Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mason-stonehouse-1k-grubhub-order_n_63dd3f95e4b07c0c7e09a98d
- Not a good idea to leave a kid alone with a phone.
It’s dangerous to be alone.
It’s dangerous to be alone - your mind wanders - you start believing the lies of the enemy - “No one cares about you.”
You feel forgotten, insignificant, etc. Often, in seasons of loneliness, you give in to temptation because you lack accountability.
You were not created to live alone - you were created for relationships.
Primarily, you were created for a relationship with God, and you were created for healthy relationships with other people.
The problem is that sin has affected the way we relate to God and other people, but Jesus has come to restore our relationship with God and our relationship with others.
He as come to bring us out of isolation and into His community.
Powerful story about a man who was isolated and alone yet restored by Jesus.
This is a story of healing, but there’s something far more than a healing that takes place in this story.
This story is about Jesus healing a man’s physical health and bringing him back into community with the people he loved.
This is a story of restoration.
God wants to do a work of restoration in your life and in the life of others.
Two powerful reminders from this story: Never forget what Jesus has done for you.
AND… Never forget what we must do for others.
Story
Jesus has performed many miracles around the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus is far more than a miracle worker, but his miracles validate His message.
His miracles show us what He has come to do - obvious in this story.
We’ve seen Jesus cast out demons, heal Simon’s mother-in-law, and pull up a miraculous catch of fish.
Now, in an unnamed town around the Sea of Galilee, a man with leprosy approached Jesus.
A skin disease known as “walking death.”
This man had an advanced case of leprosy.
His entire body was eaten up with the disease.
Leprosy caused sores that would overtake your body and would literally cause your body to rot.
Likely this man suffered with leprosy for years.
Leprosy was highly contagious.
If you had leprosy you were removed from the community.
It was humiliating (Leviticus 13:45-46).
You showed that you were contagious by wearing torn clothes, keeping your hair unkempt, and when people came close, you cried out, “Unclean!
Unclean!”
Lepers often put together in leper colonies - far away from their families and their community.
Commiserating in their pain together.
The horror of watching your body rot, and the horror of having little to no communication with your family.
Maybe this man had a wife and children he had not seen in years because of his leprosy.
Forgotten by society… Often begged on the side of the street.
Lepers required to stand at a distance of 50 paces away from healthy people.
People passed by trying to keep their distance.
Contagious and isolated from worshipping God.
A leper could never go to the temple to worship God, offer sacrifices, etc.
He was cut off from the people he loved and cut off from the corporate worship of God.
(Can you imagine not being able to go to church?
Even with COVID raging we did everything we could to have corporate worship because we need it.)
Book of Leviticus describes difference between clean/unclean.
To be unclean doesn’t mean you were necessarily sinful.
Being ceremonially unclean meant you were unfit to enter the presence of God for a period of time.
In the presence of God you had to be clean.
You ceremonially unclean if you touched a dead body, if you had a loss of blood, etc.
Often, being unclean for a season was unavoidable.
(Burying your dead relative, menstrual cycle, etc.) But, a reminder that to be in God’s presence you had to be ceremonially pure.
Lev. 13 - A skin disease not only affected your health, it affected your ability to gather with God’s people to worship.
Leprosy wasn’t temporary but permanent.
The only way to be restored to the community of faith was to be healed of leprosy, go before the priests, and have the priest declare you clean.
What a miserable existence!
The disease was bad enough, but the isolation and humiliation caused by the disease was worse than disease itself.
This is NOT the way life is supposed to be…
On this day, the leper approaches Jesus.
He breaks the law and social custom by coming close to Jesus.
Any other religious leader would have quickly condemned this man.
Don’t know what he knew of Jesus, but he knew Jesus had the ability to heal.
Falls to his face and begs Jesus.
“If you are willing...” NOT “If you can...” The man knows Jesus can, but will Jesus?
Also, not “Heal me...” But, “Clean me...” Man wants complete restoration.
When Mark retells same story, Jesus was “moved with compassion...” (Mark 1:41).
Jesus looked at the man and cared.
The God of all creation cares for His people.
Jesus reaches out hand and touches man.
This is SCANDALOUS!
You don’t touch a leper.
You could get sick, and you would be unclean!
BUT, Jesus has no fear of disease.
He has power over disease.
He has the power to restore.
Jesus could have spoken and the disease would have been gone, but he touches the man.
“I am willing… be made clean...”
Surprising instruction vs. 14 - “Tell no one...” Jesus is revealing who He is.
Doesn’t want people to think of Him as just a miracle worker.
He wants people to know who He truly is - doesn’t want to create the wrong kind of enthusiasm - who He really is revealed at the cross.
vs. 14 - “Go show yourself to the priest...” Leviticus 14 - He is clean - He can be restored to his family AND the community of faith.
Imagine… it’s been years since he’s been with his family.
Years since he’s been at the temple to worship.
He’s clean!
No longer has to shout, “Unclean...” No longer quarantined, isolated, etc.
Imagine the reunion with his family… Imagine what it must have been like the first time he stepped foot in the temple… Restoration!
He was clean!
vs. 15-16 - When people saw the man, they connected the dots.
Jesus must have done this.
The fame of Jesus spread more and more.
Once again, Jesus pulls away to pray.
Jesus wants to stay focused on the mission.
Never forget what Jesus has done for you.
Everyone of us were in the same condition as the leprous man: unclean.
You were clothed in the stench of death unable to be in the presence of God.
You didn’t suffer from a physical disease that made you an outcast, but your sin made you an outcast.
You were an enemy of God and outside of His family.
Jesus was willing to make you clean.
If you are a believer, you came to a point where you saw your spiritual condition.
You saw you were outside of a relationship with God and His family.
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