Title: End and Beginning (Luke 17:11-19)
Contents
Some events are the last event for some, and the beginning event for others. For a person to be successful, he must be able to start thinking about what others consider to be the last. When a person meets Jesus, the last event in my life is changed into the event of the beginning. Events are the starting point, not the ending point. It can be seen that this is what those who met Christ had in common.
When Jesus was dying on the cross, robbers on either side of Jesus were crucified. For the robber, on the other hand, the cross was the last event in his life. It was a life of living a difficult life, and a life of stalking and robbing others. But when he thought about his life on the cross, he must have come to the conclusion that this is the end of my life. But the robber, on the other hand, did not end his life at the cross. He lived the same life, but by meeting Jesus, he seized the beginning of a completely new life.
In today's message, there were ten lepers who were in the same environment. They had nothing to do with each other. Above all, they had the same disease. In the same way, he did not live in his own house, but lived in the wilderness. It was these people who met Jesus. They could not come near Jesus, so they stood at a distance and raised their voices to call on Jesus. Jesus Teacher, have mercy on us.
These were really poor people. First of all, disease made them pitiful. It was an incurable disease. Illness makes life unhappy. The church should care about people with disease. Because the Lord loved those who had diseases. And most of all, they were pitiful for living apart from their families. At that time, lepers were isolated from their families. While other diseases were cared for by their families, they were pitiful because they were separated from them.
Jesus saw them. Seeing here means understanding. The Lord understood their circumstances and circumstances. These words are important. Even if the world does not understand me, the Lord understands us. The Lord knows our circumstances. A deep emotion we feel in our world is that no one really understands our heart right away. So, even if you understand only one part, people will be moved. But it is saying that the Lord understands all of my pain that no one can understand.
And the Lord said to go and show yourselves to the priests. Lepers are people who have never been able to show their bodies to anyone until now. Just seeing and touching their bodies made them unclean. So they lived in places where no people lived. Because I had to hide myself from others. But because of the Lord, they were able to show themselves. It allowed me to express myself proudly. Our confidence today must come only from Jesus Christ.
The lepers believed the words of Jesus and were cleansed as they went. The word "go" is very important. I use the word whistle. This word is a combination of two words, hupo and ago, and has a very important meaning. The word “hupo” means below, and the word “ago” means to lead. Faith means guiding yourself under the word. Obedience means putting yourself under the Word.
In the Bible, faith always speaks of putting oneself under the Word. The Lord praised me when I heard the confession, “Just tell me, my servant will get well.” Whatever he says, do it. Here water has become wine. Faith and obedience refer to entering under the Word. The lepers here put themselves under the word.
Here they are healed. The Lord has always required the person to stand under the Word when Healing a life. Peter remembered the word and went out and wept bitterly. While Peter was on the Word, he fell. When I was outside the Word, I betrayed the Lord. However, when he went under the Word, he discovered his own faults and was healed.
When they obeyed the Lord's word and were healed, "one of them saw that he was healed." The word "see" here uses the word "eido", which is the same as saying that Jesus saw them. It means that you realized that Jesus healed you through healing. Others only saw the fact that they were healed, but one was able to understand who the Lord was who healed them.
This is the growth of faith. Faith is finding the one who gave me that fact rather than the fact of anything. It is spiritually mature to look at God who claims that reality rather than any other reality. The prodigal son did not realize his father's love as he wasted his father's money. This is the prodigal son. A person who enjoys the grace of God but does not know the love of God. That is why life often learns to be grateful after losing everything.
One said that he came back glorifying God with a loud voice. It shows us a very important comparison that ten people raised their voices and called Jesus Teacher and begged to be healed, but now one has returned with a loud voice glorifying God. Here, the word sound is used the same, but ten people cry loudly only when they have difficulties, but one person loudly glorifies the Lord for giving thanks.
This is what a universal person looks like. When I am frustrated, I don't make a loud noise, but it is common to be quiet when it comes to giving thanks and repaying favors. Saints should raise their voices in giving thanks. Even within the church, those who raise their voices raise their voices to reveal their needs. However, we believe that the saints should take the lead in glorifying and giving thanks to God and set an example.
Here, ten people are divided into one with nine people. There are three numbers here. The first number is called ten. And one number comes out. The Lord asked where the nine were. That is, the number ten is divided into nine and one before the Lord. The number of ten is the number of people who loudly asked the Lord to have mercy on them, and the number healed by the Lord. But one is the number that returned to the Lord and glorified it with a loud voice. And nine were healed but did not glorify Jesus.
Ten was all one in the absence of the Lord. However, the nine became the last people in their lives because of the grace they received from the Lord. But for Hana, the grace he received from the Lord was the beginning of his life. Those who live self-centeredly do not always receive grace from the Lord, but that is the person who ends the case. However, for those who give thanks for grace, it is a person who has a new beginning that is different from the past because of the grace he has received from the Lord.