Luke 17:11

Luke 17:11 says: "...as Jesus was going to Jerusalem, he passed between Samaria and Galilee and as he entered a village, 10 men with lepers met him, who stood at a distance and raised their voices saying: Jesus, teacher, have mercy on us. When he saw them he said to them: Go, show yourselves to the priests, and it came to pass that as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, seeing that he had been healed, returned glorifying God with a loud voice and fell face down at his feet giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan. Answering Jesus said: Are there not 10 that were cleansed? And where are the 9, there was no one who returned and gave glory to God except this foreigner? and said to him: get up, go, your faith has saved you.

Brothers, what a wonderful passage that reminds us about the importance of being grateful. I believe that this passage is one of the most beautiful illustrations of why we should give grace to the Lord. We can think of many different attributes and values. There are many of those values that we know that the Bible calls us to have as a Christian, for example, none of us has a problem knowing that love is a hallmark of the Christian life, we also know that mercy is another attribute of the believer, we know also that holiness is an attribute of the Christian life. But what about gratitude? That is also a value that Scripture often calls us to embrace as a value that we too must express in our lives. A disposition of gratitude must be one of the things that characterizes the man, the Christian woman.

Let's look for example at Colossians Chapter 3, and this is just one of many passages. This passage Colossians 3:15 is only one of several passages that call us to gratitude, there it says: "....and the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you were also called in one body and be thankful" .

Here we have two interesting things, one is the connection between peace and gratitude. I think there is something very interesting there, brothers, there is a connection between an attitude of gratitude towards life, towards God and having peace in the heart. Because you only have to consider the opposite, a person who is ungrateful or who does not recognize the blessings they have and who only looks at the negative things in life, I do not believe that they will be able to have peace, on the contrary, they will have anguish and anxiety in his heart and cynicism and skepticism towards life. It is not a coincidence that connection that the Apostle made then continues saying, ".... the word of Christ dwells in abundance in you teaching and exhorting one another in all wisdom, singing with grace".

Actually in the original Greek, and if you look for the English translation it says with gratitude, with gratitude, caritas, with grace in your hearts to the Lord, with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. There is a connection there between gratitude and worship because when you express gratitude to the Lord you are actually worshiping Him and thanking Him for what He has done in your life. And he puts his face to the ground, it is not only an act of grace for what you did but it is also an act of recognition, of adoration to the Lord for what that means. So it is very difficult to worship the Lord without being thankful, and certainly a thankful heart will always proceed toward worship. I can add, for example, the association of Maria when she broke the glass of perfume immediately comes to mind. Do you remember that passage? And she shed her tears and perfume on the Lord's head and adored Him in a tremendous way....she had been delivered from a terrible lifestyle, and she felt so much love in her heart that she adored the Lord.

It is also interesting that the Lord said Mary, this woman has anointed me for my burial. Mary received a profound insight from Jesus that Simon, the Pharisee, did not, because when you have gratitude in your heart toward the Lord, when you rejoice in worshiping the Lord, that gives you a much deeper understanding of Jesus than does not. the theologian, let me tell you, because adoration and gratitude lead you intravenously into the heart of God. That connection is very interesting.

And then it also says “...and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”. Gratitude should be in all the things we do. If we adore the Lord and give thanks in our jobs when we are washing the dishes there, sisters, or when the men are working in the factory or whatever, if we make everything we do an expression of gratitude to the Lord jobs would go much faster. Those dishes would fly by themselves, sisters and those machines would sing and dance and when they come to see, the 5 o'clock, wow!! The day is over and glory to God and you go home happy as a worm because that's what you do. We have to thank the Lord in all things, as this precious passage says here.

So as we see, brothers, gratitude is something very important in the Christian life. As we see, there is a mandate there “...and be thankful”.

Let's go to this passage quickly for a moment, we're going to analyze the passage itself there. One of the things that impresses me in this passage is the fact that only one out of ten came to give thanks to the Lord. And it occurs to me, brothers, that ten percent is perhaps an adequate proportion of how many people feel that true gratitude towards the Lord and practice a life of gratitude. I believe that unfortunately only 10% of the people of God are brothers and I believe that certainly in the general world. In the churches, brothers, I believe that many people still do not understand the importance of praising the Lord and gratitude and that when we come to the house of the Lord, we not only come to fill a religious mission because it is Sunday and the clock has already struck and I have to go to church, and do this and do that. No. How many people come with that desire to pour out their spirit before God in gratitude and thanks? I want to belong to that grateful ten percent. And when we come to the house of the Lord, brothers let us be grateful. Ten percent.

The other thing that surprises me is that he thanked the Lord he was a Samaritan. The Evangelist Luke mentions very deliberately that this man was a Samaritan. And you know there are times when the Samaritans do something good, like it's pointed out in a way, it's underlined. Because? Because the Samaritans were outcasts, they were rejected by the Jewish people, they were not considered good people or deserving of anything good. They were people who had been contaminated centuries ago when the Syrians expelled the Jews from their land, there were some Hebrews left who mixed with the pagan tribes, from outside and created a mixed religion and the Hebrews when they returned from their exile looked at them as people impure, not worthy to belong to Israel. So that is why nothing good was expected from the Samaritans, they were an impure people, nothing noble would be expected from them.

Scripture loves to point out that sometimes great things come out of least expected places. I think that when we understand, I wonder why this Samaritan and not the 9 that we assume were Jews, was the one who came to thank the Lord. I think, brothers, that it was because this man's psychological posture was one of not being deserving, of being fragile in his spirituality, as we also see in the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, when the publican approached the throne to worship, he said: have mercy on me, because I know that I am a sinner, the Pharisee was very sure of himself and said I thank you, because this, because I am here, because I am there, because I did this and I did the other. No, he was very sure of himself, the publican knew he was a sinner and therefore in his heart there was gratitude and a fragility that made him want to please God in a different way. And the other Jews, well, they felt more self-confident, and there is something interesting here, brothers, and that is that many times we are not so grateful because we assume that we deserve the things we have and many times we are not. we realize that the only thing we deserve is hell, let me tell you, the rest is because of the mercy and grace of God.

How important brothers it is to be broken in spirit! There are so many people in the body of God who think they are more than they are. That is why the Apostle Paul said: no one thinks of himself more highly than he should think, but think of himself with sanity, because only when we see ourselves as God sees us can we then understand deeper things and if you want an illustration of this, Let's go back to the illustration of Simon the Pharisee and Mary Magdalene. Simon the Pharisee was self-assured and therefore gave the Lord a courteous reception. Everything you receive, my brother, my sister, the blood that runs through your veins, the heart that beats inside you, those sparks that jump in your brain when it is processing thoughts, the feelings that are in your heart, the Lord in his mercy he allows them to proceed there each day. Without his grace and without his love none of these things would be possible, for this reason we must always thank the Lord for all things. In everything giving thanks to the Lord. And that tells us something, very important brothers and that is that these connections, gratitude is connected with other very deep truths of the Gospel.

Let's not underestimate the importance of gratitude. We are not talking about a secondary minor virtue here, but rather something very deep, very deep in the Christian life and we have to cultivate gratitude in our lives. And let me say something more about this gratitude, let me bring it to the mundane level, to the ordinary level. I have said that gratitude is deep and it is high but let me now bring it down to the level of daily life. Do you know what brothers? It is important to be grateful to other people around us. Sometimes we can take it for granted and assume that it is okay, there are people who bless us continuously and to whom we often do not give thanks and to young people for example and also we, how many times do we neglect our parents and do not express gratitude to them? because we assume they owe me? I didn't ask them to bring me. We have to express gratitude to our parents, young people, thank your parents for what they do every day, that's important. The doctors know that many times we are ungrateful to the doctors and the doctors kill themselves and risk a lot of things and we say: well, that's their job, they're earning a fortune so it's better that they take good care of me and if not I file a lawsuit.

We must give thanks to the Lord for God uses them for the blessing and salvation of the lives of many and that of our teachers. We must thank the teachers. I think this is a generation that is ungrateful to teachers. I know teachers who only live for the holidays because they want to get out of those boys and heal their wounds before going back to the classroom and they suffer a lot because the boys are ungrateful during this time. Parents, make sure that your children are appreciative and respectful of teachers, that they do not make life difficult for them. We must, brothers, express gratitude to people, give thanks to people when you can. If someone served you well in a restaurant, affirm it. There is nothing, brothers, like being affirmative in life. Let us be, brothers, people who bless and affirm others. When you have a chance to thank someone, do it. That is going to bless you and it is going to bless the person who receives your thanks as well, because many times the person you least expect needs affirmation.

That brings me to the other point here, which I'm already closing. It is wonderful when one thinks of Jesus' reaction when this man came to thank him. Let's get back into the psychology of this man. This man when the Lord told them, go and present yourselves before the priests so that your healing can be certified. This man went, we don't know how far they had to go, they had to go to the center of the city and there they went up to the building and introduced themselves and certified him, they gave him their letter of... ok now they can go back to common society again and ordinary and this man, the other 9 did not think in their mind: wow what a great blessing, let's go back and express our gratitude to this wonderful being who was the instrument for our healing. They didn't go through that process and I don't really think it's because they were ungrateful, I just think they thought: hey, he doesn't need our thanks. We go directly to our houses and we are going to celebrate with our loved ones and glory to God, a great man, but he does not need our gratitude. This tenth man thought, I have to go, I have to go back and thank the Lord.

There are many times brothers that we think that pastor does not need my thanks because he seems so sure of himself or so comfortable or whatever, and you do not know sometimes the insecurities that a person, their boss or a teacher has university student, or a person you see... a policeman you see with his confidence and self-sufficiency. All those people need thanks and they need gratitude.

It is a mystery to me that God rejoices in our praise. The most powerful being, totally sufficient, who does not need anything because he lives in his fullness and in his eternity, that God rejoices in our praise and in our gratitude. I was saying that to someone recently: look, God misses your presence, he misses you when you don't go to church, God misses you when you don't pray and when you don't thank him. And the Lord loves your particular expression of gratitude. This man had a very deep moment of intimacy with Jesus Christ and received a word of blessing from the Lord, he told him: your faith has saved you. 2000 years later this Samaritan man is still blessing men and women even here on Northampton Street in Boston right now, his action and like Mary when she poured the glass of perfume, she had a moment of special blessing where the Lord pointed out something very important to her He said to him: your faith has saved you.

Brother, when you worship the Lord, when you express gratitude to him, you have an entrance into the heart of God like no one else can. That is why the Lord said to Mary Magdalene: this woman does not know what she is doing, she is preparing me for my burial. What the Pharisee with all his theology could not understand about the coming ministry of Jesus, this woman was prophetically understanding. Because gratitude, brothers, blesses, opens doors. Generate gratitude in your heart. We are going to ask the Lord to give us an attitude of gratitude, that does not come naturally, that comes when we recognize its importance and cultivate it, and we ask the Lord and when our prayers take time to thank God. When we see the glass only half empty, let's look at it half full and generate the attitude of gratitude. The psalmist says: bless, my soul, the Lord and bless all my being his holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget any of his blessings. So let us, brothers, ask the Lord; give me a grateful heart.

If someone has out there and can come here. Thanks brothers. Let's lower our heads. We are going to embrace the word of the Lord now and we are going to give the Lord our gratitude. Thank God for something He has done in your life. Thank God for your mind, thank God for your heart, thank God for your son, your daughter, thank God for your home, thank God for your health, thank God for that watch that you have there since many people do not have it, for a glass of water that you can drink cold from your fridge. Thank you for everything you do in our life, Lord. We bless you and we adore you, Lord. Thank you for your kindness, thank you for your mercy, thank you for your love. Hallelujah! Thank you Lord Jesus. In the name of Jesus, amen. Amen. Thank my Lord. Amen. Brothers, may the grace of the Lord be with you, his peace, I bless you in the name of Jesus.