Cleansed from a Curse

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Well, I cannot figure out exactly why it is so stressful for me, because it shouldn’t be. One of the most stressful things for me is to have to call some kind of customer support place on the phone. It just seems like it’s always 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.

And otherwise they say, if we don’t get this paperwork by such and such day, we’re going to start denying claims. And, you know, if you’ve got a child with a heart condition, that’s not ideal. So I send in the paperwork as soon as they request it. It gets there on time, and then I get a message saying, thank you, we’ve received your paperwork, and it’s approved, but we’re still lacking some things, so we’re going to start denying claims. And so I have to call them. Of course, I find this out late Thursday afternoon, so I don’t sleep well knowing I’ve got to get up and call them first thing Friday morning.

And when I get somebody on the phone, oh yeah, all the paperwork you sent looks great. Okay, so what’s the problem? Well, you didn’t fill out this paperwork.

I was not asked to fill out that paperwork. No, they wouldn’t have sent a request for it. I also looked in your little booklet you’ve got online of all the stuff we’re supposed to send.

It’s nowhere mentioned in there. No, sir, it’s not. Okay, so I was just supposed to guess that you needed this paperwork?

Apparently. Anyway, so that was kind of a frustrating experience. I got that taken care of.

I’m pretty calm anyway, but I had to remain calm because I knew this is an insurance company. They can see on their screen where I work. So it’s just best behavior all the way around.

But I feel like it’s always that way. Anytime you have to call customer service anywhere about anything. But every once in a while, you get a hold of somebody that is just extraordinarily helpful and not only is able to fix the problem that you’ve called about, but is able to take care of problems that you didn’t even know you had.

Several months back, and I’m not going to name names of companies because it’s not a paid commercial, but we were kind of frustrated with our cell phone company, with the service, the way the bill just kept going up with the stuff that the company was donating to that did not reflect what we believe. And so we started calling around about changing to a different company that would behave differently. Well, when I did that, talked to a very helpful customer service person who said, yeah, we can get you switched over.

We can take care of this. We can make sure your number comes with you. Oh, great.

I hadn’t even thought about that. We can cut your bill down by about two-thirds. You can.

I didn’t even think I was going to be paying less money. And I tell you what, we no longer have to go, well, sometimes, but not as often do we have to go outside in the front yard and stand on top of the storm shelter to talk on the phone. Because many of you have called me when I’ve been at home and I’ve said, hang on, let me go outside because we don’t have reception in the house.

That person just took care of every problem I had when it came to the cell phone problems I didn’t even know I had. And I was so thankful that once in a while you can find somebody that can just take care of all the problems. And as we’re continuing our study through the book of Luke today, that’s what one man near the Sea of Galilee ran into when he ran into Jesus. He ran into somebody that not only could meet the request he had, but could take care of every problem that he had.

His deepest, most existential needs, Jesus was able to take care of. And so this morning we’re going to be in Luke chapter 5, where we left off last week. And we’re going to look at the story of this man who encountered Jesus.

It’s just a very brief story, and there’s a similar one we’ll look at next week. But Luke 5, verse 12, and once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 5, it’ll be on the screen for you. But one way or another, if you’ll follow along as we read.

And by the way, I don’t think I’ve explained this for a very long time, but the reason I encourage you to read along instead of just listening to me. I want you to know that this is what God’s word says. It’s easy to misquote things.

It’s easy to take things out of context. I want you to see that what we’re 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. And you may be seated.

This is not the only healing that Jesus accomplished during this time, but it’s one that three of the gospel writers take notice of. It’s 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 was a hopeless situation. Now, there’s something today that is commonly called leprosy. We’re not 100% sure if that’s the same thing that the Bible’s talking about when it talks about leprosy.

Because what is described in the Old Testament, especially it goes into, there are multiple chapters that go into the description of what leprosy is and how you distinguish different times of leprosy. And it doesn’t match up perfectly with what we call leprosy today. And it’s entirely possible that what they were dealing with in biblical times was something even more horrific than what we know of today.

This is something that was terrifying for anybody to come in contact with, for anybody to encounter. It was a death sentence for many people to come across this skin ailment as it slowly destroyed their entire body. And I don’t want to get into the description this morning of everything involved with it, but it was something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

And because of this, lepers were treated as outcasts in every society. Every society they were part of. Somebody had leprosy, you were immediately cut off out of society.

You were sent to live away from everybody. You were sent to, you did not interact with everybody. I’ve heard stories, I’ve not been able to verify this, so it may just be legend, but that people had to shout as they walked unclean, unclean, to warn people to stay away from them.

And in Israel, where this story takes place, there’s the added complication, there’s the added challenge that somebody who had leprosy was considered to be unclean under the law of Moses. So that meant not only did you have a problem with society, but there was this obstacle between you and God. Now, leprosy did not, and being ceremonially unclean wasn’t necessarily sinful.

For example, a woman had a baby. she was ceremonially unclean, even though there’s nothing sinful about having a baby. But in every case, being ceremonial, that is a hard word to say.

I was struggling with February the other day. Never had trouble with that word before in my life until I got up to talk in front of you all. Ceremonially unclean, it wasn’t sinful in and of itself to be in that state of uncleanness, but it was a representation of sin.

It was something that existed to remind the people of Israel that there’s a gulf, there’s a wide gap 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.

And just going through life, you would have to deal with that, and you would have to go through the ritual washings, and you would have to make a sacrifice, you’d have to do different things depending on the circumstance to remind us that God is holy and we can’t just approach Him expecting Him to accept whatever filth of the world we want to bring with us. So it was a reminder of God’s holiness. But leprosy was one of those things that you couldn’t just say, okay, well, I’m going to go do the ritual washings and I’ll be unclean until the evening and then everything will be fine.

When you had leprosy, until that went away or it killed you, you were considered unclean. And if you were unclean, you couldn’t 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 wasn’t always a lot of compassion from other people toward these circumstances. And we look at that and we say, well, that’s terrible.

Why would they treat the lepers so badly? But on one hand, I can also kind of understand it. If you’re 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.

And so we keep in mind that even though the leprosy itself did not necessarily result from some sin he had committed, it does result from the presence of sin in the world, and it does represent sin, this idea of uncleanness. There wasn’t a lot of compassion for these people. But then Jesus didn’t react to the leper the way somebody normally would.

And we see in this story that Jesus has unmatched compassion for those who are condemned under the law. Whether we’re talking about being ceremonially unclean like the leper, whether we’re 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. There is nobody else who loves the condemned like 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. He was, I think the literal Greek there is that he was full of it, full of leprosy, just all over him. And while other people were avoiding lepers, Jesus did something that nobody else did.

Jesus did something that nobody 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 doesn’t 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’re willing, I can be made clean.

And Jesus said, yeah, I’m willing to be clean. This man had this terrible ailment that made him unclean according to the law, and it symbolized his spiritual condition. Because even though I said the leprosy may not have been a result of any specific sin that he had committed, We do see in the Old Testament some stories where somebody steps out of line with God and God said, all right, you’re a leper, until they repented and then God would heal them.

There are stories like that, but there’s no indication that every time somebody got leprosy, it was because of something they had done. But the presence of leprosy, just like the presence of all sickness and all death and all suffering in the world, it’s the result of there being sin in the world, and this world is just infested by it. It’s 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 a sinner.

And so at the very least, the leprosy represented his spiritual condition. Now, when I say things like it’s a picture of this or it represents this or it symbolizes this, I want to be very careful. I am not saying, I am not saying this is a story somebody made up to make a spiritual point.

Okay. I am saying this is something that actually happened. I’m 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’s 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’ 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.

And when God shows us compassion, it’s not because we deserve it. It’s because that’s who He is, is that 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.

And we see through this story that Jesus cleansed and restored those who were condemned under the law. When Jesus touched this man, he was healed. Jesus told him to be cleansed.

And that word has a double meaning there. Because that is the word that you would use, that’s one of the words you would use about physical healing from something like that. But it’s also a word that the New Testament uses a lot for our spiritual cleansing.

It’s the word you would use if you’re talking about washing laundry, and that laundry was cleaned. When Jesus cleansed him, it wasn’t just the leprosy. It wasn’t just the physical healing.

He’s 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. And we read that story over and over, and we kind of get used to it.

Oh, yeah, Jesus told them, be cleansed, be healed. They were healed. 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’s going away and the body’s healing up, and you’re looking for things like that.

That would be just beginning to get better or the leprosy goes into remission. But the word that’s used here tells us that the leprosy just ceased to exist. I read this and I get the sense that this man was not then just scabbed over that the leprosy began to die. It sounds like the leprosy just was gone like any trace of it.

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’s 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’s noteworthy.

It’s 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’s going to get Luke’s attention because that’s not how leprosy works. except for the fact that Jesus this time is the one who did the cleansing. The leprosy left the man immediately.

When Jesus cleanses and restores, there’s something about it that’s immediate. When Jesus deals with the sin in our lives, now, it doesn’t 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’s 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’re declared unclean, before you can be declared clean, You’ve got to go be inspected by a priest. You can’t just say, oh, no, I got better.

You have to go show him, and he’s going to look for particular marks. He’s going to look for any signs of leprosy remaining and still being active, and he’s going to make a determination based on that, and then you’re going to offer a sacrifice, and you’re going to do all these things. Jesus said, and the man could have said, it’s like it never happened, so I can just go on about my business.

But Jesus said, no, we’re going to follow the law. We’re going to do what God’s law says. Go see the priest. Go show him that you’re cleansed and make the sacrifice.

Go do what God’s law commands you to do, but you’re already cleansed. And it’s 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’s 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. 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’s a picture of something we were afflicted with, we couldn’t 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’s the best one I’ve ever heard, that sin is anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God. And there’s some motions that go with it, but I don’t remember them off the top of my head.

But it’s anything we think, say, do, or don’t 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’re infected, if you want to use that terminology.

We’re infected with sin, and we can’t 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’s 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. So despite telling the man to be discreet, I don’t know if you picked up on that in verse 15, he said, don’t go tell anybody. Jesus tells the man, don’t go tell anybody.

And the man goes, tell everybody. Okay. Yeah.

Sure. It’s like a child, but I get it. I mean, as much as I don’t want to say, Oh, he disobeyed Jesus.

It’s okay. It’s not okay to disobey Jesus, but I get it. You went to Jesus for healing and you got healed and you’re excited because you had a death sentence and now you’ve 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.

And to us, that seems strange because we measure success by, oh, he drew a crowd. He must be doing well in ministry. 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 wasn’t about drawing crowds and putting on a big miracle crusade. 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 wasn’t just physically healed.

He was spiritually restored. And that’s what Jesus has come to do for us. He’s come to restore us into fellowship with a holy God who created us and loves us, but also loves us too much to excuse our sin and is too holy to excuse our sin.

When we sin, when I sin, it’s offensive to God and His holiness. Not just because it’s stuff He doesn’t like, but because it’s 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’s not just saying, I’m picking something I’d rather do than what you want me to do. It’s a rejection of who God is at His nature.

That’s why it’s offensive to God. And that sin sits there on us like a stain we cannot get out. We can’t do anything to wash it away.

Like the leprosy, we can scrub and scrub, but it’s only going to get worse. 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’s 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’s what God’s Word calls us to do. To recognize that we’ve sinned, to recognize that that sin stands in between us and God, to recognize that we can’t 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’s already done the work.

The only thing that’s required is for us to come to him, fall down at his feet and ask for that cleansing like the leper did.

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