Good morning again, everybody. Would you please take your Bibles and turn over to Psalm chapter 77. We're going to be reading from verse 1 through 15, and that's just an introductory verse I wanted to use to guide our thought into the passage that we have ultimately in Matthew. So I'm going to be preaching from out of Matthew, but as an introduction, just turn over to Psalm 77.

And as you turn there, I want us to think about this idea. You and I live in an absolutely fallen world, right? And right now, I mean, maybe there are people, politicians all around, whether on either side of the aisle, will promise you greater peace, greater prosperity, and a yes we can mentality that we're going to be really, really good.

But I read about the end in the Bible, and that's not really the case. So I feel a suspicion you're trying to pull a fast one on me, right? Scripture says not only are we living in a fallen world, it's going to get worse, actually. And what Jesus said was you are essentially going to suffer in this age.

Something is going to be constant, which is going to be the suffering of the people. Not only that, I myself am a sinner. And given that fact, I hurt myself in different ways, right? I inflict upon all kinds of different woes and pains upon myself because of the fact that I'm a sinner.

And then, I'm surrounded by sinners. I'm not pointing at you, I'm just saying we live in, when we say a fallen generation, everybody can have the potential to disappoint us. As a matter of fact, to hurt us very deeply. And so, we're going to have sentiments of disappointment and great pain.

And the reaction to suffering that is expressed here in Psalm 77, so follow with me as I read. It says, "My voice rises to God and I will cry out. My voice rises to God, he'll hear me. In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord. In the night, my hand stretched out with weariness.

My soul refused to be comforted. When I remember God, then I am disturbed. When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint." Salah. "You have held my eyelids open. I am so troubled I cannot speak. I have considered the days of old, the years of long ago. I remember my song in the night.

I will meditate with my heart and my spirit ponders. Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never be favorable again? Has his loving kindness ceased forever? Has his promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Or has he in anger withdrawn his compassion?" Salah. That means to stop and think.

Those are some really expressive words of the sentiment that within the midst of suffering, your feeling is, "God probably either forgot about me or he withdrew his grace." That's a sentiment. And then it changes to verse 10. "Then I said, 'It is actually my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed.

I shall remember the deeds of the Lord. Surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and muse on your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your strength among the peoples.

You have by your power redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph.'" Salah. The fact of the matter is, A, you're going to experience incredible amounts of suffering. And even those of you who have experienced incredible amount of blessing in your life, where perhaps you've never had to deal with physical ailment, sickness in the family, or even things like being poor and not having enough.

Even then, many people will testify to the fact that the blessing of the Lord becomes painful to you. Let me say that again. The blessings of the earth, not the Lord. Earthly blessings. Having lots of money. Burdensome. Right? Having lots of popularity. Burdensome. Things in the world, it just tends to disappoint.

It tends to hurt in some odd way. So that's one side. But here and now, the passage is saying, the author is saying, "But I am going to make sure that I don't lean on my experience." Oh, look at my extensive experience. I am hopeless. Those people are hopeless.

Everything is going to be as it is. Everything is for naught. No. He says, "What I'm going to do in this midst of the suffering is going to look on the long history of God's great work." And so Christians, one of the practices we regularly have is we look back, right?

We look back on the incredible works of God. Incredible works of God in drawing the nation of Egypt out, the Great Exodus. Incredible miracles of God to protect and to preserve. Incredible works of God to win battles, to raise nations, to destroy nations, to deliver and redeem. Incredible works of Jesus to heal, to even raise from the dead.

Does that mean history was sanitized of all suffering and pain? No. Mankind's history has still been riddled with all sorts of pain and suffering. But what we're talking about is this. It's an issue of faith. It's an issue of faith to not use just my experiences, just my eyes, and to doubt whether God is there or not, but to believe with our hearts that God is still nevertheless absolutely powerful and that he is absolutely present with that power.

You see, I think many of us have the temptation to wonder, look at our lives, and to conclude either God must not care or God must not be powerful enough. Today we're going to be looking at a specific example in the life of Christ, in a life in the history of mankind, where Christ has proven to be both.

To be so compassionate, to be there in the immediate presence of the most pressing needs of mankind, but also to exhibit incredible power, proving himself to be worthy of all praise. So let's take a moment now to turn to Matthew chapter 8. Okay, Matthew chapter 8. And in Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 and down, what happens is Jesus, he just had a mass of people follow him, hearing his great authoritative preaching, famously called the Sermon on the Mount.

As he's coming down from the mountain, various people approach him. A leper, a centurion gentile, Peter's mother-in-law, and Jesus miraculously heals them. Boom, boom, boom. Let's take a moment to start reading here in Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 through 4. When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him, and a leper came to him and bowed down before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing, be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell nobody, but go, show yourself to the priest, and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them." Let's take a moment to pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you, God. We know that you are powerful. You are the creator of the world.

We know, Father God, that perhaps recreating a limb, perhaps making a man whole again, those are nothing for you. But we also thank you, God, that that power you exhibit, you say, the power that you exhibit in Christ, you exhibit towards us in our salvation, God, in the redemption of our souls, in the healing, Father God, for us for eternity.

And so, Lord, we thank you. Right now, as we look upon your word, I pray that God, through your spirit, your word would work mightily within our minds and within our hearts. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. So, we read that short four verses, and as I was studying the passage, I just, at one moment, just prayed, like, "God, I wish you would have wrote more." This is an incredible story.

We believe Jesus, with a touch and word, made a man who was so sickly, disease-infested, instantaneously clean. We believe that. We believe in the power of Christ. Amen. The world will be like, "Okay. Right? Sure. What else does he have to help me in my life?" Right? But what we're doing is camping down and realizing Christ exhibited such power that all he had to do was, again, in one short phrase, he touched him and he healed him.

That was it. But what we're going to learn from this whole scenario is to look at the faith of the leper who believed in that power. Right? We're going to dissect and see the leper who came, approached Jesus, requested and asked and humbled himself before the Lord, what is contained in his mind and his heart that he would come to the Lord in this fashion?

That's the question. What faith of the man who is the leper? Now, we've been doing this study in the book of Hebrews, talking about great faith. And we said that this faith that the people had, it wasn't just an intellectual assent. It was substantive. Right? It was substantive. The things that are unseen, exhibited in the faith of those godly individuals.

And today, it's just kind of a mini version of that. And the individual here in Matthew chapter 8. The very first point I have for you then is this. This leper clearly believed the power of Christ and therefore risked great public shame. Okay? He clearly believed in the power of Christ and that's why he risked great public shame.

The passage just simply starts with such a mundane way of saying the leper came and he bowed before him. Right? But in the other corollary passages, this story is recorded in both the Gospel of Mark and Luke as well. In the Gospel of Luke, the author describes it and says, "Behold, there was a man covered in leprosy." A little bit more descriptive.

But you notice how there is that kind of almost superfluous way of saying, "Behold!" Right? Getting your attention. And rightly so. Why? Because a leper would never come into the crowd. You see, back in the old day, the leper had no authority, had no right, and actually a legal prohibition for him to enter into the crowd.

When we study this passage, I hope you can do the whole mental picture with me. We said earlier that Jesus was teaching on the mount and there was a crowd. How big was that crowd? What it says earlier, prior to Matthew chapter 5, when the story begins of his discourse, is that people from regions all around came to him.

So when we see a crowd like this for us, having a group this size is already big. This is about a hundred people in the room. Before pandemic, this room held 400 people. That was big. I mean, at that point, you couldn't even know the names of the people in the room.

But when you think about scenarios like that, that was a hundredfold more than that. It was not uncommon for Jesus to feed. Remember the 5,000? It was not uncommon for Jesus to teach in masses well over 5,000 people, including if there were male, female, and even children. So you're talking about a massive group of people.

And remember, there was such a stir. This could be the Messiah. We're talking about a huge group of people. So picture that, a massive group of people moving together, following Jesus as he's coming down the mountain. And the leper comes. I mean, I'm going to right now try to describe to you what the leper is, but right now we're in the middle of COVID.

Imagine back in March when you started hearing of there was a disease that was spreading in China, in Wuhan, and people were dropping. There were stories and rumors of people having fever, coughs. Can you imagine being the individual? I'm from Wuhan. I have a severe fever. I have some symptoms of heavy coughing, heavy breathing.

You couldn't force people to come near you. People would just run, okay? In many ways, that's how it was. For a leper, a leper was an individual so distinctly riddled with disease. The passage says he was covered in leprosy. Well, if you don't know, leprosy, the term itself, both in the Hebrew and the Greek, means scaly.

Why? Because this disease attacked the flesh. People would have ulcers, boils, and sores. It would be discolored. Your skin on the face would look scaly like it was that of a reptile almost. I looked it up on Google and then regretted it, right? I was tempted to show you.

I'm going to leave it to you. Go look it up sometime. The thing about it is, yes, I just, I'm thinking about it in terms of the devastation, but right now it's not common. You don't see it. But it is present in some of the more rural areas in certain countries.

In the Philippines, there are cases. In India, there are cases. Right now, the cases are a lot lower, but it's still going on. And the thing about it is, in those scenarios, it is so difficult to treat because this disease affects every part of you. Let me go on.

This disease not only affects the skin, it attacks the nervous system so that you cannot feel. And this disease was called the disease that mimics everything. Why? Because it's not so much that it had this kind of infection and bacteria like everything else, but what it is, is if you get a cut, can you imagine getting a cut and not being able to feel it?

You would get infections because you wouldn't be able to treat it. Can you imagine not being able to feel? If you're using a tool and that tool is ripping into your skin, not being able to feel it? If you had certain pains, not being able to feel it? And so people would literally rub away certain parts of their skin because they couldn't feel it.

It attacked the nervous system and the tendons so that your fingers and your extremities would be drawn in and people would have essentially claw-like hands. It would attack your bones and it would become brittle and individuals would lose pieces of their, again, their fingers and their toes. There's a lot of picture of people who have lost their noses, their ears.

This would also attack the eyes and so many individuals after years would die of, I'm sorry, would go blind. It would attack the vocal cords. And so a long time ago there was this movie with Charlton Heston on Ten Commandments or even Ben-Hur. And within those movies there are people with leprosy and they would always have this incredibly raspy voice.

That was because the disease would ravish their vocal cords. Why am I describing all of this to you? Because when the passage says, "Behold, there was a man covered in leprosy," this individual was distinctly, apparently, obviously, to the naked eye, diseased. And to go beyond that, lepers were given these clothes that they would wear and they would have to yell out, "Unclean, unclean!" Did you know that the law within both tradition required a certain amount of distance between an individual and a leper?

A leper had to keep that distance. And what's interesting, over tradition and time, they said a leper had to keep minimum six feet distance. So 1.2 meters, right? They had to. They had to keep that distance. And so what I'm saying is, you don't even almost have to say "Behold," because in a massive crowd, to say that this man was a sticking-out sore thumb would be an understatement.

You would imagine then the crowd moving and this individual coming to Jesus, and most likely the crowd would be like, "What are you doing?" I would imagine this certain individual saying, "No, there's other people who need to be healed. You stay back over there." When I say that this individual, because he believed Christ to be powerful enough to help him, he risked it all.

He truly did. Because not only did he risk the shame of everybody saying, "Look at that leper! Watch out, watch out, watch out! Pulling the kids back!" You can imagine this. "Pulling the kids back! Don't go near him! Cover your mouth!" Did you know that they believed, and it was proven to be true, that leprosy was transmitted through droplets from the mouth and from the nose?

And so they had this thing, you had to keep all distance. This individual risked everything because he was in risk of breaking the law. This individual risked everything because he was actually in risk of being stoned to death. Tradition had it that if you see a leper out of his place, walking down the street, you essentially had an unwritten code, you could stone him.

And sadly to say, some of the first people to throw the first stone would be the priests, to show that person is unclean. You could see why that by the description of what leprosy is, it was used as a depiction of sin. That it desensitized you, that it killed you outside, inside.

And biblically speaking, it caused you to be ceremonially unclean. This individual was radically dejected from the society. Why do I bring this stuff up? It's because all of this was obvious to everybody. But it required the faith that Christ could do something for him to come out. For him to not try to some in meager way to save face.

Let me quickly turn it to us, sometimes our perpetual desire to save face prevents us from experiencing the power of God. Our feeble attempt to somehow self-preserve prevents us from going to the Lord, to draw near. You know Christ has come, you know he's drawn near, you know that he desires for all to come to him.

But if this leper wallowed in the, "I am rejected by society, I know I am unclean, I know I am filthy, I know I am diseased," then he would have just stayed in his camp. But my guess is if you picture the scene, maybe he was hiding out on the side of the crowds, maybe he was hiding behind a structure or a bush, I am guessing he heard the authoritative preaching of Jesus and said, "That man has power." He believed it.

That would be the only rational line and reason for him to go and risk all of that, potentially being stoned by even the religious leaders. Now moving forward then to number two, the leper believed in the power of Christ and therefore humbled himself to worship. He believed, he must have believed in the power of Christ, because look at the way he worshipped.

It says that the leper came and he bowed himself down before Jesus, right? That word for bow down is proskuneo. As you guys know, Greek, very just extensive language, has multiple terms. There's lots of terms for worship, adoration, and praise, but this specific term, if you've heard it before, proskuneo means to prostrate oneself, which means to bring low.

So Mark chapter 1 verse 40, it says that he fell on his knees. Luke chapter 5, it says he fell to his face. The common practice of the day was that when you find somebody who is superior to you, you would come and then you would lower yourself and put your forehead to the ground.

It is an act of saying, "I am unworthy to look at you in this fashion." This was an act of worship. Proskuneo was used predominantly as a means to show adoration. The way that it's used commonly is to actually like interpret it in another, I guess translate it in other works of literature, is to send a kiss.

Not a romance, okay, it's not blowing a kiss, but like a kiss of homage. If I can paint a picture for you, sort of movie analogy. Have you guys seen those Italian mobster movies? You know what happens? It's the Don, right, Don Corleone. He comes and all he does is extend his hand.

What do the people do? You've got grown men who lean down and, you know. Have you guys ever done that to somebody? If you've ever done that to anybody, that person receiving it would probably be like, "What are you doing? You mocking me?" Because it's so outlandish, it's so expressive in its show of homage.

Back then when there was such hierarchy, people did that. But imagine this. It's not even a bow to kiss the hand. Now it's, "I'm going to go all the way down, falling on his face." What am I talking about here? Look at the leper's faith. He recognizes his inferiority.

He recognizes Jesus' superiority and he goes down to the floor. Right? Contrast that. Contrast that with what the common day thought was about Jesus. At this time, early on in the ministry, there was so much conjecture about who Jesus was. Later on even, even later on into the story of Jesus' ministry, Jesus asked the disciples directly, "Who do you say I am?" Do you guys remember what they said?

"Well, some say you're Elijah. Some say you're Jeremiah. Some say you—you gotta be one of them prophets, right?" People were not sure, but this leper got it. "You're clearly one cent of God, powerful enough to meet my need." Yes? When we're talking about this specific scenario, what you see is a man convinced, "This man deserves worship." Because in this culture, if the individual was a Jew, you dare not worship any man.

Right? And amongst the Jewish culture, if you were receiving worship, you would be like, "No, no, no, no, no, don't do that, because I'm just a man." And if you tried to give worship to something that was not God, you would be like, "Blasphemy! Stone him!" What this man is doing is recognizing the power of Christ.

And so he goes down to worship. For every single one of us, what a challenge. The faith of the leper to recognize the power of Christ and to humble himself in worship. Spurgeon says it in an intense way, "Those who call on Jesus but do not worship him are more diseased than this leper." In his commentary, he says, "If you're so blind that you can't see Jesus, you are blinder than the leper." "If you cannot give worship, you must have not seen the light of Christ," is what he's saying.

I want to address this a little bit. We here at Berean, we focus in on the sufficiency, the authority, and the power of the Word of God, which is appropriate and true to what the Word proclaims. So rightly so, we must be people of the Word. That's good. The danger for people who are focused on the Bible is to make their spiritual experience one of intellect.

And so sometimes I hear people talking about their Christian faith from before, in terms of God's work in their life, and in terms of currently, how they are growing, all in terms of intellect. You know, I became Christian earlier on. My parents taught me the gospel and taught me the Bible.

And then there were some times when I studied it. And then at a certain point, I started taking it more seriously and studying it more. And then I got it. It started clicking. Now, some of us talk like that, and that's okay. I'm not saying you can't talk like that, because I understand what you're saying.

You learn progressively the truths of God. It convicted you, and at a certain point, it started hitting you more, and it started to make sense, and you understood. Good. But if you stop there, there's something missing that is shown in this passage. Because if you ask the leper, if you ask the leper, "Did you get it?" He's going to say, "I saw Christ, and I surrendered." There is a huge difference when saying, "You know, at a certain point in my Christian walk, it started clicking.

I understood," versus, "You know, I saw Jesus, and I prostrated myself. I put myself at his mercy, because he is God." And there's an experiential part of Christianity where you come before the Lord, and you do this. "Lord, I fall on my knees, because you're God. I don't just get you.

You see what I'm saying? It doesn't just simply click. I have surrendered to you." This man expressed—this is like, if you're talking about a movie scene, some dramatic scene where there's a whole crowd watching, this is one incredible scene. How expressive—I'm guessing, I'm just assuming, reading between the lines here, that certain people are like, "What is this fool doing?

Get away!" "We're trying to listen to his teaching. Get away from us!" And he bows before the Lord and says, "Lord!" It only records—I wish it recorded more. It only records one phrase, but I'm pretty sure this leopard said more. "Lord, you have power. You have authority." And in that way, I challenge every single one of us.

Our faith is a reactionary worship to seeing the great light of Christ. And clearly, what we learn from this leopard is he saw the power of Jesus. Let's move on to the next point, which is, the leopard believed the power of Christ, and he asked for cleansing. This leopard believed upon the power of Christ, and he asked for cleansing.

Scripture again in Matthew says, "When he came down from the mountain, a large crowd followed him, and a leopard came to him and bowed down before him and said, 'Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.'" Now, in this passage, it's not even a question. It's just a statement.

"I believe you are so powerful, it's not even an issue. The only question is, will you?" Do you see that? He's not asking, "Can you?" "What did you do with me? Why? How come?" And think about this. Back then, families were typically pretty big. I'm assuming this individual perhaps had family who could not touch him or see him.

Why is it that my brother is clean and I am not? It perhaps is a very plausible scenario. But rather than asking those questions, he is asking the question, "Lord, are you willing?" Now, the reason why I said it's a question is because the other passages, Luke 5, verse 14, talks about how he implored the Lord Jesus.

So he is begging and asking. He's saying to the Lord, "Christ, Jesus, I believe in your power. And only if you're willing, I know I will be clean." And it's just like the centurion's faith. The centurion said, "You don't even have to come to my house. Just say the word, and my servant will be clean." That's faith.

That's absolute faith. But as I meditated upon this passage, please meditate with me. I didn't want to make too much of this, "And he asked," or "He said the statement," you know, and I'm making a big deal about it, but let's take a moment to meditate. This individual asked something that was obvious.

He was covered in leprosy. He was clearly deformed in some way or another. Did he have to ask? And as soon as I started thinking that, I felt a conviction in my heart. Because there's something stubborn in me that doesn't want to ask, right? There's something weird about asking that makes you feel a little bit less.

So you turn to other things to get what you need or want. Let me give you an example. Now, we have perhaps all dealt with an individual who you know they want something, but they're all manipulative. So they use things like complaining, throwing a tantrum, right? Crossing their arms and giving you cold shoulders, like, fine then.

Don't want it either, right? Like, and they'll maybe even complain. Like, "You did it for them. What about me?" You know? And now it's always a question of like, "Are you being fair or not?" Like, and then you're just kind of thinking, "Just ask me," right? We have perhaps seen other people where they offer up better plans.

They give you advice, but then you recognize, like, you have conflict of interest. All your plans result in you getting what you want. I want you to recognize that many people have done that to Christ. "Jesus, why don't you…you know what? Why don't you make…be king? We'll make you king." And then what that does is we want you to be king because then we usher in the revolution of the Jews, right?

Like, it's so self-interested. We do that. And the reason why I say this is because I do that, right? You…there are certain things you feel that you need, you're deficient. Maybe you feel pain, you feel suffering. And rather than asking the Lord, maybe you're fighting your sin, maybe you're…whatever it may be.

There is this weird categorical pride in me that doesn't want to ask. And then even in marriage relationships, quick dating tip, because you guys know I love to give those, right? Sometimes you play a game in romantic relationships where you're not too direct with asking stuff. Because it's weird if you…in a dating relationship, it's like, "I want to ask you, will you love me?" You know, like, "Will you take care of me?

Will you be all affectionate? Hug me." You know, like…and then all of a sudden, you look like this really needy person, okay? But the reason why I bring that up is because there is this little phrase that I've often caused relationships to go sour. "I don't want to have to ask you to care for me and consider me.

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?' Why can't you just think of me and bring me one?" Okay? You guys have never said that? A lot of times in relationships, they do that to each other.

"I don't want to have to ask you for affection and consideration. I don't have to beg you for stuff. You should know." And then you realize, there it is. I have a problem asking for stuff because when it's super obvious, and again, he had to ask for the obvious.

Everybody could see what his problem is, but he humbled himself to ask, "Lord, would you make me clean?" Within that question, there is a willingness to place oneself at the mercy of his will. And that's when it hurts our pride in human relationships. It places me somehow at your mercy.

And I want to challenge every single one of you. Yes, from human to human, you don't want to act like that needy person who's always asking for everything. Why? Because scripture says in many different scenarios, "Bear your own burden so long as it determines on you, don't owe people anything." Right?

Don't be a burden. Don't be a free bird. But between you and our God, between you and Christ, the reality is you need everything from his merciful hand. The reality is, the situation is, he is of power. You are of need. That's the reality. By faith, we should be very comfortable humbling ourselves and saying, "God, you have the power to meet my need." And scripture says, "These are the people who will be blessed." In Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31, "Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength.

They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, and they will walk and not become weary. Behold," oh sorry, I'm going to read another passage, Psalm 123, "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of their mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God until he is gracious to us." You see, the world will see that and say, "What?

I'm no servant? I'm no slave? I'm no maid to a mistress? You want me to ask and sit there and wait for him to answer?" And the flesh will rebel in that fashion. Biblically speaking, what we're saying is just as obvious as the disease of a man of great leprosy, so is your sin.

So is your great need. It isn't obvious. We are covered in sin. We are so deeply in sin. And it's only us who fool ourselves to try and save face. But when we humble ourselves to ask, we will be blessed. Lastly then, lastly, like the leper, we must believe that the Lord is willing.

The leper believed in the power of God, but the leper believed that the powerful Lord is willing. Let me read to you what it says. "Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, 'I am willing!' He cleansed, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed." I wish I could have been there.

I mean, if there is an incredible, dramatic scene, something just epic, you have thousands of people watching. You could probably have a commotion like, "Gasp! Jesus touched him!" Right? That's forbidden! "Gasp! Jesus is unclean! Gasp! Doesn't he know?" This is an epic moment. But what they see is not Jesus being contaminated.

They see the man be cleansed. And to us, those words, "I am willing," that's incredible. And to us, that simple act, "Jesus touched him," that's beautiful. The thing about it is, Jesus didn't need to touch him! The very next story is, I don't even need to go there! I just say the word and it is so!

That's how powerful our Lord Jesus is! Jesus touching him is a ministering of compassion to the one who is weak and feeble. Imagine with me the life of a leper. Not even his parents can touch him. He's an untouchable, unapproachable. If there was somebody who was an outcast on the outskirts of society, this would be it!

But Jesus approached and touched him! I can imagine just the tears in the man's eyes, just flowing out of thankfulness. As a matter of fact, I could even imagine the man going, "What are you doing? Don't touch me, Lord!" Right? Because clearly the man respected him. And he knew himself.

And I imagine this scene, the leper reeling back, like, "Gasp!" And then Jesus touching him and him feeling cleansed from head to toe. That's crazy stuff! This is the most incredibly beautiful scene. And so Jesus addressed every part of it. It was instantaneous. He didn't say, "Got medicine, vaccine, take two a day." It was miraculous, instantaneous, in the moment, it was perfect!

But what's really astounding about this is Jesus proceeds to say, "I am willing." Brothers and sisters, this is the gospel. Scripture says that God on his own initiative, he purposed before the foundation of the world to take sinners lost and condemned like ourselves, and to hold and have us, to love us, to redeem us, to adopt us, and to perfect us.

That was all done, Ephesians chapter 1, according to the kind intention of his will. God had to have done nothing. He doesn't have to do anything. He doesn't have to be, "Oh, that guy got it. I had no sickness. He has sickness. Why is it?" No, he doesn't have to do anything.

Scripture says in Hebrews chapter 2, you see, angels fell, humans fell, but God so desired to be of help to the children of Abraham, and when he did, he sent his son. Brothers and sisters, if you are going through hard times, I began with Psalm chapter 77. "Lord, have you forgotten me?

Are you going to reject me forever?" He says, "You held my eyelids open." That means he can't sleep because it bothers him so. I will remember the mighty deeds of God. I want to ask you, this leper is showing to us a model of faith to believe in the power of Christ.

Amen? Do you have that conviction? My Lord is near and he is willing. He is compassionate and he is powerful. By the simple word, he healed him. After this story, he healed the next and the next and the next. Actually, Scripture says he healed. As he was teaching, he healed many.

To write of it would fill books and books and books. This is our Lord. Do you believe he is willing? I want to say to you guys that as I was preparing this passage, there was an individual where I was counseling and I was afraid he had suffered deeply.

He wasn't like a Job story, but he had suffered in a way where I thought, "I don't know what to say to you because if I say stuff to you wrong, I might offend you." I'm not going to say, "Hey, look on the bright side." The guy has suffered to the degree where I was just so careful.

Maybe too careful because there was a part of me that wanted to share with him parts of my devotion and say to him, "Our God is proven powerful." Because I worried, what if he comes back and is like, "Well, not with me. Don't tell me those stories." Because yeah, maybe God is powerful with them, but not with me.

I want to remind you. Remember Daniel and his friends? He had this confidence. "Our God is so powerful, he will deliver me from your hand." Right? Remember that? Then the guy said, "You're going to burn in my furnace. You're going to die in my oven." They said, "God's either going to draw us out miraculously or we're going to die in there, but either way, God will deliver us." Brothers and sisters, in terms of what God is willing to do, God is willing to do far more than give simple help.

He wants to deliver you eternally, to give you perfection. For what good is it for a man to gain health, but to have a vicious heart, to have an eternity of corruption and condemnation? It's worth nothing. But Christ, he is willing that you would have life and life eternal.

And in that compassion and in that love, he has poured out his life for us. Amen? And that to us, we're reminded here that our Lord is willing. We know what he's willing of. And as humble servants, as those who we know we were stricken with sin, we wait eagerly for our Savior.

I want to conclude with this interesting thought. In Matthew 8, verse 4, Jesus says something that's a little bit persuasizing. And what he says is this, "See to it that you tell no one, but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them." I give you a warning.

The challenge is, believe on Christ's power. And when you believe, that faith will cause you to draw near, that faith will humble you, that faith will cause you to ask and then to receive the blessing of God. But there's a warning. You might not see it apparently, but here is the warning.

Jesus commands the man to go and do a fulfillment of the law process, which is in Leviticus chapter 13 and 14, God had commanded many things pertaining to the instruction of a leper. Number one, he had to go show himself to a priest to affirm, "Do I really have leprosy?" And if you're confirmed, you are to isolate yourself and call yourself unclean.

You know what's crazy? That bulk of it was only four verses or five verses in Leviticus chapter 13. The rest is all about what do you do when the leper is cleansed. Weird thing. I tried to think about scriptural passages when the leper was cleansed. Can you think of any?

I thought of one, Naaman. Naaman went to the king, Jerurim I think was his name, because he heard that there was a prophet healing there. And when Naaman showed up, the king was like, "I'm not God! I don't give life! What am I supposed to do with you?" Because clearly leprosy meant you're dead.

There was no solution for that. And then after that, I can't think of it. And then the fact of the matter is, if you look at Jewish tradition, if you were deemed to have leprosy, it actually records in Jewish Tamil tradition, they actually read the last rites and kind of the sayings of the old upon your death to the person who just got it.

So imagine you go sick to the hospital, and then the priest comes in and starts reading your last verses. But this was just a slow death. It was just the thinking though was you're as good as dead. That's almost cruel then, isn't it? Like, or weird. It's kind of like getting an instruction manual to what to do when you win the lottery.

And you're like, "I'm not going to ever!" Right? What is this trash? To the Jewish leaders and Pharisees of the time, they should have been shocked. For the first time in my life, I'm practicing Leviticus 13, 14. What is this? The Jewish leaders should have been like, mind blown!

That's the Messiah. He has power. He has authority over disease. Because you know what the instructions are in Leviticus? When the man comes and he says he's cleansed, the Levitical priests, they essentially do disease tracking. Where were you? Did you really have it? Did you have the sores? What kind of sores did you have?

What were the ailments? Were you really cleansed? And essentially, they do a check to make sure that this was a genuine miracle. That was the law. And so Jesus says, "Go show yourself." Jesus has done everything possible to convince the world that he is of God. He is of God.

You know what the sad state of affairs is? Matthew chapter 12. Do you know what the Pharisees and the leaders conclude? "That must be a demon." So sad. It's frustrating almost. Below, and a warning to every single one of us, there is a weird temptation for us to not trust the power of Christ.

We run away when we should be running towards him. We hide when we should be exposing. We do so many things that believe that other people can help us, other programs. It's not just the nation of Israel, and it's not just the Pharisees. How many times has God said, "Trust me and me alone." Why do you keep making alliances with them?

What is Egypt going to do for you? They have powers. That's essentially what they're saying. So I end with this warning because surprisingly, this passage is a warning. It's a rebuke to the established culture and the religious leaders of the time. What we need to believe is in the power and the willing compassion of Christ.

You are going to be tempted and lured by the world. "No, trust me. No, trust yourself. No." But may we be of those humble like the leper. "Lord, if you're willing, I'm going to be clean." Amen? Let's pray. Father God, we thank you so much that in your Word, we have the answer to the question, "Are you willing?" Some of us, Father God, we wrestle with sin and it amazes us.

Like, "You're willing to forgive me?" After how many times? I pray, God, we would believe that you have power, Lord, and that you're willing and compassionate. I pray, Father God, for the faith to be humble, Lord, that resorting to my own devices, resorting to my own power means certain death.

And Lord, we must be humble enough to come to you and ask. I pray, Father God, anybody in this room who is struggling through suffering and hard times, when they recognize that, Lord, your plan for them and your will for them is not to simply have ease here because you already told us we'll walk this life with great suffering, but God, to have such great hope.

To have you means we have everything. To have you means we have the greatest power of all. Lord, we thank you and praise you. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.