Living Miracles: Healing Touch
Notes
Transcript
Bible Passage: Luke 5:12–15
Bible Passage: Luke 5:12–15
Here we are in the 7th Miracle the 8th week of our series on living miracles. This week we find Jesus healing a Leper. In this scripture we will see the Profound proof that Faith Breaks Barriers. We will be led to the Cultivated Conviction that Jesus’ Touch Transforms. Lastly we will see the Declared Destiny of restored community and comunion. Some may say what is the big deal about healing a leper. In this miracle Jesus is crossing a line and is healing someone who the priest and levitical laws has deemed unclean. The Leper was not just a sick person, in the eyes of the community they bore shame, in the eyes of the priest they were unclean. They were excommunicated to live outside of the community and were not allowed to return except to present themselves to the priest who would make a determination if they were clean or not. This was not just a healing this was a healing that Jesus was showing us who He was and what His purpose was. Jesus was restoring the community that sin had destroyed. Jesus was going to the ones who had no family to go to, no friends to spending time with, no community around them and Jesus was restoring them to their community. Can I tell you that Jesus purpose in the church is that we are a family, a community. We live in a deeply fractured world. While we are less likely to deal with leprosy in our day to day encounters, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that the devil has not used his abiltiy to persuade people, to divide the family that God created. All of humanity we are created equally and in the image of God. The devil has conviced us to segregate, to separate, and to drive division in things that God desires to be united. We have an opportunity as believers to live out the miracles of Jesus and be a part of restoring the community that God has designed. Lets read the scripture and we will get started this morning.
12 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.” 13 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 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.” 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities.
1. Faith that Breaks Barriers
1. Faith that Breaks Barriers
12 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 fact that this man was inside the city walls, would indicate that he had been to the temple seeking to be labeled by the priest as clean so that he could return to life inside of the city walls. As a leper he would have been required to dwell outside of the city walls. The lepers would beg at the gates for food because they were separated from every day society. A leper could not walk into the market and simply buy food, they could not go to their families home and ask for help. The leper was separated and often times forgotten about. Jesus would have know that to come into contact with this person was not something that would be taken lightly. Jesus was already being critisized for who He spent time with and this would only further that issue. Jesus came though to break down these barriers. There are in this 2 distinct barriers I see that are broken down. First, the societal barrier. This leper was separated from society due to his condition. Jesus comes into the picture and he says, I do not care what others think about you I care about you. Jesus is stepping into an area that would cause him troubles as he dealt with the religious leaders of his time. He was allowing this unclean person close to him. What we see about Jesus in this is that the societal barriers did not matter to Jesus. When Jesus looked at this man He did not see a leper, Jesus saw a man who needed compassion and love. In the world we live in there are those who say that we have made it. That we are finally a country that does not have biases and prejudices. Can we be honest in this place for just a minute? Racism and prejudice are just as alive today as they were 60 years ago, they simply have more areas to play out. It is no longer white and black. It is every where you look. I go to places where I would never expect to hear jokes about race and I hear them and people honestly feel like its still acceptable. Race though is just one of the many ways our society divides people. We are divided by financial class. There are those who will not look at people outside of their financial class. Jesus did not care about these classes and He walked in the way of loving people. Church Jesus breaks barriers, He does not build them. Are you a person who removes barriers and understands that there is no single race in the family of God? There is not single financial class in the family of God? All races and all financial classes were created by God.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Jesus first broke societal barriers. He also broke the barrier of the weak who felt as though they could not approach him.
12 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.”
This man knew who Jesus was and he understood that to approach Jesus, he would likely be met with rejection. After all that is what all the other religious leaders had done to him. Jesus though allowed the man close to him to come to him. Jesus was not afraid to open up to the marginalized and the less of these. Jesus valued the marganialized. We are called to value the marginalized.
31 Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker,
but he who is generous to the needy honors him.
40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?
3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
The church does not become strong when we create a class of people who are better than others. We become strong when we become a group of people who value the marginalized, who see ourselves as a servant to all those around us.
Richard Baxter the English Theologian said it like this
It is a most lamentable thing to see how most people spend their time and their energy for trifles, while God is cast aside. He who is all seems to them as nothing, and that which is nothing seems to them as good as all. It is lamentable indeed, knowing that God has set mankind in such a race where heaven or hell is their certain end, that they should sit down and loiter, or run after the childish toys of the world, forgetting the prize they should run for. Were it but possible for one of us to see this business as the all-seeing God does, and see what most men and women in the world are interested in and what they are doing every day, it would be the saddest sight imaginable. Oh, how we should marvel at their madness and lament their self-delusion! If God had never told them what they were sent into the world to do, or what was before them in another world, then there would have been some excuse. But it is His sealed word, and they profess to believe it.
Richard Baxter.
We are called to break down barriers. Living miracles in our lives means to live like Christ and to have no separation. Wether it be race, financial status, political view, or any other way the world around us seeks to divide us. We are called ot value each other and to love each other. Jesus provided a profound proof that in the way God is calling us to live there are not barriers. We are being led to a cultivated conviction that Jesus Touch Transforms.
2. Touch that Transforms
2. Touch that Transforms
13 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 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.”
The touch of Jesus healed this man and made him whole. There are those who have been touched by Jesus who live as though Jesus did not transform them. Could you imagine what it would have been like for this man to recieve the healing of Jesus then walk around as though he still had leprosy? This man was told, go and present yourself to the priest, esentially go and live like you never had leprosy before. Sind has a way of making us feel like we are winning while leading us to the losing position. Sin draws us to a place where it feels like we are getting what we want while leading us to destruction. The purpose of Jesus is to transform our lives. The conviction we are being called to this morning is a place of understanding that we are transformed. We no longer have to live like we still have leprosy. We have been healed and becuase of this we can live free again. The touch of Jesus should transform our lives. Are you living a transformed life? Are you living as a person who has been healed or are you continuing to live as one who has not been transformed?
The motor home has allowed us to put all the conveniences of home on wheels. A camper no longer needs to contend with sleeping in a sleeping bag, cooking over a fire, or hauling water from a stream. Now he can park a fully equipped home on a cement slab in the midst of a few pine trees and hook up to a water line, a sewer line and electricity. One motor home I saw recently had a satellite dish attached on top. No more bother with dirt, no more smoke from the fire, no more drudgery of walking to the stream. Now it is possible to go camping and never have to go outside. We buy a motor home with the hope of seeing new places, of getting out into the world. Yet we deck it out with the same furnishings as in our living room. Thus nothing really changes. We may drive to a new place, set ourselves in new surrounding, but the newness goes unnoticed, for we've only carried along our old setting.
The adventure of new life in Christ begins when the comfortable patterns of the old life are left behind.
Jesus came to give us lives that were transformed and no longer lead to conform to the ways of the world.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Are we living as new creations? Here is a good test to see if you are living as a new creation. Is there any prejudice in you? Is there any feeling of superioriority in you? Do you look at someone else and thing of yourself as more important or better? Do you see all things in your life as usable by God to serve those around you? Do you see all people around you as more important than yourself? Are you willing to lay down your desires and wants for the needs of others around you? See that is what real transformation looks like. Real transformation is not a more religious person, it is a greater servant of the cross. Transformation takes us from selfish people to selfless people. Jesus provided profound proof that He removes barriers, leads us to the conviction that our lives should be transformed. He also declares a Destiny of real community and communion.
3. Community and Communion
3. Community and Communion
14 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.” 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities.
Jesus fulfiled the law and the prophets, He healed the man and told the man to go offer the sacrifices required by the law. Jesus came to fulfil the law and not to abandon the law. He came to make things perfect again. To bring the completion to the broken pieces that we had been carrying. Jesus does the same thing for our community and communion. Jesus is calling us to be a real community and not just people who meet together because of geography. If you are hear because it is close and convenient, then I am not doing my job as the pastor here. You should be here because the moment you walked through those doors, you realized that we have no barriers, that the lives of the people here have been transformed, and that you are welcome to be a part of a family, a community of people who seek to serve and love each other more than ourselves. Churches that seek their own good face the same struggles as those who took part in communion incorrectly.
17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—
This scripture helps us to understand that the communion and the community of God are one and the same. God’s concern is that we as the church elevate the needs of others above ourselves and we see the good of others before ourselves. When we do this we embody the character of Christ. I believe that God is blessing Highlands Baptist Church because we have a congregation of people who beleive this and live by this, let’s continue in this. Let’s spur eachother on to good works, let’s encourage each other in the faith, and let us not be divided by any of the divisions that were created by the evil one, to keep the family of God separated.
3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
