A New Lease on Life

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Fall Stewardship Series – Week One

October 12, 2025

Luke 17:11-19

 “A New Lease on Life”

Today’s Gospel is one of those very familiar passages of Scripture: Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers. This passage is also appointed as the Gospel reading for Thanksgiving, and so we’ll hear it again later next month. With the access we have to medical care and treatment, we can forget how devastating leprosy was not only in the ancient world, but well into the modern era. There was much misunderstanding and mystery about this illness. Now called Hansen’s Disease, the concern in former times over infecting others gave rise to leper colonies in which infected people lived apart from family and community. Those who cried out to Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson were one such colony. Their cry to Jesus echoes down to us today as we cry out to Jesus in our own need: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:13). Jesus graciously healed them all, even though only one returned to give thanks for the blessing received. But what happened after they were healed? How were their lives changed? That becomes the basis for today’s sermon under the theme “A New Lease on Life.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Those ten lepers who had been healed by Jesus really were given a new lease on life. They could now go back to their homes and families. They could now go about daily life just like anyone else. No more isolation and fear. Don’t you wonder how their lives were transformed by what Jesus had done for them? We’re not told in Scripture what this looked like, and so we are left to wonder. They had an amazing story to tell, and they surely must have told this to anyone and everyone willing to listen. A big reset button had been pushed in each of their lives. How would they use this gift, this new lease on life?

The truth is that we also have been given a new lease on life. We might not have experienced a dramatic physical healing like those ten lepers did, but the Lord Jesus has had mercy on us, just as he did with them. All of us have been infected with sin sickness, and left unchecked, the prognosis is fatal. Sin sickness manifests itself in different ways – ruptured relationships, selfishness and greed, isolation and fear, disregard for others, injustice – but the end result is always the same: death and destruction. As with the ten lepers, so with us, Jesus meets us in all our need. We can only cry out to him: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:13). The good news is that Jesus has had mercy on us. Jesus entered into our broken world to bring healing and hope. Jesus has done this by taking our sin sickness upon himself, going all the way to the cross for us and for our salvation. Dying he destroyed our death; rising he restored our life. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Son of God we have received a new lease on life. The cleansing blood of Jesus has won for us forgiveness of sins, eternal life and salvation. Like those ten lepers, our lives have also been transformed by Jesus. Now, what will we do with this great gift?

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul the apostle wrote: “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). What Paul wrote nearly 2000 years ago is just as true today as it was when he first penned it. We’re not Jesus’ disciples on Sunday only, when we are in worship or Bible class. Jesus has had mercy on us and given his life for us so that we may be his beloved possession 24/7, wherever we go, whatever we do. God’s claim upon us is round-the-clock. Believing that this is true, how are we honoring the Lord in our life together? What are we doing with this new lease on life that God has so graciously given to me and to you? It as Paul writes elsewhere: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

So, this new lease on life through Jesus is really a stewardship thing. We will be exploring what this looks like in a 3-week series on Christian stewardship based on that passage of Scripture above from 1 Corinthians 10:31, and entitled “Whatever You Do.” We will examine aspects of who God calls us to be as his consecrated stewards – managers who are set apart for God’s special purposes through Jesus. The truth is, everything we are and have comes from God’s hand and through his gracious providing. It all belongs to God, and is just on loan to us for a time. We really can’t give anything to God that is not already his. A new lease on life cannot be confined to certain hours or days; it bursts out of such restraints into every nook and cranny of life. A new lease on life will recognize that all of life is stewardship – not just Sunday morning. Our work and leisure, our time and possessions, our talents and abilities, our relationships, our education and money, our health and well-being, our food and drink – all of these are God’s gifts to us. How we make use of them becomes our offering that comes in response to all that God in Christ has done, and continues to do, for us. It is an offering rooted and grounded in love. As Paul writes elsewhere to the Corinthians: “He [Jesus] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

This side of heaven we will never know what happened with those ten lepers whom Jesus healed; what the new lease on life meant for them. What we can know here and now is what the new lease on life that we’ve received from Jesus looks like for us. That’s the big take-away from today’s sermon. Think on and pray over that Scripture theme verse: “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” May God help us to do this for Jesus’ sake. Amen.