had real problems.

One of the people who just changed my life, a man named Tom. Tom was a 60-year-old man, yet Tom had this very childlike way about him. Tom was more like talking to a five-year-old boy in a man's body. And the thing you need to know about Tom is that Tom was enthusiastic about everything, everything. And so I would drive up for work and pull into the parking lot, and invariably Tom would be there because he had mobility, and he appointed himself as the doorman of this place.

And we pretty much have the same conversation every single time because I would pull up, I get out of my car, and no sooner do I step onto the pavement, Tom says, "Hi, Mark! How are you?" I said, "Oh, hi, Tom. I'm doing fine." "That's great, Mark! That's great! How are you doing, Tom?" "Oh, Mark! I am so great! I am great, Mark! I'm great!" Then he'd look at my old beat-up Toyota Land Cruiser, and he'd say, "Mark! Is that your car?" "Yeah, Tom, that's my car." "Wow, Mark! That a great car, Mark!" Now I can assure you it did not always run like a great car.

But if I was able to pull up to the parking lot, that was a great car for Tom. And this is where he would get me. He'd point up to the college campus, which you could see from that same parking lot, and he'd say, "Hey, Mark! That your school?" I'd say, "Yes, Tom. That's my school," knowing he would never go to that same college campus. But he'd just go, "Wow, Mark! That a great school! That a great school, Mark!" Now I'm pretty confident that no one has ever asked my friend Tom to preach in their church. But you know what? It doesn't matter, because his entire life is a sermon, a sermon of praise and gratitude.

So let me just ask you this as we wrap up. In fact, you ask yourself this. This question. What can I praise God for? Right now in your life, and I know there are things in your life that you're not happy about, and I don't mean to diminish that, but what's right? What's good? Where is God being faithful to you? What do you have right now? Maybe who do you have right now sitting next to you that you can praise God for? Just the fact that we are here. There are folks that are part of this congregation. They couldn't be here today, not because they elected not to be, because they physically couldn't be. We call them shut-ins. But we're here. We're blessed.

What can you praise God for today? I can assure you of this. If you're having a hard time thinking of things, my friend Tom could happily come beside you and tell you all the great things that God is doing in your life. Let's reflect upon these things as we go to prayer. Would you bow your heads?

Precious Heavenly Father, we just want to start out by saying, "Lord, have pity on us," because so often we fixate on our problems, and it's at the expense of being mindful of what you've done in our lives, in the many, many ways that you have blessed us. And so, Lord, we just want to take this opportunity to thank you and praise you for your good gifts, for the ability to be here today, to have fellowship, to perhaps be with a family member or a friend. We don't want to take anything for granted this morning.

So Lord, ultimately, that type of gratitude doesn't come because we will ourselves into it. We can desire it, but it's really when you change our hearts and out of that, the well springs of joy and gratitude flow. And so, Lord, if you've done that in our lives and you've done that in the lives of most people here, we thank you for that. We praise you for that. You have become our salvation. But if there's anyone here that you feel either spiritually or relationally like a leper, you feel outside of the community of faith, or you feel estranged from people that mean everything to you, then I invite you to make the prayer of gratitude and welcome your prayer that you would simply say, there's no magic words here, but the desire of your heart is to simply say, "Lord Jesus, have pity on me, a sinner, someone who is lost and in need."

And Lord Jesus, I pray that you would come into my life. I thank you that you live the life I could never live and you died the death that I deserve by your stripes. And now, Lord, you are resurrected, which is the assurance that that I will be to someday. And you may not understand it all, but as much as you do, you simply say, yes. And as you do, let your next words be words of thanks and praise.

Oh God, we thank you so much for this day. We want to bless you with our entire soul and forget none of your benefits. And so help us to do that even in these moments that proceed even throughout the days of this week and for the rest of our lives. May our lips abound with words of praise. It is in the matchless name of Jesus Christ. I pray these things and all God's people said, Amen.