Standing In The Circle Of Need

Introduction

I know almost all of you deal with this. We show up here on Sunday morning with hearts ready to serve the Lord to give him the praise that he is due. But so many things have happened through the week. And your experience is different than mine. And so there are distractions. There’s perhaps a sense of disconnection that takes place. And we might even struggle to focus like we want to. So you got to work at it a little bit. I want to say some things this morning that are designed to help us to stay centered, focused, and enthused about what we do in this place, and about how we are instructed to live in the world. Just a few introductory thoughts. Number one, serving God is an awesome privilege.

It’s not a duty. Oh, we should be dutiful for sure for what God has done. But we should see it even more as an awesome privilege to be able to magnify our God, not just in an assembly like this, but in the way we go about living our lives. May He be magnified in what we do, how we think, how we live. And right behind that, I would remind you, this should help us stay focused and centered and enthused. Christians, unlike any others, make a real and great difference in our world. A lasting difference. We shine as lights in a dark world as we hold fast the word of life and share that word with others. We live in the midst of terrible darkness. And as we walk out the doors of this place, we are to be light bringers to a dark world.

How are we making a difference in the world? Let me just talk about your prayers. Praying for all men, according to 1 Timothy chapter 2. Prayers for his people. That’s one way. We give hope to the hopeless. We assist the downtrodden. Christians make a difference in our world. But admittedly, it is not always easy in the chaos of 21st century culture. So I want to take you to a story that might help us even more to stay centered, focused, and enthused. At first, it may appear to you to be a familiar story that you’ve heard many times. But let’s read it together and make some observations. And it came about while he was on the way to Jerusalem, Luke 17 and verse 11, that he was passing between Samaria and Galilee.

And as he entered a certain village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance, met him. And they raised their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourself to the priests. And it came about that as they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine. Where are they? Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God except this foreigner. And he said to him, Rise and go your way.

1. Standing In The Circle Of Need

Your faith has made you well. The wonderful thing about this story here at the outset this morning. A wonderful thing about this story is that there is room for every one of us to fit inside. This is not Jesus and an individual, but a group of ten who are all huddled together because of a common problem. And possessing a common need.

They all need the same thing. And from a distance, as they approached Jesus, they proclaimed loudly, Jesus, have mercy. Master have mercy on us. Feel the desperation in their voices, the complete hopelessness of their situation. Leprosy. A most dreaded disease. Incurable. Perhaps worse even than say HIV, in terms of the social rejection, isolation, and helplessness of their condition. These ten were standing in the circle of need. Who were these individuals? Who were the occupants of this circle? And I think we can tell from how the story unfolds that it really didn’t matter who the other occupants were in the circle. That’s one thing about leprosy, one author said. When the doctor diagnoses you as a leper, you lose all your old memberships. In Jesus’ time, a leper couldn’t stay where he or she used to belong.

2. Every Sinner Stands In The Circle Of Need

No more family, no more job, no more club meetings. They were required to leave their place, their positions, all their relationships, and wander on the outside of things. Lepers in the gospel stand for all who have lost their identities, their smug place in the world, their illusions of being in, and have found themselves in the much simpler membership, in the fellowship of pain, which is not very exclusive company. Old divisions don’t matter anymore. Only the common problem and the common need. Jew, Samaritan, black, white, male, female, rich, poor, slave-free, whatever. They all stand in the circle together and cry for help. You just shouldn’t mind too much who you stand next to when you’re asking for help. Now here’s the thing about the circle. Every sinner stands in the circle of need.

That is certainly an application that we need to draw from this story. The passage that is familiar to us all for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our leprosy, your leprosy is no better than anyone else’s. Here we sit together in the circle as sinners. And I can’t say, well, my leprosy isn’t as bad as yours. Or your leprosy isn’t as bad as mine. We’re all standing in the circle together saying, Master, have mercy on us. As I mentioned, leprosy was an awful disease. It was rotting skin on living humans. Sin is worse. It’s just not visibly manifest to us. And while you’ve heard that before, I’m sure, somebody who said, sin is like leprosy that Jesus healed an incurable disease on a person.

And while we’ve seen that comparison before, I still think we struggle with the concept that sin on our account before God makes us in a worse condition than the occupants of this circle. The circle of need that we stand in when sin is on our account is worse than this story. The worst kinds of sin are rolled out in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Well, at least as we see sin. All sin is abhorrent to a holy God. Did you hear what I just said? In terms of the results, the little white lie is no different than the practice of homosexuality. The practice of the one or the other causes us to be lost before God and in need of his mercy. And so as Paul talks about some of the worst kinds of sins, as we would call them in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, including homosexuality and adultery, murderers, drunkards, he says what?

3. We Can Forget Where We Came From

To the church at Corinth. And such were some of you. But you were washed. You were cleansed. You were justified. But something not so good can happen to us when we ultimately respond in the circle of our need and then enter the circle of the saved. We can forget where we came from. Peter addresses that in 2 Peter chapter 1. Having forgotten the purification of our former sins, we can leave off in the pursuit of building upon our faith and being fruitful in the vineyard of our Lord. We need to make certain about his calling and choosing of us. That is, not that we can merit eternal salvation by our goodness, but we need to be demonstrating in our lives that we have entered the circle of the saved, and that we are so honoring Jesus by the way that we live.

And if we will stay that course, if we will supply those virtues to our faith, then a way into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to us. I love that. Second Peter chapter 1 and verse 11. But in the meantime, we must not develop poor attitudes toward those who are yet outside this square or circle. And we must certainly not develop poor attitudes toward other people in the circle of need. Considering ourselves somehow better than them because we are now healed. Please understand your role in this story. Well, something else happens here. Master, have mercy on us. What a shocking reply.

4. Go And Show Yourself To The Priest

No, you go to the priest after you’ve been cleansed to get your certificate, I guess. That all is well and you can enter and resume your normal life. But he says, Go and show yourself to the priest. Here’s an interesting thing. When Jesus gives them instruction and a command, there’s no quibbling about what he has instructed them to do. There is no complaining. What do you mean go? There isn’t any resistance. Commandment given. Amazing and gracious healing, the result. One surmise, perhaps the need for healing is best answered, not with soft words, but with the hearing and obeying of a new commandment. Jesus commands them to act as if they had been cured. This reminds me a lot of the story of Naaman the Syrian, who was told to go like they were, and washed seven times.

And in the process of all of that, he was cleansed. And in the process of their going to show themselves to the priest, suddenly they are cleansed. Jesus appeals to faith, honoring them with a partnership in their healing. God’s law is really his gracious insistence that we take part in the steps that lead us to getting well. Sure, Jesus healed instantaneously at times, right on the spot. Sometimes, however, he fixed things by a process that involved the participants who were receiving the fix. Sometimes fixing things is a process. Real transformations are often the result of a progression. Sometimes between a word that we hear and our destination. At baptism, heeding his command, our sin problem is fixed. But there is yet more to learn about that transformation and about the walk to which he calls us.

I repent, it’s just the beginning of the process. So often when people come to Christ, they think it’s going to be a smooth ride from there on out. It’s just going to be walks through the tulips all the way to eternal salvation. There’s never going to be any obstacles or difficulties. When Jesus tells us to go, that’s just the beginning of the journey. I repent is just the start. There will be other things that you will learn, other obstacles that you will encounter where you will again have to say, nope, not going that way. I’m going with the Lord. As one said, the word of God sends us on the path where healing will overtake us if we go. Okay. Jesus sends them. Imagine what happens when the healing happens on the way.

5. One Returns To Give Thanks

I don’t know if they did that or not. They probably didn’t know what a fist pump was. But I guarantee you were excited. Yes. This is amazing. As they headed down the highway to a brand new life. Going meant salvation by grace. And they accelerate to the priest we go. Except for what? One of the ten lepers returns to give thanks to Jesus. Suddenly he’s in no hurry to go see the priest. He’s got something else on his mind. He turns and he runs back to Jesus, praising God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And he probably didn’t need the manuscript for it. Everyone else. They keep running eager to be certified and have all their memberships reinstated. But not this guy. Because you see, he had one stigma removed, his leprosy, but he still had to live with that other stigma.

He was a Samaritan. The stigma of race. But he knows he’s already been given all that really matters. It’s time to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Or as another said, it’s time to give beauty back to God. You get it, right?

That’s why we’re here today. We’ve done it a million times before. But if not for Jesus, we’d still have leprosy. We’d still be the outcast that no one wants to touch. But worse. So we have come to this place today to say thank you, thank you, thank you, and to give beauty back to God. That’s the way we need to see our lives. And if we see our lives like that, we might just stay focused, centered, and enthused.

6. The Key To It All Is Gratitude

Who love much. And I’m not sure, I’m not sure the point of that is you’ve been forgiven fifty sins versus three hundred. Or if it’s more about understanding how bankrupt we really were without Jesus. Until we find ourselves here, we will not find ourselves whole. The key to it all is gratitude. It is the key to a worthy response to God. As we have received Christ, so walk in him, hearts overflowing with gratitude, Paul says in Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. And when our service to the Lord becomes stagnant, when we find ourselves just going through the motions, when we can’t have any zest or enthusiasm in it, when we get tired of fighting the good fight of faith and being that light in the world, I’ll tell you we’ve got a problem, and it’s a gratitude problem.

I was preaching this past week in Danville, Indiana, the preacher there. I’ve known of him for a long time. I’ve actually had breakfast with him on one other occasion. His name is J.R. Bronger. He’s now retired. You may have seen him on my Facebook page. And that picture of us wearing some really snazzy jackets. J.R. Now I tell you, that guy’s character. He was so much. I told him I have never laughed so much in a meeting as the time I spent with J.R. Bronger. But the first thing that impresses me about J.R. Bronger is that he’s the closest thing to Robert Jackson, who’s still living among us. And if you knew Robert Jackson in the past and you spend time with J.R. Bronger, you said, but those guys are two peas in a pod.

Conclusion

They look alike, they talk alike, they preach alike. I mean, and they knew each other. J.R. and Robert Jackson were friends. And hey, R. J. Robert Jackson, J.R., J.R. Bronger. But I mentioned all that to say I miss Robert. He meant so much to me in my childhood. But he said this many years ago, and I wrote it down, and I haven’t forgotten it. He said, In gratitude, will send more souls to hell than anything else. I think he’s right. What a lesson from one Samaritan who returned to give thanks. Let it be fuel. Let it be fuel for your journey. Let’s conclude this morning in 2 Timothy chapter 2. This is really what Paul is telling the young evangelist. When he says, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Remember who enlisted you as a soldier. Remember Jesus Christ, as he goes on to say in verse 8. Remember your mission and the cause in which he enlisted you. A cause that Paul said, for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal. But the word of God is not imprisoned. For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. It is a trustworthy statement. If we died with him, we shall also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign with him.

If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, God is going to be faithful. For he cannot deny himself. Persevere, Paul tells Timothy, for what? Will be.

Christians make a difference in our world. I don’t think anybody goes to hell by themselves, and I don’t think anybody goes to heaven by themselves. Don’t you want to be a positive impact on other people who stand in the circle of need with you. That’s what we’re all about. If you’ve not come to clean for cleansing, responded to Jesus when he says, He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. Your soul is rotting away in leprosy. Embrace his invitation. Give him the praise and thanks he is due while there’s time and opportunity. Let’s stand and sing together.