Luke 5 part II: Spiritually Healthy
The Gospel of Luke • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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What is keeping us from being spiritually healthy?
Today we see a big push for all kinds of health. We have concerns over our physical health and our mental health. We have thousands of different diets and workout routines, thousands of supplements and medications, thousands of self-help books. But what about our spiritual health? What does spiritual health even look like? Is spiritual health having an hour long quiet time every morning? Is it spending hours in prayer and having entire books of the Bible memorized? Today I want to look at what spiritual health looks like in the life of Jesus and the people He was ministering to. This won’t be comprehensive, but it will give us a good place to start and an anchor we can come back to time and time again in our walk with Christ.
Last time we were in Luke we looked at the story of Jesus calling some of His disciples. In our stories today Jesus is continuing His ministry throughout Galilee. Here Jesus came across a man who was covered with leprosy. Leprosy is an infectious skin disease. It was considered unclean under the Levitical law and anyone who had leprosy was forced to live on the outskirts of town and declare themselves unclean whenever someone came by. Having leprosy would have been a terrible fate in the first century. Leprosy would cause people to lose feeling in their limbs and could cause serious damage. Imagine you get a pebble in your sandal. Usually you can feel it and take it out, but with leprosy it just scrapes away at your feet. Untreated leprosy could cause rashes and severe inflammation. Untreated cuts could lead to serious infections and even the need to cut off limbs. Not only does the leprosy eat away at a persons flesh, it also disqualifies them from any kind of intimate social interaction. Never again could they be around people or walk freely through the city. They couldn’t go to the Temple meaning they couldn’t partake in any of the religious festivals or worship. Just the touch from an unclean, leprous person was enough to make someone unclean. Here in our story, as Jesus was passing through, a man suffering from severe leprosy came to Jesus.
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.”
As we think about our spiritual health something we have to understand is the severity of our sin. Let’s ask this question first.
What is sin?
Sin is anything we do that falls short of God’s standard of perfection.
Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
God is holy and to be in the presence of God we must be holy. Even one small sin is enough to disqualify us from the presence of God. We all sin and we all fall short of God’s standard.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We all have, in a sense, a spiritual leprosy. Our sin eats away at our soul. It takes pieces of our lives away from us. It makes us unclean and unworthy. It numbs us to the pain and damage sin causes to our soul. Sin convinces us that our sins are minor, that we are entitled to them, that there is nothing wrong with what we are doing or how we are thinking. All the while it sews brokenness into our relationships, our habits, and our perceptions. The consequence of our sin is to be cast out from God’s presence.
This is where we find our leper as he falls before Jesus. The first truth we find when dealing with spiritual health is this.
Spiritual health can’t happen until we recognize we have a problem
Could you imagine if the man who came to Jesus refused to acknowledge his condition? This wasn’t a minor case. Luke was a doctor, and as such he takes special care to point out this man was covered in leprosy. There was a severity to his condition. This wasn’t an inconvenience. His life was suffering. This is true of our spiritual condition. If we can’t recognize that we need a savior then we will find little solace in the work of Christ. Our sin kills us and must be dealt with if we want to live spiritually healthy. We have a sin problem and the only solution is the grace of God. I imagine this man with leprosy did whatever he could to cure his condition. I’m sure he tried to get help and I’m sure he tried ointments and creams. He probably spent a good deal of money trying everything he could to avoid the inevitable outcome he was facing. It wasn’t until he came to Jesus that his life was transformed.
Spiritual health begins and is kept by the grace of Jesus
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is no solution for our problem outside of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He is the only thing that can heal our sin sick soul. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus took the penalty of our sin upon Himself so that we could be resurrected with Him in faith. Like the leprous man we can look for every solution. We can try good works, we can try religious zeal, we can try fixing it in our own strength, but nothing can undo an eternal consequence other than an eternal solution. Jesus steps in and does what we cannot.
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.”
The response Jesus has to this man’s statement is nothing short of beautiful. Jesus doesn’t respond with disgust or condemnation. He is not afraid to be near this unclean person. Instead Jesus draws near, reaches out and touches the man, and says, “I am willing”. In a moment this man’s life was changed forever. He went from being unclean to clean. The hope Jesus offers to this man is the same He offers to us today. There is no sin too big that God cannot forgive. No amount of uncleaness that God cannot clean. The grace of God spans across every hidden corner of our hearts and makes it new entirely. We have a problem, but when we come to Jesus and fall before Him, He promises to make us well. With a single touch Jesus makes this man new. Where the Pharisees would have seen this and claimed Jesus was unclean for touching a leprous man what we see happen instead is that Jesus righteousness is overpowers mankind's sin. What is true for the leper is true for us. Jesus died a substitutionary death for us on the cross. That means, despite our sin and our failings, Jesus took our place there in punishment. He was sinless we were sinful. In a single moment Jesus took our sin upon Himself and took our shame and guilt. He swallowed up the cup of God’s wrath against sin for us. Now by faith we are seen as righteous by God. Not because of anything we have done but because Jesus clothes us in His righteousness. When God our judge sees us, He does not see our failures but instead He sees the holiness of His Son.
Spiritual health understands Confession leads to forgiveness
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
After Jesus heals the man He instructs him to go and show himself to the priest for cleansing as Moses instructed in the law. He had just been cleansed by Jesus the highest of all priests and yet Jesus commands him to remain obedient to the law. This points to Christs fulfilling of the Old Testament law. Jesus did not lead people to be disobedient to the law of God but was instead the perfect fulfillment of that law. Jesus tells the man that this act will be a testimony to the people around him of the wondrous transformative power Christ has. It also shows the concern Christ had for this man’s spiritual health. It wasn’t just that Jesus wanted to heal his physical pain, He wanted this man to have a restored relationship with God.
When we confess our sin and surrender our lives to Christ He heals our spiritual leprosy. More than that He calls us to repent of our sin and live a life of obedience to Him. Jesus knows our sin hurts us. The command He gives us to die to our sin and walk in new life is not for His benefit but for our own. Imagine if the leprous man, newly freed from his disease, returned to the camp of the unclean. We would think he was crazy! Yet Christ frees us from our sin, restores us, and sets us on a new path of life and we find ourselves walking in the old ways we used to live. Christ wants more for us than that. He calls us to put our old way of living to death so that we can live in the freedom of new life. We are restored for relationship with Christ.
Spiritual health understands there is restoration in repentance and obedience
There is an aspect to being faithful in service to God in which we must let go of our sin. We can’t hold on to it any longer. When Jesus steps into our heart the expectation is that He is now King of all of it not just a portion. The leper wanted nothing to do with his leprosy but instead trusted in this new life the Lord had brought him into.
But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
As Jesus began to grow in popularity, He needed to take time to pray. Spending time in the Word and spending time in prayer are essential for our spiritual health. Without it we become weak and frail in our faith. If we were to compare our faith to plants, Scripture and prayer serve as the water and sunshine that help us grow. Without the time spent alone with God we can become easily distracted by the things around us. The voices of the world around us become louder than the voice of God in our lives.
Spiritual health is strengthened by time spent alone with God
We see next that Jesus had people coming from all over to hear Him preach. On one such occasion, Jesus was teaching in a house and the crowd gathered in around Him so that there was no more room in the house.
One day He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing. And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him. But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus.
A spiritual healthy friendship leads you to the light not to darkness
What kind of friend are you? What kind of friends do you surround yourself with?
These friends did whatever they could to bring their friend to the feet of Jesus. It meant dealing with the repercussions of cutting a hole in somebody else’s roof. It meant the difficult journey through the city carrying their friend on a stretcher. It meant looking crazy in front of all the people watching. They didn’t care how they looked or what it might cost them. They knew their friend needed what only Jesus could do, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to get him there. They brought him there thinking Jesus could heal his body, but what Jesus does is far greater.
Seeing their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”
Think about who is in the room watching this. People from all over crowded in this room. You have teachers of the law and pharisees from all over Judea. Jesus declares He has the authority to forgive sins. Some may have expected Jesus to heal the man, some may have not expected it, but nobody expected Jesus to say this. Who is this man who claims He can forgive sins?
The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
To claim the ability to forgive sins is to say you have the authority of God. In this moment Jesus is either a blasphemer and guilty of sin or He is who He says He is. And to show everyone in the room watching, all these religious leaders who would go back to their cities and their towns and be forced to reconcile in their hearts what Jesus has just said, He kneels down and heals the paralytic man.
But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins have been forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? “But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,”—He said to the paralytic—“I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.” Immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God. They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
Spiritual health trusts in Jesus’ authority
Jesus shows us that He not only has authority over the sick but also sin itself. Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. All things are subject to Him. He isn’t just some carpenter from Nazareth, He is God in human flesh. We can trust Him with our lives and our futures. We can trust that His will is better for us than anything sin has to offer. The people that encountered Jesus left transformed. They knew they needed what only He could offer.
In what ways are you spiritually unwell?
Spiritual health survey