MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG
FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

I invite you to pray with me, Father God hear our prayer, and we humbly cry to you as it is written in your word, Lucas 11:9:” Keep asking and it will give to you, Continue searching and you will find it, Keep knocking and it will be open for you)” We are requesting healing for our dear members of our family and also dear friends who are suffering from illnesses in their lives fighting and suffering under a lot of pain, You know them by their names; (Gaby P, Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Gloria F, Stevie A, Les N, Miguel A H, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Sergei B, Margarita G, Fega G. Manuel D, Marlen C.) Also, some of them are tired of spiritual struggles, losing their faith in you, Strengthening their trust in you with a miracle in their lives, oh! Father God hear our prayer, and we also pray for all the people around the world especially the children, who are suffering from wars, devastation, hunger, pain, hate and disbelieve in you. Heal the Land of those Countries at war; you love them so much, oh Father God, hear our prayer, we ask you in the name of Our Lord of Lords and King of Kings, your beloved son Jesus Christ. AMEN!
This morning we want to focus on what this day celebrates – thankfulness. Research tells us that those, Who feel grateful show a marked reduction in the level of cortisol, the stress hormone. They had better cardiac functioning and were more resilient to emotional setbacks and negative experiences McCraty & Childre, 2004.
Similar research says, When we express gratitude… our brain releases dopamine and serotonin, the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions. Chowdhury 2019
These telling us that giving thanks opens us up to a different way of looking at life. A life, Ann Voskamp points out, Is a daily eye opener that opens our hearts to joy and that by counting the gifts we have been given, we can count on more happiness.
Truth is, these telling us what Scripture told us long before. Many of used to sing about it, I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter His courts with praise, I will say this is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice because He has made me glad. He has made me glad...
Enter His gates with thankfulness and His courts with praise Ps 100:4
Telling us that the door entering into God’s house is thankfulness. Thankfulness for what? For Jesus. For the life saving, Life given, life giving blood of Jesus. Which is to say, without Jesus there is no entrance into God’s presence. That is why Jesus makes it clear, I am the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he/she will be saved Jn 10:9. Our entrance through the door is entirely and exclusively through Him and it’s in knowing this, that as good as we think ourselves to be, we have nothing valuable enough that will get us through the door and as bad as we know ourselves to be, there is nothing in us that will keep us out. My entrance is solely based on what’s given me in Jesus, the forgiveness of my sin offered me in Jesus.
Past the threshold, we then step into the grand event where we will have wished we paid more attention to preparation for what we are now to experience. Because what we’re told is that we are to, Enter His gates with thankfulness AND enter His courts with praise.
In this, the psalmist gives us understanding how important it is that as Christ followers we are to be not just thankful people but praise filled, praise giving people. Thankfulness and praise given not due to what we first feel but given due to what we first choose. Thankfulness directing us to focus on what we’ve been given, praise responding to what that means.
Praise – the music of heaven we will be joining in with as we enter the throne room of the King.
The sound of praise that rises up from thankful hearts, the overflow of keeping our eyes on Him. Thankfulness not for all things but IN all things. Sometimes our praise comes easy to us – when prayers are answered, when God intervenes, when blessing comes. Not so easy when sorrows cripple, when pain won’t lift, when disappointments overwhelm. Praise that is almost impossible were it not for Jesus. It’s why Paul can say, Through Jesus therefore let us continually offer to God a SACRIFICE of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess His name Heb 13:15. His Name getting us through when nothing else can; His name offering hope.

Truth is we aren’t going to be thankful when things come at us that are hard. That throw our lives askew. That bring pain. We were never intended to be thankful FOR the things that sin has brought. None of those things have come from the hand of God.
But Satan, the accuser, pointing the finger of blame at God ever since he used Eve to get us into the mess we are in today. His approach - take the focus off what was given to focus on the one thing withheld. With that, his whispered accusations heard loud – stirring up ingratitude and complaint. The seedbed, I’m entitled, I’m owed.
But thankfulness takes us to a very different place. The far greater truth Peter speaks to about God’s great love and care for us, his words, Cast all our cares on Him for He cares for you 1 Pet 5:7 is recognition that things will come at us that unsettle, that trouble. Jesus said, In this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Jn 16:33
With that brief consideration, I want to look at the Scripture we began with this morning,
While traveling to Jerusalem, Jesus passed between Samaria and Galilee. :11
Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem not long after a time He told His followers 3 stories about lost things in Luke 15, a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son. In all of these, Jesus tells of finding the things that are lost and now we see Him coming face to face with lost people living in an area the Jews consider beyond hope.
This area of Samaria was one many Jews avoided by taking a longer more indirect route to Jerusalem. To them, the Samaritans were seen as unfaithful Jews who had intermarried with foreigners and who had accepted foreign gods.
So that’s the context, now the focus sharpens.
As He entered a village, 10 men with leprosy met Him. :12.
There was no worse diagnosis a spouse, parent or individual could hear than the word leper. At first, suspicion – skin rashes that wouldn’t go away then rising alarm as symptoms increase - a thickening of the skin, a numbness of touch and with these, worst fears confirmed. Leprosy.
Now possessions put to the torch, soon everything put to the torch. The job held. The family embraced. The community enjoyed. The worship shared. The life lived. Now gone. Now loved ones looked at from afar and in time even that gone. Who wanted to be seen like this? Better to be remembered for who and what they were not for whom they had become.
Now only outlines of their life were left. Nothing commemorating value, nothing worthy of love.
In their own way they had become covered-over invisible, a reality that would remain until their death. Invisible - better than hated for being alive. Their only communication with their former world, one word word, Unclean! An ever present reminder of who they had become.
Under any normal circumstances, this collection of 10 would never have found each other, but that word had united them in their pain. Leprosy no respecter of people be they Jew or Samaritan
They stood at a distance and raised their voices saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’
When He saw them, He told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” :14
I think it likely that they had heard about Jesus and the miracles done. How He had touched a blind man and that man was given sight. How He touched a mute and he could speak. How he laid hands on the sick and they were well. And if it were true, how He placed His hand on a leper and he had been made clean. This is what brought them here, waiting on His touch..
Yet when Jesus sees them, He doesn’t come close enough to touch. No outstretched hand. No drawing near. Doing what everyone else has done - staying away, saying what others had said.
Go!

GO isn’t usually what we expect from Jesus. You would think their cries for mercy would have Jesus coming to them. Coming to do what no one else could do. Coming close.
But instead - GO! which was a word they were very familiar with. Ever since rashes first appeared, that was a word repeatedly heard. Go as closed doors separated them from those once loved. Closed hearts separating them from everyone wanting them far from them.
But Jesus’ ‘Go!’ was followed up with a destination, Show yourself to the priests.
I imagine this admonition to ‘Show yourself to the priests’ was heard with a myriad of emotions – confusion? possibility? hope? excitement? Because those words had meaning. Going to the priests meant going to have healing declared so they could re-enter life and that is the prescription Jesus had just given them. By human measure this was impossible. No one was healed from leprosy without the intervention of God. And that happened only on the rarest of occasions. Still, Jesus had said what He said and by what we read, the lepers didn’t question, didn’t press for clarification. They just went.
They heard and they acted.
I wonder if as they started on their way, they struggled with the disconnect. Jesus telling them to go to the very people that hated Him. Time and again the priests were at odds with Jesus and now here He was sending them to those who were opposed to Him. In any normal circumstance, lepers would be the last people who’d be given audience by the priests. All too often it had been the religious who judged and restricted; the religious who added on demands. Their back breaking rules many, their attitudes and actions of mercy few. But despite having no evidence of why they should go and they should be seen, Jesus had said go.
Jesus not saying, You’re healed so go but GO. Trust and go. Believe and act. Calling them and us to act based on who God is. The evidence not on the situation immediately before us but on Who He has proven Himself to be. The evidence of His love, of His care, of His character that we so easily forget, that we so easily overlook. God not filling in all the details of what He will do with what’s before us but on Him, Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Mtth 6:26 or Psalm 8, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet :3-6.
God acting in ways that He alone knows, we called to trust. Like the Israelites at the Red Sea, an uncrossable sea in front, a hostile nation at their back and God saying, Moses, hold up your staff. Logical? Hardly. But at Moses’ obedience, God parting the sea. And Israel when needing to cross a foaming, churning Jordan river at flood stage - this time, God saying, Step into the river. Logical? Not as large uprooted trees go floating by but God not impacted by our views and our logic.
Just as this account relates, And while they were going, they were cleansed. :14
Wouldn’t you have loved being there hearing their first gasp when they saw damaged limbs made whole? Seeing a disease ridden face made photographically perfect? Arms lifted high and the celebration of first dance? Faith stepping out then the amazing.
No doubt experiencing what they had, the speed of their journey to Jerusalem quickened. With the word received there, their life would resume. Nine of them doing what Jesus told them to do. HE SAID GO TO THE PRIESTS, SO THAT’S WHAT THEY DID. Yet focused on that, they failed to go to the first place they needed to go – to Him. Thanking Him for what He has given. Thanking Him for what He has done. But Jesus was now in their rear view mirror. They were on their way to do the right thing.
How can you argue against that? But was it the right thing or was the truly right thing to return to Jesus and fall on their knees? To give Him praise before anything else. Before doing. Before going. Obedience yes but obedience that is first directed to worship. But their look was more on restitution than it was on worship for what had just been given.
By their actions, THE 9 GAVE GREATER IMPORTANCE TO THE PRIEST’S VOICE THAN THE VOICE WHO JUST HEALED THEM. They were so fixed on what was ahead that they failed to stop to give Jesus praise for the things just done. To them, it was the priest’s voice that would allow them to re-enter the life they’d lost.
In the trade off, not understanding that when we stop praising God, we start forgetting God. We substitute busyness for relationship; duty for intimacy.
Think of a child who’s been given a gift, that gift quickly cast aside for another, that one cast aside for the next. Unexpressed gratitude experienced by the giver as ingratitude. Delayed or unoffered gratefulness devaluing the gift that’s been given.
Perhaps some of the nine thought, I’ll get the priest thing done and then I’ll circle back to do what needs to be done. My stuff taken care of and then I’ll find the Master to whom we went for mercy. And yet if our stuff gets first priority, is He truly Master?
The truth is it’s often not convenient to be thankful. The writer of Hebrews referred to it as the ‘sacrifice’ of praise. A sacrifice is by definition something that costs something. Yet worship is to be the highest priority for the believer.

But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God. He fell facedown at His feet, thanking Him. And he was a Samaritan :15,16
The Samaritan, the only one who understood first priority. He stepping out to do the imperative no matter what anyone else chose to do. It takes courage to do what others aren’t doing. To live faithfully for Jesus when that comes at a cost.
I think this is where God wants to center us as we look at this account. Where we see someone who knew what he had been given, fall down in worship of Christ. He knew what is was to be given life after living in death for so long. Not just death of limbs or an unstoppable disease but death that had been with him for so long. Death he had been living with even before the leprosy had come. Living as a lost one – on the outside looking in. The leprosy just making it clear how lost he had been. His meaning found in the things he had, the things he did, the people with whom he lived. The leprosy stripping him to see who he was but far better stripping him to this place where he knew himself to be lost so now he could be found. And now as see him, he is praising God for the amazing that has been done for him.
But what was done is no less than what has been done for us. Truth is, we all have leprosy but far worse than the loss of a limb or the deformity of a face. The Bible calls it sin and we all have it. Sin we are told that separates us from God but, God in His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 1 Pet 1:3 When you were DEAD in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins Col 2:13
Gratitude is the language of the heart. And this Samaritan spoke his heart language loudly because he knew that gratefulness must be expressed. No whispers, no polite acknowledgments but face to the ground, voice to the sky, shouts of joy. He was overcome with what he had been given and he knew that what had happened could only be given by God. He had been given what he had asked – overwhelming, undeserved mercy.
He knew the life that had been returned to him but I think it went well beyond just that. He hadn’t merely been given his life back that he had been living. Leprosy had shown him in every way what was important, he was dead – even before he was 6’ under. Spiritually dead
A worshipper of other gods. A follower of other loves. A liver for other purposes.
But in his healing – everything had become so clear. Greater than physical healing, he had discovered the Healer, the One who had given him new birth. And he had returned to give Him glory. And don’t miss what he got in return.
Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Didn’t any return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” :17,18
One cold, wintery day in 1860, a crowded passenger steamer floundered off the shores of Lake Michigan. While others stood by, Edward Spencer swam out through the icy waves 16 times to rescue 17 people. Spencer never fully recovered from the cost of his heroism, living the rest of his life in broken health. But the real tragedy of the story? not one of the 17 rescued ever thanked him.
Sadly, that response isn’t restricted to those 17 or the 9 lepers because it reflects what we often do. Expecting without thanking. Taking without praising. What was missed out on wasn’t a reduction of stress or a chemical wash to increase our happiness but something far greater.
We are told little about the 9 but we can assume they were given healing for the next 20 or 30 years. But after that? After last breath was taken? That’s very much in doubt. While they rejoiced in the temporal, is it possible they missed the eternal? By what is said, there is nothing to suggest that their gain was anything more than what Paul expressed, If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied 1 Cor 15:19.
This was not the Samaritan’s experience. He wasn’t just made well, he was saved for all eternity.
And He told him, “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has SAVED you.” :19 CSB
Several versions translate this, Rise up and go your faith has made you well but while accurate, I think it somewhat misses the mark. In truth, what he experienced was resurrection, something Jesus actually confirmed to him when He said, Your faith has made you well. Not just well in the immediate, but well in the eternal. The word Jesus uses for well is sozo (saved). It’s the word Paul uses in Rom 10:9, If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will saved or Matthew in 1:21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins or Mark, He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved 16:16.
This morning may you be identified with a Samaritan leper who was lost but was found. Who was unclean but made well. And with that focus clearly in view,
ENTER HIS GATES WITH THANKFULNESS AND HIS COURTS WITH PRAISE.
This day is celebrated Thanksgiving Day when most families gather to thank God the Father for all the blessings received in a year almost over, naming and giving thanks for the good harvest, health, work, etc.; recognizing that without Him we are nothing because He is the one who keeps us in this life-sustaining us under his protection, I want to add something personal; I thank him for giving me the strength to share his word so that whoever visits this blog can be filled with it, and get to know Jesus Christ who on the cross paid for our sins, because he loves us infinitely. It has been a bit of a difficult year for me in part, but He sustains me as He always has, and I will continue sharing His word with His help. Thank you Father for being so wonderful, for being so faithful, for loving us so much, we thank you for all the blessings received in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ AMEN!

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