Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 5:12-16, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 7
- Date: Sunday, February 23, 2025 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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The Stress of Needing Help
I cannot figure out exactly why it is so stressful for me, because it should not be. One of the most stressful things for me is having to call some kind of customer support line. It always seems to be an ordeal. This week, for example, I had to call our insurance company because periodically we have to send in some paperwork to them so that they can renew everything.
Otherwise, they say, “If we do not receive this paperwork by such-and-such a date, we are going to start denying claims.” And if you have a child with a heart condition, that is not ideal. So I sent in the paperwork as soon as they requested it. It arrived on time, and then I received a message saying, “Thank you. We have received your paperwork, and it is approved, but we are still missing some items, so we are going to start denying claims.” And so I have to call them. Of course, I found this out late Thursday afternoon, so I did not sleep well knowing I had to get up and call them first thing Friday morning.
When I finally reached someone, she said, “Yes, all the paperwork you sent looks great.” I asked, “Then what is the problem?” She answered, “You did not fill out this other form.”
I was not asked to fill out that paperwork. “No, they would not have sent you a request for it.” I also looked through the booklet online that lists everything we are supposed to send.
It is nowhere mentioned in there. “No, sir, it is not.” “So I was simply supposed to guess that you needed this paperwork?”
Apparently. It was a frustrating experience, but I finally got it taken care of.
I am generally calm anyway, but I had to remain especially calm because this was an insurance company. They could see on their screen where I work, so I was on my best behavior.
It often feels that way anytime you have to call customer service about anything. Every once in a while, however, you reach someone who is extraordinarily helpful—not only fixing the problem you called about but also solving problems you did not even know you had.
Several months ago—and I am not going to name the companies because this is not a paid commercial—we became frustrated with our cell phone company: with the service, with the bill continually increasing, and with the causes the company supported that did not reflect what we believe. And so we started calling around about changing to a different company that would behave differently. When I called, I spoke with a very helpful customer service representative who said, “Yes, we can get you switched over.”
“We can take care of this and make sure your number comes with you.” I thought, “Great.”
I had not even thought about that. Then she said, “We can reduce your bill by about two-thirds.” I answered, “You can?”
I had not even expected to pay less. And I tell you what, we no longer have to go outside nearly as often and stand on top of the storm shelter in the front yard just to talk on the phone. Many of you have called me when I was at home and heard me say, “Hang on. Let me go outside because we do not have reception in the house.”
That person solved every problem I had with our cell phone service, including some I did not even know I had. I was thankful that, once in a while, you can find someone who seems able to take care of every problem. As we continue our study through the book of Luke, that is what one man near the Sea of Galilee experienced when he encountered Jesus. He ran into somebody that not only could meet the request he had, but could take care of every problem that he had.
Jesus was able to meet even his deepest and most fundamental needs. And so this morning we are going to be in Luke chapter 5, where we left off last week. And we are going to look at the story of this man who encountered Jesus.
It is a brief story, and there is a similar one we will look at next week.
The reason I encourage you to read along instead of merely listening is that I want you to see for yourself that this is what God’s Word says. It is easy to misquote things.
It is easy to take things out of context. I want you to see that what we are studying is directly out of God’s Word. So Luke chapter 5, verse 12 says, while he was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy.
And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored him saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately the leprosy left him.
And he ordered him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded as a testimony to them. But the news about him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear him and to be healed of their sickness, that Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
A Hopeless Condition
This is not the only healing Jesus accomplished during this time, but it is one that three of the Gospel writers record. It is one that Luke in particular is interested in for a variety of reasons. But we see this man come to Jesus who was in a hopeless situation.
Leprosy created a hopeless situation. Now, there is something today that is commonly called leprosy. We are not 100% sure if that is the same thing that the Bible is talking about when it talks about leprosy.
The Old Testament devotes multiple chapters to describing leprosy and distinguishing among different kinds of skin disease. And it does not match up perfectly with what we call leprosy today. And it is entirely possible that what they were dealing with in biblical times was something even more horrific than what we know of today.
This was something terrifying for anybody to come in contact with or encounter. For many people, this skin disease became a death sentence as it slowly destroyed the body. And I do not want to get into the description this morning of everything involved with it, but it was something you would not wish on your worst enemy.
And because of this, lepers were treated as outcasts in every society. In every society, a person with leprosy was immediately cut off from the community.
You were sent to live away from everyone and had little or no contact with others. I have heard stories—I have not been able to verify them, so they may be legendary—that lepers had to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” as they walked, warning people to stay away.
And in Israel, where this story takes place, there is the added complication, there is the added challenge that somebody who had leprosy was considered to be unclean under the law of Moses. That meant not only that you had a problem with society, but also that there was an obstacle between you and participation in Israel’s worship. Now, leprosy did not, and being ceremonially unclean was not necessarily sinful.
For example, a woman had a baby. she was ceremonially unclean, even though there is nothing sinful about having a baby. But in every case, ceremonial uncleanness—
it was not sinful in and of itself to be in that state, but it represented sin.
It reminded the people of Israel that there is a wide gulf between the holy and the unholy. It was to remind us of God’s holiness and how we fall short of that. And so you might go through your everyday life, and any given day you might become unclean, and then you would have to deal with that.
Simply by going through life, you would sometimes become unclean and then have to undergo ritual washings, offer sacrifices, or follow other procedures depending on the circumstance. All of this reminded the people that God is holy and that we cannot approach Him expecting Him to accept whatever filth of the world we choose to bring with us. So it was a reminder of God’s holiness. But leprosy was one of those things that you could not just say, okay, well, I am going to go do the ritual washings and I will be unclean until the evening and then everything will be fine.
When you had leprosy, until that went away or killed you, you were considered unclean. And if you were unclean, you could not go and participate in worship in the temple. And so in a very real sense, there was a barrier there between this man and God.
And under the law of Moses, he was condemned to be unclean as long as this leprosy remained there. And for somebody to be in this situation, there was not always a lot of compassion from other people toward these circumstances. And we look at that and we say, well, that is terrible.
Why would they treat the lepers so badly? On the other hand, I can understand why people kept their distance. If you are scared for your life that this could infect me as well, people had reason for keeping their distance, but it didn’t mean it hurt any less for the leper.
We should keep in mind that although the leprosy did not necessarily result from a specific sin he had committed, disease itself exists because sin is present in the world, and leprosy pictured the uncleanness of sin. There was not a lot of compassion for these people. But Jesus did not react to the leper the way most people would.
And we see in this story that Jesus has unmatched compassion for those who are condemned under the law. Whether we are talking about being ceremonially unclean like the leper, whether we are talking about being morally unclean as a result of our sin, Jesus looks at that and Jesus has compassion for us that is not matched by anybody else. No one else loves the condemned as Jesus does.
While everybody else avoided the lepers, and by the way, this man didn’t just have leprosy, it says he was covered with it in verse 12. The literal Greek describes him as being “full” of leprosy—covered with it. And while other people were avoiding lepers, Jesus did something that nobody else did.
Jesus did what no one else would do. Jesus, first of all, engaged with this man instead of turning away. Jesus was willing to stand there and talk to him and hear him out.
Jesus didn’t run screaming the other way. This is even more shocking. Jesus touched the man.
People would not touch a leper for fear of getting the disease themselves, for fear that it could be transmitted to them, for fear that it could be a death sentence to them if they caught it by coming into contact with this person. But not only that, if you touched a leper, then you also became ceremonially unclean. And yet Jesus touches this man and does not become unclean himself.
He cleanses the leper. He touches this man when nobody else would have done that. And he was willing to cleanse the man.
Because the man said, the man having heard about the miracles that Jesus has been working all throughout Galilee at this point, early in his ministry. The news has already been out there. The man hears about what Jesus has done and recognizes that Jesus could heal him if only Jesus was willing to.
That if Jesus wanted him to be clean, he was going to be clean. There was nothing that could stop Jesus from cleansing this man if he just wanted the man to be clean. And so he comes to Jesus and said, if you are willing, I can be made clean.
And Jesus said, “I am willing. Be cleansed.” This man had this terrible ailment that made him unclean according to the law, and it symbolized his spiritual condition. Although this man’s leprosy may not have resulted from a specific sin he had committed, the Old Testament does contain instances in which God used leprosy as judgment for particular acts of rebellion.
There are stories like that, but there is no indication that every time somebody got leprosy, it was because of something they had done. But the presence of leprosy, like all sickness, death, and suffering, reflects the fact that sin has infested this world. It is a reminder of the presence of sin, and the reality is that whether this man’s sin caused the leprosy or not, This man was still a sinner.
And so at the very least, the leprosy represented his spiritual condition. When I say that leprosy pictures, represents, or symbolizes sin, I want to be careful. I am not saying that someone invented this story to make a spiritual point.
This actually happened. I am saying that Luke recorded actual history, actual things that Jesus did, and that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write those down in such a way, those events down in such a way that he is also making a spiritual point on the basis of it.
But leprosy represents sin, and this man is a sinner just like I am and just like you are, just like the Scriptures say that all of us are. And the Scriptures show us, this story here in Luke shows us that this is Jesus’s inclination toward sinners, is to have compassion on us. Now, is that what we deserve?
No. I mean, we might look at ourselves and say, oh yeah, I deserve the benefit of the doubt. We like to judge ourselves real lightly, but when somebody gets out of line with you, when somebody acts hateful to you, do they deserve compassion in return?
No. We recognize they’re not acting in a way that inspires a lot of compassion. When we sin, when we sin, we deserve justice.
When God shows us compassion, it is not because we deserve it. It is because He is compassionate. And so this shows us something about the man that He did not.
. . it shows us something about Jesus, that the man did not do anything to earn this response from Jesus, but Jesus was there to offer compassion to him.
Cleansed by the Word of Christ
And we see through this story that Jesus cleansed and restored those who were condemned under the law. When Jesus touched this man, the man was healed. Jesus told him to be cleansed.
And that word has a double meaning there. It is one of the words used for physical healing from such a condition, but the New Testament also uses it frequently for spiritual cleansing.
It is the word you would use if you are talking about washing laundry, and that laundry was cleaned. When Jesus cleansed him, it was not just the leprosy. It was not just the physical healing.
He is also talking about cleansing him from this curse of uncleanness under the law that represented sin. And so Jesus told him to be cleansed, and he was. We read these stories repeatedly and can become accustomed to them.
“Jesus told them to be cleansed or healed, and they were.” It never ceases to amaze me when I stop and think about it, that Jesus could speak to a disease, and even the disease would obey him.
It says that the leprosy left him. And when you read the Old Testament accounts of how they dealt with leprosy, and when somebody was clean, you know, basically they’re talking about you want to see that it has begun to scab over. And so you know it is going away and the body’s healing up, and you are looking for things like that.
That would indicate only that the condition was beginning to improve or had gone into remission. But the word used here indicates that the leprosy simply ceased to exist. I do not get the sense that the sores merely began to scab over or that the disease slowly started to die. It sounds as though every trace of it simply disappeared.
All because Jesus said so. And it also says it left him immediately. And we see this word, we see this Greek word in Mark a lot.
It is one of his favorite words because Mark is just very quick and everything’s immediately. “And then…and then…and then the next thing.” But that word is used when something happens so quickly that it is noteworthy.
It is unbelievable. Luke here, one of the things that captures Luke’s attention about this story, Luke is a doctor. Luke would have experience dealing with leprosy.
And the idea that not only the leprosy would go away, but that it would go away like that is something that is going to get Luke’s attention because that is not how leprosy works. except when Jesus is the One doing the cleansing. The leprosy left the man immediately.
When Jesus cleanses and restores, there is something about it that is immediate. When Jesus deals with the sin in our lives, now, it does not mean we never sin again. But from a legal standpoint of being condemned under the law, God looks at us and chooses to look at it like it never happened.
The sin is forgiven. The slate is wiped clean. He chooses to remember those things no more.
And it is immediate. At the moment we are born again, at the instant we are born again, that sin is wiped off of our account. And as a result of this, as a result of Jesus just looking at him, touching him and saying, be clean.
This man was in a good enough state to go and visit a priest to be examined, to prove his healing, to make a sacrifice. This is one of the things that the law required. The law said if you had leprosy and you are declared unclean, before you can be declared clean, You had to be examined by a priest. You could not simply say, “I got better.”
You have to go show him, and he is going to look for particular marks. He is going to look for any signs of leprosy remaining and still being active, and he is going to make a determination based on that, and then you are going to offer a sacrifice, and you are going to do all these things. Jesus said, and the man could have said, it is like it never happened, so I can just go on about my business.
But Jesus said, no, we are going to follow the law. We are going to do what God’s law says. Go see the priest. Go show him that you are cleansed and make the sacrifice.
Go do what God’s law commands you to do, but you are already cleansed. And it is worth noting that this is another example of Jesus consistently keeping and fulfilling the law. Jesus didn’t always keep and fulfill the law in the way the Pharisees expected him to.
It is because they were looking through the lens of their rules and their traditions when Jesus is the one that authored that law and knew it better than they did. And so when Leviticus 13 and 14 say, here’s the procedure for going and being declared clean, Jesus said, go do that. Because as much as Jesus came with compassion, He also emphasized the holiness of God and that we were going to do things according to God’s will.
So when Jesus healed this man, He removed the legal problem that He had as far as His uncleanness. He said, you can go see the priest today, and you can go have the priest affirm what is already reality here.
Cleansing from Sin
But it also shows his ability to restore us from the condemnation of sin under the law.
Because we have to keep in the back of our minds as we read this story that leprosy very much symbolized sin throughout Scripture. There is a picture of something we were afflicted with, we could not get rid of on our own, it made us unclean. And that description describes sin.
Now sin is one of those words that we all use but we rarely define. What the Bible means by sin, this is the definition they teach our kids at camp, and I think it is the best one I have ever heard, that sin is anything we think, say, do, or do not do that displeases God. And there is some motions that go with it, but I do not remember them off the top of my head.
But it is anything we think, say, do, or do not do that displeases God. And when we do that, because God is holy, because God is holy, our sin separates us from Him. We are afflicted, we are infected, if you want to use that terminology.
We are infected with sin, and we cannot do a thing to cleanse ourselves of it, and it separates us from God. You see the parallels between that and leprosy. Jesus healing the leper was a historical event.
It is something that really happened in time and space. It really happened in history. And to that leper, he came to Jesus thinking he was going to get a physical cleansing.
But one of the reasons the gospel writers all thought it was, except John, not that he didn’t think it was important, but he came along later filling in some of the gaps. But the reason why Matthew, Mark, and Luke all thought it was important enough to add this story, to include this story, was that it represents early on in Jesus’ ministry what he came to do for us. That while the physical leprosy was healed as a historical event, it also showed the spiritual reality that Jesus came to cleanse us from our sins.
Jesus purifies the unclean and he brings life from death.
The Deeper Healing We Need
So despite telling the man to be discreet, I do not know if you picked up on that in verse 15, he said, do not go tell anybody. Jesus tells the man, do not go tell anybody.
And the man goes, tell everybody. Okay. Yeah, sure. It is like a child, but I get it. I mean, as much as I do not want to say, Oh, he disobeyed Jesus.
It is okay. It is not okay to disobey Jesus, but I get it. You went to Jesus for healing and you got healed and you are excited because you had a death sentence and now you have been cleansed.
I get why he would want to tell everybody, but Jesus told him to be discreet. Word of the healing still got around and the people flocked to Jesus for healing in verse 15. Jesus would then, as verse 16 tells us, he would go and leave the crowds to go and pray.
That may seem strange to us because we often measure ministry success by the size of the crowd. But Jesus didn’t come to draw a crowd.
Jesus came to go to the cross, to be crucified, to pay for our sins, and to spend the three years before that laying the foundation with the people who were going to carry that message forward. It was not about drawing crowds or staging a great miracle campaign. It was about this message of us needing to be reconciled to a holy God.
And so sometimes Jesus would pull away from the crowd just a little bit because the spiritual healing is what his ministry actually prioritized. What Jesus did here was a physical healing, but it was much more than that. It symbolized what his entire ministry was about because this man was not just physically healed.
He was spiritually restored. And that is what Jesus has come to do for us. He came to restore us to fellowship with the holy God who created and loves us, but who loves us too much—and is too holy—to excuse our sin.
When we sin, when I sin, it is offensive to God and His holiness. Not just because it is stuff He does not like, but because it is a rejection of His nature. Why is lying wrong?
Because God’s nature is truth. Why is adultery wrong? Because faithfulness is God’s nature.
And so all these things that we recognize as sins, they’re doing the opposite of what God’s nature is. And so when we sin, it is not just saying, I am picking something I would rather do than what you want me to do. It is a rejection of who God is in His very nature.
That is why it is offensive to God. And that sin sits there on us like a stain we cannot get out. We cannot do anything to wash it away.
Like the leprosy, we can scrub and scrub, but we cannot cleanse ourselves. If we want cleansing, Jesus is the one who has to do it. And this leper shows us the way because he turned to Jesus as his only hope.
And that is the same answer for us. We turn to Jesus as our only hope. If we want that stain of sin, that infection of sin, if we want that gone, if we want to be right with God, if we want to be cleansed, the only way it happens is through Jesus.
This man came in verse 12 and fell at Jesus’ feet and cried out to him as his last hope. And that is what God’s Word calls us to do. To recognize that we have sinned, to recognize that that sin stands in between us and God, to recognize that we cannot do anything to fix the problem, but to understand the whole reason why Jesus came, why God the Son took on human flesh and walked among us and lived a perfect sinless life and went to the cross as a perfect sacrifice and took responsibility.
He had no sins of His own, but He took responsibility for mine and for yours. And He was nailed to that cross in our place and He shed His blood on our behalf so that our sin could be paid for in full. And then he rose again to prove it three days later.
And as a result, God’s Word tells us that our sins have been paid for. Our sins can be cleansed. He has already done the work.
The only thing that is required is for us to come to him, fall down at his feet and ask for that cleansing like the leper did.
