Luke 5:12-26 with Aaron Searles

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Amen. Well, I want to start off this morning, try to get you in this moment into a experience, into a reality that happened to people in the first century. And it was the disease that we would understand or call leprosy. And I want you to try to imagine and think about what this kind of life would be like being a leper in the first century. There's no hospital, there's no antibiotics, there's no necessarily skilled doctors to really help you. It's really all just kind of band-aids for terrible problems for someone who has leprosy. And what would it be like to be a leper? What would your life be like? What would your experience be like? What would your relationships be like being a leper? Again, in the first century. And so we're not going to jump into Luke. I'm just going to read to you from Leviticus chapter 13, verse 45 and 46. And it says this This was the instructions from the law to someone who was leprous. The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes, and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, Unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. So imagine that existence, imagine that kind of life. You can't be in community. And everywhere you go, you have to cover your upper lip and say, unclean, unclean. That's your life. How you're experienced in even when you are seen out in the world, you have to wear torn clothes to visually communicate what you're dealing with. Now leprosy and and and how the Leviticus talks about someone that's leprous is really anyone with a skin disease, anyone that has a visual disease that's going on. Again, they didn't understand everything, but for sure someone who had leprosy as we understand it to this day. And there are more instructions about what to do when you're leprous or when the skin disease goes away. And we'll talk about that more later. But again, we're in Luke chapter 5, verse 12 through 26 this morning. And I want to help get your minds and your thoughts thinking about what it would be like to be a leper in the first century, for your whole life to be defined by this disease that you have that you couldn't hide, and all the ramifications of that disease and what that would be like. And again, in this series, we're we're asking this big question: who is Jesus? Who is this Jesus? And we're asking this question, you know, from the 21st century as we read God's Word and we're transformed by God's Word, but we're also asking this question as if we're experiencing Jesus in the first century, as he's in one of these synagogues or in one of these villages or in one of these places. What would have been like to be them experiencing Jesus and seeing what Jesus is doing? Who is this Jesus? And as our sermon series title is Christ, our certainty. We're gonna see again the unfolding, the orderly account of Luke, as he said, unfolding, unscrolling. Who is this Jesus and how Christ is our certainty? So again, Luke chapter 5, verse 12. We're gonna go verse by verse through these 14 verses. So it says this in verse 12. While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. I get emotional just even reading his request and how he requests, how he makes this request to God. So again, Jesus is in one of the cities. We know it's not Capernaum, or at least we don't think it's Capernaum, because everyone got healed in Capernaum, as we we we talked about in previous weeks. Everyone's healed, all the demons are gone in Capernaum. It's there, it's only Jesus in Capernaum, so it's likely not in Capernaum. But it says, as Luke the doctor writes about this man, he is full of leprosy. So he's not in the beginning stages, he's in the end stages of leprosy, the suffering, the pain. So again, what is leprosy? I would describe uh being a leper is essentially like someone, it's the walking dead. They look like a zombie. They look, again, torn clothes. Um, as I read about this this week and learned about leprosy, like it's all over your body. You know, it's actually a numbness. You're the ends of your nerves stop working, and so your pain, you don't respond to, you know, the thing that we take for granted is pain and our nerves working, and maybe we don't like cutting our finger or whatever. Well, they didn't feel that. And so over time, scar tissue and they'd lose fingers and lose things, and there'd be physical deformities, their muscles would stop working the way they were supposed to. So, and I learned that it was a um bacteria. So it's really a bacteria that now the reason why people don't have leprosy anymore is you get a flood of antibiotics and it kills the bacteria. It was also believed, okay, so any with any probably disease or unknown disease in the first century, they probably just, you know, it's contagious. Just doesn't matter if it is or if we know it is or not, it's contagious. That's how the community would have understood someone to be a leper. Well, it's my understanding, reading a little bit about leprosy this week, that it wasn't that contagious. It was actually very difficult to transmit leprosy, but it was on a minor level, um, which got me thinking about why the unclean had to cover their mouth when they said unclean. Thinking about that kind of wisdom in that. But the there was a common belief at this time. So, this is the perspective, this is the culture of the first century, that someone who was suffering or had a skin disease, it was their fault. They must have done something wrong. It was a condemnation, it was a consequence of sin, and this is God unleashing this disease in this person because they did something wrong. So they're they're walking around as a leper in terrible suffering. Again, this man was full of leprosy. He's likely at the end of his life or near the end of his life, ostracized from society, living outside the camp, everywhere he has to go, he's visually understood, torn clothes, yelling out unclean. His identity, what he has to say all the time, is unclean. And on top of that, to pile on top of that, everyone thinks he's a sinner, a terrible sinner. Like he deserves this. What did he do? What terrible thing did he do to deserve this wrath of God in this life? So shame going around his life. This is his experience as he makes this request to Jesus. So this visual scene now, Jesus is in this city, and this man is suffering from leprosy, and he begs Jesus on his face for this healing. I asked the question: how did he know what Jesus could do? He must have heard the buzz, the viral, the spread of what Jesus did in Capernaum has now spread to this man's ears, and he is desperate on his face before Jesus in faith, in hope, begging Jesus. And I love just just to highlight this. Notice how he addresses Jesus. What does he call him? Lord. Remember Peter, master to Lord? Peter started calling him Lord. And I again I love how he asks it, if you will, if you will. I think it's just amazing to apply that to our lives. If you will, he says, in faith, you can make me. He doesn't say whole, he doesn't say clean, he doesn't, he does say clean. He doesn't say, you know, healing. He highlights his identity and what he's been shouting and saying for who knows how long. You can make me clean. Again, clean is the perceived problem here. In his request is interwoven faith. And I think we can learn from this man's request how to pray. Not my will, but your will be done. Know what God can do. We we pray to God, knowing that he is all powerful, all-knowing, at all times, in all times, at the same time. We know who God is, and so we know that he can do anything, but we are surrendered to his will. We're surrendered to his purposes and his plans and what he's calling us to do in our lives. And I love how Jesus responds. How does Jesus respond to this man on his face begging to be clean? Verse 13 and 14. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded for a proof to them. So as we read about Jesus and Capernaum, you know, he placed his hands on all of the sick. He took the time to be with each person one-on-one, healing them. And now Jesus again is touching this man. We would all gasp in horror. What is Jesus associating with this shameful, sinful man who's clearly being judged by God? What is he doing? And Jesus breaks all the cultural norms and he touches him and he heals him. And I would take away from that and I would just apply the goodness of God to our lives. That Jesus isn't ashamed of you, and he wants to be close to you. He wants to be in relationship with you. But it's amazing to see Jesus say, I will. God's will is to make him clean. He's healed in this moment. His leprosy left him. Again, I don't understand sometimes the plan of Jesus and how he's he, and why he says, he charges him to tell no one. You know, we trust in God's plan, we trust in his sovereignty and the you know the ministry of Jesus. But he instead tells him to go to the priest. Why? Why does he tell him to go to the priest? He's healed him, everything's good, right? No. Not everything's good because for his, you know, we don't know how long his life he's been separated from community. He's been living outside of the community. He can't be around people. He has to wear torn clothes. Well, there's a process in Leviticus chapter 14. If you no longer have a disease like leprosy anymore, there's a process to be reinstated into the community. It involves a bird being sacrificed and a bird being freed. And there's some other things going on, but it's all this process we won't get into that that confirms for the community. The priest says, you know, kind of the doctor of the area, I guess you would call it, says to this man, You're back, you're allowed back into community. You're allowed to be back with us. You don't have to be alone anymore, you don't have to shout I'm clean anymore, you don't have to wear torn clothes anymore. Jesus is saying he can be back in the community because he has healed them by his power. And so Jesus heals him, but this picture is symbolic. It's a parable, according to some research and talking about this, and I think we can see clearly that leprosy is a parable of sin. If we think about our sin and the damages of sin, the reality of sin and the death that it causes to relationships, the death that it causes to what God is trying to do in our lives, if we see sin for what it is, not to just be shamed by it, but just the reality of the pain and the suffering that sin in our lives causes. And this sacrifice process that now this man is going to participate in. One commentary said this this foreshadowed the effect of Christ's blood, which reconciles man to God and makes it possible for the sinner to join the household of faith. So we see this symbolism, this tradition, this ceremony happen, and there's a bird that sacrificed, and blood was sprinkled upon this man. Again, a foreshadow. I mean, if you think about it, that God wrote into the beginning of the story and now is fulfilled in Christ. How amazing to think about. I also want to highlight something that, you know, as we've been going through the series, we went through the story earlier about Jesus in his hometown village Nazareth. And he identified in his kind of rebuke and in his correction and teaching to his hometown crowd in his hometown synagogue. He identified with the rejected prophets of Elijah and Elisha. And he identified again with Elisha and he highlights the story of Naaman. Now the reason his hometown crowd got really, really mad was Jesus highlighted Gentiles, non-Jews. But he also highlighted a story about how Naaman, a leper, was healed or cleansed. And now we see Jesus healing someone of leprosy. Member of the hometown crowd, they wanted the healing, they wanted the show, they wanted the signs, and now we have Jesus actually in his goodness and his love healing people from leprosy. Now on to verse 15 and 16. But now, even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to a desolate places and pray. So we've called this in the past healing traffic. And there's now this viral buzz going on that Jesus can do these amazing miracles, and everybody's trying to get near Jesus. But what does Jesus do? Luke highlights this kind of paradox, this tension, these great crowds, right? If we were in ministry, if we're effective and fruitful in our ministry, we would say, yeah, more fruit, more people, more impact. But what does Jesus do? He escapes away. He hides away into a desolate place, not because he doesn't love and doesn't care, but because he wants to be in prayer with the Father, in relationship, in the Trinity, in the unity of the Trinity? If Jesus was surrounded by crowds and the influence and the fruit and the work, but still would withdraw to a desolate places and pray, shouldn't we? No matter what fruit and impact that we're having in our life, shouldn't we prioritize being alone with God, being alone with Jesus? And I would ask you, what is our or your priority to be alone with Jesus? And I would ask you, what's your plan? How do you go about specifically in your life with your schedules and with the demands and the spinning plates and the distractions and the challenges that you have in your life? I would ask you, what's your plan to be alone with Jesus? You know, I've been impressed by people and their spiritual discipline and their quiet times. You know, I've recently heard about someone in my life who's read through the Bible 45 times in their life, memorized hundreds, if not thousands, of Bible verses, and cycles through those Bible verses and has a prayer list. Yeah, I'm impressed by that, but that's their relationship with God. And so I would want all of us to just have your plan, not based on somebody else's plan, of course, prayer, God's word. And so I don't say this, I don't give that example to shame you or to say you got to do that, but to say just to ask you, what's your relationship with Jesus like? What's your plan? What's the specifics of your plan? And my desire for you is that your heart be in it. It's about not checking a religious box and impressing people with your discipline, but it's about your relationship with Jesus. It's about you loving God. And again, if Jesus would leave the multitudes and the crowds to go off and be alone, I think that's an example to us to invest in our personal relationship with Jesus. Again, the devil will lie to you and tempt you and tell you you're the worst. But you're here in God's family, and I encourage you with that. And tomorrow's a new day. His mercies are new in the morning. I just challenge you and encourage you one day at a time to invest in your personal relationship with Jesus as he leads you to do that. All right, continuing on, verse 17 and 19 through 19. On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed who was paralyzed, and they were seeking, I'm sorry, break bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. So we have a different crowd now. Jesus is getting the attention of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. And again it says, every village in Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. I don't know what the numbers are, but I imagine that's that's quite an entourage. That's quite a group of Pharisees and teachers of the law, and they're all crowding around him, in addition to everybody else who wants to get healed. So it's so thick, it's so packed around Jesus that they couldn't pierce through to get to Jesus. So the scene is set now. The crowd is intense. There's this tension. You've got Pharisees and teachers of the law, you've got people yearning and longing for healing, and they're all packed in around Jesus. And these friends of this paralyzed man, these problem solvers, I call them, their solution isn't to pierce through the crowd. It isn't actually to go through the roof. Their solution is Jesus. That's really the answer. That's really what they're getting at. And again, they do that by any means possible to get near Jesus. And I would say this I've got three highlights for you today, okay? Here's highlight number one, and they're gonna come pretty rapid here. Highlight number one. A theme of both of these stories the the healing of the leprous man, and now, spoiler alert, the healing of the paralyzed man. Notice the theme of desperation. They're desperate to get near Jesus. They're desperate for Jesus. And I would ask you, are you desperate for Jesus? I pray and hope that you are. I hope that you're desperate for Jesus. I hope and pray that you do not try to solve your problems yourself. I pray that you are completely, totally dependent on him. And we all need work and help in that. To be desperate for Jesus. So again, these four friends carrying their paralyzed friend, hoist him up to the top of the roof. Again, one scholar talked about how they likely have. To break through two feet of the roof to get through it. Again, it was like packed mud and wood and different things to kind of keep the rain out or whatever. They went through two feet. That's quite a mess breaking through, ruining this person's roof. But man, these friends, I'd like these kinds of friends. They did not care. They were gonna deal with those consequences. They were gonna sacrifice to make things right, and they would do anything possible to see their friend healed. They had great faith to do this. So remember the mission of Jesus, though. Remember that Jesus tells people when they beg him to stay and heal more people. Okay? So Jesus tells the leper to not tell anyone about it, but to go to the priest. I want to go back to Luke chapter 4, verse 42 through 43. It says this, and when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him and would have kept him from leaving them. But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. So Jesus doesn't have a secret agenda. Imagine this paralyzed man is being lowered into this moment. He still has the same mission and purpose. It's not secret. So what is the preaching? What is Jesus doing? What is he declaring? What is he proclaiming? Again, it's about the kingdom of God. Here's the truth, here's the reality, here's the simple way to understand it. The king is here. The king is here. The good news is preaching the good news by the good news. Jesus is the good news. He's declaring the good news. The king is here. So, yes, healing, yes, demon deliverance, yes, miraculous catches of fish are secondary, though. People being healed of leprosy soon to be healed of paralysis. This is secondary. This is what's happening in the wake. This is what's happening on the side of the point of what Jesus' ministry is, and that is this the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords is on the move. The king is here. And so this man, this paralyzed man, is being lowered in front of Jesus. He's seeing these friends who have faith and hope to just get their friend close to Jesus. And what does Jesus do? And I highlight his mission and his purpose here because it highlights for us the priority of the good news, the priority of the gospel. And when he saw their faith, verse 20, he said, notice the difference. Man, your sins are forgiven you. Go back to the leprosy thing. Yes, he healed him, but he says you're clean. Now he's not saying you can walk right away. We'll see he does that in a little bit. But he says your sins are forgiven. Jesus is on mission. He is prioritizing the gospel. He is making the most important thing, the first thing to talk about in this moment. He also knows the crowd. There's nothing, there's nothing more important than the eternal. And that is faith in Jesus Christ, the saving faith in Jesus Christ. By his grace you have been saved, not by works. So what Jesus is doing here is prioritizing the preaching of the good news, that why he is there. And so I want to just highlight for you what Jesus is doing. He's forgiving sins. This is his mission. This is what he's going to do on the cross. And so we, as followers of Christ, need to prioritize this in our own lives. And so we receive his grace, we receive his forgiveness of our sins. We can come to him over and over and over again and say, God, I'm sorry for my sin. Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank you for making me clean. Thank you for giving me freedom from my sin. And in that amazing truth, that amazing work of Jesus, I want to just challenge you. Anytime I see something that has to relate to, and as I in as I preach the gospel, as I preach and share the good news, I also want to have this takeaway for you. And I've called it the superpower. And it's this you, because if you have faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, who has forgiven your sin, you now have God, you have the Holy Spirit, you have a superpower. And that superpower, with the forgiveness that you have, is to now forgive others. And I don't say that with like my human strength to be like, yeah, you can forgive. It's only possible because of Jesus. And so my hope, my prayer for you is that in the superpower and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the gospel that you have received, you have been forgiven much. Now I challenge you by God's word to forgive others, to be a conduit of His grace and His mercy and His love and His forgiveness into the people that have wronged you, into the people that have sinned against you. And again, it's only possible because of the gospel. It's only possible because of what Jesus has done. I would say it's impossible, but God makes all things possible. And so as the Holy Spirit brings pain, brings suffering, brings terrible things. I am not saying to you to say that it was okay. I'm not saying that you need to place yourself in that person's shoes and make it right somehow in your brain. I'm not asking you to, you know, make sense of it. I'm not trying to say that it wasn't sin. Whatever wrong happened to you, it was wrong, it was sin, it was terrible. I'm not saying that it wasn't wrong, but what I am saying is to not want hell for them, to not want God's wrath upon them, but to want God and his goodness to change them, to transform them. And really to let go and trust in God. And so again, I I can't fathom the pain and the suffering and and the things that have happened in this room to people. And I can only say this because it's in God's word. And I just encourage you and would be happy to pray for you, and I don't need to know the whole story, but together join with you in the power of God to forgive those in your life. And that would be my second highlight for you today. All right, the last passage or part to read today, verse 21. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, Why do you question in your hearts, which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise and walk, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they were glorified, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen extraordinary things today. So the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, lacked the faith. We see this contrast between them and Jesus. They immediately question Jesus because they don't believe what Simon believes. They don't believe they're in the presence of Jesus. They've heard all the stories, they've heard about the healing, they've heard about, I'm sure, all these amazing things. That's why they're there investigating. They're like, who is this guy? But they say he's blasphemy. Jesus is telling them in this moment who he is. You know, I've heard sometimes people say, like, Jesus never claims to be God in the Gospels. He's doing it right here. He's doing it right here. When Jesus declares this man's sins were forgiven, he is clearly claiming to be God right to their faces. If he wasn't God according to the law, he should be killed for doing what he did. And I wondered about the paralytic man that was lowered down in front of Jesus. You know, and we can think in the temporary, in the natural, and the suffering and say, man, you know, like, heal this guy right away. But Jesus is on mission, he is prioritizing what's most important. He's reading people's minds by perceiving their thoughts. He's doing all these amazing things. But I also thought about this maybe that paralytic guy needed to really hear that. Because the same is true for the lepers, the same for anybody that's suffering. He would have been judged. This happened because you sinned in that culture. This happened because you're a terrible person. And Jesus is saying, your sins are forgiven. And so I say, maybe this paralytic guy needed to hear this, but the reality is he did need to hear this. As we all need to hear this, your sins are forgiven. Again, we need to prioritize the gospel over any circumstance or suffering. Because the gospel addresses the eternal. The gospel addresses our salvation. It solves the problem of our sin that keeps us from God. It solves the problem of death, which Jesus conquers by his resurrection. And it's just good to see God on the move, the Prince of Peace, that he prioritizes mission, but at the same time, he cares for this man to heal him of his paralysis. And he's an example of the power of God in this moment. And again, as it says, they were in awe of him. So the healing miracle record of Jesus. Again, we ask the question: who is this Jesus? Everyone in Capernaum is healed, hands-on healing. Demons are delivered. So there's no more demons terrorizing people anymore. Simon's mother-in-law is healed of high fever. We have two boats almost sinking from miraculous catches of fish, and we have now disciples following Jesus who are now catching men. We have someone who's had leprosy, is now clean and restored to community. And now we have a man who had faith in Jesus to just simply get in his presence, is now forgiven of his sin and can now walk. But again, the greatest miracle is the forgiveness of sins. That is the greatest miracle. That is why Jesus came to this earth. This is why Jesus took on flesh, was to take our sins upon himself, to atone for our sin, to be the blood sacrifice, to wash us white as snow, to make us clean. So again, our highlights are this to we need to be desperate for Jesus. We need to prioritize the gospel and highlight the forgiveness of sins. So what are these wristbands about? So last week we talked about man, it's they're having fun down there, whatever they're doing. It's thunderous downstairs. Um we talked about catch people. And I saw this online, I saw uh church did this, and I was like, that's cool. How much do those cost? Thank you, Amazon. And a couple days later, we now have these green wristbands. So, what are these green wristbands for? These are reminders to you to pray for someone in your life. And you can write a name on it, you can write an idea on it, you can write maybe a neighborhood or a house or a workplace or something where Jesus is calling you, as our banner says. And I don't know about you, but I need reminders in my walk with Christ, in my mission for Jesus, to prioritize the gospel. And so I recognize some of you may not want to put a wristband on that uh takes the scissors to get off later. Maybe you need to put this in your car, maybe you need to put this in your Bible. Whatever it is, I just wanted to give this to you to write a name, write a place, write your mission. And again, we need to surrender that. We need to pray about it. We need to ultimately be listening to Jesus and where Jesus is, and this is just a reminder. This is just to keep you focused. This is to keep you in prayer for where Jesus is calling you, to catch people, to make disciples that follow Jesus, who are desperate for Jesus, who need to know that their sins are forgiven and that death has been conquered by Jesus. So I encourage you to do that. Again, because of Jesus, you are clean of your sin. Because of Jesus, you are free from your sin. Because of Jesus, you are forgiven of your sin, as we read about today. Let's pray and close. God, we just say thank you for this time in your word, God. We thank you for your stories, God, captured in history. And God, we pray that you would give us the capacity, God, to surrender the pain, the injustice, the suffering that we've gone through because of another person in our life, God. And we pray that you would help us in your love and your work on the cross and your miracles, God, to forgive. God, we recognize that it's impossible without you to do that. And God, we just recognize just our total desperation before you, God. And God, we ask for you to reveal to us who and where and what and how to pray for whatever it is this wristband bookmark reminder is for us, God. God, that we would be on mission for you, God, that we would pray bold prayers, that we would pray for miracles in the lives and through our lives for your glory, God. For more to come to faith, for more to receive your grace and your forgiveness, to make us clean from our sin and to give us hope despite death. God, I pray that you'd send us out from here on mission, as your children, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, to love our enemies. And I pray that you'd send us out in your truth, in your word, for your glory. In your name we pray. Amen.