Where are the Nine?

From Kevin DeYoung 

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising god with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” (Luke 17:15-17)

Everyone reading this blog has reason to give praise to God. The question is whether we will go on our thankless way like the rest of the former lepers, or turn around and fall at Jesus’ feet like the Samaritan. 

Are you part of the one or one of the nine?

I find it easy to ask God for things.  I find it relatively easy to confess sin, perhaps because I have so much of it and feel guilty for it.  It is harder for me to give thanks, not because I think I’m too proud to say thank you, but because I don’t have my eyes open to see all that God has done and is doing.

All of us, I imagine, got sick in the past year.  And almost all of us got better.  Have we given thanks?  If we are getting sicker, maybe even approaching death, have we given thanks for the grace to make it this far and for the grace that will lead us home?

There is so much God has done for us: jobs, paid our bills, paying our bills at church, safe travel, safe surgeries, miraculous provision for little babies over the past year.  We’ve had good test results, open doors, and unexpected blessings.  Have we thanked God?

Did you sleep last night?  Did your kids?  Will you eat tomorrow?  Have you seen people recently converted?  Are their relationships in the process of being healed?  Did you sell your house or get married or finish school?  Have you enjoyed the encouragement and support of the church?  Have you enjoyed laughter and sympathy with friends?  We’ve known guilt. We’ve received grace. Will we live out gratitude?

We aren’t all blessed in the same ways. But we all have been blessed in innumerable ways. Some return to Jesus with praise. Others do not. Which prompts Jesus to say two things: “Your faith has made you well” and “Where are the nine?”

Jesus More? Football Less?

 Kevin DeYoung at Gospel Coalition quotes J.C. Ryle and then asks the tough question:

“The man whose soul is “growing” takes more interest in spiritual things every year. He does not neglect his duty in the world. He discharges faithfully, diligently, and conscientiously every relation of life, whether at home or abroad. But the things he loves best are spiritual things.

“ The ways, and fashions, and amusements, and recreations of the world have a continually decreasing place in his heart. He does not condemn them as downright sinful, nor say that those who have anything to do with them are going to hell. He only feels that they have a constantly diminishing hold on his own affections, and gradually seem smaller and more trifling in his eyes.

“Spiritual companions, spiritual occupations, spiritual conversation, appear of ever-increasing value to him. Would any one know if he is growing in grace? Then let him look within for increasing spirituality of taste.”    - J.C. Ryle

So I ask myself: Do I love Jesus a little more this year and football a little bit less? Do I love the word more and the world less? Do I love to long for spiritual things more and entertainment, politics, and hobbies less? Are the things that truly taste best tasting better to me?

Remedies Against Accusations

 From Kevin DeYoung at The Gospel Coalition:

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” 

(Revelation 12:10-11).

Satan is an accuser and a deceiver. In both cases his weapons are words, which is why we must overcome him with the word of our testimony.

In other words, it is through our belief in the gospel and our confidence in the power of Jesus Christ that we can stand secure in the face of Satan’s lies and accusations.  And it is by the truth of the word of God–believed on and hoped in even unto death–that we can expose and destroy the deceptions of the Deceiver.  This is how we do battle, with the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.

So when Satan whispers, “Can God really forgive you?  Can your sins be washed away?” you can answer confidently: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1-2).

When the Devil says your situation is hopeless, when he calls you an addict and says you can’t change, you can reply: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” (Rom. 8:8-9).

And when Satan suggests that it must not matter then how we live, that grace and freedom are an excuse for license, we must answer: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).

And when our Enemy points to our suffering and says, “Look, God cannot be trusted. Surely, there is no use in serving this Master” we will inform him that we “consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).

And if Satan should tempt us to believe that God is singling us out for pain, we will remind him that “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Rom. 8:22).

If he spreads the lie that our trials will be the end of us, that God can no longer help us, we will declare, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28).

And when he shows us our weakness, when he points to the failures of the church, when he accuses us of having let God down and makes us doubt the power of the gospel and the ultimate triumph of the saints, when he comes at us with words and all the weapons of the world, we will stand our ground with a defiant shout: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:37-39).

Satan is hell bent on destroying the church.  He breathes fiery accusations like a dragon and hisses deception like a serpent.  He is in pursuit of the woman and her children.  But the salvation and the power and the kingdom belong to God and to Christ our King.  And we shall overcome the devil, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.

How do we feel guilty? Let me count the ways.

Powerful thoughts from Kevin DeYoung:

I imagine there are plenty of Christians who rarely feel the sting of conscience or the pangs of regret. But I also know many, many Christians (including the one I see in the mirror) who easily feel bad for all the things they are not doing or are doing less than perfectly. In fact, I’m convinced most serious Christians live their lives with an almost constant low-level sense of guilt.

How do we feel guilty? Let me count the ways.

• We could pray more.
• We aren’t bold enough in evangelism.
• We like sports too much.
• We watch movies and television too often.
• Our quiet times are too short or too sporadic.
• We don’t give enough.
• We bought a new couch.
• We don’t read to our kids enough.
• Our kids eat Cheetos and french fries.
• We don’t recycle enough.
• We need to lost 20 pounds.
• We could use our time better.
• We could live some place harder or in something smaller.

What do we do with all this behind the scenes guilt? We don’t feel stop-dead-in-our-tracks kind of remorse for these things. But these shortcomings can have a cumulative effect whereby even the mature Christian can feel like he’s rather disappointing to God, maybe just barely Christian.

Here’s the tricky part: we should feel guilty sometimes, because sometimes we are guilty of sin. Moreover, complacency as Christians is a real danger, especially in America.

But yet, I don’t believe God redeemed us through the blood of his Son that we might feel like constant failures. Do Peter and John post-Pentecost seemed racked with self-loathing and introspective fear? Does Paul seem constantly concerned that he could be doing more? Amazingly enough, Paul actually says at one point “I am not aware of anything against myself” (1 Cor. 4:4). He’s quick to add, “I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” But it sure seems like Paul put his head on the pillow at night with a clean conscience. So why do so many Christian feel guilty all the time?

1. We don’t fully embrace the good news of the gospel.

We forget that we have been made alive together with Christ. We have been raised with him. We have been saved through faith alone. And this is the gift of God, not a result of works (Eph. 2:4-8). We can be so scared of antinomianism, which is a legitimate danger, that we are afraid to speak too lavishly of God’s grace. But if we’ve never been charged with being antinomian, we probably haven’t presented the gospel in all it’s scandalous glory (Rom. 6:1).

2. Christians tend to motivate each other by guilt rather than grace.

Instead of urging our fellow believers to be who they are in Christ, we command them to do more for Christ (see Rom. 6:5-14 for the proper motivation). So we see Christlikeness as something we are royally screwing up, when we should it as something we already possess but need to grow into.

3. Most of our low-level guilt falls under the ambiguous category of “not doing enough.”

Look at the list above. None one of the items are necessarily sinful. They all deal with possible infractions, perceptions, and ways in which we’d like to do more. These are the hardest areas to deal with because no Christian, for example, will ever confess to praying enough. So it is always easy to feel terrible about prayer (or evangelism or giving or any number of disciplines). We must be careful that we don’t insist on a certain standard of practice when the Bible merely insists on a general principle.

Let me give another example. Every Christian must give generously and contribute to the needs of the saints (2 Cor. 9:6-11; Rom. 12:13). This we can insist on with absolute certainty. But what this generosity looks like–how much we give, how much we retain–is not bound by any formula, nor can it be exacted by compulsion (2 Cor. 9:7). So if we want people to be more generous we would do well to follow Paul’s example in 2 Corinthians and emphasize the blessings of generosity and the gospel rooted motivation for generosity as opposed to shaming those who don’t give us much.

4. When we are truly guilty of sin it is imperative we repent and receive God’s mercy.

Paul had a clean conscience, not because he never sinned, but, I imagine, because he quickly went to the Lord when he knew he was wrong and rested in the “no condemnation” of the gospel (Rom. 8:1). If we confess our sins, John says, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We aren’t meant to feel borderline miserable all the time. We are meant to live in the joy of our salvation. So when we sin–and we’ll all sin (1 Kings 8:46; 1 John 1:8)–we confess it, get cleansed, and move on.

This underlines one of the great dangers with constant guilt: we learn to ignore our consciences. If we are truly sinning, we need to repent and implore the Lord to help us change. But if we aren’t sinning, if we are perhaps not as mature as we could be, or are not as disciplined as some believers, or we are making different choices that may be acceptable but not extraordinary, then we should not be made to feel guilty. Challenged, stirred, inspired, but not guilty.

As a pastor this means I don’t expect that everyone in my congregation should feel awful about everything I ever preach on. It is ok, after all, for people to actually be obedient to God’s commands. Not perfectly, not without some mixed motives, not as fully as they could be, but still faithfully, God-pleasingly obedient. Faithful preaching does not require that sincere Christians feel miserable all the time. In fact, the best preaching ought to make sincere Christians see more of Christ and experience more of his grace.

Deeper grace will produce better gratitude, which means less guilt. And that’ s a good thing all the way around.