Be Clean

Introduction

Open to Luke 5:12-16

In 1966, England won the soccer world cup. Per tradition, it fell upon the captain, Bobby Moore, to have the honor of walking up the steps of Wembley Stadium to receive the trophy from the queen.

After the moment, he was asked how he felt. His answer, “I was terrified.”

See, as he was walking up the steps of Wembley Stadium, he looked up at the queen and noticed that she was wearing pristine white gloves.

His hands were still covered in dirt from the match, and he knew he would have to shake her hand.

His entire walk up the steps, he is trying to frantically wipe his hands clean.

Moore was worried that his dirty hands would mar the perfect appearance of the queen.

If I am honest, there are times in my relationship with God where I have felt like Bobby Moore.

My attempts to pursue God have been met with frantic attempt to clean myself up and make myself presentable.

Thankfully, God knows what to do with my dirt.

Today, we are going to see a man who is afflicted with disease that has horrible physical effects, but possibly worse than the physical effects is the social, and thus, mental effects of the disease. A disease by which the man is labelled unclean.

Praise be to God, our uncleanliness does not make him unclean, but rather, his holiness makes us clean.

Luke 5:12–16 ESV

While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, 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 “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.

Explanation

Luke 5:12 ESV

While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

The man full of leprosy.

What is leprosy?

Leprosy was a horrible skin disease.

Leprosy began with a loss of sensation or nerves on certain parts of the body.

What began as white patches on the skin ended with open sores, loss of digits including fingers, toes, noses, and ears.

It was a horrible, life stealing disease.

People who had leprosy were completely socially isolated, because of how contagious the disease was.

When you walked into a city, you had to yell “unclean, unclean.”

Per the mosaic law, a home entered by a leper or material touched by a leper was treated the same way as if they had been touched by a corpse.

In a sense, a leper was like a walking corpse.

In fact, as late as the 1200s-1300s, leprosy was called “living death,” while the families of those who contracted leprosy held funerals for their family and were allowed to inherit from that family member.

This denotes the seriousness of the disease.

The man was FULL of leprosy.

This man had leprosy for a long time.

It had covered a large portion of His body.

It is not a stretch to say that his body would have been marred in the ways I shared earlier by the leprosy.

We have to ask ourselves what kind of situation we would have to find ourselves to put our faces on the ground and beg someone for something. The desperation we see in the man is palpable.

“Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

“Jesus, the only thing between my uncleanliness and cleanliness is your will.”

We can learn a few things from this man’s approach to Jesus.

If shame keeps you from Jesus, you will never be freed from your shame. But if your shame takes you to Jesus, then you can be freed.

The leper demonstrated simple, firm faith. This man believed that God could make Him clean.

Do you believe that God can heal you?

That God can make us clean?

Luke 5:13 ESV

And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him.

Jesus wants your life to change, and He can make it happen. Willing and able.

So often, we walk in defeat because we wonder whether or not Jesus wants to make us well.

I heard a man’s testimony recently who struggled with sexual addiction.

He is a believer and overcame sexual addiction, but in the middle of his fight, he said, “I believe that either Jesus didn’t really care whether I overcame my struggle, or He didn’t exist.

When the leper spoke in faith towards Jesus, Jesus could have responded - “I won’t” or “I can’t.” He didn’t. He said, “I will.”

So you don’t have to question. You don’t have to wonder. You don’t have to ask - this leper already did.

Just as Jesus was willing to heal the leper, he is willing to save and heal and cleanse you.

The greatest demonstration of this truth his his touch.

There is a distinct possibility that this man hadn’t felt the touch of another human in years.

At Jesus touch, Jesus did not become unclean, but the leper became clean. What a demonstration of His power!

Sam Allberry states, “For this man’s existence with leprosy, he has always been the risk, the danger, and the contaminant. In the presence of Jesus, leprosy is the one at risk.”

What happened when this man was cleansed of leprosy.

He was healed physically.

The pain of the disease was instantly gone.

The slow and consistent wasting away of his body stopped before His eyes.

His death sentence stopped in that very moment.

He was restored to His community.

Can you imagine this man’s existence for the past several years?

Because of the dilapidating affects of the disease and how highly contagious it was, he would have been completely isolated from the rest of society.

He had to live outside of the city walls.

People would have scampered away in disgust and horror at his appearance.

Can you imagine his walking by his house on random occasion, seeing his wife prepare dinner with the family and his children playing in the yard only knowing He couldn’t see them.

Imagine walking into your home, hugging your wife and children for the first time in years, and saying, “I’m clean.”

He was no longer considered impure.

Because he was impure, blankets that he touched were unclean, rooms that he walked in were unclean, people that he touched were unclean.

He was avoided as though he had the plague, because in a sense, he had a plague.

In an instance, he is given a new life. That’s what happens when our God purifies you.

In the same way that the leper was saved from his leprosy, we are also saved from our sins.

God heals us from our sins.

He hasn’t simply removed the consequences of our sins, but He has given us a change at life.

He has reversed the curse upon us and the destruction that our sin has wrought upon us.

We are given a new community in Christ.

We are united to God.

Because we are united to God, we become a part of His family - His church.

We are no longer considered impure/unclean before the Lord.

The question today is not, “can someone be clean?” The question is, “can I be clean?”

How can we be made clean?

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Trust that Jesus can save and ask Him to save you.

Invitation

Take yourself and lay it before the feet of Jesus.

Take your shame, your sin, and your uncleanliness and lay down before the king of the universe.