You are listening to the sermon podcast from Rocky Creek Church. Find more resources online at Rocky Creek dot church. I invite you to turn with me to one of my favorite passages of scripture. We're going to be in Luke chapter 5, looking at verses 12 through 16 and thinking about contagious compassion today.
I've realized that since 2020, I have said a phrase more in the last six years than I have, probably the previous, I don't know how many years of life that would be in my life. And this is the phrase, no, it's just allergies. Okay, since COVID, let's be honest, how many times have you been coughing, you've been sneezing, you had a stomach bug and you're blaming, it's just allergies, I promise. Okay, it's not because how many of you remember what it was like to always have to have these mask and certain buildings, right?
This mask is all he covers, a mouth, but this is also an eye guard because COVID of the eyes is really bad, apparently. Okay, so you want to keep yourself clear of that. We learn how to deal with the different gloves that we would need hand sanitizers we need and why do so many of us who've never had allergies a day in our life, apparently since 2020, I've got allergies all the time, we have any sickness. Here's the reason why we don't want to be isolated.
We cannot stand isolation. Some of you introverts are like, actually pastor, I know what you mean, okay? But there is a limit and how many of you realize that sometimes being tucked away away from everybody, like it was maybe okay for a moment, but after a while it started to wear on us, but it's not. If you haven't realized the world, we're just different.
We see things differently. We keep things kind of at distance, if you will, and we instinctively kind of step away from what others might think is unclean. And so you know what it's like to hear a cough or sneeze from somebody and we distance ourselves as quickly as we possibly can. We've been programmed to be that way, but I would also say probably on relational level in other areas, we're kind of learning ourselves to not get into other people's stuff, you know?
If you see physical, or if you think physical sickness, take a step back. If you see emotional drama, take a step back. And today we're going to look at a passage of scripture where there was a guy who was quarantining before quarantining was cool. You know what I'm saying?
This is a guy who had leprosy and Jesus does not step back from him. Actually, he does complete opposite. Contagious compassion steps in where others step back. Jesus is going to display this type of contagious compassion.
It's a compassion that says, I'm not concerned with what you have. I'm going to step in and I'm going to step back. I'm going to step in and be into a relationship with you. And that type of compassion is going to move this one guy.
I'm going to change his life. And it's going to have reverberations around not only in his life, but also ours as well because we're still talking about it today. We're going to see in Luke chapter five as a Savior who's not afraid to get in the middle of our mess. That he's not somehow repelled by our condition.
He doesn't mind stepping into this whatsoever. Jesus has started his ministry, called him disciples, and they're about to get first front row seats to what does this mean to truly do ministry according to God's kingdom? Look at verse 12 as we start. Says while he was in one of the towns, a man who was there who had leprosy all over him.
He saw Jesus, fell face down and begged him, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Reaching out his hand. Jesus touched him saying, I am willing, be made clean. And immediately the leprosy left him.
Then he ordered him to tell no one. But go and show yourself to the priest and offer what Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them. But the news about him spread even more. And large crowds would come together to hear him and to be healed other sicknesses.
Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and pray. You know, in this opening verse there, we see a level of desperation and this guy with leprosy reveals that maybe some of us have never been at that quite level of, I really need some help here. If you grew up in church, you've heard about leprosy. You know about it, but some of you have no idea what that is.
We don't talk about it. But I've been in certain parts of the world where that is a real skin condition, a real disease that still present among it. And it is a skin condition that basically has these red bumps all over. It's very contagious, it's very uncomfortable.
And it really could actually mess up an entire community because of how dramatically contagious it is. So if you grew up in church, you know all about leprosy, right? In fact, if you grew up as a preacher kid, you know how to use leprosy in your favor. This is what I mean.
There was one night, I've been here, Gloria Pogg is about four or five. We've been here a long time. My little daughter is standing there in a fellowship hall. I'm finishing up in trust and then all of a sudden I'm standing there talking to somebody and I don't know how to say this but like I could see a red dot on somebody's forehead like this.
I thought there's a sniper in the fellowship hall right now. I was like, what is this? And I look back there and my daughter is doing this to somebody on their forehead and I said, what are you doing? I'm giving him leprosy.
Okay, like that was the thing. I just wanted to know that's what I was like growing up as a preacher kid. Okay, right? And so I said, baby, you don't give him leprosy.
Daddy likes him. Give it to that guy. Okay, but there is some aspect of what leprosy is is this obviously these red dots, these really infectious disease that kind of spreads across. But what's interesting in scripture is that leprosy really parallels with something else that's a very dangerous condition and human existence.
It's called sin. And I want to show you this because this really is a picture of what happens. Like sin, leprosy corrupts from within and eventually shows itself. We see this in Leviticus 13.
Some of you have been going through your Bible reading plans in the Old Testament right now and you just walk through this passage together. And we see it that leprosy begins beneath the skin but it always surfaces. It cannot be hidden forever just like sin. It is a picture of it because it has internal corruption with external consequences.
This man in verse 12 says that he was full of leprosy. So this is not just on his arms. This is all over his body and the condition is total. It's not partial.
Now in Leviticus chapter 13, here's what we're going to read about how bad of a skin condition and disease this was. This is what you were commanded by law to do if you had leprosy. First and foremost, leprosy actually distanced religious life. You couldn't go to worship.
You know why? Because if you did, you'd infect everybody. So you cannot come into worship. So therefore you couldn't be a part of that.
And many of you, once again, you can remember church online. It's great when you're sick, but it's not good long term. We need each other. We need to be among the body of Christ.
But this is what happened. You could not be a part of religious life. If you had leprosy, you also were learning Leviticus 13. It goes beneath the surface.
You see the external stuff and it's actually a sickness actually within that's spreading throughout your body. It also does, like verses 5 through 8 says, it spreads relentlessly. It might start in one part, but it moves every kind of area that you have. It also makes you unclean.
The law will tell you if you were to walk through town, you know what you need to cry out as you go. Unclean. Unclean. It was the label that you would put on yourself to protect everybody else so they wouldn't get near somebody as dirty as you and spread your uncleanness to someone else.
It isolated from community, not just religious community. You couldn't be around your friends, your family, neighbors. You had to live on the outskirts of the community. And what's interesting also Leviticus 13 verse 52 says, if a leper has been wearing clothes, you know what needs to happen to his clothes once he's cleansed, it's supposed to go in the fire.
Can not be thrown away. It goes to the fire itself. Now let me help you see this because I think it's important. Does sin not do the exact same thing for us?
I mean really, sin, does sin distance us from religious life? Yes or no? 100% right? How many of you have been in a pendant of sin in your life and you feel like I can't show up today?
Like I feel like holy, I feel like everybody's going to know about what I've done and you can feel that so desperately. It also does sin go deeper than the surface? Oh, you see the extra you hear what I say, but Emily is showing me my heart's messed up. You see what I do, but deep down my mind is not thinking clearly.
It goes deeper. It also does sin not spread relentlessly. It starts here in your life, but many of us, if we were honest enough to know we know what it's like to sin in one area and then have to send to cover up that area, right? It can spread relentlessly.
It also makes us unclean. You may not call it out, but you wear that label. You know that you're dirty. You feel that you don't belong.
It isolates us from community. One of the most dangerous thing that sin does is it causes us not to want to be honest with others, to communicate what's going on, to tell how we're struggling and also to sin not tell us that it actually deserves the fire. It does. That's what sin literally, Scripture reminds us of.
Isaiah 64, 6 says, all of our righteous deeds are like those filthy rags. They have no place. Romans 3, 23 says, all of us have sinned and fallen short of what the glory of God. This is a picture of what sin does.
Now, some of you once again, it's maybe a new story to you, but some of you grew up in church. I grew up in church in the 80s, the most glorious time to grow up in church. You know what I'm saying? Because back in the day, if we were going to do any kind of multimedia presentation, we used to have these things like when you got back from a mission trip, we had these things called slide projectors.
We don't want to talk about, okay? These little slides you put in and you keep pressing the button and the pictures go up on the screen. We didn't have a screen, but it means the back wall. Do we have a jam box, a Steven Curtis Chapman there, and we're watching the mission trip stuff?
And then when you started bringing in praise songs, you didn't have projectors, we had this thing called overhead transparency. Do you want to talk about it? If you've ever run one of these things, you don't know stress until you've run lyrics over head transparency. What it is, it's a transparent C.
I don't know. It's like a transparency. It's a clear piece of plastic and it's got lyrics on it. And you're basically sliding it up and down so that people can see it on the back wall.
And when the chorus hits, you got to move it up quick and everybody's got motion sickness. It's really, really tense. We grew up on it and I still have a panic episode to think about it. Anyway, that's how I grew up.
But typically, you know, some of you grew up in a time of like, you learned the Bible by veggie tales. That wasn't my time. Okay, praise the Lord Hyluia. I grew up in something even more foundational.
Okay, what I grew up learning the Bible was this thing called the felt board. Okay, how many of you know the felt board? I've already been corrected by someone going, it's a flannel graph pastor. Okay, anyway, flannel graph pastor, whatever it is.
Here's the deal. So we basically had these people in our lives that would teach us these Bible stories before we had like presentation stuff. And so if you did it and like Sunday school down the hall, you have it, but sometimes even the pastor would do this. But the preaching would never be something we could follow along.
So we would have the kids sermon. You know what I'm talking about? Okay, he would sit down here and he would sit down here and he would sit down and he would do some stuff. And if you're good, I'll give you a lollipop.
This always works. Anyway, and so what happens is that you have these little things that are, there's no tricks to this. It's just magic kids. Okay, because you start putting these old things like this synagogue right here and look, it stays.
You're like, how did that happen? I don't know. It really is man. I don't get it.
Okay, so what we're going to do is I'm going to try to explain this story through the flannel graph, through the felt board, because I want you to see something that's pretty awesome about this. So Jesus has been preaching in the synagogue, right? He left synagogue. Everybody's just wanting to follow him anymore.
He's preaching the short line. Everywhere he goes, people are just locked in to Jesus, which means that everywhere that he went, there were these things called crowds. You know what I'm saying? The men just followed him.
They wanted to listen to him everywhere he went. And you could not find Jesus with not people literally all around him, even like a women's Bible study let out. And they came along too. And so like, we got them going and then we got these are little guys.
The kids ministry, they're down here too. Oh, we got all the people right everywhere. Jesus would go. They were just a crowd just wanting to follow me.
They just stayed on his every single word. But there were some that could not be a part of that. They were kind of out in the wilderness, right? They were where there are rocks and nothing really else.
And there were people like this leper. This is where leper sees you, to the outskirts, far away from community, far away from religious life, far away from relationships. You can't be in the middle of this community whatsoever. You are isolated.
You are on your own until something where an act of this happens and you're no longer unclean. And the day this happened, this was a shock because what's the place? The leper left the outskirts and put himself right here, fell down at the feet of Jesus. And you can imagine the crowd probably parted like a Red Sea.
Because they knew. They hadn't seen him in a long time, months, years, whatever it may be. But they remembered him. And it's obvious.
You could see it all over him. Don't get near this guy. And this guy did the unthinkable, did he not? He came in the middle of this community because he was so desperate.
He had to get to the only one he thought could heal him. So he broke, customs, moved past what he thought. Because sometimes desperation will drive you past protocol, right? And toward Jesus.
Sometimes you get so desperate, you're not really worried what anybody else thinks anymore. You got to get to the one that you believe has all hope in the world. So this guy breaks the rules, breaks the customs, moves past what you think he would do. And I guarantee everybody in the community was very, very uncomfortable.
Except for one guy. Jesus. He does not seem at all alarmed by this. He doesn't seem upset by this.
In fact, it's almost like he's welcoming this. This guy is violating social custom. He's violating mosaic law. He's approaching Jesus in public.
He's supposed to cry out, unclean everywhere that he goes. And he does not say unclean. He says, actually, clean. Look at it again.
Lord, if you are willing, you can make me what? Clean. He's supposed to be saying unclean, unclean. And he says, clean.
You can make me this. I know you can change me. You have the power to change me. Now, this might sound obvious, but I feel like I need to at least bring it out before us today.
This guy to be cleansed had to admit that he was not. Does that make sense to you? He drops to his knees in desperation. He doesn't pop off his knees.
I'm not fine. Actually, there's nothing wrong with me. No, he emits. I'm unclean and you can fix me.
You can help me. You can cleanse me. So he's aware of that. He knows he has to accept his uncleanliness before he becomes cleansed and that desperation sometimes produces the clearest moments of faith in our life.
And where there's no other hope, obstacles really become irrelevant to us. And this guy goes, I don't care what anybody else thinks. I got to get into Jesus. Have you ever been in that place before?
I hope maybe some of you might get there today. I'm tired of worrying about everybody else thinks. I've got to come to the one who can help me because I've been trying to help myself a long time and you see where this thing has got me. So the desperation moves him.
And I love what this leper said. Catch it. They're the universe 12. He says, Lord, if you are what willing, you can make me clean.
Catch this. He did not say, Lord, if you are able, make me clean. He believed that it could. The question was, was he going to do it?
It wasn't a matter of Jesus' power. Faith doesn't question Jesus' power. It appeals to his will. And this is so very important because the leper does not say, Lord, if you're able, Lord, if you can do this, Lord, I used to hear about how your father used to do things the Old Testament.
I don't know if you do anymore. It was not if you're able. It's if you're willing, Jesus. Would you cleanse me?
The leper never says, can you? He just says, if you will. Never question. If Jesus can do it.
Just question. Will he do it? And some of you are like, well, why wouldn't he do it right now? Have you ever thought that sometimes the prayers that we are praying that if you were his child, he does not give bad things to his children and you go, yeah, but he hasn't answered this prayer yet.
Maybe he's answering it on a deeper, more profound level than you can even imagine. Maybe the answer might not be today, but tomorrow's answer when it comes, you'll go, Oh, I see that now. And now you just got to trust in this. He believes that Jesus is able, but he humbly submits to Jesus' authority.
And in many believe that Jesus can save, but fewer believe that he actually wants to. And this guy gets it right. Lord, if you're willing, do you want to? Do you want to see this done?
Because I've heard what you can do. And I know that you can cleanse me. The question is, will you? Years ago, one of my family members, I had to take to the ER because of virus would not relent.
And I can remember we were in our hometown of Greenwood, South Carolina. And so I knew a lot of the medical professionals there at the ER. And so I actually wanted to see what the ER doctors are saying. There comes up to me and goes, man, I'll try this must be bad.
Because you all typically come to the ER. I'm going, is that a thing? People do? I don't know where this.
Okay? I didn't know. And he's like, no, he's like, no, some people just come to the ER when they're something wrong. And I'm like, we don't.
And he's like, I know that's why I thought something's different. I'm like, listen, Greenwood doesn't have a lot of things to do on the weekend, but going to the ER should not be like, you know what I feel like going to the night? Let's just show up there. Okay?
But this was no, like some people just show up like, because this is wrong. They're doctors closed. I'm like, no, the other reason we're coming here today is it's bad. It's like, we need help.
It is a desperate moment. We don't care. Anybody might think like, we need help right now. And when this lover shows up, he's like, I don't care what anybody else thinks.
I need help. And so he falls at the feet of Jesus. And here's the progression that happens. So in the next two verses, I think it is pivotal for you to catch.
And if I could order it, right? If I could make the filth board, actually move hands and do certain things, I would do this right now. But I want to read it to you again. I want you to see the progression.
Verse 13, reaching out his hand, Jesus said what? Touch him. Now saying, I am willing. Be made clean.
And immediately the leprosy left him. Now, did you catch that? Here's what I know. If I would have had the power of Jesus and I could cleanse the leper just by my word, I would Leviticus 13 the situation.
I would say, hold on, brothers, then back a little bit, six feet. It's got a limit. I'm going to cleanse you right now. But you're going to have to quarantine for another two weeks.
Then I want you to see your doctor. They're going to do a swab on your mouth. You're going to send that back to the lab. And when they come back to me, if they say that you're clean and you don't have leprosy anymore, I'm going to give you the biggest bear hug and then you're going to Bible study with me later.
Is that what Jesus did? This is not how I would have done this. It says before he cleansed him, what do you do? He touched him.
And Leviticus 13 says, if you touch a leper, that's unclean. Guess what you now are? You're unclean. And if that makes you uncomfortable, I'm just stating the obvious, Levitical facts, people.
You touch a leper. Now you're unclean. And Jesus intentionally did this before cleansing him before guaranteeing that he was healed. Jesus wasn't hesitant to offer connection before cleansing.
He reached out in that moment before he was cleansed and God in the middle of this guy's mess. Jesus touches the man before the man's clean. Jesus' compassion has him embracing his mess before cleansing his mess. And I would say the same is true for you, friend.
Do you realize today that if you came in and you're like, I don't want to let anybody in this church know that I've got mess going on? Guess what? You were sitting around a bunch of messy people. There's nobody in here perfect.
You might be a couple of them that think they are, but I know them. They're not. I promise you this, there's not one perfect person in here. And so Jesus says, not, I want you to clean this up.
He gets in the middle of it right away. And this is so incredibly important for us to see because one of the biggest issues that we can get to, if we don't see that how Jesus is willing to embrace our mess before cleansing our mess, it changes the way we minister and connect with people all over the place. In the law here, touch typically transferred uncleanliness, but with Jesus holiness and actually cleansing, so in exchanges taking place, if you will, Jesus is now ceremonially unclean, but he's the only one who can cleanse this guy. Titus 3.5 says it this way, that Jesus Christ saved us not by the basis of these, which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration, what does that mean?
Jesus Christ washes us clean. He regenerates us. He makes us into something new in our sinfulness. It's not a clean yourself up and come to me.
It's come to me and I'll clean you up. That's what the gospel message is. And so look what happens after the inverse 13. I'm willing, you make clean, the leprosy leaves him and then this is also verse 14.
This is where he slow down, read it and this stuff is popping off. It says, then he ordered him. Whoa, Jesus, you're giving a commandment here. Yep.
Then he ordered him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and offer what, who Moses commanded? You're like Moses isn't here. Oh, actually he was, right? Offer what Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them.
Okay, pause for a second. I want to make sure you see this. When this leper showed up and got in the middle of this crowd, he left the outskirts, he's coming among religious community or people in the city. Did he break the law here?
Yes or no? He did. Did Jesus rebuke him for it in his moment? He didn't.
You're cleansed. You broke a law. I'm not going, what are you doing? You center?
Get back. Go to the outskirts. He's desperate. He doesn't know what else to do and he's bringing it to Jesus and Jesus goes, okay, I'll cleanse you.
But now, here comes commandment. Not before. You got to see this. This is absolutely one of the most essential doctrines or understandings that you can because if Jesus would have said, you need to keep the law and then I'll cleanse you.
This guy would still have leprosy. I'll cleanse you, but now I'm going to teach you how to follow. Commandments followed cleansing not the other way around. And if you get this out of order, you miss the entire message of the Bible.
If commandments precedes cleansing, Israelites would have never gotten out of Egypt, leper would have never been cleansed and you and I would have never been saved. Not a chance. You know why? We can't keep the commandments in our own strength.
We're unable to do the simplest task that God asks us to do. The commandment came after the cleansing. So he does not demand obedience as a prerequisite for healing. The restoration comes first.
The instruction follows grace produces obedience. It's never earned by it. So he did not condemn the leper's disobedience before, but after he's been cleansed, he does expect obedience. Do you see the difference here?
Because this is so key. Let me tell you why it's got so messed up. I believe that for the last few decades or maybe even longer than that in the United States of America, the church as a whole has been telling people outside of the community. Y'all clean yourself up and get in here.
Spoiler alert, they can't clean themselves up. You and I can't fix ourselves. We cannot somehow remedy what's broken inside of us. We cannot stop sinning.
We cannot create order out of dysfunction. We are unable to do it. So we have told people outside the church, clean your act up, get in here and come to Jesus. And they're still waiting to do that because they can't.
But inside the church, we go, hey, it's not my business to call somebody out. Actually, the Bible says we're supposed to do that for each other. Once you're in the family, you need to start acting like a family. And that means we come back to what God has said.
He says, I cleanse you. Now I want you to pull back up to what Moses says in Leviticus. Oh, we're going old school here. You know what he says in Leviticus?
And the leper's like, yeah, actually I was memorizing that passage this morning. You know what I'm saying? He knew exactly what this is about. He says, hey, you know you need to go to the priests.
Do what the law has commanded, not before cleansing, but after cleansing. So don't miss this. I need you to know today if you came to this place and you were walking in and a nagging addiction in your life and you feel overwhelmed by it. I want you to understand you don't need to fix that addiction before you come to Jesus.
You need to come to Jesus and let him help you with your nagging addiction. You see the difference? You've been trying for years to fix this. You can't fix it on your own strength.
You've got to come to Jesus, hit your knees and go, I'm unclean and I need you to clean me up. And Jesus got, okay, now we're going to do some work here. So Jesus is not saying somehow that he loves you when you get some future version of yourself. He loves you now.
He loves you in your nagging addiction, but he's not going to let you stay there. He loves you in your prideful anger and the way that you treat other people. He's not turned off by you. He loves you even when you are a mess, but he's not going to keep you there.
He loves you in the midst of your pornographic tendencies and your inability to control your eyes, control your mind. He sees that in you. He's not acting you to fix it in your own willpower. And then come to Jesus, he's saying, come on.
He's not saying that somehow and your homosexual tendencies and activities that you've done for the last few years that somehow you need to fix that and come to Jesus. Now you need to come to Jesus and then open up God's Word and says what he says about these or really says about these things. He's not asking you to somehow get rid of your device of manipulation or your greedy purchases or your unholy characteristics. He says, come to me knowing that you need cleansing.
I'll cleanse you. Then I'll tell you how you need to live differently. That's the order. If you kick this mess up, you're never going to find Christ.
All you're going to be doing is looking at yourself. You have to be holding him. You have to see him for what he is. And then he says, you know what it says?
What Moses commanded, but I want you to go and do this to the priest, right? What's he saying? I don't want you, Mr. Leper, to come pop up here or former Leper.
Okay. I want you to pop up in the synagogue. Show up in the right where the priest is. Yeah, but that's where a lot of people are.
I know you get to be a part of them now. Really? Yeah. Now, why is this little detail so important?
Because if Jesus just stopped at cleansing this guy and never put him in the religious community, this guy would have found another problem one day soon. Jesus is doing something marvelous here. I want you to go to synagogue. I want you to get to the priest.
I want you to tell him what has happened to you. And you know what's going to take place? There's going to be a back door that's going to close and you're going to be a part of a family now because that's going to be necessary for you. Jesus prioritizes ongoing community, not just momentary relief.
He's not about just fixing or issue. He actually wants to do something crazy. He wants to give you a community. So show yourself a priest.
Get there in the synagogue. Sending that man to the priest restored him to worship and society and healing him without reintegrating him would still leave that man isolated and alone. Jesus thinks beyond the miracle to the man's long term spiritual health that's necessary. So he says you need to get amongst him folks.
How do you realize that sometimes your faith is not enough to get you going and you need to fight for people around you to keep you moving? You're in there for? I don't know what to pray. Can you pray for me?
I don't know how to put one foot in front of me. Somebody's got to show me the path. I know that you've been taught to have it all together and to be independent and be individualistic. It's a lie.
You need other people. I know people need you. That's why we need to be in community. That's why we have to be honest with each other.
So he's saying get among the priests. Get among the synagogue. Be among the folks. There is something that we say here around the church.
If you're new, I'll say this a few times every month. It is this. God hasn't given up on you and neither have we. I don't know what your situation is.
I don't know what the last week of your life or the last decade of your life is look like. I guarantee this. Your sin cannot outdo God's grace for you. He loves you.
He knows everything about you. The doors are still open today for you to come. So God hasn't given up on you. And then as a church, neither have we.
We want to be in relationship with you. This is what I was telling a friend recently who's going through the overcomer program. Last Sunday we had this wonderful mill for all the guys who went through rehab here at our church and just lovely different guys. And one guy telling me about how hard the process is.
And I've heard that probably thousands of times now to stop in the past with this church. And I realized it's a hard process. Living in a house with a bunch of dudes, waking up five, 30 every morning, all the different things that go through. It's a very difficult process.
And sometimes you feel the need to kind of go, is it worth it, right? I really told them that really what you see in this situation of lepers, what some of these guys need and honestly all of us need, the leper needed Christ. Then change happened. Then he needed community.
You see it? I need Christ. Then the change takes place. And then after the change takes place, I need to be amongst the community.
Here's what oftentimes happens. Some people try to see change before they get to Christ and it will never last. Some people try to move into community, but they haven't found Christ. They haven't seen change it.
It won't last. All those things are necessary. And I would just say, you might not be in the overcomer program today, but all of us are overcomers in some situation or the other. And you know what we need?
We need to drop to our knees, come to Jesus going, I need your cleansing. And then all of a sudden when he does cleanse us and we see that change takes place in our life, then we can actually find community. So that is more than just a moment's change. Something that transforms our life going forward.
And so in this, we see the progression of Jesus gets in the middle of it, changes this guy. But then there's this issue of substitution last verse that I hope that maybe you saw. Look what it says again, verse 15. But the news about him spread even more.
And large crowds will come together to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. So all right, he tells the leper, don't tell anybody. That didn't work. I always call it like reverse psychology of angelism.
You know what I'm saying? I don't know. Sometimes I want to tell you people don't share your faith with anybody. Do not this week.
Don't share your testimony. Don't embody church. And so you can go out there. You pass trying to do whatever I want to.
I don't know. Maybe it'll work. Okay. But he says, don't go and tell everybody about this.
Just go. Do what the law commands. But the problem is when you used to live in the outskirts and people had seen you in years and all of a sudden they were like, where? I'm like, I saw you.
You had stuff in all of your face and something different. You know, I mean, you haven't been in worship in years and now you're back. Something changed. And you want what happened?
I got to be honest. I mean, this guy named Jesus and he cleansed everything that was dirty and made him a different man now. And I just I can't hide that. And what's at play so many people came along and wanting the same thing that happened to him when Jesus changes a life, news travels fast.
You can't you don't have to tell us, you don't have to encourage somebody to say it. They're just going to say it. Hey, I love the stories coming out of this church with someone said, hey, something's different in me. My coworkers have said, you used to talk like this.
Now you talk like that. What's happened? I love when some of you had a marriage that was on the rocks. It did not seem like it was survived.
And now you're healthy and you're encouraging other people to go, what's the difference in you? Can I tell you who's changed my life? I love. I have met some of your parents go showing up going, my child doesn't even look the same anymore.
What has happened to him or her? It's what Jesus has done. The news travels fast, doesn't it? Because transformed lives inevitably create witness even without intention.
People notice the difference in you. And God allows that to move forward to other lives. But you see that the line continues to grow around Jesus. And what are they wanting?
They're wanting to be fixed. It's like the leper was fixed. They're wanting their needs met just like his was. We get that.
Jesus' power draws crowds. But his compassion draws hearts. So the amazement of what Jesus could do always calls the crowd to surround them, right? Everybody showed up.
They wanted to be around. What's the next thing he's going to do? And boy, let me tell you, if you follow Jesus through this gospel as we walk through this together, you're going to see some amazing things that Jesus can do. So much so if you read it slow enough and you think about it, I promise you this.
You don't have anything that will intimidate Jesus right now. You don't have anything in your past that will repel him. You're going to see people going, you mean he helped that person? Man, he helped me too.
You mean he fixed this situation? I mean, he probably fixed mine too, right? You're going to see this. So it's drawing crowds, but it's compassion drawing hearts.
Like many came from healing, but Jesus is always pushing them towards surrender. The miracles attracted attention, but mercy that you showed them would build trust in their lives. The compassion, not the spectacle, was what sustained his ministry through the years. But I don't want you to miss this because if you catch what happens there, says the crowds get huge because this leper is testimony, some more and more people keep showing up.
And verse 16 says one of the most unique things about it. Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed. So the other gospel accounts that put this, that tell about this event say it in different ways and different wordings, but Luke is trying to encourage something that if you remember, at the beginning of the story, who's in the deserted places? The leper is.
Now he's common, he's broken the rules and he's now in the middle of religious life and he's in the synagogue. He's among religious life. He's among relational life. He's living his best, but the crowd has got so big.
Jesus cannot sustain what he's doing in the crowd anymore. So he has to go where? Out to the deserted places. Out to the outskirts.
Out to the place where those that are outcast have to go because they can't deal with society. Because if you think about it, when Jesus grabbed the hand of that leper, now he is ceremonially unclean. This guy is clean, but guess who's not? Jesus.
So Luke is trying to make us pay attention to a geographical fact, but a greater spiritual reality. When Jesus embraced that leper, he was now unclean and he had to go to the outskirts. Not only will this happen, but in this story, Jesus will also find a lot of tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes and rebellious people. He'll interact with the likes of those kind of people we've never tell church folks we were around.
He's around them. Just picking up stuff. You know what I'm saying? Never involved in sin, but around sinners.
He finds people at their darkest and their lowest and just embraces them. He's going to actually raise a couple of folks from death to life and if he always, typically there's one situation he actually touches the corpse before raising the life. And you know what happens if you touch corpse? You're unclean.
You know what happens when you deal with folks like Zacchaeus? You are unclean. You know what you do when you hit deal with all kinds of people in the outskirts of society? You've got to take your place.
And so what happens is, from this moment when Jesus touches this leper, that uncleanness has passed to him and that continues to the life of Jesus so that about three years later when he gets to the end of his life, he's also saying that he has to go to the outskirts of town. Because that's where horrible dirty criminals have to die. Can't go to the middle of society. This is this is kind of where the worst go to.
So all the connections that Jesus makes, all the people that he embraces, all the situations, never sinning, but he touches every single one that sin, all that comes upon him. And why is this so very important for us? Because Jesus took the leper's place for shadowing how he would one day take hours. He takes the spot, the rightful spot on the outskirts of where the leper ought to be.
And he says, put me there. And every single sinful dirty, unclean person that he would touch through his ministry, it's like it's piling on him and him. And Jesus did ministry with no mask on, no gloves on. I'm going to get in the middle of it and put it on me.
And he's a walking example of just the depravity of humanity that he is identifying with himself, which makes sense when you think of 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 where it says, he who knew no sin became what sin, so that in him we might have the righteousness of God. So he takes on our unrighteousness, goes to the outskirts for us, goes to the cross in our place so that you and I can be clothed the righteousness that we don't deserve. This is the gospel message that he who knows that we are unclean takes our uncleanness on himself, goes to the cross in our place. The one who touches the unclean becomes a substitute who bears our exclusion, stepping down into desolation so that you and I can be restored.
As the 53 says, all of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned his own way, but the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all on him. That's how we are cleansed. That's how we are restored. So if that is your story, if you've got a place in your life where you know that you are desperate and you know you need Jesus, then that change that happens in your life, guess what?
We ought to love in the way that he loves. We ought to reach out of the ways that he reached out. Gloves off, not six feet apart, no, no, no, getting down into the depth of humanity and saying you might be broken, but you don't have to stay there. You might be unclean, but I can bring you to one who can change you.
The compassion that restored us now redirects us. The compassion of Jesus that has truly restored us now redirects us to what he has called us to do. So those cleansed by Jesus are set to reflect his compassion. That same compassion that cleanses us also commissions us sending restored people back into community and mission.
We find the restoration and the redirection in our lives have been needed so I would encourage you, don't be fearful to get into somebody else's mess. You know why? Jesus wasn't afraid to get into yours. Don't be afraid to get into somebody else's dysfunction.
You know why? Jesus wasn't afraid to get into the middle of yours. In fact, here's how it calls you. The compassion that innovations restore us, it redirects us to have this type of ministry mindset.
It should cause every single one of us to live our lives in such a way that says I want to be open-handed in my life available for people who are broken and needy and I'm going to get in the middle of it. Let me ask you, I know we've been talking about germs a lot and some of you germs are panicking and going, I'm not going to church next week. Sorry, but here's what it is. If you're going to have a stomach bug in your house, by the way, if you were to have a stomach bug, do you want it first or last?
This is a real simple question. Let me tell you why. I want it first. You know why?
Because the agony of waiting for it to come. You know what I'm saying? Everybody else is going down and you're just like watching the clock. You know what I'm saying?
It's like pipping in the Lord of the Rings. I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one. I can't escape. You know what I'm saying?
Like, if I know it's coming to me, I feel like I can't endure in this anymore. I'd rather just have it, get over it and then everybody else is going down. Like, I can help you now. I'm not afraid of your germs because I already have them.
Okay? Like, I am followed. I've been cleansed. I'm not afraid to help you.
I've been healed. I'm not afraid to help you now. And so here's where I would say this. If you have truly seen a restoration in your life, it should redirect you to one of other people.
I've been healed. I've been cleansed. So when I see brokenness tangibly, you know, when I see me, I don't see people beneath me. I mean, look how bad somebody can get.
When I see people that visibly you can see the weight of the sin on their life, I go, that's me. Like, I can see that. That could happen to me. So I feel the pain.
And I know this. Jesus was not repelled by my condition. So I'm not going to be repelled by yours. If you are at a place in your life today that you want cleansing, that's a really good spot to be in.
If you feel like you're all good, that's probably the most dangerous spot to be in. But to come to him in your sin, it's not a problem for him. And he will reach in and be able to embrace you and take all of your uncleanness to the cross for you. And after that point where he connects with you, he's going to start saying, now I can teach you a little bit better way to go if you'd like to listen.
I got some commandments. I got some instructions and your life can be better by need you pay attention. And I want you to be part of religious life and I want you to help because you're going to need some help along the way. But first and foremost, what you've got to do is to get to the place of desperation.
I need Jesus. You have you gotten there. It's about time. Don't you think?
Let's pray.