Made Clean

Cleansing happens when we come to Jesus aware of our condition & with faith that He can make us clean.  Luke 5:12-16.

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So if you have a Bible and I hope that you do, turn with me to Luke chapter 5 as we'll be continuing in our series of Encounters with Jesus. If you or someone that you know of need a Bible, or if you simply don't like the Bible that you have right now, we got some Bibles in the back of the room. We have some in the welcome lobby. Those are free to you, and I encourage you to take one and find any means necessary to take God's word with you and to treasure it. Like our hope and our desire is to treasure Jesus, but you can do that by getting in his word and reading about him, reading about his person, about his work that he's done for you. So I encourage you, if you need some encouragement, get into the word. Let God's word get into you and abide with him and treasure him in that time. It's so important and it's so a great privilege that we have to have God's word in our language. Like we can read the Bible, and that is God's appointed means of speaking to his people is through his word. So it is important, and I hope that you have it with you. So Luke chapter 5, if you're turning there, I want to begin with a question, and that is have you ever felt just so disgusting that the only thing you could think of, the only thing you wanted was a shower. You were so nasty, so dirty, so disgusting that all you could think of was just getting home, hopping in a shower, hopefully a warm shower, and getting clean. Maybe for some of you, that's after a long day of yard work where it's brutal outside, it is hot, and you're sweaty. Maybe for some of you, or maybe in the past, it was after a ball game, outside and maybe even inside, and you were just so hot and sweaty. Maybe for some of you, maybe six years ago, you locked yourself in a room during COVID and you watched Netflix for two days straight or played video games, and next thing you know, it's been three days since you've showered and you just feel disgusting. You know, maybe a lot of us we can all relate because we're all here, but you stepped outside this summer because you live in West Kentucky, and in five seconds, you're drenched in sweat. That's my story, at least. So hopefully you would understand to some degree that feeling of just feeling dirty. Growing up, I was a baseball player, and in eighth grade, my coach moved me uh in eighth grade to be the catcher. I love that position, love the game. And uh, you know, there's a lot of uh difficult things about being a catcher, but it honestly wasn't the constant squatting up and down, it wasn't getting hit by all the foul balls. It was genuinely how much I sweat. I mean, I would sweat through everything by the middle of the game. I mean, everything I had on, even the catcher's gear, that added to the heat, so it didn't help, but I would just sweat right through that too. And it just was horrible, like horrible. It didn't mean this the sweat was everywhere, it smelt bad. Like it wasn't like, oh, you just sweat and you just, you know, you look bad, but like it smelt bad too. And I would go home with my parents, or once I started driving, I would drive home and for about 15, 20 minutes, been on the drive, I'd have to just sit there in that smell, in that sweat, and all I could think about was just I'm ready to get in the shower. I don't care if I lost, I don't care if we won, if I had the best play or the worst play, but like I just need a shower because I want that feeling of just being clean, looking clean, smelling clean, and being made clean again. I'm sure we have all had that feeling at some point. And in our passage today in Luke 5, we're going to see a man who lived in a constant state of being unclean. It wasn't just because he was sweaty, but it was different. And he had one encounter with Jesus. Encounters with Jesus. He encountered the Son of God. He encountered Jesus, and his whole life was changed. And so, just as this man was in need of being made clean, maybe today. You're here, you're here, and you need to be made clean spiritually. Maybe you need to be made clean spiritually. So the title of the sermon this morning is made clean. And what I hope to show you is that cleansing happens when we come to Jesus aware of our condition with faith that he can make us clean. Cleansing or new life change, it happens when we come to Jesus aware of our condition with faith that he can make us clean. And in the time that I have, I want to read our passage and just simply observe uh what is happening and what we see on the surface. And we're gonna do that by looking at how the leper is cleansed. And then I want to look at four deeper realities that we see in this text and then point out at the very end two very specific applications for us. So if you have uh a notebook, if you have a pen, just make sure you got plenty of ink, you got a lot of writing to do, uh, but hopefully it's all for your benefit. So Luke chapter 5, 12 through 16. Let's read it together. Verse 12 says, While he was in one of the cities, so meaning Jesus, while he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy, and he saw Jesus, and he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. 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 to go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them. 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 desolate places and pray. This same story can also be found in Matthew 8 and Mark chapter 1. And when you kind of gather all these uh accounts together, it's likely that Jesus has already called some of his disciples, he's already preached the Sermon of the Mount, and he is actually coming down from the mountain after that, and he went into a city. Luke doesn't seem to care to tell us what city he's in, but he's in a city, and we see that this man who is full of leprosy approached Jesus and he walks away cleansed of that, and and we see his whole life change. So as we walk through this text, we're going to see three steps to him being made clean. And first, let's look in the very beginning of verse 12, one more time. It says, While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. This leper was cleansed by number one, coming to Jesus aware of his condition. Number one, coming to Jesus aware of his condition. The man in our text had a serious, serious problem. And he knew it. He couldn't hide it, he couldn't fix it, he needed help. And Luke describes this man as not just a leper, but as someone who is full of leprosy. Like he didn't just have like a little spot here and there. He was full of leprosy. Some of you may are aware of what leprosy is, but in the Bible, this term is used to describe various skin diseases. And so we're not technically sure on what skin disease he might have had, but whatever it was, he was full of it. Full of leprosy. This disease more than likely had affected his whole body from head to foot. Leprosy can affect the body in such a way that it actually destroys the body's ability to feel pain. And so certain parts of his body would become numb to the extent that what used to be painful would no longer even be painful. You would not even know if you stepped into a fire, have no clue, and the next thing your foot is burned. The numbness would lead to infections and tissue damage, and it would lead to deformities in the body. And again, Luke tells us he was full of it. I mean, full of leprosy. Not only did this disease and this leprosy affect him physically, but we see that it would affect him uh economically and socially. In Leviticus, Moses gives the laws about leprosy in the cleansing process. But most notably in Leviticus 13, we see in verse 45 and 46 it says, The lepros 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, and he shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone, and his dwelling place, or his dwelling shall be outside the camp. In other words, this disease, whoever had leprosy, was an outcast. They were separated from family, separated from friends, they were isolated, made to live alone, and this disease it would make their life miserable. And so here we have this man who we see is in the city. So he's already breaking the rules, right? He's not supposed to be in there. He's in the city because he knows that there is a man in there who he believes can heal him. And he goes and pursues after Jesus. And this is crucial to this whole story. After living a life yelling out unclean, unclean over and over, warning people of his condition after being made or after being rejected and avoided, this man takes his opportunity to have this encounter, to have this experience with Jesus. We wouldn't have this story in the Bible were it not for this man just stopping and acknowledging that I have a problem, that I am sick, that I need cleansing, that I need Jesus. I mean, all he had to do was take one look at his hands, and he was reminded day after day after day that I am a leprous person. I need help. And so often we hesitate to get help that we need because we sometimes fail to recognize that we need help. But sometimes we also refuse to believe that we even need help. We see this in many ways. One way in my life that I saw this happen was in my senior year of college, uh I was starting to get more plugged in and making some friends, and I decided to join an intramural basketball league with some of the friends I'd made. They obviously didn't know me well enough to know I was not good at basketball, but we played anyways. And so the first game arrives, you know, we're playing, and it's already, you know, two minutes left in the game, and I were already losing pretty bad. And the guy that I was guarding all game, he's at the other end of the court, so obviously that shows I wasn't guarding him all that well. But I'm not gonna give up. So I run down all the way to the end of the court, and I catch up to him, and obviously they're passing the ball because he's wide open. And as soon as they're passing the ball, you know, I gotta go to jump, like I plant my feet and try to jump up. And I don't remember much after that, except for I didn't get the jump off. My leg had kind of like buckled up, and there was this extreme pain in my right knee. And so I just limp off the court, and so I need someone to tap me in. They're like, dude, there's like a minute half left, just finished. I'm like, I'm telling you, I can't even walk. And so I just go home that night and put ice on it thinking it'll be fine in the morning, right? I'm not one to go to doctors unless I just absolutely have to. So for the next two months, uh I just kind of looked around, not really sure what was happening, thinking that it would eventually fix itself because that's how God has designed our bodies to work and it's gonna heal. And after that, after two months of just pain and people making fun of me, I'm like, all right, we'll go. So we go to the physical therapist, and uh the guy's like, you know, I tell him the whole story. I sit on the table, and he's like, I want to check for ACL tear. I'm like, all right, whatever you want, you know, I don't think it's that. But he does something, you know, to my knee and does the other knee, and he sits down, he's like, Well, Mikey, you actually have a partially torn ACL. I'm like, You serious? Like an ACL? He said, Yeah. I was like, that's not what I was expecting. It's like if I knew that, I would have got help way earlier, you know. So I would not have walked for two months in pain consistently, just thinking that it would get better. But I had put something off because I could not believe it. I refused to believe that I needed help. And so eventually, once I came to realize what condition I was in, like I started going multiple weeks, and by God's grace, it healed without surgery. So that that shows us that this man here, he was so aware, he was so completely aware of his need. He was not hesitant to get help. He didn't refuse to believe that I don't need Jesus. He was so aware that he ran to Jesus, that he was willing to break the rules and to cross the cultural boundaries and norms to go and meet Jesus. And what we must realize is that there's some of us in this room and people that we know that will never come to Jesus unless they understand their need, their ultimate need for Jesus. And so many people just never even stop to consider their condition. They may look on the outside and think, I'm I'm doing good, but they don't take a look inwardly. And Paul writes about this, describing people as blinded in their minds. 2 Corinthians 4, 4 says, in their case, the God of this world, talking about Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing. They're blind to it, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The gospel is a glorious light. And the reason there are unbelievers in this world is because Satan is working hard to keep their eyes blinded to the beauty of the gospel. But this man was not blind to his physical need. And as we see this man approach Jesus, we see the next part of this encounter in the second half of verse 12. It says, And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. So the second step for the leper to be cleansed was having faith in Jesus to make him clean. He had to be aware of his condition. He had to come to Jesus aware of his condition, but then he had to have faith in Jesus to make him clean. You can just imagine this scene. Imagine this picture. And for as long and he falls to his face and he it says he begged. He fell on his face and begged, this man would have no doubt been a beggar. He would have been outside of the city, begging people for help, begging people for food and for water and for the basic necessities just to live. Because people would have avoided him, rejected him, he would have been cast out. But now, this time he he comes to Jesus and he's not asking for food or for water. He's begging Jesus to be cleansed. He's begging for his life to be restored. He's begging to be received back into his family. He's begging to get his job back, his livelihood. He's having, he's begging just to have a normal life again. He is desperate and he begs Jesus, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. This phrase here in the Greek is in the present tense, which can actually indicate and maybe even suggest that this man was repeatedly saying this. Like, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Over and over and over again. And again, he's face down on the ground. He says, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Just desperate, begging the Lord, trusting that if you will, you can make me clean. In his request to Jesus, this man displays an incredible amount of faith. I mean, notice he didn't say, Lord, if you will, can you make me clean? Lord, if you will, can you make me clean? He wasn't questioning Jesus' ability to make him clean. Rather, he was fully confident in the Lord's ability and the Lord's power over sickness, over disease to heal him. So the question wasn't, Lord, can you? It was Lord, I know you can, but will you? That word, if you will, you can translate that as if you wish. Like, Lord, if you wish, you can do this. Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean. This man knew that Jesus could, but now it was a matter of, would Jesus want to? You know, I'm sure many of us have been in an experience or in this feeling to some degree, probably when we were younger, but but how many times, maybe as a kid, would we go to our parent or go to someone that we knew or a guardian that we knew that if we went and asked them, we knew they could do it. You know, we we know that you can provide a pizza for me. We know that you can buy these cool toys for me. We know that you've got the money to do this, but the question was always a matter of would they want to do that? Like, did they love you enough to do that, right? It was always a matter of would they buy this, and that would prove their love. It was not a matter of could they, it was a matter of would they. And it's the same here for this man. And we, as we keep reading, we see Jesus, he responds in such an eye-opening and shocking ways to those who have been watching. So let's read in verse 13 to 14 again. As it says, 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 to go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them. So, secondly, or thirdly, the leper was cleansed by Jesus compassionately accepting him. By Jesus compassionately accepting him. As this leper is lying face down on the ground begging Jesus to make him clean, he waits for a response. In Matthew, again, it tells us that he's coming down from the mountain, and there were great crowds who followed him. And with all these great crowds following him, with the with the pop like the popularity he was growing in, there's no doubt, and being in a city, that there were people watching, people were looking. What would Jesus do? People are thinking, man, this this dude is not even supposed to be in this city. You need to cast him out. Why is he here? Don't touch him. Like, don't you know you don't touch a leper? And they're waiting to see what is Jesus going to do. This man is begging to be cleansed. And we see Jesus go against all the cultural norms, and we see him reach out his hand, and we see him say, I will be clean. In Mark 141, it says that Jesus was moved with pity, which means that he looked on this man with compassion, that he was moved with compassion, he was moved with pity, he was filled with it. So much in the gospels, we see that when Jesus sees the crowds, when he looks on them, that he was filled with compassion. And that is what we see in this case. I mean, see the beauty of the scene. This man who was full of leprosy, who's been rejected by all, is now faced down at the man who is full of compassion, waiting to receive him, waiting to accept him, waiting and ready and willing to cleanse him. Jesus shows a love and a compassion that this man has never seen before. Jesus could have merely spoken a word and just said, Leprosy be gone. Right? He could have just thought in his head, all right, be gone. You know, leprosy, get out of here. And not spoken a word, not touched him. He has the power to do that. But no, Jesus, he reaches out and touches him. In Leviticus, it's clear that you don't touch a leper. It would make that person unclean as well because of how contagious that disease was. But things are different with Jesus. He powerfully touches the man and is still left unclean. Jesus touches the unclean man, the contagious person, and he heals him. And Jesus is still left clean. That is the power that Jesus has. He displays both his will and his work, his desire to heal and his power to do so. I mean, again, the man says, if you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus says, I will be clean. I can, so therefore, be clean. His power and his desire. And it says the leprosy left him immediately. Just imagine. Imagine you have leprosy, right? You're cast out of your home, and you know of the man who can make you clean. And you're you're face down and you're begging, Lord, if you can, you can make me clean. And he's thinking, Man, this is it. This is my one opportunity to be healed. And he's begging over and over and over. With his face down on the ground, he he feels a touch of the man he's begging. Probably the first person who has touched him in who knows how long. And he says, I will be clean. And immediately, like immediately, he looks at his hands, the spots are healing up, the raw flesh is being healed, the deformities of his body and his hand are being restored all in an instant. A miracle has just happened. And in an instant, this man has just been healed. And then Jesus sends him off to the priest to go carry out the laws of cleansing for uh for the lepers, and that is what is uh laid out in Leviticus 14. And you may ask, you know, why did Jesus do that? If if he just healed that man, why would he have sent him off to go do all these things? Uh very practically, one reason, because there's a few reasons, but one reason might have just been to show the priest and give him proof of what Jesus has done. No doubt this priest would have uh saw the man or heard of this man being healed and walking around and thinking, well, he never came to me and he never went through all these offerings and sacrifices, and so, you know, there's no way. And so Jesus sending him leaves no room for doubt that this man has been healed, that someone greater than this priest has healed this person. I think another deeper reason to do this was to show the leadership of Israel that the messianic age has come, that the kingdom of God is here. Like Jesus is on the scene. He's here to do what he said he would do, he's here to set the caps. Is free. He's here to heal people of diseases. He's here to proclaim good news to the and proclaim liberty. He's here to do what he was made to do and sent to do. While the story is incredible, and you stop and just consider all that is going on for this man and what Jesus did for him, it really is such an incredible story. But then you think, okay, in John, we know that there were so many miracles, so many things that could have been recorded. I mean, it could have filled a whole nother book, right? And so why is it that John, of all the miracles, why did he want to put this in here? Why is it that Matthew also kept it in Mark? Like, why did they add this story? Well, I think it's because there's something deeper in this story. I think there's something deeper for us. And this story is not simply showing us what Jesus did for this man, but rather this story is pointing us to what Jesus wants to do for you. Pointing us to what Jesus would do for us. And so let's look at four deeper realities from this story. Number one is that sin leaves us spiritually unclean. Sin leaves us spiritually unclean. Hopefully this is clear for you guys, but if it's not, this leper is a physical illustration of a spiritual reality for everyone who has not experienced the cleansing work of Christ. That this story is not merely about a man who is physically sick, physically diseased. Rather, it is about pointing us and showing us of the spiritual reality of our own lives apart from Christ. Just as leprosy was a disease that infected a person, causing them to live alone and be isolated, yelling, unclean, unclean, so it is with sin. The difference is that we were born with this sinful nature, and it infects us and affects every part of our lives. It is our sin that separates us from a relationship with God and causes us to be isolated. And because of our sin, we are therefore now unclean before a pure and a holy God. This man, due to his leprosy, was by all accounts just a dead man walking, like wasted breath, taking up space. He had nothing to offer, he had no one with him, he had no one for him. He was simply wasting away. And this is the condition of every human being without the cleansing work of Christ. Paul explains it this way in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. Says, And you and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the Prince of the power of air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Paul is highlighting the fact that even though we may be living right now, even though we may be breathing physically, without Christ, we are spiritually dead. But this reality of sin in our lives, it leads us to an even greater reality. And it's that sin leaves us hopeless. The sin that affects every one of us and leaves us spiritually unclean also leaves us completely hopeless. Again, sin is something that has affected every person to ever live except for one man. It is something that we can't work at at getting rid of. We can't do enough good to outweigh our sin. As we read about how the leper approached Jesus up until that point, he had to have been so hopeless. He wasn't sure if he would ever get to return to his home. He wasn't sure if he would ever be cleansed, if he would get to see his family and his friends and get his job back or whatever it was. Like we don't we don't know the exact situation of this person, but he was still a person. He was a human being created in God's image. And this one disease affected every part of him, leaving hopeless. He couldn't seek anyone's help because there was no one to help him. Everyone was keeping their distance and everyone was rejecting him. It makes me think of Psalm 130, verse 3, and it says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Like, think about that question. If you, O Lord, should mark my sin, if you should count my iniquity against me, who could stand? And the question is, even in the size of this room, the answer is none of us. None of us could stand before a pure and perfect holy God because of our sin, like if your iniquity this past week was displayed on this screen, you would leave running. But Jesus knows every single sin in your life. And he says, Oh Lord, if you were to mark our iniquities, who could stand? Like, if that doesn't leave you hopeless, I don't know what does. We are a people full of iniquity, full of sin, rebelling against God. And even though maybe sometimes we feel as though we're doing good, God sees into the inward hearts of men and he knows what is truly there. Because of our sin, we are guilty before a holy and righteous God. And even though our sin may leave us in a hopeless state, there is another great and promising reality, and that is Jesus is our hope. Jesus is our hope. Even though sin wants to leave you in this hopeless state, we see Jesus come onto the scene. We see Jesus have an encounter and Jesus give true hope. As the leper comes to Jesus and falls on his face begging him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean from this. We see that Jesus was this man's only hope. If Jesus didn't heal this man, no one could. If Jesus didn't cleanse this man, nothing would. If Jesus didn't stop and encounter this man, the world would have continued to reject him and avoid him. And so we see Jesus be this man's only hope, be the hope that he was looking for. His story shows us and it points out that it is Jesus who is the hope for our world today, like for our lives today. He's the only hope for a lost and sin-filled and dying world to experience a cleansed life. And though sin may affect all of us and make it seem as though we have no hope to be restored, Jesus steps onto the scene and he offers hope. And what this means for us, what this means for you, is that if Jesus really is our only hope to restore us and to make us clean, that means that we have to stop looking for it in other places. That we have to stop placing our hope and confidence in worldly and temporary things to clean us up and to make us look pretty. We are constantly tempted to do that, whether you're an unbeliever or a believer. As a believer, maybe you're tempted to, after you sin, to clean yourself up and not trust in the full and complete forgiveness of God. And maybe if you're an unbeliever, your hope is in so many other things. Maybe your hope is in your salary or savings account. Maybe it's in your retirement fund. Maybe it's in living and having a secure and comfortable life. Maybe it's in having a secure future with all of your backup plans in place, ready to go in case something fails. Maybe for you, your hope is in your health, your physical abilities, right? If you can just work on yourself and make it to where you can live a long, healthy, good life, that's where your hope is. And I think whether you're an unbeliever or a believer, we are constantly tempted to place our hope, our confidence in these worldly and temporary things that will not satisfy, that will not last. And so because Jesus is truly our only hope, you can be sure of this because of this final reality for us, which is that Jesus desires to make you clean. Jesus desires to make you clean. This is a truth that we see from God's word. Jesus desires to make you clean. Looking back at the story in Luke, this man knew that Jesus had the power. Again, as he says, you can make me clean, but he begins with, if you will, or if you want. And so our hope is in the reality that it's not a question. There is no question. Does God want to make me clean? Does God desire to cleanse me? Does God desire to save my coworker or my family or my friend that I know who is lost? Does God even desire to do that? I know that he can, but does he desire that? The answer is yes. Maybe you're here today and you know that sin in your life has affected you. It has isolated you. It has separated you from the one who desires to cleanse you. Maybe your sin today has left you in a spot where you would just say, you feel hopeless. Maybe for some of you today, you just feel unclean. You may not be a leper, but maybe inwardly you know what's going on in your life. Maybe you're you're you're shielding and protecting your own life from other people so they won't see what's really there. Maybe you're not struggling with leprosy, but maybe you're struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Maybe you're addicted to pornography, maybe you're easily angered, you're lacking in love and compassion for others, maybe you struggle with same-sex attraction, maybe you are convinced that you're worthless, that you have no dignity or value, whatever it is, like whatever it is that sin that plagues you. Maybe you could just sum it up and just like come to the front and just say, I'm just unclean. Like whatever it is, whatever it is that is just taking over your life and affecting every part of you and infecting you, you could sum it up by saying, I just feel dirty. I feel disgusting, I feel unclean. And then maybe for some of you, you're doing pretty well, right? I feel like life is going good. I'm here at church, I haven't missed a Sunday, and four Sundays, doing pretty well. And none of those things describe you. But I want to challenge you with the truth that maybe you look clean and like you've got it all together on the outside, but maybe inwardly you're full of pride, you're full of sin and hypocrisy and wickedness. And I don't mean this to you know to bring uh to bring you down, but I mean this to help you to see that you could have it all good on the outside, but it doesn't matter what the outside looks like. What matters is that you're clean on the inside. Jesus would say something very similar to this in Matthew 23, verse 25 through 28. He's speaking to the Pharisees and the scribes, and it says, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will also be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. There it is, you're unclean. And in the same way, on the outside, you appear to be people as righteous, but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. No matter where you are this morning, let me encourage you with what we know to be true based on God's Word, and it's that Jesus wants to make you clean. Like Jesus wants to make you clean. He desires to cleanse you from all sin. And he wants to do it today. Like it's not a matter of let me let me work on some things first. Let me try to present myself a little bit more clean. That way it's not as hard for him to cleanse me. No, he can cleanse you fully and completely. And how do we know this? How do we know that Jesus wants to make us clean? Here's the beauty of it is that when Jesus reaches out his hand to display his compassion and he says, I will be clean, he's displaying his desire to cleanse and his power to do so, but it points us to a greater miracle. It points us to a greater cleansing that would take place. Again, this story isn't just to tell us about this random person who was healed of leprosy, but it's to tell us about what Jesus would do for us. By Jesus laying hold of the leper, it points us to how Jesus would lay hold of our flesh itself, to be born in the likeness of man, and he would touch humanity with all of its sin and all of its uncleanliness, transferring it to himself. In doing so, Jesus would take our sin and be hung on a cross. He would suffer and die, receiving the wrath of God for your sin in your place. And he would rise three days later, defeating that sin, defeating the grave, defeating Satan. And we see this beautiful picture that Jesus was willing to touch us, who are the unclean, taking on our sin and our uncleanness, so that we could ultimately be given his purity, his righteousness, and his cleanness. Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 5.21. It says, For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin. Like Jesus, who knew no sin, he made sin. So that, here's the reason, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus has taken your leprosy on himself. He's taken your sin on himself so that you could have his righteousness. And he would take all of your sin, all of your lust, your pride, your envy, your greed, your adulterous hearts, saying, I will take it for myself so that you can have my righteousness, my holiness, my purity. And just as in the case of the leper, when Jesus touched him and the leprosy immediately left, it shows us and it points us to the moment of salvation. That he cleanses us, he saves us immediately and completely. Yes, there is a sanctifying work to be had. But when Jesus saves you, it's not over the course of a week. Jesus saves you immediately, transferring you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, rising you from the dead, and giving you life. It tells us in 1 John 1:7, it says the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. From all sin. I mean, do you believe that? That Jesus wants to forgive you, to cleanse you, restore you, not just for a moment and not just for a particular sin, but Jesus wants to cleanse you for all of your sin. Like all of your unrighteousness, what you've done in the past, what you've done today, and what you will do forever, or for the rest of your life at least, that he wants to clean you, cleanse you from all of it. All of your sin. So no matter your past, no matter your tendencies, no matter your search history, no matter your reputation, no matter what, Jesus is more than able and he's more than willing to make you clean today. Maybe you're here this morning and you're thinking, that's great, you know, but in my life, I've experienced that. I know Christ, He's made me clean, that was a good reminder, but you know, I need to probably go share that with someone else. Or maybe I wish someone else was probably here to hear this, right? This passage may seem to come across as only for unbelievers and people who need Christ, but I want to take a moment and just flesh out some very practical application for the believer. And it's something that the Lord showed me in the time of studying this and really convicted me over. But number one, never get over the encounter you've had with Jesus. Never get over the encounter, the life change, the salvation that Jesus has given you. I'm saying again, never get over the encounter you've had with Jesus. For so many of us in this room who have been forgiven are in a relationship with Christ. How easy, how easy is it for us to forget the work that He has done in our lives? You know, maybe you're like me. I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a pastor, and uh, you know, I got saved at a young age. And so I never really felt like my life was quote unquote unclean. You know, I would have not considered myself unclean. I thought I was doing pretty well. But let me encourage you, because I have to do this often for my own life, let me encourage you more so not with what you would say about your life, but let me encourage you with what the Bible would say about who you were. A couple things, okay? You, no matter your age, no matter when you got saved, before Christ, you were dead in sin. You were evil, you were unrighteous, you were haters of God, disobedient, led astray, like you didn't even know it. You were led, you were blind, you didn't even know what you were doing. You were slaves to various passions, you were living for something else and someone else. And there's so many more things. But I tell you what, that does not sound like I was doing pretty well. That doesn't sound like a clean life. We were no better than anyone else. And in light of all this, we should rejoice as we reflect on what Christ has cleansed us from. Like he has taken the deadness in our sin, the evilness, the unrighteousness, the hatred that we had towards God, the disobedience. He's taken all of that and cleansed us from it all. In Mark's account, we see that this man went out and he began to talk freely about what happened from this. And you can see that he was overjoyed and filled with gratitude for what Jesus has done. So let me ask you, when you think about your salvation, do you feel as though you deserved it? When you came to know Christ, or when you think about the fact that maybe you're a Christian now, does it come across as though I deserve that, right? Like I went to church, I was a good kid, I grew up doing the right things, like it made sense. Or maybe, maybe let me ask you this way: do you feel like it was expected? Because you did all those things, do you feel that this salvation that you have was just a part of the process, as if it wasn't that big of a deal? Because it is. Jesus has saved you from your sin. Like if you have come from being dead in sin to alive in Christ, that's a miracle. That is a miracle. And I just encourage you to go home, to do whatever you need to, to just on the way home, on the drive home, whatever it is, take time and just ask the Lord to help you to see the weight in reality. Like, are we so foolish to think that our salvation is not that big of a deal? And may we all cry out to God asking for his help to see the weight and the beauty and the glory of the salvation that he's given us. Because we so easily forget. I forget so often in being in the position that I am now. I just, it just it all seems to just make sense, right? It just seems to be a part of the process and that this is not all but a gift from God. It's by his grace, according to his mercy, that he's given me salvation. And if you're in Christ, remember that. If you're in Christ, remember that. Man, you don't deserve to be in Christ. That you have done nothing but offer him your leprosy, to offer him your sin. That's all you've contributed. You've done nothing. Like that is a miracle. That is grace that God has given us. Secondly, be aware of your tendency to withdraw from those that you would label as quote-unquote unclean. Be aware of your tendency to withdraw, to reject, to avoid those people that you would consider as unclean. Now, this this is hard. It's hard for me. I don't know, I don't know what you're like, but I'm telling you, this is hard for me. If I had to relate to someone other than the leper in this story, it would have been the ones who would have been around witnessing it happen. Like, I wouldn't have related to Jesus, obviously. I would have related to the ones who were watching Jesus, thinking, man, what is this dude even doing here? Like, let's get him out of the city. He's not even supposed to be here. The man is unclean. He's disgusting, he's contagious. Get him out. That is who I would relate with. The one who rejected and avoided and judged and condemned that person. And there is a great tendency for those of us in the church who have our holy huddles to only allow those who are like us to be in them. There's a great temptation for us as believers to avoid and to reject those who are different than us. And maybe they're different in looks, beliefs, lifestyles, living conditions, but we secretly deep down we don't want them in our lives. We deep down them here. We deep down don't want to extend an invite. We deep down don't want to extend a helping hand. We just don't want to be around them. We don't want to give them the time. of the day because they're we wouldn't say it's because they're unclean what what a great tragedy and sin what a great tragedy and sin this is on our part that God has so graciously received us so that no matter or so no matter who we come in contact with that we would go and love our neighbor no matter their race no matter their ethnicity no matter their social status beliefs or personalities that we would go and reach out to them at the end of the day we are as it says one beggar showing another beggar where to go and find bread in other words for those of us who have experienced the cleansing power of Jesus we are to go into our workplaces to go into our schools and our restaurants homes and gyms where people are in need of being made clean and we tell them hey look I know where you can be made clean. Point them to the one who can clean them. You can't but you've got the message you've got the person who can clean them and so maybe for us we must stop rejecting and avoiding those whom we see as unclean and be willing to go and approach the one whom Jesus would approach. Maybe on the other side we need to be okay and comfortable with with being approached by the one that would approach Jesus sometimes we don't want to go out but then whenever people come to us we just walk away we don't want to be approached by them but we have the truth of the gospel and we have the source of everlasting hope so that so why would we not tell them why would we not show them and point them to the only one who can tell them I will be clean if you would just bow your heads with me. And I want to just ask that that you do so to just focus right now on what the Lord would have you do on how the Lord would respond. There's nothing special about you you you closing your eyes and bowing your heads and having this moment but I want to just invite you and encourage you to take advantage of this time to to hear God's word and respond rightly and ask him ask the Lord how to respond. I want to remind you that in James he he warns us and he tells us don't just be hearers of the word but be doers and so first I would ask you where are you spiritually? Have you stopped to consider what condition you're in? I mean do you relate more with a man who is full of leprosy or are you unclean with sin in your life rebelling against God running from him? I mean realize that Jesus has done the work on the cross necessary to make you clean you can't do it. Your attempts to clean up your life will ultimately fail and leave you in the same condition. But Jesus is ready to receive you ready to forgive you ready to cleanse you immediately and completely today like you can have new life today. Secondly maybe you relate more to the man after he'd been cleansed you relate more to the one who is more uh who is cleansed inside you look today and inwardly you know that you've been forgiven you've been cleansed that you have salvation that you've been given new life let me ask you have you gotten numb to the reality and the new life that Christ has given to you do you go out and do you talk freely about the work that Jesus has done? Do you go out and share eagerly about who Jesus is and what he's done who is it in your life that you have considered to be unclean who is it in your life that is just not worth your time I invite you spend time confessing this to the Lord. Spend time asking for him to help you to see people as he would see people Father we thank you so much for your word. God we thank you for how it convicts and how it challenges us and Lord I pray that God you would save someone today. God I pray that through the gospel through the work that your son has done that God someone would in this room realize and see their ultimate need for you that God they would no longer be blind but God you would shine on their hearts the the beauty and the light of the gospel of Christ and that God they would come and be ready and willing ready to receive your cleansing power. God I pray for the the believer in this room God that you would even along with me God that you would convict us Lord I pray that you would help us to not lose sight and to lose excitement over the salvation salvation you've given us Lord I pray that you help us to see people as you would see them. Forgive us for the people that we consider as unclean and those that we don't want anything to do with. And I pray that you would work and move in this time. In Jesus' name amen