"I've Got To Break Away!"

I decided to change the topic of my sermon for tonight. Instead of "The Power Of A Break-away" I've decided to go with "I've Got To Break Away." The sermon is about the story in Luke 17 about the 10 men with leprosy who Jesus healed. The scripture tells us that only one of the ten took the time to return to Jesus and thank him for his healing.

Using an analogy that my pastor uses, I sought to find where to "slice" the text so that the sermon would have a smooth flow. Here are the points I found. This is just a rough overview. I can't give you all the goods on my blog. You'll have to meet me in Beaufort. :-0

1. The Request of the Lepers -
They all shouted out to Jesus, in what seems like unison voices, that they wanted Him to - get this - not heal them, but to have mercy on them. That's loaded.

2. The Response of Jesus -
Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests. He never said that he would or wouldn't heal them. He just gave them an assignment.

3. The Reaction of the Ten -
Unlike Naaman in the book of 2nd Kings, these ten men with leprosy didn't hesitate to obey the word of the Lord. It was during their completion of the assignment that they discovered that healing had taken place. But now this crowd was moving toward the priest. They were excited. They had been together for quite some time. I'm sure it was difficult for any one of them to break the peer-pressure of the group and step to the beat of a different drum.

4. The Return of the One -
One of them realized that they were moving away from Jesus instead of toward him. This one leper decided that it was more important to him to worship God than to be reaclimated with society. You see, in order for them to be released back into society, a priest had to acknowledge that they were indeed "cleansed" or healed of their conditon.

Okay, I'm about to give you too much. I've got to finish packing. Pray for me that God will move mightily tonight in Beaufort, SC.