Have Mercy on Us First B Jackson 2023-07-09 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Amen. Can you hear me? Hey, would you stand with me? We're going sing. Let's just start right off the bat. Let's sing Victory in Jesus. Sing it like you mean it if you know it, okay? Here we go. There are couple at the end that you're not going to know. So, emphasize this one if you do, Alright? I heard an old, old story how savior came from glory, how he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me. I heard about his groaning of his precious bloods atoning, then I repented He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew him, and all my love is to him. He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood. I heard about his healing, of his cleansing power revealing, how he made the lame to walk again and caused the blind to see. And then I cried, dear Jesus, come and heal my broken Amen. Thank you, Jude. How about make me a blessing? Hymn number six seventy. I I want to say before, just a little testimony. I am glad to be a part of this church. I'm really, really glad to be a part of this church. And in the the times between the times where we're all here together, there's a lot that goes on. There's a lot of ministry for counseling and there's a lot of ministry that happens where people are broken down and need help. And y'all help them. And it's great to be able to be a channel of blessing. But when I was singing this this morning, I I had a little tear in my eye. I want y'all to share that tear in your eye this morning. Make me a blessing. Alright. Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I have a few announcements. Normal stuff. Monday nights at First B. This is instead of a Wednesday study. If you're here from the South, I know it's supposed to be on Wednesday. I know. But we do it on Mondays instead. It's Monday nights at First B down the hall. Carl is the pastor for that and he's in Mark 14. We're doing expository preaching through different books of the Bible and he's in Mark right now up to Mark 14. Barb is making the meal. Carl and the band will make the music and then the message. He has prepared a message but afterwards, y'all get to have the conversation, right? There's a conversation where you get a chance to ask questions, talk back, share your insight, and be a community of faith having a gospel conversation. So, that's Monday nights at First B, meal, music, and a message every Monday night. The first BBQ. So, the first BBQ is here at First B. It's on the fourth Sunday of the month which is this in this month, it will be the twenty third. So not next week, but next, right out here on the green grass of the East Lawn, we will have the first BBQ, games, food, fun fellowship, meat, cooked on the grills, fun stuff. So that's happening July 23 right out here. And then again in August, we're doing it for the summertime months and we'll see about September. I'm holding out hope that it won't be snowing on the fourth Sunday in September. But anyway, first BBQ is happening. It was a big success last time. We loved it and having a good time. Compass Women's Care. Compass Women's Care formerly was Turning Point. There is a big annual fundraising gala for this. The theme of the night, the annual benefit is Love them Both. Love mother and child. Love them both. 07/11/2023, that's Tuesday. And it will be at the end of High School Road where it hits South Park Loop. Y'all know CBC is off to the right there. The grassy area near the playground is going to be set up with a tent. That's a place for Compass Women's Cares. Love em both annual gala, 05:30 to 07:30. They have three people that have been blessed by the ministry. They're going to speak which ought to be very very good. Signing up for weekly church announcement Emails. You can do that at firstbjackson.org and a lot of other stuff. There's pretty much everything that we have that you can sign up for is at that same website. You can see past services or catch up. If you're not able to be here, you can watch. Kitchen committee. The kitchen committee is forming. Now, minimal commitment. Did you see that? I know what y'all are thinking. I know that anytime you take on a responsibility to church, you feel like you're gonna have to do it for the rest of your life. Minimal commitment. Kitchen committee is foreman. So Nancy T. Is in charge of the kitchen, but she'd like to have some helpers that she knows are steady that would be able to help out sometimes, not all the time, sometimes. So if you want to contact her, 6909. It's Nancy Tirasciano's number. And it's just a committee foreman so we can keep up with that. Now that is stay tuned. Be right back. Preston, you can turn the apparatus back on if you want to. The Wonder of It All. Wait just a second. Is that next? The Wonder of It All. Is that the next one you have, Preston? Yes, it's Moment by Moment. Okay, Moment by Moment is what we're looking for. No slides. Alright. We're gonna sing wonder of it all. Y'all sing whatever comes up on that wall. We're gonna sing off the wall here for just a little bit. Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I'm going invite the ushers to come forward and we'll catch moment by moment, some other moment, alright? And would y'all pray with me? God, I I pray for Andrew and Christina for provision lord but I I'm praying right now that we would be providing. We would give back a portion of what you've given us, lord. All of it is yours and we know that but we give it back in faith knowing that you will advance your gospel. Jesus said, you said that you would build your church and you are doing that. I thank you for every believer that's within, every country on this globe. I pray that each of them would take, your mission, the mission of God, a blessing for every people seriously, and that your kingdom would ever be advancing. Can we be part of it, Lord? Show us how we can be a part of it. Would you give us, the direction and the power to do what it is that you direct? Your will, Lord, done in your way, not ever lacking your supply. In Jesus' name, amen. Jesus so good. Oh, boy. We here we are. I have on in front of me right here on this little stand. This morning, when the first service got here, I was wearing this, and I was kinda keeping my hand in my pocket, shamefully, and in my back pocket or behind my back and shaking people's hands with this. But when I got up here to play the bass, I had this on the whole time. I went to a and I mentioned this a couple weeks ago. All of y'all weren't here a couple weeks ago. That's just the way it is. Right? So I had this thing on, you notice that people don't want to touch you if you've got a glove on. You know, they don't want to touch you. And they wonder, what's going on there? I went to a dermatologist a few weeks ago, and she checked it and said, yeah, that's bad. I said, well, it's been going on for eighteen months. I've been to the doctor twice about it. They've given me this, given me that. I've tried every over the counter everything. And she said, well, here's this, and it'll cure it. No problem. But something that you're doing is aggravating this situation. And it's on this finger, this finger, this finger, not on this one or this one. So something that you're doing is involving those three fingers. And I thought, what would that be? And then that was a Monday morning sitting there. And then I came here Monday evening. Oh, that's what it is. I'm allergic to my bass. And so she's and it's only on this hand that it bothers that the other one I don't play in the same kind of way. So she just said, put this cream on, wear this, do this twice a day for two weeks and then lay off and then do it again. And so as I'm up there, I I've been studying for this sermon. This is this little second passage of chapter 17 is 10 lepers received their healing. And so in my study for this, I went back. Leviticus thirteen and fourteen deal with leprosy. It's over a 100 verses of the Bible deal with leprosy. What we typically think of as leprosy, we call now Hansen's disease. Hansen's disease is a pretty rough condition, but it can be cured these days. It's not something that you can't cure, but it's something that can be cured. Hansen's disease is what we think of, and typically pastors keep that going forward because it's it's good spiritually speaking. If you see like Luke five, when this untouchable leper comes to Jesus and says, just say the word and I can be healed. That passage, when I went over it, I said, one of the things about leprosy is it causes you to lose feeling in the tips of your fingers to begin with, your ear lobes, extremities begin to lose sensitivity and you can't feel pain. You get desensitized to pain stimuli and you can end up burning yourself or cutting yourself or hurting yourself really badly because you just can't feel it anymore. And there are lot of spiritual connections to that and we keep telling that. But if you look to Leviticus thirteen and fourteen, there are lots of conditions that are covered under the term leprosy. Okay? And that's hard. But it's also it says, if you have a skin condition like this, you go to the priest, not the dermatologist sitting in your underwear. Okay? You go to the priest and the priest is the one that looks you over and says, Okay, there's a shiny spot right there. There's a white hair growing out of it. That is definitely leprosy. Okay? But the priest is the one who makes that determination, not a doctor. Luke is writing this, who is a doctor, and he's writing about this. And it's an interesting story. There are 10 lepers that receive their healing and one returns and I believe receives Jesus. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. But leprosy is if you if you pay attention to Leviticus thirteen and fourteen, that will come out. So this is the whole of what we're gonna cover today scripturally. It is Luke seventeen eleven through 19, just these nine verses. It's a pericope. It's just something you can cut around. There's a little bit of wondering why he would have put it at this place in his gospel. So because it starts off like this, while he was on his way, Jesus, while Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem and we know in the book of Luke, you get up to nine fifty one and it says, and he set his face like flint towards Jerusalem and the cross and we know that he's walking towards a voluntary, sacrificial death on the cross for all who would believe. Okay. We know that he has it in mind. It is evident all the way from nine fifty one. There's no turning back. This is he's going towards the cross. So which is kind of an interesting point because he was on his way to Jerusalem. Well, that's where, you know, triumphal entry and the crucifixion, all of that would happen, resurrection, all that would happen. So he's on his way there, but he's passing between Samaria and Galilee. Now we've been in a chronological geographical study for a long time now. And the last time that we saw a point of reference for where he was, he was in this green section over here, Perea. Perea is the area trans Jordan, across the Jordan, where John the Baptist was first ministering. So somewhere in Perea, some people think it was more northerly. Some people think more southerly. When you go on a tour of Israel, there are two or three different sites where they say, this is the place. This is the place. I got to a few people in that place. But if you go from Perea, it looks like he went back up into Galilee and came back down into Samaria. So this passage says he was on his way to Jerusalem, is in the red. And he was in, it says, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. So he's somewhere around there. Blue area is Galilee. Yellow area is Samaria. Most observant Jews would not be passing in between Galilee and Samaria. Most of them would get as quickly as they could out of Samaria anywhere near it, and they would go probably through this area from the Sea Of Galilee down the Jordan River all the way down and then come up at Jericho so they didn't have to walk through Samaria. But we knew Jesus doesn't have that problem. He's done it. In John, we've seen him do it. We've seen him stay for three days in Samaria. We've seen that he says, I must go through there. He is reaching out. No doubt. But just for you map people, that's that. And it says, he entered a village. It does not tell us which village. 10 men with leprosy. If you want the definition of it, like I said, Leviticus 13 will show what the priest had as his journal of American medicine. You know, he had this to go by. But these guys had been declared to have leprosy already. Last time they saw the priest, the priest told them that they had to move out of their homes, away from their families. They had to wear their clothes in a certain way, ripped. Ripped clothing. That's a sign of mourning, but it's also a sign that that guy's leprous. And you can see it from afar off. They had requirements that they were supposed to say out loud, I am unclean, before anybody got close to them. As he entered a village, there were 10 of these people. Now they've been cast out of their families, but the only real family that they had as they're experiencing this living death is being with one another. Right? And passing through Samaria, Galilee, they're outcast. They stood at a distance. And it says they stood at a distance and met him. So there from a distance might be me to Steve Baldock back there. That's the point at which they're supposed to be saying, I'm unclean. Unclean. Is that a terrible feeling? I mean, wearing one glove because I'm allergic to the base is a pretty terrible feeling. Do you remember during COVID if somebody kind of on the plane, it's like everybody took a step back? It's hard. They had to communicate that they were unclean. The priest declared them so. And they had to communicate that to anybody that approached them. And so you get tired of saying that after a while and you start to just congregate with people who are like you. You don't have to say it to them. You know? As he entered the village, 10 men with leprosy who stood at a distance, they met him. And they raised their voices saying, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. I like this. I mean, Jesus is his name, obviously. Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus. But master, have mercy on us. Master is this. So it's a oh, for you grammar nerds, that's up there evocative. We don't do that very often in group, but it's it's a noun of direct address. They called him master, teacher, chief, commander. Properly, it's the legal standing of ownership that's referred to for the master in charge, the one who is fully authorized. The one who is apt ly acknowledged as the leader. And if we pay attention to the New Testament, John one:three says that there's not anything that was made that was not made through him and it all belongs to him. And then Colossians says that he upholds all things by the word of his power. It all belongs to him. So these guys, for all of their physical calamity and relational difficulty, recognized Jesus for who he was. Jesus, master. Now, what did he say? What did they ask for? Have mercy on us. They they didn't specifically call out to be cleansed of leprosy. Do you all remember the story where there's a man that's born blind and his his disciples say, hey, who was who was at fault here? Who sinned? This man or his parents? Because their presupposition was a kind of a sticky religious pre presupposition that you get, if you're good, you get good things. If you're bad, you get bad things. From the South, I know a lot of y'all are too and if you were to say, man, I've had this, this, this, and this happened lately. Well, you must not be living right. That's a sticky kind of primitive religion thing. That's not the way that God feels. Jesus said specifically about the man born blind. It's not. This man or his parents that sin. It's just so that the glory of God may be revealed in him. So, when they say, master, have mercy on us. That implies that they recognize their fallen estate. They recognize their own relational bankruptcy. They recognize their own physical calamity that they in some way deserved it. Because mercy mercy is when you don't get something bad that you do deserve. Okay? Grace is when you get something good that you don't deserve. But mercy is when you do get something bad you don't deserve. So just in them asking for mercy, it's like they're saying, I know we deserve this, but can you have mercy on us? They all raised their voices as one. Unison, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Master, epistata. And when he saw them, appears they saw him first. When he saw them, now where were they? They were still afar off. Stood at a distance. When he saw them, he said to them, all of them, apparently still from a distance. I think that's important too. Y'all go. Plural. Y'all all go. Show yourself to the priests. Priests is plural. And it's it's because I think that he was in this area between Galilee and Samaria. And these guys had found each other and kinda grouped together and they're speaking in one voice for mercy. But the chances of them all being to the same priest and having been declared leprous by the same priest is pretty slim. They come from probably various villages and backgrounds and they're out of their family. They're out of their jobs. They're out. And they found this other group that they can be a part of. It says, y'all go and be showing yourselves to the priest. And as they were going, it says, they were cleansed. As they were going, they listened to his command. They asked for mercy. He gave them a command and they all went and started going for it, doing what they were told. As they were going, they were cleansed as they were going. Now, one of them, one of those Out of 10, when he saw that he had been healed, imagine walking and you've got your ragged clothes and you've got your torn clothes and you can see your sores and blisters. And then as he is going, he's cleansed and he recognizes that he's cleansed. It it's just this guy. At this point, all we're seeing is one of them recognized. As he saw that he had been healed, he turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice. Can you imagine that? I would be too. If I saw that my physical malady had come to the end, I'd be saying, woo hoo. Yeah. Go God. This is wonderful. Finally, I get to go home. It's a loud voice. Glorifying God with a loud voice. Didn't mean to scare you. It says, and he fell on his face at his feet. He fell on his face at Jesus' feet. This is prostrate. He fell prostrate before Jesus, glorifying God in a loud voice. It's a posture of worship and he gave thanks to him and honestly, Jesus is God, right? Giving thanks to Jesus is glorifying God. Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father except through him and those other guys called out for mercy and they were healed of their leprosy as they were going. I don't think that Jesus took that back. I don't think they got leprosy again. But he healed them. But this guy, when he recognized it, was humbled by it, glorifying God comes back, falls on his face, another position of humility. Before Jesus, he comes close to him, fell at his feet. So instead of being afar off and just asking for what he thought he needed, he wanted to be be thankful, present with, close by Jesus. That's good. He fell on his face, at his feet, giving thanks to him, and then Luke adds, and he was a Samaritan. Oh, thank you, Luke. It's not just for everybody who knows their Bible verses from the cradle to on up. It's for outsiders. The reason that there are 1,500 believers in Western Asia right now is because there are 83,000,000 people that don't know him. Missions exist because worship doesn't. God deserves to be glorified among every people, tribe, tongue, and nation. This says he was a Samaritan. Now, last time we heard about Samaritans in Luke's gospel, it was the story of the good Samaritan. When I said a minute ago, what is it that they called out for? They cried out for mercy. If you step away from Luke's gospel and just do a fresh, clean reading of it, you'll see mercy coming up in Mary's Magnificat. When the angel says to Mary, you're going bear this son and it's it's going to be the savior. She says, you've had mercy on me and you're going to have mercy on the the peoples of the world, right? When Zechariah finally recovers his speech after John the Baptist is born, he says, mercy. And then it goes for a while and you don't hear the word mercy, although you see him being merciful. That untouchable leper in chapter five, you see I mean, after chapter four, his sermon where he says he's here. He's here to set the captive free. He's here to heal those who are physically burdened. He's here to proclaim peace. In chapter five, he heals an untouchable man by touching him. That's merciful. He went beyond. Though the man said, if you'll just say the word, I'll be healed. And it says he touched him. That's mercy. Everybody who calls out for mercy in the book of Luke gets it. Everybody. There are not any exceptions. When they called out all 10 of them for mercy, Jesus healed them. When we see the little short man running up a tree to get to see Jesus, he needed mercy. He had sinned and needed mercy and we called out for it. Jesus gave it to him. When we see the guy on the cross next to Jesus say, remember me when you come to your kingdom. He gets it. Mercy is a big component of the book of Luke. If you think back to the last time we heard about Samaritans in the book of Luke, it was a story of the good Samaritan and there was a guy who, oh, he kept the law all the time. He said he did. You know, what is it? He was seeking to justify himself and Jesus tells him the story about the good Samaritan when he asked, who's my neighbor? How far does this extend? Does it my people in my neighborhood? Is it my people in my state? Is it my people in my country? How far does I the neighbors have to be for me to be my neighbor? And he was trying to keep the circle pretty small. And Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan and said, which one of these was the neighbor? And the guy rocked back on his heels and said, well, I guess the one who showed mercy. Oh, who's a Samaritan? So in Luke's gospel, I covered all that right there. But Jesus responded to him and said, were there not 10 cleansed? I read this with a smile on Jesus' face. I don't read a wagging finger into it. He healed them and one of them was thankful and wanted to give glory to God and thanks to Jesus for his cleansing. But I I don't Jesus didn't take it back. He but he when he responded, he says, were there not 10 cleansed? But the other nine, where are they? Again, I said priests. He sent them to their priests. They could have gone in nine different directions to get to their priest. One of them was a Samaritan. His priest wouldn't have even been somebody that most Jews would have recognized as a priest. But Leviticus is one of the first five books of the Bible. The reason they hated the Samaritan so much is because they only accepted the first five books of the Bible, Samaritan, Pentateuch. They didn't have the all the prophets. They were impure, half breathed. They didn't like them. And even then, Samaritan priest would have been the guy to go to for that guy. But when he recognized that he'd been healed, he goes back to Jesus and Jesus says, where were the other ones? Where are they? Was not any one of them found who returned here to give glory to God except for this foreigner? Do you think Jesus said it like a foreigner? No. He came and died for everyone who would ever believe, every tribe, tongue, and nation. Go. Baptize in the teaching. All that I have commanded you. Teach and to obey all that I've commanded you. This right here, I think was for the disciples. The disciples are watching. He sent them out two by two. He sent them out in areas that were not primarily Jewish by this point. And he is showing them. In Decapolis, he showed them. In Tyre and Sidon, he showed them. The Phoenician woman, he's shown them over and over and over again that this is for everyone. We're supposed to be a light to the nations. No one was found except this foreigner to give glory to God. I think that was for the disciples and for us to let down our prejudices. Right? And so he says to him, stand up and go. Jesus says to the one out of 10, stand up and go. Your faith has made you well. Now I've got page after page up here the definition of pistis in Greek. That's all of that. And pistis means faith. It also means faithfulness, trust, belief. All those are components of it. But when he says your faith, you have a certain amount of subjective faith that you have been given by God. It's a part of his faithfulness to humanity. He has given us the ability to place our faith. But it has to be in the faithfulness of God to be saving faith. Are you with me? That makes sense. So stand up and go, your faith, God's faithfulness, has made you well. Faith and faithfulness go hand in hand. I've used it this week, last week, and at a funeral recently that God's faithfulness does not waver. Although we are fickle beings, if you have placed your faith in Christ, there's nothing that can take you out of the hand of God. Nothing, height nor depth, principalities, powers, anything is going to take you out of God's hand because he is faithful. He said to him, stand up and go. Your faith has made you well. The made you well part. You can read this and just say, well, it cured him of leprosy. He's well. But the word there is this, it's tzetzuken. Tzetzuken is the perfect active indicative third person singular of so so. Right, Andrew? We sat right next to each other for four semesters doing this. And it's really been helpful I think. So to, you probably are used to. If you have 10 Greek words memorized, this would be one of them. So to means to save, to heal, to preserve, to rescue. Properly, it is to deliver out of danger and into safety. It's used principally of God rescuing believers from the penalty and power of sin. I love penalty and power. That's good too. Be for sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. It's it's not just salvation but also sanctification. Rescuing believers from the penalty and power of sin and into his provision of safety. That's so so. We get our word savior, soter. The Greek word soter comes from so so. Salvation, soteria. And soterian, that which has been saved, rescued from destruction, brought into divine safety. Do you all have the little ichthus? You know the little Christian fish? You all know what that is? An ichthus. It's a mnemonic device from the first century. When, actually, when people could not meet in certain locations. There we go. Draw that little fish. That's an ichthus. An ichthus, It's Jesus Christ, son of God and savior. Actually, it's theas, hui esteos, but for English speakers it's better. Jesus Christ, son of God and savior, soter. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. They recognized him and stated, your master. And then followed his direction and they were healed. But this guy comes back and he was, I believe, saved by the savior. So, perfect active indicative. Why this matters? A perfect active indicative saying it really did happen. Indicative. Active. It really did happen. But perfect active means it happened at one time in history and it has continuing ramifications all the way into eternity future. Does that make sense? Thank you, Connor. Perfect active, indicative, third person singular. So I'm going to give you a kind of a Ray McDaniel translation here. It's a paraphrase. But he said to the grateful one, having risen, you be going. Now it was y'all be going before because it was 10 different people. But this guy coming back and falling on his face before him, having risen up, you'd be going on your way. Your trust in God's faithfulness has saved you and you can go forward knowing that. Back to your family. Amen. That's all I got. That's the last of the last of the slides, last of verses. I love Jesus but I love how when people reach out to him from afar off asking for mercy, he gives it to him. And when they come closer to him, he keeps on giving. Would you stand with me? We're going to sing have thine own way, lord. Lord God, I'm thankful to be here this morning. I'm thankful to be among a people who call on you as their savior. Lord, I pray that you'd use us that you'd use us, period. And whatever way you see fit, lord, to do your will in your way. Have thine own way, lord. Amen. Amen. For the benediction this morning. It's from Lamentations three. It says, through the Lord's mercies, we're not consumed. He still has work for us. Through the Lord's mercies, we're not consumed because his compassions fail not. They're new every morning and great is your faithfulness, oh Lord. Would you show us, lord, and allow us to show it to others. Amen.