back to index2020-11-29 The Leper Believes His Power
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Would you please take your Bibles and turn over to Psalm chapter 77. 00:00:12.280 |
We're going to be reading from verse 1 through 15, and that's just an introductory verse 00:00:19.320 |
I wanted to use to guide our thought into the passage that we have ultimately in Matthew. 00:00:26.040 |
So I'm going to be preaching from out of Matthew, but as an introduction, just turn over to 00:00:33.640 |
And as you turn there, I want us to think about this idea. 00:00:37.260 |
You and I live in an absolutely fallen world, right? 00:00:41.360 |
And right now, I mean, maybe there are people, politicians all around, whether on either 00:00:51.180 |
side of the aisle, will promise you greater peace, greater prosperity, and a yes we can 00:00:56.520 |
mentality that we're going to be really, really good. 00:01:00.160 |
But I read about the end in the Bible, and that's not really the case. 00:01:04.320 |
So I feel a suspicion you're trying to pull a fast one on me, right? 00:01:08.320 |
Scripture says not only are we living in a fallen world, it's going to get worse, actually. 00:01:15.000 |
And what Jesus said was you are essentially going to suffer in this age. 00:01:19.840 |
Something is going to be constant, which is going to be the suffering of the people. 00:01:27.200 |
And given that fact, I hurt myself in different ways, right? 00:01:31.600 |
I inflict upon all kinds of different woes and pains upon myself because of the fact 00:01:39.640 |
I'm not pointing at you, I'm just saying we live in, when we say a fallen generation, 00:01:45.100 |
everybody can have the potential to disappoint us. 00:01:52.840 |
And so, we're going to have sentiments of disappointment and great pain. 00:01:57.440 |
And the reaction to suffering that is expressed here in Psalm 77, so follow with me as I read. 00:02:04.040 |
It says, "My voice rises to God and I will cry out. 00:02:14.160 |
In the night, my hand stretched out with weariness. 00:02:31.980 |
I have considered the days of old, the years of long ago. 00:02:36.180 |
I will meditate with my heart and my spirit ponders. 00:02:54.280 |
Or has he in anger withdrawn his compassion?" 00:03:00.080 |
Those are some really expressive words of the sentiment that within the midst of suffering, 00:03:06.280 |
your feeling is, "God probably either forgot about me or he withdrew his grace." 00:03:17.280 |
"Then I said, 'It is actually my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. 00:03:28.080 |
I will meditate on all your work and muse on your deeds. 00:03:38.780 |
You have made known your strength among the peoples. 00:03:41.480 |
You have by your power redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph.'" 00:03:47.680 |
The fact of the matter is, A, you're going to experience incredible amounts of suffering. 00:03:52.680 |
And even those of you who have experienced incredible amount of blessing in your life, 00:03:55.980 |
where perhaps you've never had to deal with physical ailment, sickness in the family, 00:04:01.680 |
or even things like being poor and not having enough. 00:04:07.080 |
Even then, many people will testify to the fact that the blessing of the Lord becomes painful to you. 00:04:27.280 |
Things in the world, it just tends to disappoint. 00:04:38.680 |
But here and now, the passage is saying, the author is saying, 00:04:42.480 |
"But I am going to make sure that I don't lean on my experience." 00:04:56.680 |
No. He says, "What I'm going to do in this midst of the suffering is going to look 00:05:05.280 |
And so Christians, one of the practices we regularly have is we look back, right? 00:05:14.280 |
Incredible works of God in drawing the nation of Egypt out, the Great Exodus. 00:05:19.380 |
Incredible miracles of God to protect and to preserve. 00:05:23.380 |
Incredible works of God to win battles, to raise nations, to destroy nations, 00:05:30.380 |
Incredible works of Jesus to heal, to even raise from the dead. 00:05:36.580 |
Does that mean history was sanitized of all suffering and pain? 00:05:43.380 |
Mankind's history has still been riddled with all sorts of pain and suffering. 00:05:52.580 |
It's an issue of faith to not use just my experiences, just my eyes, and to doubt 00:05:57.980 |
whether God is there or not, but to believe with our hearts that God is still nevertheless 00:06:03.080 |
absolutely powerful and that he is absolutely present with that power. 00:06:11.180 |
You see, I think many of us have the temptation to wonder, look at our lives, 00:06:18.480 |
and to conclude either God must not care or God must not be powerful enough. 00:06:26.080 |
Today we're going to be looking at a specific example in the life of Christ, 00:06:30.780 |
in a life in the history of mankind, where Christ has proven to be both. 00:06:38.280 |
To be so compassionate, to be there in the immediate presence of the most pressing 00:06:43.880 |
needs of mankind, but also to exhibit incredible power, proving himself to be worthy of all praise. 00:06:51.080 |
So let's take a moment now to turn to Matthew chapter 8. 00:06:57.380 |
And in Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 and down, what happens is Jesus, 00:07:02.280 |
he just had a mass of people follow him, hearing his great authoritative preaching, 00:07:08.980 |
As he's coming down from the mountain, various people approach him. 00:07:12.880 |
A leper, a centurion gentile, Peter's mother-in-law, and Jesus miraculously heals them. 00:07:21.580 |
Let's take a moment to start reading here in Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 through 4. 00:07:27.180 |
When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him, 00:07:30.880 |
and a leper came to him and bowed down before him and said, 00:07:33.980 |
"Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 00:07:38.780 |
Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing, be cleansed." 00:07:47.380 |
And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell nobody, but go, show yourself to the priest, 00:07:54.180 |
and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them." 00:08:05.680 |
We know that you are powerful. You are the creator of the world. 00:08:09.280 |
We know, Father God, that perhaps recreating a limb, perhaps making a man whole again, 00:08:19.180 |
But we also thank you, God, that that power you exhibit, you say, 00:08:22.780 |
the power that you exhibit in Christ, you exhibit towards us in our salvation, 00:08:28.380 |
God, in the redemption of our souls, in the healing, Father God, for us for eternity. 00:08:36.080 |
Right now, as we look upon your word, I pray that God, through your spirit, 00:08:40.480 |
your word would work mightily within our minds and within our hearts. 00:08:46.780 |
So, we read that short four verses, and as I was studying the passage, 00:08:51.880 |
I just, at one moment, just prayed, like, "God, I wish you would have wrote more." 00:08:59.980 |
We believe Jesus, with a touch and word, made a man who was so sickly, 00:09:21.980 |
What else does he have to help me in my life?" Right? 00:09:25.280 |
But what we're doing is camping down and realizing Christ exhibited such power 00:09:30.980 |
that all he had to do was, again, in one short phrase, 00:09:34.880 |
he touched him and he healed him. That was it. 00:09:38.380 |
But what we're going to learn from this whole scenario is to look 00:09:41.980 |
at the faith of the leper who believed in that power. Right? 00:09:46.180 |
We're going to dissect and see the leper who came, approached Jesus, 00:09:50.580 |
requested and asked and humbled himself before the Lord, 00:09:54.180 |
what is contained in his mind and his heart that he would come to the Lord in this fashion? 00:09:58.780 |
That's the question. What faith of the man who is the leper? 00:10:04.280 |
Now, we've been doing this study in the book of Hebrews, talking about great faith. 00:10:09.980 |
And we said that this faith that the people had, it wasn't just an intellectual assent. 00:10:14.480 |
It was substantive. Right? It was substantive. 00:10:19.280 |
The things that are unseen, exhibited in the faith of those godly individuals. 00:10:24.280 |
And today, it's just kind of a mini version of that. 00:10:27.280 |
And the individual here in Matthew chapter 8. 00:10:30.080 |
The very first point I have for you then is this. 00:10:32.980 |
This leper clearly believed the power of Christ 00:10:36.480 |
and therefore risked great public shame. Okay? 00:10:40.680 |
He clearly believed in the power of Christ and that's why he risked great public shame. 00:10:45.880 |
The passage just simply starts with such a mundane way of saying the leper came and he bowed before him. Right? 00:10:52.280 |
But in the other corollary passages, this story is recorded in both the Gospel of Mark and Luke as well. 00:10:59.180 |
In the Gospel of Luke, the author describes it and says, 00:11:02.080 |
"Behold, there was a man covered in leprosy." 00:11:08.980 |
But you notice how there is that kind of almost superfluous way of saying, 00:11:18.280 |
Because a leper would never come into the crowd. 00:11:23.780 |
You see, back in the old day, the leper had no authority, 00:11:30.080 |
had no right, and actually a legal prohibition for him to enter into the crowd. 00:11:36.280 |
When we study this passage, I hope you can do the whole mental picture with me. 00:11:41.180 |
We said earlier that Jesus was teaching on the mount and there was a crowd. 00:11:46.980 |
What it says earlier, prior to Matthew chapter 5, when the story begins of his discourse, 00:11:52.280 |
is that people from regions all around came to him. 00:11:56.480 |
So when we see a crowd like this for us, having a group this size is already big. 00:12:02.380 |
Before pandemic, this room held 400 people. That was big. 00:12:06.780 |
I mean, at that point, you couldn't even know the names of the people in the room. 00:12:10.580 |
But when you think about scenarios like that, that was a hundredfold more than that. 00:12:14.880 |
It was not uncommon for Jesus to feed. Remember the 5,000? 00:12:18.780 |
It was not uncommon for Jesus to teach in masses well over 5,000 people, 00:12:23.880 |
including if there were male, female, and even children. 00:12:27.780 |
So you're talking about a massive group of people. 00:12:38.980 |
So picture that, a massive group of people moving together, 00:12:41.980 |
following Jesus as he's coming down the mountain. 00:12:47.980 |
I mean, I'm going to right now try to describe to you what the leper is, 00:12:53.180 |
Imagine back in March when you started hearing of there was a disease 00:12:57.380 |
that was spreading in China, in Wuhan, and people were dropping. 00:13:03.480 |
There were stories and rumors of people having fever, coughs. 00:13:14.780 |
I have some symptoms of heavy coughing, heavy breathing. 00:13:25.680 |
For a leper, a leper was an individual so distinctly riddled with disease. 00:13:36.680 |
Well, if you don't know, leprosy, the term itself, 00:13:40.380 |
both in the Hebrew and the Greek, means scaly. 00:13:43.580 |
Why? Because this disease attacked the flesh. 00:13:52.780 |
Your skin on the face would look scaly like it was that of a reptile almost. 00:13:58.680 |
I looked it up on Google and then regretted it, right? 00:14:08.980 |
The thing about it is, yes, I just, I'm thinking about it in terms of the devastation, 00:14:14.680 |
but right now it's not common. You don't see it. 00:14:17.480 |
But it is present in some of the more rural areas in certain countries. 00:14:25.580 |
Right now, the cases are a lot lower, but it's still going on. 00:14:28.780 |
And the thing about it is, in those scenarios, it is so difficult to treat 00:14:34.080 |
because this disease affects every part of you. 00:14:40.280 |
it attacks the nervous system so that you cannot feel. 00:14:44.480 |
And this disease was called the disease that mimics everything. 00:14:49.380 |
Because it's not so much that it had this kind of infection and bacteria like everything else, 00:14:56.980 |
can you imagine getting a cut and not being able to feel it? 00:15:00.080 |
You would get infections because you wouldn't be able to treat it. 00:15:04.980 |
If you're using a tool and that tool is ripping into your skin, 00:15:10.380 |
If you had certain pains, not being able to feel it? 00:15:12.680 |
And so people would literally rub away certain parts of their skin 00:15:19.380 |
It attacked the nervous system and the tendons 00:15:21.280 |
so that your fingers and your extremities would be drawn in 00:15:24.880 |
and people would have essentially claw-like hands. 00:15:28.580 |
It would attack your bones and it would become brittle 00:15:30.480 |
and individuals would lose pieces of their, again, their fingers and their toes. 00:15:37.880 |
There's a lot of picture of people who have lost their noses, their ears. 00:15:42.580 |
This would also attack the eyes and so many individuals after years would die of, 00:15:50.380 |
And so a long time ago there was this movie with Charlton Heston 00:15:55.480 |
And within those movies there are people with leprosy 00:15:58.280 |
and they would always have this incredibly raspy voice. 00:16:01.780 |
That was because the disease would ravish their vocal cords. 00:16:08.280 |
Because when the passage says, "Behold, there was a man covered in leprosy," 00:16:14.780 |
this individual was distinctly, apparently, obviously, to the naked eye, diseased. 00:16:23.180 |
And to go beyond that, lepers were given these clothes that they would wear 00:16:28.280 |
and they would have to yell out, "Unclean, unclean!" 00:16:31.380 |
Did you know that the law within both tradition 00:16:36.580 |
required a certain amount of distance between an individual and a leper? 00:16:42.280 |
And what's interesting, over tradition and time, 00:16:44.080 |
they said a leper had to keep minimum six feet distance. 00:16:53.680 |
And so what I'm saying is, you don't even almost have to say "Behold," 00:16:59.080 |
because in a massive crowd, to say that this man was a sticking-out sore thumb 00:17:05.880 |
You would imagine then the crowd moving and this individual coming to Jesus, 00:17:09.580 |
and most likely the crowd would be like, "What are you doing?" 00:17:13.980 |
I would imagine this certain individual saying, 00:17:16.280 |
"No, there's other people who need to be healed. You stay back over there." 00:17:21.880 |
When I say that this individual, because he believed Christ to be powerful enough to help him, 00:17:31.380 |
Because not only did he risk the shame of everybody saying, "Look at that leper! 00:17:35.180 |
Watch out, watch out, watch out! Pulling the kids back!" 00:17:37.980 |
You can imagine this. "Pulling the kids back! Don't go near him! Cover your mouth!" 00:17:42.180 |
Did you know that they believed, and it was proven to be true, 00:17:44.980 |
that leprosy was transmitted through droplets from the mouth and from the nose? 00:17:49.380 |
And so they had this thing, you had to keep all distance. 00:17:54.580 |
This individual risked everything because he was in risk of breaking the law. 00:17:58.780 |
This individual risked everything because he was actually in risk of being stoned to death. 00:18:03.380 |
Tradition had it that if you see a leper out of his place, walking down the street, 00:18:10.080 |
you essentially had an unwritten code, you could stone him. 00:18:14.580 |
And sadly to say, some of the first people to throw the first stone would be the priests, 00:18:23.480 |
You could see why that by the description of what leprosy is, 00:18:30.280 |
That it desensitized you, that it killed you outside, inside. 00:18:35.180 |
And biblically speaking, it caused you to be ceremonially unclean. 00:18:40.880 |
This individual was radically dejected from the society. 00:18:47.480 |
Why do I bring this stuff up? It's because all of this was obvious to everybody. 00:18:55.780 |
But it required the faith that Christ could do something for him to come out. 00:19:00.980 |
For him to not try to some in meager way to save face. 00:19:06.280 |
Let me quickly turn it to us, sometimes our perpetual desire to save face 00:19:11.280 |
prevents us from experiencing the power of God. 00:19:15.980 |
Our feeble attempt to somehow self-preserve prevents us from going to the Lord, to draw near. 00:19:23.680 |
You know Christ has come, you know he's drawn near, 00:19:27.280 |
you know that he desires for all to come to him. 00:19:31.180 |
But if this leper wallowed in the, "I am rejected by society, I know I am unclean, 00:19:45.980 |
maybe he was hiding out on the side of the crowds, 00:19:49.280 |
maybe he was hiding behind a structure or a bush, 00:19:52.680 |
I am guessing he heard the authoritative preaching of Jesus and said, "That man has power." 00:20:01.380 |
That would be the only rational line and reason for him to go and risk all of that, 00:20:09.180 |
potentially being stoned by even the religious leaders. 00:20:15.680 |
the leper believed in the power of Christ and therefore humbled himself to worship. 00:20:21.980 |
He believed, he must have believed in the power of Christ, 00:20:28.680 |
It says that the leper came and he bowed himself down before Jesus, right? 00:20:37.380 |
As you guys know, Greek, very just extensive language, has multiple terms. 00:20:42.380 |
There's lots of terms for worship, adoration, and praise, 00:20:45.580 |
but this specific term, if you've heard it before, 00:20:48.080 |
proskuneo means to prostrate oneself, which means to bring low. 00:20:52.180 |
So Mark chapter 1 verse 40, it says that he fell on his knees. 00:21:01.080 |
The common practice of the day was that when you find somebody who is superior to you, 00:21:06.080 |
you would come and then you would lower yourself and put your forehead to the ground. 00:21:11.880 |
It is an act of saying, "I am unworthy to look at you in this fashion." 00:21:17.780 |
Proskuneo was used predominantly as a means to show adoration. 00:21:22.080 |
The way that it's used commonly is to actually like interpret it in another, 00:21:27.580 |
I guess translate it in other works of literature, is to send a kiss. 00:21:31.080 |
Not a romance, okay, it's not blowing a kiss, but like a kiss of homage. 00:21:37.580 |
If I can paint a picture for you, sort of movie analogy. 00:21:40.780 |
Have you guys seen those Italian mobster movies? 00:21:53.680 |
You've got grown men who lean down and, you know. 00:22:01.680 |
If you've ever done that to anybody, that person receiving it would probably be like, 00:22:07.780 |
Because it's so outlandish, it's so expressive in its show of homage. 00:22:12.880 |
Back then when there was such hierarchy, people did that. 00:22:19.180 |
Now it's, "I'm going to go all the way down, falling on his face." 00:22:32.680 |
He recognizes Jesus' superiority and he goes down to the floor. 00:22:42.080 |
Contrast that with what the common day thought was about Jesus. 00:22:46.280 |
At this time, early on in the ministry, there was so much conjecture about who Jesus was. 00:22:52.480 |
Later on even, even later on into the story of Jesus' ministry, 00:22:55.780 |
Jesus asked the disciples directly, "Who do you say I am?" 00:23:01.580 |
"Well, some say you're Elijah. Some say you're Jeremiah. 00:23:05.080 |
Some say you—you gotta be one of them prophets, right?" 00:23:13.980 |
"You're clearly one cent of God, powerful enough to meet my need." 00:23:21.780 |
When we're talking about this specific scenario, what you see is a man convinced, 00:23:29.980 |
Because in this culture, if the individual was a Jew, you dare not worship any man. 00:23:38.280 |
And amongst the Jewish culture, if you were receiving worship, 00:23:41.680 |
you would be like, "No, no, no, no, no, don't do that, because I'm just a man." 00:23:45.980 |
And if you tried to give worship to something that was not God, 00:23:52.680 |
What this man is doing is recognizing the power of Christ. 00:24:01.480 |
For every single one of us, what a challenge. 00:24:04.680 |
The faith of the leper to recognize the power of Christ and to humble himself in worship. 00:24:15.080 |
"Those who call on Jesus but do not worship him are more diseased than this leper." 00:24:21.280 |
In his commentary, he says, "If you're so blind that you can't see Jesus, you are blinder than the leper." 00:24:28.680 |
"If you cannot give worship, you must have not seen the light of Christ," is what he's saying. 00:24:35.980 |
We here at Berean, we focus in on the sufficiency, the authority, and the power of the Word of God, 00:24:45.080 |
which is appropriate and true to what the Word proclaims. 00:24:49.780 |
So rightly so, we must be people of the Word. 00:24:55.980 |
The danger for people who are focused on the Bible is to make their spiritual experience one of intellect. 00:25:03.680 |
And so sometimes I hear people talking about their Christian faith from before, 00:25:07.980 |
in terms of God's work in their life, and in terms of currently, how they are growing, all in terms of intellect. 00:25:16.380 |
My parents taught me the gospel and taught me the Bible. 00:25:19.180 |
And then there were some times when I studied it. 00:25:21.680 |
And then at a certain point, I started taking it more seriously and studying it more. 00:25:28.880 |
Now, some of us talk like that, and that's okay. 00:25:31.580 |
I'm not saying you can't talk like that, because I understand what you're saying. 00:25:37.180 |
It convicted you, and at a certain point, it started hitting you more, and it started to make sense, and you understood. 00:25:47.180 |
But if you stop there, there's something missing that is shown in this passage. 00:25:53.380 |
Because if you ask the leper, if you ask the leper, "Did you get it?" 00:26:00.180 |
He's going to say, "I saw Christ, and I surrendered." 00:26:04.280 |
There is a huge difference when saying, "You know, at a certain point in my Christian walk, it started clicking. 00:26:09.980 |
I understood," versus, "You know, I saw Jesus, and I prostrated myself. 00:26:16.280 |
I put myself at his mercy, because he is God." 00:26:20.280 |
And there's an experiential part of Christianity where you come before the Lord, and you do this. 00:26:27.080 |
"Lord, I fall on my knees, because you're God. 00:26:40.980 |
This man expressed—this is like, if you're talking about a movie scene, some dramatic scene where there's a whole crowd watching, 00:26:52.580 |
How expressive—I'm guessing, I'm just assuming, reading between the lines here, 00:26:56.380 |
that certain people are like, "What is this fool doing? 00:27:04.380 |
And he bows before the Lord and says, "Lord!" 00:27:10.880 |
It only records one phrase, but I'm pretty sure this leopard said more. 00:27:23.080 |
And in that way, I challenge every single one of us. 00:27:27.280 |
Our faith is a reactionary worship to seeing the great light of Christ. 00:27:35.580 |
And clearly, what we learn from this leopard is he saw the power of Jesus. 00:27:40.280 |
Let's move on to the next point, which is, the leopard believed the power of Christ, and he asked for cleansing. 00:27:48.380 |
This leopard believed upon the power of Christ, and he asked for cleansing. 00:27:53.580 |
Scripture again in Matthew says, "When he came down from the mountain, a large crowd followed him, 00:28:00.080 |
and a leopard came to him and bowed down before him and said, 'Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.'" 00:28:05.680 |
Now, in this passage, it's not even a question. 00:28:10.280 |
"I believe you are so powerful, it's not even an issue. 00:28:26.180 |
Back then, families were typically pretty big. 00:28:28.280 |
I'm assuming this individual perhaps had family who could not touch him or see him. 00:28:32.580 |
Why is it that my brother is clean and I am not? 00:28:40.580 |
But rather than asking those questions, he is asking the question, 00:28:47.280 |
Now, the reason why I said it's a question is because the other passages, Luke 5, verse 14, 00:28:58.180 |
He's saying to the Lord, "Christ, Jesus, I believe in your power. 00:29:05.280 |
And only if you're willing, I know I will be clean." 00:29:10.780 |
The centurion said, "You don't even have to come to my house. 00:29:15.280 |
Just say the word, and my servant will be clean." 00:29:23.080 |
But as I meditated upon this passage, please meditate with me. 00:29:26.980 |
I didn't want to make too much of this, "And he asked," or "He said the statement," you know, 00:29:31.180 |
and I'm making a big deal about it, but let's take a moment to meditate. 00:29:36.880 |
This individual asked something that was obvious. 00:29:46.980 |
He was clearly deformed in some way or another. 00:29:52.380 |
And as soon as I started thinking that, I felt a conviction in my heart. 00:29:57.380 |
Because there's something stubborn in me that doesn't want to ask, right? 00:30:03.180 |
There's something weird about asking that makes you feel a little bit less. 00:30:08.780 |
So you turn to other things to get what you need or want. 00:30:15.680 |
Now, we have perhaps all dealt with an individual who you know they want something, 00:30:22.280 |
So they use things like complaining, throwing a tantrum, right? 00:30:26.280 |
Crossing their arms and giving you cold shoulders, like, fine then. 00:30:35.980 |
And now it's always a question of like, "Are you being fair or not?" 00:30:38.780 |
Like, and then you're just kind of thinking, "Just ask me," right? 00:30:44.680 |
We have perhaps seen other people where they offer up better plans. 00:30:48.980 |
They give you advice, but then you recognize, like, you have conflict of interest. 00:30:52.380 |
All your plans result in you getting what you want. 00:30:57.080 |
I want you to recognize that many people have done that to Christ. 00:31:04.980 |
And then what that does is we want you to be king because then we usher in the revolution of the Jews, right? 00:31:16.980 |
And the reason why I say this is because I do that, right? 00:31:21.580 |
You…there are certain things you feel that you need, you're deficient. 00:31:28.880 |
And rather than asking the Lord, maybe you're fighting your sin, maybe you're…whatever it may be. 00:31:35.380 |
There is this weird categorical pride in me that doesn't want to ask. 00:31:41.580 |
And then even in marriage relationships, quick dating tip, because you guys know I love to give those, right? 00:31:48.380 |
Sometimes you play a game in romantic relationships where you're not too direct with asking stuff. 00:31:55.080 |
Because it's weird if you…in a dating relationship, it's like, "I want to ask you, will you love me?" 00:32:04.580 |
You know, like…and then all of a sudden, you look like this really needy person, okay? 00:32:10.080 |
But the reason why I bring that up is because there is this little phrase that I've often caused relationships to go sour. 00:32:19.280 |
"I don't want to have to ask you to care for me and consider me. 00:32:25.580 |
And if you go, right, to the fridge to get a cold drink, do I have to ask you every time, 'Can you get me one too?' 00:32:33.280 |
Why can't you just think of me and bring me one?" 00:32:39.680 |
A lot of times in relationships, they do that to each other. 00:32:42.980 |
"I don't want to have to ask you for affection and consideration. 00:32:54.780 |
I have a problem asking for stuff because when it's super obvious, and again, he had 00:33:04.980 |
Everybody could see what his problem is, but he humbled himself to ask, "Lord, would 00:33:14.780 |
Within that question, there is a willingness to place oneself at the mercy of his will. 00:33:24.680 |
And that's when it hurts our pride in human relationships. 00:33:33.080 |
And I want to challenge every single one of you. 00:33:34.780 |
Yes, from human to human, you don't want to act like that needy person who's always asking 00:33:40.980 |
Because scripture says in many different scenarios, "Bear your own burden so long as 00:33:45.480 |
it determines on you, don't owe people anything." 00:33:52.980 |
But between you and our God, between you and Christ, the reality is you need everything 00:34:04.880 |
The reality is, the situation is, he is of power. 00:34:16.080 |
By faith, we should be very comfortable humbling ourselves and saying, "God, you have the 00:34:24.480 |
And scripture says, "These are the people who will be blessed." 00:34:29.180 |
In Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31, "Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. 00:34:36.080 |
They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, and they 00:34:42.380 |
Behold," oh sorry, I'm going to read another passage, Psalm 123, "Behold, as the eyes of 00:34:50.780 |
servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of their 00:34:56.480 |
mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God until he is gracious to us." 00:35:03.280 |
You see, the world will see that and say, "What? 00:35:17.080 |
You want me to ask and sit there and wait for him to answer?" 00:35:24.980 |
Biblically speaking, what we're saying is just as obvious as the disease of a man of 00:35:41.580 |
And it's only us who fool ourselves to try and save face. 00:35:46.080 |
But when we humble ourselves to ask, we will be blessed. 00:35:50.880 |
Lastly then, lastly, like the leper, we must believe that the Lord is willing. 00:35:58.580 |
The leper believed in the power of God, but the leper believed that the powerful Lord 00:36:09.080 |
"Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, 'I am willing!' 00:36:17.480 |
He cleansed, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed." 00:36:24.780 |
I mean, if there is an incredible, dramatic scene, something just epic, you have thousands 00:36:31.580 |
You could probably have a commotion like, "Gasp! 00:36:50.080 |
But what they see is not Jesus being contaminated. 00:36:58.180 |
And to us, those words, "I am willing," that's incredible. 00:37:04.780 |
And to us, that simple act, "Jesus touched him," that's beautiful. 00:37:11.780 |
The thing about it is, Jesus didn't need to touch him! 00:37:14.880 |
The very next story is, I don't even need to go there! 00:37:24.480 |
Jesus touching him is a ministering of compassion to the one who is weak and feeble. 00:37:44.280 |
If there was somebody who was an outcast on the outskirts of society, this would be it! 00:37:53.880 |
I can imagine just the tears in the man's eyes, just flowing out of thankfulness. 00:38:00.280 |
As a matter of fact, I could even imagine the man going, "What are you doing? 00:38:11.680 |
And I imagine this scene, the leper reeling back, like, "Gasp!" 00:38:15.480 |
And then Jesus touching him and him feeling cleansed from head to toe. 00:38:31.480 |
He didn't say, "Got medicine, vaccine, take two a day." 00:38:37.040 |
It was miraculous, instantaneous, in the moment, it was perfect! 00:38:42.800 |
But what's really astounding about this is Jesus proceeds to say, "I am willing." 00:38:53.280 |
Scripture says that God on his own initiative, he purposed before the foundation of the world 00:38:59.800 |
to take sinners lost and condemned like ourselves, and to hold and have us, to love us, to redeem 00:39:11.200 |
That was all done, Ephesians chapter 1, according to the kind intention of his will. 00:39:34.760 |
Scripture says in Hebrews chapter 2, you see, angels fell, humans fell, but God so desired 00:39:43.360 |
to be of help to the children of Abraham, and when he did, he sent his son. 00:39:50.760 |
Brothers and sisters, if you are going through hard times, I began with Psalm chapter 77. 00:40:04.200 |
That means he can't sleep because it bothers him so. 00:40:12.720 |
I want to ask you, this leper is showing to us a model of faith to believe in the power 00:40:34.600 |
After this story, he healed the next and the next and the next. 00:40:42.160 |
To write of it would fill books and books and books. 00:40:50.600 |
I want to say to you guys that as I was preparing this passage, there was an individual where 00:40:58.600 |
I was counseling and I was afraid he had suffered deeply. 00:41:04.320 |
He wasn't like a Job story, but he had suffered in a way where I thought, "I don't know what 00:41:08.480 |
to say to you because if I say stuff to you wrong, I might offend you." 00:41:13.360 |
I'm not going to say, "Hey, look on the bright side." 00:41:16.560 |
The guy has suffered to the degree where I was just so careful. 00:41:20.760 |
Maybe too careful because there was a part of me that wanted to share with him parts 00:41:25.080 |
of my devotion and say to him, "Our God is proven powerful." 00:41:30.640 |
Because I worried, what if he comes back and is like, "Well, not with me. 00:41:35.600 |
Because yeah, maybe God is powerful with them, but not with me. 00:41:52.840 |
"Our God is so powerful, he will deliver me from your hand." 00:41:57.680 |
Then the guy said, "You're going to burn in my furnace. 00:42:05.400 |
They said, "God's either going to draw us out miraculously or we're going to die in 00:42:12.760 |
Brothers and sisters, in terms of what God is willing to do, God is willing to do far 00:42:21.080 |
He wants to deliver you eternally, to give you perfection. 00:42:26.480 |
For what good is it for a man to gain health, but to have a vicious heart, to have an eternity 00:42:36.960 |
But Christ, he is willing that you would have life and life eternal. 00:42:46.440 |
And in that compassion and in that love, he has poured out his life for us. 00:42:51.560 |
And that to us, we're reminded here that our Lord is willing. 00:42:59.240 |
And as humble servants, as those who we know we were stricken with sin, we wait eagerly 00:43:07.360 |
I want to conclude with this interesting thought. 00:43:12.840 |
In Matthew 8, verse 4, Jesus says something that's a little bit persuasizing. 00:43:18.160 |
And what he says is this, "See to it that you tell no one, but go, show yourself to 00:43:25.200 |
the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them." 00:43:37.240 |
And when you believe, that faith will cause you to draw near, that faith will humble you, 00:43:42.160 |
that faith will cause you to ask and then to receive the blessing of God. 00:43:49.820 |
You might not see it apparently, but here is the warning. 00:43:53.000 |
Jesus commands the man to go and do a fulfillment of the law process, which is in Leviticus 00:44:01.360 |
chapter 13 and 14, God had commanded many things pertaining to the instruction of a 00:44:07.520 |
Number one, he had to go show himself to a priest to affirm, "Do I really have leprosy?" 00:44:15.520 |
And if you're confirmed, you are to isolate yourself and call yourself unclean. 00:44:21.220 |
That bulk of it was only four verses or five verses in Leviticus chapter 13. 00:44:25.200 |
The rest is all about what do you do when the leper is cleansed. 00:44:31.320 |
I tried to think about scriptural passages when the leper was cleansed. 00:44:37.640 |
Naaman went to the king, Jerurim I think was his name, because he heard that there was 00:44:44.320 |
And when Naaman showed up, the king was like, "I'm not God! 00:44:59.400 |
And then the fact of the matter is, if you look at Jewish tradition, if you were deemed 00:45:03.000 |
to have leprosy, it actually records in Jewish Tamil tradition, they actually read the last 00:45:08.760 |
rites and kind of the sayings of the old upon your death to the person who just got it. 00:45:13.760 |
So imagine you go sick to the hospital, and then the priest comes in and starts reading 00:45:22.600 |
It was just the thinking though was you're as good as dead. 00:45:30.360 |
It's kind of like getting an instruction manual to what to do when you win the lottery. 00:45:41.200 |
To the Jewish leaders and Pharisees of the time, they should have been shocked. 00:45:47.880 |
For the first time in my life, I'm practicing Leviticus 13, 14. 00:45:54.800 |
The Jewish leaders should have been like, mind blown! 00:46:06.160 |
Because you know what the instructions are in Leviticus? 00:46:08.660 |
When the man comes and he says he's cleansed, the Levitical priests, they essentially do 00:46:22.020 |
And essentially, they do a check to make sure that this was a genuine miracle. 00:46:33.520 |
Jesus has done everything possible to convince the world that he is of God. 00:46:46.960 |
Do you know what the Pharisees and the leaders conclude? 00:46:55.960 |
Below, and a warning to every single one of us, there is a weird temptation for us to 00:47:11.280 |
We run away when we should be running towards him. 00:47:17.560 |
We do so many things that believe that other people can help us, other programs. 00:47:24.840 |
It's not just the nation of Israel, and it's not just the Pharisees. 00:47:28.260 |
How many times has God said, "Trust me and me alone." 00:47:40.960 |
So I end with this warning because surprisingly, this passage is a warning. 00:47:45.880 |
It's a rebuke to the established culture and the religious leaders of the time. 00:47:51.520 |
What we need to believe is in the power and the willing compassion of Christ. 00:47:56.360 |
You are going to be tempted and lured by the world. 00:48:02.720 |
But may we be of those humble like the leper. 00:48:06.720 |
"Lord, if you're willing, I'm going to be clean." 00:48:12.360 |
Father God, we thank you so much that in your Word, we have the answer to the question, 00:48:25.960 |
Some of us, Father God, we wrestle with sin and it amazes us. 00:48:33.600 |
I pray, God, we would believe that you have power, Lord, and that you're willing and compassionate. 00:48:41.920 |
I pray, Father God, for the faith to be humble, Lord, that resorting to my own devices, resorting 00:48:53.720 |
And Lord, we must be humble enough to come to you and ask. 00:48:58.200 |
I pray, Father God, anybody in this room who is struggling through suffering and hard times, 00:49:03.720 |
when they recognize that, Lord, your plan for them and your will for them is not to 00:49:08.280 |
simply have ease here because you already told us we'll walk this life with great suffering, 00:49:20.240 |
To have you means we have the greatest power of all.