Good morning! Please turn with me to Luke17.
Years ago, I was on a mission trip to London, talking with a group of high school students. I asked one young man what he thought happens after death.
He said, “You try to live a good life, and if Allah is merciful, you might enter paradise.”
So I asked him if he knew the word grace.
In my mind, I’m thinking—if? … might? Your eternal security hinges on whether or not Allah is having a good day?
So I asked him, “Is there any way you can know for sure?”
He said, “Only if you die for your faith.”
I asked him if he knew the word grace.
He said, “Oh yes—grace is when someone moves smoothly… like a dancer.”
And I realized in that moment—we weren’t just speaking with different accents.
We were living in completely different worlds.
And when I say “different worlds,” I don’t mean Muslim and Christian.
Because there are a lot of people right here in Prattville who would give very similar answers.
“I just hope my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds.”
“I hope the Man Upstairs is in a good mood when I stand before Him.”
So this isn’t about Muslim and Christian.
This is about the difference between people who understand the gospel… and people who don’t.
This morning, I want us to leave here with a better understanding of grace.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor. It’s not something earned or deserved. It’s given. It’s free.
The difference between common grace and saving grace.
And the understanding that the source of grace is not dancing lessons or finishing school.
In Luke 17, we’re going to meet ten men who are desperate for grace.
And all ten of them receive it.
But only one returns to the source of that grace.
Only one finds true salvation.
Let’s stand to honor the reading of God’s Word. I’m reading from the Christian Standard Bible this morning
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 17
11 While traveling to Jerusalem, he passed between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with leprosy, met him. They stood at a distance 13 and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
14 When he saw them, he told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And while they were going, they were cleansed.
15 But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God. 16 He fell facedown at his feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan.
17 Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Didn’t any return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he told him, “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.
[Pray]
Before we go any further, let me explain what I mean by common grace.
Common grace is the goodness and kindness of God
that He shows to all people—
whether they know Him or not,
whether they follow Him or not.
The Bible says, “The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made.” (Psalm 145:9)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that God
“makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45)
In other words—God is kind even to people who never come back to thank Him.
And in Luke 17, we see that in living color.
- Common Grace Requested
Let’s make sure we understand what these guys were dealing with. Leprosy was a skin disease that made them “unclean” according to Jewish law. It was sometimes—but not always— contagious. But people didn’t want to take any chances, so they stayed as far away from lepers as they possibly could. So Leprosy wasn’t just a disease—it was a sentence.
These men were cut off from their families… cut off from their communities… cut off from worship.
And wherever they went, they had to announce it:
“Unclean! Unclean!”
Imagine that kind of life.
Imagine being required to be the prophet of your own uncleanness. The herald of your own unworthiness.
And when you begin to feel that, you understand why they cry out the way they do:
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
You see, they understood their condition, and they knew they couldn’t fix it.
You ever notice how long we can go before we admit something’s wrong?
We’ll feel it… ignore it… explain it away…
“It’s just stress.”
“It’ll go away.”
“I’ll deal with it later.”
Until finally there comes a moment when you say,
“Okay… I can’t fix this. I need help.”
And everything changes the moment you admit it.
And that is always the first step toward grace.
The gospel doesn’t begin with us getting better.
It begins with us getting honest.
Because In our sin, we’re not that different from these ten men. We may not have to stand on the edge of town and shout “unclean. ” But before a holy God, that’s exactly what we are.
Some of you have never been honest with God about your sin. You’ve rationalized it— saying “Everybody does it.” You’ve compared yourself to others saying, “Well, I’m no Mother Teresa, but I’m no Charles Manson either.” You’ve come up with euphemisms for it: Mistakes, Errors in judgment. Bad Decisions. Bumps in the road.
But you’ve never called it what God calls it: sin.
You’ve never said, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.”
And maybe the reason you haven’t is because you’re afraid of what God would say back.
But listen—when people cry out for mercy in the Gospels,
Jesus never turns them away.
The first step toward receiving grace is recognizing your need need for it. You’ll never cry out for mercy as long as you’re still pretending you’re fine.
But when you’re honest with God, He is faithful and righteous to forgive Your sin.
2. Common Grace Received (verse 14)
Look at Luke 17:14 again:
Luke 17:14 ESV
When he saw them, he told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And while they were going, they were cleansed.
Ten men cry out for mercy.
And Jesus doesn’t stop and interview them. He doesn’t ask for their background. He doesn’t check their theology.
He simply gives grace.
And all ten are healed.
Now, Jesus wasn’t blowing them off here. He was telling them to obey the Law. According to Leviticus 14, if a leper believed he had been healed, he had to go to the priest.
The priest would examine him and declare him clean so he could return to his family, his community, and worship.
And look what happens when they take that first step of obedience: while they were going, they were cleansed. Jesus didn’t even say, “Be healed!” Without a word, without even a touch, all ten lepers were cleansed.
I want to point out something: This is one of the final two miracles Jesus is going to do on the way to Jerusalem. In the next chapter he’s going to heal a blind man. Bartimaeus’ words are almost exactly the same as the lepers’: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Luke 18: 38.
On the way to the cross, Jesus answers two cries for mercy. He has set His face toward Jerusalem. He is days away from accomplishing the single most important task in the history of the Universe: dying to redeem all of mankind. We would certainly understand if he was a little preoccupied. A little too busy to respond to a request shouted at Him from across the street.
Oh, I love my Jesus! Ten nameless men cry out for mercy. In chapter 18, One blind man cries out for mercy— even when everyone around him tells him to shut up.
And Jesus stops.
Jesus hears.
Jesus shows mercy.
In fact, every single time someone calls out for mercy in the gospels, their prayer is answered.
Beloved, if you don’t hear anything else this morning, hear this. Jesus is not too busy for you. Jesus has not written you off.
A prayer for mercy is a prayer Jesus never ignores.
But understand this: we are still talking about common grace.
But there are two kinds of grace. Common grace is God’s unmerited favor freely given to all people.
But then there is saving grace.
Saving grace is God’s work of seeking out sinners, bringing them to repentance, and restoring them to Himself through Jesus Christ.
The healing of the ten lepers was just God’s mercy being poured out on all of them, regardless of who they were or where they came from. It was poured out on them with no guarantee that they would ever come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.
And as far as we know, nine of them never did.
But now, let’s talk about the tenth leper.
3. The Source of Grace Recognized (verse 15-19)
Look again at what happens next: Luke 17:15-18
Luke 17:15–19 ESV
15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.
The text doesn’t explicitly say this, but we assume the other nine were Jewish.
But this man was a Samaritan. Now there is a practical reason this man didn’t go to the priests like the other nine. Samaritans didn’t worship at the Jerusalem temple like the Jews did. They worshiped on Mount Gerizim, and that temple had been destroyed a century before.
But there’s a deeper reason the man didn’t go to the priests. The other nine went
The other nine went back in obedience to the Law. This man knew it wasn’t the law that had healed him.
It was Jesus. So the man turned away from the law and turned toward Jesus. While the others went looking for a priest to declare them clean, this man went to the One who had made him clean.
Nine turned toward religion. He turned to Jesus.
Let me ask you a question.
How many of you have gotten a new phone in the last year? When you got that new phone… what did you do with the old one?
You didn’t keep carrying both around, did you?
You didn’t say, “Well, this old one used to work, so I’ll just keep using it too.” No—you set it aside.
Because something better had come.
That’s what’s happening here.
The priestly system was the centerpiece of the old covenant. .It was given by God. It served a purpose.
But it was never the final answer.
It pointed forward to something greater.
Hebrews 10:1 says that
Hebrews 10:1 ESV
1 the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
Jesus was the bringer of the new and better covenant. And somehow, this Samaritan was the only one who recognized that. He didn’t go looking for a priest, because he had already found our Great High Priest.
Don’t misunderstand: all ten of them knew they had been healed. All ten of them experienced the miracle— the common grace.
But only one understood where the miracle had come from.
And here’s where we see the difference between common grace and saving grace.
Common grace is God’s goodness poured out on all people. But saving grace is only available to those who turn to Jesus and recognize Him as the Source of Grace.
Look what the Samaritan does: he turns back. He praises God with a loud voice. He falls on his face at the feet of Jesus. And he gives thanks. That’s more than gratitude. That’s worship!
Jesus wonders aloud,
Luke 17:17–18 ESV
17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
It’s the Samaritan foreigner who returns with thanks—not the nine Jewish people. This foreigner, who is outside the covenant of Israel, recognizes what has happened and falls down in worship.
And Jesus says—this is the one who gets it right.
Friends, that’s our story.
Most of us in this room are not part of ethnic Israel.
And yet, by the grace of God,
we have been brought near.
Romans 9:25 says,
“Those who were not my people, I will call ‘my people.’” (Romans 9:25)
We’re here today because God’s grace didn’t stop with Israel.
It reached people like us.
Now here’s something I don’t want you to miss. In the previous verse, Jesus says, “Were not ten cleansed?”
That word means exactly what it sounds like—they were healed. The word is katharidzo. Where we get our word catharsis— to be made clean.
But when He speaks to this man, He uses a different word:
“Your faith has saved you.” That word is sodzo. That’s not just a word for healing. Its the word the Bible uses for salvation.
It’s the same word that was used when the angel told Joseph, “You shall call His name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sin (Matthew 1:21)
That’s why I chose the Christian Standard Bible this morning. Because it keeps the distinction the text is making.
Ten men were cleansed.
But one man was saved.
And Jesus is THE source of salvation.
Closing / Response
As we prepare for our response time,
I want to circle back to that conversation I had
with that teenager in London.
Remember what he said—
“You try to live a good life…
and if God is merciful…
you might be saved.”
And when I asked him if he could know for sure,
he said, “Only if you die for your faith.”
And the tragedy is not just that he believed that. It’s that so many people today believe the same thing.
Maybe not with those words…but in their hearts.
They add an “only if” to the assurance of salvation.
Only if I give more to the church. Only if I cuss less. Only if I break this addiction. Only if I stop drinking.
Jesus didn’t say to the lepers, “Get yourself cleaned up, prove you’re worth healing, and then come back.”
They cried out for mercy, and Jesus healed them.
Then one came back and worshiped Him, and Jesus saved Him.
That’s what we are inviting you to do today. You don’t have to prove anything to God. You can’t earn your salvation no matter how hard you try.
All you have to do is be honest with Him. “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
And then come back to him.
The only priest you will ever need gave His life for you. Don’t keep walking in the other direction. Come back to Him.
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