Sermon Central
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An Attitude Of Gratitude
Contributed by Jon Miller on Mar 1, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: This message was preached the week of Thanksgiving and shows how as Christians we can keep an attitude of Gratitude by looking at the lepers that Jesus healed in the gospel of Luke
An Attitude of Gratitude
ILL.- A Sunday School teacher asked her class what they were thankful for. One little boy said, “My glasses.” When asked why he was thankful for his glasses, he said, “Because they keep the boys from fighting me and the girls from kissing me.”
-Today I want to talk to you about having an attitude of Gratitude
-In this passage this morning Jesus came into a village and he was met my ten lepers. Leprosy is a disease mentioned throughout the Bible and is still around today and is also called Hansens disease. Its an infectious disease where you get sores on the skin and it also affects the nervous system so you loose feeling in certain parts of your body.
Under the law in the Old Testament God gave specific commands for those who had leprosy
Lev 13:45 "The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip [fn] and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.'
Lev 13:46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.
If you had leprosy you were to announce it as you walked down the street so that people could get away from you they would shout “Unclean, Unclean” This was all done to stop the spread of the disease
In order to stop the loneliness that came along with leprosy the people who had this disease would all hang out together which is why Jesus encounters 10 lepers walking together in this passage
To help us understand this passage today we also need to know that under the law the priest were the health inspectors which is why Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priest
Lev 14:2 "This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest,
Lev 14:3 and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall look. Then, if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person,
Lev 14:48 "But if the priest comes and looks, and if the disease has not spread in the house after the house was plastered, then the priest shall pronounce the house clean, for the disease is healed.
So Jesus tells these ten lepers go show yourself to the priest. He never told them that they would be healed , and he didn't heal them before they left. They were healed on the way. Which means that all 10 had faith enough to go to the priest they must have believed they would be healed. It is quite possible they had heard about Jesus and his power to heal.
But here is the remarkable thing........vs 15-17
Luk 17:15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice;
Luk 17:16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.
Luk 17:17 Then Jesus answered, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?
Out of 10 only 1 had an attitude of gratitude towards Jesus. They were all healed from a disease that had separated them from their families and society . A disease that made them an outcast and only one came back to give God praise and thanks
The Bible says that God is worthy of our praise and that we are to come to approach him giving thanks
Psa 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psa 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psa 100:4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, [and] into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, [and] bless his name.
Today I want us to see from God's Word how we can have an attitude of gratitude in a world where the giving of thanks is a lost art. I also want us to see that it is Gods will that we be different than the rest of the world, thanksgiving for us is not only one day a year but everyday of our lives, and its more than just words that we say its an attitude of the heart
Counting our Blessings
vs 15 says, “Ten one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back...”
the one who came back stop and realized what just happened to him. To have an attitude of gratitude we must count our blessings
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
