Sermon Tone Analysis

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Anger
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Anger
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How do we summarize the last seven years together here at Horizon Church?
Where do we even begin?
We have gathered here together on Sunday morning for worship 371 times.
Over these years we have celebrated new Christians coming to faith with nine baptisms and four professions of faith.
We have also gathered for nine funerals for saints who have gone on before us to glory.
We have started new ministries in the last seven years: Men’s Life, Women’s Bible study, small groups, weekly youth group, and children’s ministries.
But these are all just statistics.
They don’t really tell the hundreds of stories of real life and real relationships behind the numbers.
Together, we have journeyed in faith as disciples of Jesus.
And many of us will attest that sanctification is a bumpy road.
We have celebrated the joys of family and friends.
And we have also held one another up through struggles of pain and hardships.
Every single person here has stories to tell.
So how do we summarize all this?
There may be many themes that weave through these years.
But today I want to pick just one for us to focus upon.
And it is a theme that also gives us a proper response.
Gratitude.
This is Thanksgiving weekend after all.
It seems appropriate, then, that we take a few moments today and consider how gratitude is a perfect response to God’s grace and faithfulness to his church and his people.
Take a look with me at a story in the Bible that speaks about a response of gratitude.
As Jesus is making his way from one town to another, he comes along this settlement of lepers who live in isolation.
The Old Testament law required that people who had certain diseases should not be in contact with the community.
Leprosy is commonly mentioned in the Bible.
Scholars think it is likely that leprosy was sort of a category for a number of diseases that showed symptoms of skin rashes and sores.
Since some diseases such as this were known to be contagious, those who suffered any kind of disease like this were branded as lepers and quarantined to a separate community.
As a result, lepers would group together in communities of outcasts.
It is this type of community we see in this story.
Luke tells us there are ten men with leprosy who call out to Jesus from a distance.
They knew that they were outcasts and that they were not allowed to be in close contact with other people.
This is why they don’t come near.
Rather, they call out from a distance.
Look at what is happening here.
These men see themselves as outcasts who have been thrown away by society.
And they also see themselves as outcasts who are separated from God.
They cannot get near to either.
It’s kind of curious what Jesus does here.
You see, I would have guessed here that because Jesus is the kind of guy who is always demonstrating grace by drawing close to those who need God’s healing and presence the most, it would have seemed obvious to me that Jesus would have called them over.
Or maybe Jesus would have walked right up to them.
Sure, it would have broken the customs of the social norm for those with leprosy to remain isolated, but Jesus was all about breaking through the barriers of social norms that isolated people from one another.
But in this instance, Jesus does something different.
He gives them a simple instruction.
Go see the priest.
Again, a word of explanation.
For those with leprosy who were considered unclean according to the Jewish law, the only way to remove that label—that stigma—and be declared clean again was to have it affirmed by the priest.
This, again, was not all that uncommon.
There were examples of people who had various skin diseases branded as leprosy which would eventually heal and clear up.
So the instruction of Jesus to go see the priest was something these men knew about.
They knew what it meant.
But Jesus himself never comes into contact with any of these men.
Jesus remains at a distance.
So this story illustrates something a little bit different with what Jesus is doing here.
First of all, notice this: they still have leprosy when Jesus tells them to go see the priest.
Luke tells us that they are healed as they go.
I won’t speculate too much on how this took place.
All that is significant in this story for us is that the actual healing took place somewhere after these men had spoken with Jesus.
They had already left.
That’s only an important detail for us because it means that it was a conscious decision for the one to turn around and go back to find Jesus again in order to express his gratitude.
The other thing this story illustrates is the affirmation Jesus gives to the one who returned.
Maybe our inclination is to immediately look down on the other nine men for failing to do the right thing—that’s kind of what the story leads us to believe.
But try for a moment to put yourself into their shoes.
Imagine that you were banished from everything that you know.
Imagine that you were exiled from your family and friends.
There are no cell phones.
No instagram.
No snapchat.
You’re completely cut off from all contact with everything and everyone you have ever known.
And you know that the only way to ever get that back is by one thing: you must be declared clean by the local priest.
Once the priest does that, you are free to go and return to your old life.
And this is exactly what Jesus told these men to go and do!
Imagine it.
Put yourself in their place.
I don’t know about you, but I think I would be incredibly excited to go and see my family and hug my loved ones.
In fact, I would probably be longing and dreaming for this one thing every single day and night of my exile.
I can’t really blame these men for rushing with a one-track-mind to get to the priest and then to get back to all their dear loved ones.
I admit that I probably would have done the exact same thing.
So let’s admit today—each one of us—that we would have done the exact same thing as those other nine lepers if it were us.
Be honest about that.
I know I would have.
The one who returns to Jesus, then, is not the one who behaves according to the expected normal pattern.
By returning to Jesus, he does the unexpected.
His behavior is unusual.
And—technically—he’s breaking the rules.
Step one before he is allowed to be near anyone else must be the declaration from the local priest that he is now clean.
That’s the law.
And remember, that’s also exactly what Jesus told these guys to go and do.
It seems that the expected response from Jesus should have been some kind of rebuke.
“I told you to go to the priest.
Why aren’t you with the other nine?”
But instead Jesus does the unexpected in affirming the unexpected behavior of this one man, and calling out the other nine for not doing the same.
There is something unique about the way in which this one Individual expresses gratitude that is worth our attention.
His gratitude to God is the first-and-foremost priority.
Expressing thanks and praise to Jesus comes as the very first activity for this guy.
And I think in our own honest assessment of where we might fit in this story if it were us, we are faced with the confession that we do not embrace and express our gratitude to God like that.
It’s much more likely that we would be like the other nine guys.
It’s more probable that I would make a note to drop a thank-you card to Jesus in the mail sometime over the next few weeks.
I would set myself a reminder to schedule a coffee with Jesus when it became convenient.
I admit that I have something valuable to learn from this story about thanksgiving to God.
So this morning let’s take a few moments here to reflect upon the important and essential practice of Christian gratitude.
Our thanksgiving to God is a thankfulness that is more than a feeling.
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