Episode 1584: Whole Faith

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,584 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Nicky Billou: I'm Nicky Billou. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize that God wants you to win is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: That gratitude brought you to a moment of acknowledging God's actions and presence in your life, and that is what brings wholeness. This idea of being moved, not just to praise God with your lips, but actually being called to praise God with your whole [00:01:00] heart. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Luke chapter 17, verses 11 through 19. I share how there is a difference between being clean. And being whole. And I also talk about how gratitude is more about us than the one to whom we are grateful. Luke 17, 11 through 19 says, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was [00:02:00] going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.

As he entered a village 10 with a skin disease approached him, keeping their distance. They called out saying, Jesus, master have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest. And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw what, that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

He prostrated himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him, and he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, we're not 10 made clean, so where are the other nine? Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner? Then he said to him, get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you there's a bit at the beginning of this passage where Jesus reminds me of my mom when I was a kid and I would do something or someone would do something nice for me, and your mom would lean [00:03:00] over to you and give you that mom.

Look while saying, now, what do you say? It really isn't a suggestion. It's a, an order. The tone of voice would give it away that the proper response is thank you. And sometimes even if I was begrudging about it, I'd still remember to respond. Thank you. Maybe Jesus here has a little bit of that same mom.

Look at these ex lepers and he says, now what do you say? After all, if someone has done something nice for you, shouldn't you observe convention and say Thank you? Were you really grateful in that moment? And I think those are questions that are still very important today. Oftentimes it excuses our reluctance to give aid to someone else that might benefit them more than us.

We look down on them and say they weren't grateful enough to earn our [00:04:00] help. They're just taking advantage of us and this seems to be giving us permission for that attitude. Was Jesus himself here put out because nine out of the 10 lepers weren't grateful enough to come and say thank you.

See, at this time, the, these people with the disease of the skin leprosy would've been marked as unclean and set apart from society where they weren't able to interact with anyone else. That's why it says they kept their distance. And Jesus has told them to go to the priest because the priest are the only ones that de could declare that they are clean of the disease and able to integrate back into society and interact with others.

And Jesus has sent them there, but Jesus actually cleaned them before they went. And if we think here about Jesus, is he really? Seem to be put out or angry that they haven't expressed gratitude, [00:05:00] and I would argue that they really aren't. There's no real indication that Jesus got his feelings hurt or that he withdrew healing and pulled it back and made them unclean again and punished those that were we're ungrateful.

It doesn't seem to be as much about Jesus as it is about the ones that he healed. It wasn't about whether Jesus deserved thanks. Of course he did, but I don't think Jesus was really getting his nose all bent out of joint because nine out of the 10 didn't show respect. In fact, I would argue that there's a concern here for wholeness or wellness on the part of those that were healed.

See, Jesus often distinguishes between being clean and being well, or being clean and being whole, or being healed and being well or whole. [00:06:00] The, there's this distinction between physical wellness and being made truly whole, or integrated or complete in a way. And with the beginning when Jesus sends them on their way, it's described as they were being made clean.

See, that is physical wellness. Do go and show yourself to the priest and therefore get a proper, lawful designation that lets you be part of society again. And then as they went, they were made clean. There's a, an act of faith here too, probably pretty tremendous. Faith that here, this healer comes along and says, there you're healed, you're clean.

Go. And they go to the priest and I don't know what happened. It just appeared to have happened as they were going, their going was a response to [00:07:00] Jesus. And maybe they were clean and had so much gratitude and moments that they were able to come back and go to their family and their friends and be included in society again.

That they were overwhelmed by that joy and simply to now busy spreading the news to come back. And yet the Samaritan came back, maybe even because the Samaritan as a foreigner. Didn't have that connection to the community. It's possible too that it's a message of inclusion. Even the Samaritan, even the foreigner, completed the action while the faithful Jews did not that they were bad people or had done something wrong, but just that the Samaritan followed through.

Truthfully, we don't know the whys. We don't know what was going on in the head or the heart of those lepers. [00:08:00] We can know something about the fact that Jesus was concerned for them. He says, we're not 10 made clean. And again, that language made clean. In this case, it seems that Jesus really wanted to make sure that they had followed the rules and been marked as being made whole and back into society, and they were clean and integrated within the law, but he wanted for something more than that, something where they would be made whole.

At the end, it says, your faith has made you well to the one that returned. They had shown faith in going to the priest, but this statement is something extra. The Samaritan had done something more, had offered acknowledgement and gratitude, and that [00:09:00] gratitude, that moment. Of joy and acknowledgement of the moment that Jesus had given them, even here as a foreigner, maybe even trying to open people's minds to the fact that the foreigner was able to do something that others were not.

In this case, it's, he says, your faith has made you well. That recognition when the Samaritan returned and recognized the source. Of the healing, the relationship, and thanks God and thanks Jesus, and he praises God and Jay, Jesus comments on that praise and says, this is the difference. That gratitude brought you to a moment of acknowledging God's actions and presence in your life, and that is what [00:10:00] brings.

Wholeness. This idea of being moved, not just to praise God with your lips, but actually being called to praise God with your whole heart, that is what made them whole. Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship.

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