Show Notes
Matthew 8:1-4
Pastor Stephen Lauer
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Let's pray.
[00:00:10] Lord Jesus, we do indeed hear your voice.
[00:00:15] We hear it not just with our ears, but our hearts hear your voice telling us that we are forgiven and that you love us.
[00:00:27] O Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and that having laid your life down for us, you call us with your voice.
[00:00:43] You tell us to come to you when we are weary and heavy laden.
[00:00:48] To come to you with our burdens and our anxieties, our worries and our fears about this life, about our sin and our troubles.
[00:00:59] And to come to you and be relieved and set free and find peace and healing.
[00:01:07] To find, even in the midst of all the struggles of this life, to find joy in you, knowing that you love us and delight in us.
[00:01:17] Lord Jesus, we thank you that you call to us and that your voice rings loud and clear, clear, distinctly, and that we cannot miss it. We ask, Lord Jesus, that this very morning your voice would ring loud and clear through the reading and preaching of your word.
[00:01:37] That it would be you who speaks to our hearts and that by the power of your spirit we would indeed truly hear.
[00:01:45] That we would be drawn to you, that we would be filled with your love, that your mercy would draw us evermore to you.
[00:01:55] And that your word, your word, which made the heavens and the earth and separated the light from the darkness, that your word would yet again remake our hearts, that we might be new creatures washed clean and pure, standing before you in righteousness, clothed in your righteousness, and going out into the world to shine his lights for you.
[00:02:21] O Lord Jesus, we thank you that you speak this morning, not just here in this congregation, but you speak from every pulpit where your people gather to hear your word proclaimed and that around the world.
[00:02:35] We ask, Lord Jesus, that your gospel would go forth with power today, that there would be a great revival in the hearts of your people as your spirit moves and as your word works its work of new creation.
[00:02:51] That you would draw all of your sheep to yourself and remake us into that bride that you might present us one day soon before the Father and before yourself.
[00:03:04] Lord Jesus, we ask that you would work in all these things mightily for your own sake.
[00:03:11] Amen.
[00:03:14] We're going to hear God's word this morning, first from Leviticus 14, and then we'll turn to our sermon text, Matthew 8.
[00:03:26] First we're going to read God's word from Leviticus 14. That's in the Old Testament, Leviticus 14, beginning in verse one and reading through verse 20.
[00:03:40] Hear God's word The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, this shall be the law of the leprous person. For the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought to the priest. And the priest shall go out of the camp. And the priest shall look. Then, if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed. Two live clean birds. And cedarwood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water.
[00:04:18] He shall take the live bird with the cedar wood 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.
[00:04:29] And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease.
[00:04:37] Then he shall pronounce him clean. And shall let the living bird go into the open field.
[00:04:43] And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes and shave off his hair and bathe himself in water.
[00:04:50] And he shall be clean.
[00:04:53] And after that he shall come into the camp but live outside his tent. Seven days.
[00:04:59] On the seventh day, he shall shave off all his hair from his head, his beard and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair. And then he shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. And he shall be clean.
[00:05:15] And on the eighth day, he shall take two male lambs without blemish.
[00:05:19] And one ewe lamb a year old without blemish. And a grain offering of 3/10 of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil and one log of oil. And the priest who cleanses him shall set the man who is to be cleansed and these things before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
[00:05:37] And the priest shall take one of the male lambs. And offer it for a guilt offering along with the log of oil. And wave them for a wave offering before. Before the Lord.
[00:05:47] And he shall kill the lamb in the place where they kill the sin offering. And the burnt offering in the place of the sanctuary.
[00:05:55] For the guilt offering, like the sin offering, belongs to the priest, it is most holy.
[00:06:01] The priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering. And the priest shall put it on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed.
[00:06:08] And on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.
[00:06:13] Then the priest shall take some of the log of oil. And pour it into the palm of his own left hand and dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand and sprinkle some of the oil with his finger seven times before the Lord.
[00:06:27] And some of the oil that remains in his hand the priest shall put on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, the top of the blood of the guilt offering.
[00:06:42] The rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand, he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed.
[00:06:48] Then the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord.
[00:06:53] The priest shall offer the sin offering to make atonement for him who is to be cleansed from his uncleanness.
[00:06:59] Afterward he shall kill the burnt offering, and the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the grain offering on the altar.
[00:07:06] Thus the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be clean.
[00:07:12] Then, Turning to our sermon text in Matthew chapter 8, we'll read the first four verses of Matthew 8 again. Hear God's Word.
[00:07:26] When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
[00:07:40] Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean.
[00:07:46] And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them.
[00:08:02] Let's fire God's Word. Please be seated.
[00:08:16] Well, you fall down on a rainy day. Maybe as a child, you fall down and what happens? You, your pants are covered with mud.
[00:08:27] And every mother in the room thinks, will it come out right?
[00:08:32] Will the stain come out?
[00:08:34] Should have worn jeans or black pants, not khakis, right?
[00:08:38] Will that stain, that mess come out of those pants?
[00:08:45] Some things can be cleaned even if they're really hard to clean, even if you got to scrub them, even if you got to soak them, they can probably eventually be cleaned. You can probably get the mud stains out, but maybe not. Maybe not the grass stains.
[00:09:01] I ruined lots of pants as a kid getting grass stains in them. And the look on my mother's face every time I came home from playing with grass stains on my pants.
[00:09:13] You know the feeling.
[00:09:15] There are some messes that are can be clean, some that are harder to clean.
[00:09:25] Some messes aren't stains and filth on pants.
[00:09:31] There are other messes that are really hard to clean up.
[00:09:36] Sometimes they seem absolutely Impossible to clean up.
[00:09:41] You get angry.
[00:09:44] You get angry with a very good friend, a long time friend. Only this time you get really good and angry.
[00:09:52] And out of your mouth come words that you've thought but never said.
[00:10:00] Words that you've never quite thought that deeply, that painfully this time, they pour out of your mouth in anger.
[00:10:10] And the mess isn't just a mess. It creates deep wounds. And you wonder, will this friend ever forgive me?
[00:10:19] Can this mess be cleaned up?
[00:10:22] Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a child.
[00:10:28] Most of us have done something like this with our words, created such a mess of a relationship that we wonder if it can ever be cleaned up.
[00:10:40] The filth, it's too deep, the stains too permanent.
[00:10:48] A man in our story has a condition kind of like this.
[00:10:54] Stains that can't be removed. Filth and uncleanness that he can do nothing about.
[00:11:02] He needs to be cleansed, just like you and I.
[00:11:07] I'm going to look at this man's cleansing this morning under three points. First, his uncleanness, the uncleanness of the man. Secondly, the man who cleanses.
[00:11:19] And thirdly, the testimony of cleansing.
[00:11:24] The first person we meet in the story is this unclean man.
[00:11:30] A man, we're told, who has a disease, a skin disease of leprosy.
[00:11:38] Now imagine that perhaps he were your neighbor and one day you saw him moving out of his house.
[00:11:47] And you went over to your neighbor and you said, hey, what's up, man?
[00:11:51] We've been neighbors all our lives.
[00:11:54] Friends. What's going on? Why are you leaving?
[00:11:58] And then you notice the sores on his arms or on his legs. And he tells you, well, I've got leprosy.
[00:12:07] Now you and I would probably ask him, well, you're sick. Which doctor did you go to? Was it infectious disease? Was it the dermatologist?
[00:12:22] What's wrong?
[00:12:24] Was the doctor not able to help you?
[00:12:29] And here's what he would say in response, or something like this.
[00:12:33] He would tell you, well, I have to move out.
[00:12:35] And yes, it's related to being sick, but my real problem is not that I'm sick, it's I got a bigger problem than that. My real problem is that I'm unclean.
[00:12:51] Remember what the law says about those who are lepers.
[00:12:56] Lepers aren't just sick, they're unclean.
[00:13:00] And remember what the law tells us that we're supposed to do when we get leprosy.
[00:13:06] My job, my problem isn't really the sickness, it's my uncleanness and so my problem is isn't solved by a doctor.
[00:13:17] I have to go to the priest.
[00:13:21] Leviticus 10:10 says that the job of the priest was to distinguish between the holy and the unholy, between the unclean and the clean.
[00:13:35] And so when a man got leprosy, he had to go to the priest, and the priest was to examine the man. That's we read from chapter 14, where a man could be declared unclean. Again, from leprosy. In chapter 13, there's provisions. There's a law regarding an exam. And the man would go to the priest and say, hey, I got this thing on my arm or my leg. I think it's leprosy. The priest would take a look at it, and he would say, yep, you have leprosy. And then he would issue a judgment.
[00:14:09] You are unclean.
[00:14:14] The man would tell you, my big problem is not that I'm sick, it's that I'm unclean.
[00:14:23] And seeing our confusion, the man would expand.
[00:14:29] He would say, no.
[00:14:31] The priest's job isn't just to tell me about what's clean and what's unclean, what's holy and what's unholy.
[00:14:38] The priest's job is to teach us about what that means and why he doesn't just issue a judgment. He instructs us in God's law and what it means.
[00:14:51] The priest taught me about my leprosy and my uncleanness.
[00:14:57] The priest taught me that my leprosy on the outside of my skin was a sign of something deeper.
[00:15:04] Sometimes you can have a superficial illness, superficial symptoms. There's a deeper problem.
[00:15:10] The leprosy was a sign of a deeper problem.
[00:15:14] There's something on the inside of me. That's what makes me unclean.
[00:15:20] The priest taught me that my uncleanness is my greed, my anger against my wife and children. When I have a short fuse, that makes me unclean.
[00:15:33] The evil things that I think and the hurtful things that I say to those around me, that makes me unclean.
[00:15:44] My unwillingness to submit my stubborn heart to God, to love him and to serve him alone.
[00:15:52] That is what makes me unclean.
[00:15:57] The priest would go on, it isn't just uncleanness. God's word says that all of these things are sin.
[00:16:05] You are unclean because of the sin that's inside of you and that comes out of you.
[00:16:11] And your leprosy is a sign of that.
[00:16:17] Now, there are consequences to this leprosy of the skin and of the heart.
[00:16:24] The priest didn't just declare me to be unclean.
[00:16:28] He did. He judged me unclean according to the law.
[00:16:33] But there were consequences to this judgment.
[00:16:36] And you can read about them in Leviticus 13 at your leisure.
[00:16:42] The priest taught me that because of my uncleanness, I had to live away from God's people.
[00:16:49] I had to move out of my house and go and live outside the camp, or once they were in Canaan, outside the city, to live alone.
[00:16:59] And when anyone came near me, I had to cover my mouth and say, unclean, unclean.
[00:17:06] To warn people to stay away.
[00:17:11] I had to live alone outside, all by myself because of the uncleanness.
[00:17:21] But that wasn't the worst part.
[00:17:23] That was sad. That was bad news for me. But that wasn't the worst part.
[00:17:28] This man would tell you further.
[00:17:31] The priest told me that I could no longer come near to God.
[00:17:37] I was banned from God and from his presence.
[00:17:42] God instructed the priests to distinguish between holy and unholy, clean and unclean.
[00:17:49] Because something unclean and unholy had come near to God.
[00:17:54] Nanab and Abihu had brought what was unclean into the presence of the holy God. And what did he do? Fire came out of God's presence and killed them both.
[00:18:05] The priests were therefore to keep what was unclean away from God, lest God should strike them dead.
[00:18:15] Not only can I not be with my family and my friends and my neighbors, God's people, but I can't come near God because of the uncleanness outside and inside.
[00:18:29] I asked the priest, what can I do about my leprosy?
[00:18:35] You have condemned me. I am unclean.
[00:18:39] The priest answered, nothing.
[00:18:42] There's nothing you can do about the leprosy on your skin. You can't heal it.
[00:18:48] And just like you can't heal the leprosy of your skin, you can't heal the leprosy and uncleanness of your heart.
[00:18:57] You can't remove the leprosy off your skin. No matter how much you wash it, no matter how strong the soap is, it won't go away.
[00:19:05] And you can't take the sin from your own heart and remove it either.
[00:19:11] The priest told me there was nothing I could do.
[00:19:15] So I asked him, I can't do anything. But surely, Mr. Priest, there's something you can do about my uncleanness. You condemned me.
[00:19:26] What can you do so that I can come near God again and be clean?
[00:19:35] The priest answered, yes, God has made a way for lepers to be cleansed.
[00:19:44] As a priest, I can declare you unclean, and as a priest, I can declare you clean again. We read that in Leviticus 14.
[00:19:55] But the only way I can do that for you, lead you through the rituals with the birds and then with the lambs and the shaving and the sprinkling and all of that. The only way I can do that for you is if your leprosy gets better.
[00:20:12] I can't cure your leprosy.
[00:20:16] The priest told me that he has the law. And the law can condemn me.
[00:20:21] And if I'm clean again already, the law can judge me to be clean.
[00:20:27] But the law can't change me.
[00:20:30] It can't take away my sin and the uncleanness of my heart. It can't take away its guilt or its power.
[00:20:39] It can only make declarations.
[00:20:47] So I asked him one last question.
[00:20:52] Is there any hope for me?
[00:20:59] And the priest said this.
[00:21:01] Between Leviticus 13 and Leviticus 14 is a gap.
[00:21:08] There's a space between the two.
[00:21:11] And in that space is the one who cleanses, the one who can come and deal with the leprosy of the skin and of the heart.
[00:21:23] And the priest told me, that's the one you need to put your faith in. That's the one that we are waiting who will one day come and cure the lepers of Israel.
[00:21:35] That's the one who will one day come and take away the uncleanness of his people.
[00:21:41] Look for him, wait for him, pray that God would send him, and when he comes, find him and be cleansed.
[00:21:54] Secondly, this morning we want to meet that man whom the priest testified to, that man who cleanses.
[00:22:03] We met the unclean man.
[00:22:06] Now we meet the one who cleanses.
[00:22:10] Like the unclean man, we have filthiness, a heart, mind of words, of actions. Filthiness that needs to be cleansed. Like the unclean man.
[00:22:23] Our uncleanness keeps us from God.
[00:22:26] We can't come near him.
[00:22:29] We need to be cleansed.
[00:22:32] Like the unclean leper. We need to meet the man who cleanses.
[00:22:40] And that man is Jesus.
[00:22:44] Jesus came down from the mountain. The leper heard that he was coming and he went to meet Jesus.
[00:22:52] You see something of his faith just in his going and bowing before Jesus.
[00:22:57] Where was the leper supposed to be?
[00:23:01] Outside the city, away from God's people.
[00:23:04] He wasn't supposed to go near anyone, to be all alone. But here he comes, near to God's people.
[00:23:13] He breaks, as it were, the law, it seems, because he believes that Jesus has the power to cleanse him. And that's what he says. You are able to make me clean.
[00:23:26] That's a statement of faith.
[00:23:29] Jesus, you are able to cleanse me.
[00:23:33] We could expand on this.
[00:23:35] He's telling Jesus and us this, Jesus, you have the power that no priest in Jerusalem has. I went there. They told me all about this, but they couldn't cleanse me.
[00:23:49] But you, Jesus, you can simply say the word and I will be clean.
[00:23:57] You have the power.
[00:24:00] All my sores will heal, all my skin will be restored.
[00:24:05] I will be made new again.
[00:24:07] And I can go into God's presence again and be with his people.
[00:24:12] You, Jesus, have the power to cleanse me.
[00:24:16] How did he know this?
[00:24:20] How could he possibly know that Jesus is the man who cleanses lepers?
[00:24:28] By merely willing it.
[00:24:31] Think about the story of the Gospel of Matthew.
[00:24:35] The things that you read as you read through the first seven chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. These are things that this leper would have heard about.
[00:24:43] Maybe from afar as he heard Jesus preaching or as people whispered to him. His friends came to tell him about these things from a distance, no doubt he would have heard this, that Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, and that as Jesus preached, he called men to repent of their sins and turn to him.
[00:25:11] You know what he would have heard?
[00:25:14] The king is here. The one who the priest said stands between Leviticus 13 and 14, between the condemnation and the cleansing.
[00:25:23] That man has come.
[00:25:26] And I know that he's come because he came to deal with sins.
[00:25:31] He came to call me to repentance.
[00:25:35] And he would have heard of Jesus preaching about sin.
[00:25:40] And what does Jesus preach in the Sermon on the Mount?
[00:25:43] He deals with the leprosy of the heart. He says, you have lust for a woman. You've committed adultery.
[00:25:50] And in my kingdom, here's what we do.
[00:25:54] When our eye causes us to stumble, we cut it out. When the hand causes us to stumble, we cut it off.
[00:26:01] Why?
[00:26:01] Because I'm the king and I came to deal with your sin, the sin of your heart.
[00:26:06] And if your heart has gangrene like a hand or an eye, I cut it out.
[00:26:12] Jesus, the king, came to deal with the sins and uncleanness of his people.
[00:26:18] And this leper would tell you this. He would say, when I heard about Jesus and I met Jesus, I knew he could cure the leprosy of my skin.
[00:26:27] Because he can deal with the real problem, the bigger problem, the leprosy of my heart.
[00:26:33] If he can deal with that cleansing the skin, no problem.
[00:26:41] This man knew that Jesus had the power to cleanse him, and he believed it.
[00:26:47] And he came and he threw himself before the man who cleanses.
[00:26:53] And what did Jesus do.
[00:26:56] He touched him.
[00:26:57] That's remarkable.
[00:27:00] The man would tell you this. When I went to the priest, the priest examined me. He looked at me, he declared me unclean.
[00:27:06] But the priest would not and could not touch me because if he touched me, he would become unclean.
[00:27:15] He would be defiled by my uncleanness. My sin would contaminate him.
[00:27:22] But Jesus, the one who had the power to cleanse, the one who was willing to cleanse, reached out his hand and touched me and I was cleansed.
[00:27:34] He was not defiled by my sin. I was cleansed by his righteousness and power.
[00:27:42] Every other man that the leper touched was defiled.
[00:27:48] Jesus touched him and he was cleansed. And Jesus remained holy.
[00:27:57] He is the man who cleanses his people.
[00:28:02] There is a man able to cleanse lepers, whether it's the leprosy of the skin or the leprosy of the heart. And that man is Jesus Christ. And he isn't just a man. He, he's the God man. He's the Son of God.
[00:28:14] And he offers cleansing of the heart and holiness and purity to everyone who turns to him.
[00:28:25] We met the man and his uncleanness. And there we see our own uncleanness. We've met the man who cleanses Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[00:28:34] Jesus said a third thing, the testimony of cleansing. He told the man who was healed not to tell other people his story.
[00:28:44] Remarkable. But go to the priest, bring the offering that Moses commanded and do it for a witness, for a testimony to them.
[00:28:56] A witness, A testimony, a sealing, a confirmation of cleansing.
[00:29:04] To whom was this witness given?
[00:29:07] Well, of course, this is the rituals we read about in Leviticus, chapter 14.
[00:29:13] You remember, it was a week long process. If the man's skin was healed, his disease was gone, he could go to the priest. The priest would examine and say, yep, leprosy is gone, you're healed.
[00:29:27] Then he, he would offer the birds. He would kill the birds, go through that ritual. And then seven days later the man would come back with three lambs and offer those. And then he would be declared clean.
[00:29:41] There's two parts then. The part at the beginning of the week and the part at the end of the week. The part with the birds and the part with the lambs.
[00:29:48] The part with the birds. I'm going to call a testimony to the leper himself. It's for all of us, of course, but it was certainly a testimony to the leper himself that he had been cleansed.
[00:30:04] Of course, the priest took him through this whole ritual, beginning with the Exam confirming he had no leprosy.
[00:30:11] And then these two birds and this fresh water and all the details of it. You can read about it and think about all of it, but on a grand scale.
[00:30:22] Big picture. This was what that ritual was proclaiming as a testimony to the man who used to have leprosy and now was clean.
[00:30:33] The first bird was killed.
[00:30:37] Its blood was poured out into the water.
[00:30:41] That seems to be a picture of the fact that the old man and its uncleanness and its sin dies.
[00:30:49] What was unclean is dead and gone and passes away.
[00:30:56] The other bird is kept alive.
[00:30:58] And both that bird and the man are sprinkled, baptized, washed in the blood and the water, pointing to a removal of uncleanness. And that now both the bird as a picture of the man, the bird and the man are both now clean. Clean.
[00:31:16] And then the bird is set free.
[00:31:19] As the man is set free now freed from sin and uncleanness, free to serve as a child of God.
[00:31:28] Jesus wanted this leper to be the first leper to go through that ritual, truly cleansed, truly set free from his sin and now adopted as a child of God into all the freedom that Jesus was bringing in his kingdom.
[00:31:48] It was a witness and testimony to him.
[00:31:51] And if you belong to Jesus and your sins have been washed clean in his blood, this is for you, too.
[00:31:59] You are cleansed and set free and adopted.
[00:32:02] It's a testimony to you.
[00:32:06] But there's a testimony also of the gifts. There's the birds and then the three lambs.
[00:32:13] And he has to wait seven days in between. He's not quite fully there yet. Right at the end of this week, he comes on the eighth day, the resurrection day, the day of new life.
[00:32:23] And he comes and he brings these three lambs to the priest.
[00:32:28] Each of them the priest is to slaughter.
[00:32:30] And they were a testimony to the man and to all the Israelites of how it is that he had been cleansed. In other words, how it is that Jesus cleanses lepers. The lambs were a picture of that. Just like every other lamb. Just like the Passover lamb. Just like the morning and evening sacrifice that the Israelites sacrificed daily.
[00:32:53] These lambs were a testimony to how Jesus would cleanse life. Lepers, you and I, of the leprosy of our hearts.
[00:33:03] No Aaronic priest ever cleansed a leper of his leprosy. Just like no Aaronic priest ever took away the sins of an Israelite by offering a lamb.
[00:33:17] No. The three lambs all pointed to how it is that Jesus would remove sins. The Leper as he presented the. The trespass offering. The lamb of the trespass offering. He would present that lamb. And he would place his hand on that lamb.
[00:33:33] And he would confess his sins over that lamb.
[00:33:37] Even as every sinner is called to place his faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ and confess his sins before Jesus.
[00:33:47] Confessing that there is a transfer. My sins and my uncleanness goes to Jesus.
[00:33:53] That's where my faith is. That's where my hope for cleansing lies.
[00:33:58] That was his testimony in the first lamb.
[00:34:01] And then in the lamb of the sin offering. As he offered that he was placing his trust that God would offer his own son, Jesus Christ as a substitute. I deserve to die for my sin. You will accept this lamb. And as a picture of Jesus in my place.
[00:34:22] There was the testimony of the lambs to the work of Christ in cleansing the leper. The testimony of the birds to the leper. That he was cleansed and free.
[00:34:34] But there's a third testimony here.
[00:34:37] It's the testimony of Jesus own hand.
[00:34:41] Jesus reached out and touched that man.
[00:34:45] To signify that he was taking the sins of the leper and the sins of his people upon himself.
[00:34:53] And what happened to Jesus hand?
[00:34:55] It was that very hand taking that man's uncleanness and my uncleanness and your uncleanness. And that hand was nailed to the cross.
[00:35:06] And there on the cross, the blood of Jesus didn't just drip out, sprinkle out. It poured out of his hands and his feet and out of the wounds on his back.
[00:35:17] And as that blood poured out of the Savior, he was purged.
[00:35:24] Cleansed. For your uncleanness and my uncleanness.
[00:35:30] Jesus was testifying to how he came to save lepers like you and I.
[00:35:39] There are many messes that we can clean.
[00:35:43] With enough Clorox, enough cycles through the washing machine, the dirt comes out.
[00:35:53] But there's one mess that no man can clean for himself.
[00:35:57] That's our sin.
[00:36:00] Like the man in his leprosy that he could not cleanse.
[00:36:04] You cannot remove your sin.
[00:36:07] Like him, you are unclean.
[00:36:11] You are unfit for God's presence.
[00:36:14] But today you meet the one man who is capable of cleansing you.
[00:36:19] Jesus Christ.
[00:36:22] You need to turn to him to put your trust in him. As that man put his hand on the Lamb and confessed his sins. Put your faith in Jesus and pour out all of your sins before him. Trusting that he will take them all away.
[00:36:37] And you need to trust, like this man, not just that Jesus is able to cleanse sinners like you and I, but that he is willing.
[00:36:48] The man said, jesus, you are willing. And Jesus replied, I am willing.
[00:36:55] And that's what he says to you this morning when you come to Him. He says, I am willing be cleansed. Let's pray.
[00:37:06] Lord Jesus, we confess that our sins are like a thick cloud.
[00:37:11] They cover our hearts like the uncleanness of the leper. They contaminate our lives.
[00:37:19] Whenever we touch people, our sin spreads misery and uncleanness.
[00:37:27] O Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.
[00:37:31] Draw us to yourself in your love and in your kindness.
[00:37:35] Help us to see and know that you love sinners like us and that you came to die for sinners so that we might be cleansed.
[00:37:47] We ask that you would cleanse us this morning and grant us a sense of peace. Help us to know as that man knew, that there is true freedom and peace. And like that bird, we can fly away into the field, into your kingdom and live freely before you. Help us, Lord Jesus, to have joy knowing that you love us, knowing that the Father loves us. Help us to have joy in the Holy Spirit, knowing that nothing can separate us from youm.
[00:38:21] O draw us into youo embrace.
[00:38:24] Amen.
