Sermons
Afraid to Get Sick
June 6, 2021
Ministry:
- Sunday Morning
Speaker:
- Jeff Crotts
Text: Matthew 8:1-8:4
Series:
- Matthew
A more probing question than, “Does Jesus still heal today?” is, “Are you afraid to get sick?”
- People are afraid of getting sick.
- Covid dynamics tell as much.
Today (Matt. 8) is about Jesus’ healing someone covered in leprosy.
- This prompted my thinking on how concerned people are with the possibility of getting sick.
- It is no fun for your body to be breaking down.
- Worse, when diagnosed with a chronic disease, living with pain every day.
- Worse, with diagnoses is terminal.
- Covid has exacerbated fear, making coughing public a crime.
- People believing, getting sick means death.
- Hospitals were viewed last year as death camps.
- It was uncommon to connect “I’m sick” to “I could die.”
- Sensitized to sneezing as putting people at risk for germs.
I recognize people have contracted Covid and died or lost loved ones.
- Covid is still mysterious and contagious.
- Goal is neither to hype or unhype Covid or call out agendas.
- I am addressing the issue of “fear” – specifically “fear of death.”
- Exposed at new dramatic, severe levels.
Remember AID’s and HIV in the 80’s haunting us.
- AIDs only contracted by casual contact (a sexually transmitted disease).
- “What constituted non-casual really?”
- “Was the public bathroom still safe?”
- On eggshells during my 9th-grade year.
- Fear in our country tapered when threat of “death” waned.
Some of the thread of Covid meaning “death” has likewise waned, but, I do not want you to miss its hidden lesson for the Church!
People are not afraid of getting sick, they are afraid of dying from sickness.
What frightens people most is what can or will kill them.
Let us return to the original question. “Does Jesus still heal today?”
- This is still important to answer biblically and ties in with how you feel about your life and death.
- We or may not have much in common; but we all have one definite thing in common. We are all going to die.
- Physical life as we know it will end.
- This is certain.
Jesus healed a lot of people when he was here on earth.
- “Does he still heal while enthroned in Heaven?”
- Knowing Jesus is the same now as he was then (Heb. 13:8), leads me to assume yes!
- He heals both supernaturally and providentially (through natural and medical means).
- All the time.
- Knowing Jesus is the same now as he was then (Heb. 13:8), leads me to assume yes!
- Jesus is sustaining the life and breath of everyone down here and does so on an atomic and molecular level.
ESV Acts 17:28 for a“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;1 as even some of byour own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.
ESV Colossians 1:17 And ahe is before all things, and in him all things bhold together
- Christ overrides disease when he wills to do so.
Jesus heals but the concern is the soul.
- Enduring afflictions remind what is wrong with the world.
- Every disease originates from original sin.
- Unbelieving doctors do not know this.
Jesus feels what we suffer from (Mark 5:19, 34).
- But this concern is temporary.
- His forever concern is seeing him as Savior.
Jesus’ motives and methods with this man, the “leper” redirect how we should view suffering, health, life, and death (Matt. 8:1-4).
- This miracle is not the point.
- Not and end.
- This is about this man’s attitude and approach to the Healer.
- Likewise, Jesus’ attitude and approach to the man seeking healing.
Listing the main points [READ Matt. 8:1-4]:
- The leper knelt before Jesus, recognizing he was Lord, saying “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
- Jesus broke Old Testament Law, doing what was forbidden, physically touching the diseased man, responding by saying, “I will; be clean” (v. 3).
- After this man was healed (immediately and comprehensively), Jesu told him not to tell anyone what happened.
- But, to “…go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them” (v. 4).
Here is what Jesus’ healing account teaches us:
- Only God can heal.
- He can do it and if he chooses to do so.
- God willed it to be so.
- This man yielded himself to this fact and likewise every true believer.
- Every believer does the same.
- Gaining this same healing in this life or in the next.
- Scripture promises ultimate healing will be found in heaven, so we know this is God’s will.
- Finally, when Jesus tells him to keep the fact that he was healed, private.
- According to Mark 1, he did not!
- Why keep this a secret?
- Jesus never meant to be a walking convenience store.
- People coming for a quick fix for ailments.
- Jesus always has higher purposes for our lives than whether he heals supernaturally, or providentially (naturally) or not at all, during our lifetime.
Every believer should have some respect for God’s higher purposes.
- If you had the choice between having perfect health or compromised health and that by having compromised health, your son or daughter would awaken to Jesus, you would choose worse health!
- If you could make the choice between suffering or not, whereby undergoing physical suffering you would redirect your child away from a destructive path toward Hell, you would choose to suffer.
- I believe sometimes God makes the choice for us to suffer and/or to be healed as an influence over where our loved ones spend eternity.
- God in his providence is constantly weaving together millions of invisible and unknowable variables to bring about his purposes.
After Jesus healed this man, he directs him to follow the normal protocols through the law of Moses to be cleared from mandated quarantine and to offer a sacrifice to give glory to God.
- This protocol was more than offering a religious sacrifice in that it was part of Jewish governance.
- Much like our city mandates.
- Why did Jesus prescribe this?
- Probably for several reasons, but the one comes to mind.
- Jesus wants the natural hype associated with a supernatural event to be sublimated.
- Why?Because to put Jesus’ higher purpose in the forefront.
- Jesus being our Savior from our sins.
Right now, we know that someone in our flock who has just died.
- We talked with him days ago, and I left certain of one thing.
- What mattered most of all and everyone else, was the state of this man’s soul.
- This man’s soul is secure.
- To know the state of his family’s souls are secure.
- What mattered most of all and everyone else, was the state of this man’s soul.
- Perhaps the greatest fruit of being a Christian is knowing heaven is secure.
- A sure thing.
Uncertainty of death, in general, causes so many unbelievers to fear getting sick.
- In our world, catching a catchy virus that we do not know a lot about, terrifies people.
- This fear is understandable when you do not know anything certain about what happens to you when you die.
- Certainty about heaven is what we need to spread by spreading Jesus.
Mark’s Gospel gives more detail.
- We know Jesus still heals today. But not always.
- Mark’s account takes things a level deeper with details, answering, “Why, Jesus sometimes heals and sometimes does not heal.”
- Nailing down what Jesus’ healing ministry is about ends up addressing the deeper – important issue.
- Man’s fear of death!
Mark 1:40-45 – Jesus heals a man with leprosy.
During my jr. high I was educated and warned about an alarming and incurable condition known as HIV or AIDS.
- HIV which stands for “Human immunodeficiency virus infection.”
- AIDS which stands for “Acquired immune deficiency syndrome” – to be avoided at all costs.
- Meant you were cast into vulnerability to contract diseases your body could no longer fend off.
- Meant severe weight loss, general atrophy, unrecoverable sickness, and ultimately death.
- Even with current therapies and treatments that improve quality of life it is still life altering.
- Meant you were cast into vulnerability to contract diseases your body could no longer fend off.
- Stigmas are heartbreaking.
- Connection to sinful sexual sin, hetero and homosexuality.
- Connection to drug use through infected needles.
- Though people contract AIDS by other amoral means, the stigma of the virus, with its origin, is always there, haunting.
Leprosy is the AIDS of the Old Testament; what Jesus moves toward with this particular man.
- Leprosy, means “scaly.”
- An incurable disease which in its severest form, meant a horrible existence.
- Back then with no knowledge of bacteria, cause and transference on a micro level was unknown.
- The only way to address it was quarantine.
- Israel’s community had to send anyone suspected of it to the priest to “take a test!”
Leviticus 13 takes 59 verses to describe somewhat of a clinical process where a priest would examine sores and boils on a person to determine the seriousness of a person’s skin condition. Some conditions were localized and temporary and some were infectious and contagious, and this needed to be determined for the sake of the community.
- So, a person through a battery of tests would be either pronounced “clean” or “unclean.”
- If unclean, a person would be relegated outside the community and outside of the temple worship.
- Separated from corporate worship.
- Separated from fellowship.
- Known to live at the garbage dump.
- Wearing bells so you knew they were coming.
- This seems cruel but was a necessary protection of the general population.
- What is cruel is the effects of sin in our world and bodies.
- Practice focused on preserving the Jewish race.
- The Law was superficial, used Lawfully it was helpful.
- What is cruel is the effects of sin in our world and bodies.
- Twisting to de-humanize like Rabbis, terrible.
- Gospel writer Luke said of the 10 lepers, they “…stood at a distance” (Luke 17:11).
- Leprosy (compared to other skin disorders) was “dying inch by inch” [Ryle].
- Hellish existence, deforming, disfiguring limbs where nerve endings numbed rendering a person helpless to care for extremities.
- They would gash and burn
One Doctor commenting on this level sites: numbness, spots that lost their original coloration, skin getting thick, glossy and scaly, sores and ulcers getting dirty for lack of blood supply and swelling. The face of a Leper becomes like the face of a Lion who now has an affected larynx making the voice hoarse.
This was so dangerously contagious that once pronounced unclean by the priest the Leper was legally under this command:
Leviticus 13:43-46
43 Then the priest shall examine him, and if the diseased swelling is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, like the appearance of leprous disease in the skin of the body,44 he is a leprous man, he is unclean. The priest must pronounce him unclean; his disease is on his head.45 “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and alet the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall bcover his upper lip1 and cry out, c‘Unclean, unclean.’46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be aoutside the camp.
- This is a condemned life to say the least.
- It is easy to presume a person like this is under the judgment of God.
- The very picture of Leprosy seems to depict the deep festering nature of sin itself.
This is the gruesome picture, and the one Jesus reaches toward.
“Does Jesus still heal today?”
“Why does Jesus heal sometimes and other times not?”
“How are we supposed to solve someone’s fear of death?”
Jesus cleanses the man with leprosy on 3 levels
1. Supernatural cleansing [miracle] (vv. 40-42)
a. Jesus was moved with compassion
In verse 40 we are introduced to a man who comes breaking all the rules.
- He is not supposed to approach uninfected people.
- Supposed to announce his condition as “unclean” especially since he was coming into this kind of intimate proximity with another person.
- Something was very different in the mind of this man with leprosy.
- He knew Jesus was different and this man knew that his approach to him should be different too.
- Supposed to announce his condition as “unclean” especially since he was coming into this kind of intimate proximity with another person.
The Bible does not tell us what this man knew of Jesus.
- We don’t know if he suspected him to be the Son of God or not, but it does indicate that he knew Jesus was innately powerful.
- He knew Jesus had “say” over the physical realm, that his healing was a matter of Jesus’ “will.”
- Jesus had healed before and possibly had healed people with leprosy.
- The Bible only specifically describes the actual healing of a leper or lepers (the 10 lepers) on two occasions.
- However, Jesus’ ministry was vindicated to John the Baptist in terms of healing lepers (not all healings recorded).
ESV Luke 7:22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: athe blind receive their sight, the lame walk, blepers1 are cleansed, and cthe deaf hear, dthe dead are raised up, ethe poor have good news preached to them. (Luk 7:22 ESV)
This was still a unique and dramatic event.
- The leper did not care about direct obedience to the ceremonial Law since he somehow instinctively knew he was in the presence of Someone who superseded these commands as the fulfillment or the point of the ceremonial Law.
- What this man was doing, throwing himself upon the mercy of Jesus “imploring to him…kneeling…to him” was all appropriate and fine by Jesus.
- Jesus did nothing to correct this.
To the contrary, Jesus was “Moved with pity” (v. 41).
- The language conveys depth of emotion.
- Jesus felt for this man and this kind of emotion and compassion is what Mark highlights here and throughout his Gospel.
- Jesus did not recoil from what looked heinous or grotesque.
- He did not hide behind the ceremonial Law, keeping distance from him.
- He was moved.
b. Jesus did the unthinkable
Jesus acted. Jesus “stretched out his hand and touched him” (v. 41).
- The Law said not to do exactly what Jesus did.
- I think in cases like these, what seems to contradict.
- It is important to remember a few basic things about Christ.
- He authored the Law, so he is applying the Law perfectly.
- Two, the intent of the Law was to protect people from disease.
- Jesus did not need to protection.
- Jesus was “clean” physically and spiritually.
- By touching this man, Jesus’ was not affected but was affecting, was not corrupted but was healing.
This is a very clear reminder that we as Christians (who have been transformed on the inside) are those with a new nature, charged and equipped to never recoil from the unlovely but move toward the unlovely.
- Called not shy away from the diseased or outcast.
- Called to move toward and to touch lives.
- People stigmatized by their sins whom we should reach out to.
- We might be the only men and women who can show people hope and forgiveness.
At the end of verse 41 Jesus said these definitive words, “I will; be clean.”
- Jesus healed this man according to his will.
- Verse 42 pictures healing that is miraculous (immediate and comprehensive).
- “There’s no rehab necessary.”
- Next verse: Jesus commands this newly healed man to take a long day and a half journey to the temple.
- This man fully restored to complete health!
This man’s disease was cleansed from his body.
- Verse 43 takes an unexpected turn.
- Jesus had done the unthinkable.
What looked like completely ignoring the Law by engaging and touching the leper and now he flips this by aggressively sending him to comply with the Law.
2. Ceremonial cleansing [witness] (vv. 43-44)
a. Jesus told this man what not to do
Jesus “sternly charged him and sent him away at once” (v. 43).
- Jesus’ tone seems counterintuitive.
- He has just performed a miracle that grew out of his heart of compassion and now he is being abrupt and stern.
Jesus literally “snorted” at the man.
- Why did he do that?
- Jesus knew what he had done would cause people to react.
- Jesus knew people would swarm him to be healed.
- No different than our consumer culture today.
- Jesus knew what he had done would cause people to react.
And, Jesus’ primary mission was not to heal people.
- He was willing to heal anybody as verse 34 states “…he healed many who were sick with various diseases.”
- However, Jesus main mission was to preach (v. 38).
- Why came because Jesus’ goals were beyond temporal or physical.
- Jesus’ goal was conversion not healing.
Jesus’ goals must be our goals.
- Our goals center on the condition of the heart.
- This man’s heart is exposed by what Jesus’ charges this man to do.
b. Jesus told this man what to do
Jesus literally thrusts this man away and says “…say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded” (v. 44).
- Easy to think this man was supposed to shout his healing from the roof tops.
- Easy make this an opportunity to spread Word.
- Jesus’ power meant to draw an energized crowd.
- It was not.
The goal in evangelism is not campaigning Jesus like a political figure.
- The goal is not mass exposure.
- The goal in evangelism is for people to see Jesus for who he truly is.
Why times to speak openly about Jesus to people and times when we are not.
Cf. Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”
Jesus’ strategy is focused on a narrower audience.
- Jesus is targeting “the priest.”
- Remember, Jesus (months earlier) had cleared out the temple for sinful corruption.
Now, Jesus is sending back his signature work of a man who was indisputably healed, and this man’s healing was “a proof to them” (v. 44).
- Again, Jesus is concerned for depth witness not breadth of witness.
- The power of this witness would come through the process.
- The priests were examiners more like quarantine specialists, protectors of the community.
- Ceremonial cleansings were neither miraculous nor medicinal.
- The power of this witness would come through the process.
- And miracle cleansings of this magnitude did not happen.
- Only two lepers healed miraculously recorded in the Old Testament.
- Miriam (Moses’ sister speaking against Moses).
- Naaman, commander of the king of Syria (who by Elisha’s influence washed in “the rivers of Damascus”).
- Only two lepers healed miraculously recorded in the Old Testament.
Besides the fact that this healing would be a shocking witness to the priests, the cleansing process would point to the deeper issue, the need to be washed and redeemed spiritually.
- The first phase of cleansing is described in Leviticus 14 is external.
- A clear picture of the Gospel.
- But not a miracle.
ESV Leviticus 14:1-8 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,2 “This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. aHe shall be brought to the priest,3 and the priest shall go aout of the camp, and the priest shall look. Then, if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person,4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live1 clean birds and acedarwood and bscarlet yarn and chyssop.5 And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh1 water.6 He shall take the live bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water.7 And he shall asprinkle it bseven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall clet the living bird go dinto the open field.8 And he who is to be cleansed ashall wash his clothes and shave off all his hair and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean. And after that he may come into the camp
One bird is killed, and one is set free.
This man was cleansed outwardly but was he cleansed inwardly? Look at his response.
3. Spiritual cleansing [conversion] (v. 45)
a. This man’s heart was exposed
I think it is important to see that Jesus’ charge was also a test.
- The leper came to Jesus in a very contrite and desperate manner “imploring”, “kneeling” and not to mention confessing Christ’s Lordship.
- But, now this man faced the personal test of what he would do once he had been blessed.
Often more is told about the state of a person’s soul when they have what they want more than when they are desperate for help.
A child who comes back and to say thank you after getting their toy is a noteworthy event! Same with adults.
You could parallel this test with Jesus’ testing “the rich young ruler” later in Mark 10:17.
- Also, kneeling before Jesus he asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” to which Jesus said, “sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me” (Mark 10:21).
- He went away “Disheartened” and “sorrowful.”
We have a good idea that this man’s heart had changed!
- His zeal to “talk freely” and “spread the news” (v. 45) was the right heart but wrong method.
- This man skipped Jesus’ prescribed process with the TEMPLE.
- Jesus wanted his witness to go through to the PRIESTS via ceremonial channels!
- The point of the Sermon on the Mount was not to do away with the Law but show the true intent!
- Point: A Changed Heart From JESUS!
- This is always the POINT!
- Result, Jesus’ preaching ministry is stifled by this man’s good intentions.
Often it is the case that partial blessing from God does not equate with full blessing from God. Blessed in some ways does not mean in every way.
b. Jesus’ ministry of the Word was hampered
Verse 45 says this man “talked freely” and “spread the news” [abroad].
- He did the exact opposite of what Jesus had “sternly” [“moved with anger”]
- He did not even go to the temple.
What is the result?
- Jesus could not go and preach publicly anymore.
- In fact, this is a turning point from what he had been able to do up until now (cf. 1:14).
- Jesus wanted to go from town-to-town preaching (cf. 1:38 “…for that is why I came out”) but now he had to avoid crowds.
- Though the crowds still came “from every quarter” (v. 45) – from every direction.
One sobering application is that clearly it is possible to think we are doing good for Christ and all the while harming Him and His mission. Our bold speech or actions can harden people’s hearts rather than soften.
“Does God still heal today?” is a question Christians still regularly ask,
“But is it even the right question?”
A better question is this. “How can someone solve his or her fear of death?”
This account from Mark creates an enlarged picture of what Christ does for all who will believe in Him.
- We are all this man the leper.
- Our sin is as deep and pervasive as what this disease, leprosy depicts.
- We were terminally ill, deranged, deformed, corrupted.
- Our sin makes us unclean and unfit to enter into Christ’s presence.
- Yet, we cried out kneeling and begging for mercy.
- We said, “If you will, you can make me clean.”
Christ’s response?
- Mercy, compassion.
- He reached out and “touched” our unclean hearts and said, “I will; be clean.”
On the Cross Christ exchanged places – taking your disease – like H I V – S I N!
He was inside the community, while we were outside, he was brought outside of the community, so we can go inside.
Our community is Christ kingdom.
We have Cleansing – We have Heaven – This is what inoculates our HEARTS from FEARING DEATH!