AUDACITY OF HOPE AND THE GREATNESS OF GRACE

The Audacity of Hope and the Greatness of Grace[1]

Matthew 8:1-4

There is much being said in the news about hope these days. The power and pull of such a term is evidence of the fact that all desire it. There is none who lives that does not hope that hope is worth the time given to it.

We hear politicians using the term as a means to gaining the approval of some and showing the weakness of their opponents.

We must have the audacity of hope regarding the power of the Lord to save and deliver men and women from the power of sin.

Audacity: daring or willingness to challenge assumptions or conventions….

- believes that what is difficult can be overcome

- that the object of hope is greater than the dangers that come with pursuing it

(1) The Audacity of the Leper’s Hope

A man with leprosy was a hopeless man. Leprosy is a horrible desease that in its advance stages was debilitating and disfiguring. Not only was there the spots on the skin, but it also “corrupted the blood and made the bones to rot.

More horrible than the physical ramifications were the social and religious implications: (Lev. 13-14)

- banished from human contact

- removed from family and workplace

- removed from the synagogue

o leprosy seen as sin and the result of divine displeasure: divine judgment and thus rejected by God

§ King Uzziah

· Started well as the king

· Saught to play the role of priest by making an offering to the Lord

· Struck with leprosy

- cast outside of the city to live in perpetual isolation

· can you imagine how the Lepar felt?

o He was isolated and ridiculed, etc

Leviticus 13:45, 46 “Unclean, unclean….”

Could not touch another for all who came in contact with him would be contaminated

With all of this, this man has the audacity to come to Jesus. How dare this man come to Jesus

Somehow this man got through, defying the odds and going against the grain of what society deemed acceptable for him and he got to Jesus.

The audacity of this man! He is breaking all the rules. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Note how serious this man is:

- Verse 1 says that the crowds followed (

- Verse 2 tells us that the leper worshipped (“knelt before Him, saying Lord….”)

He interrupted the Lord’s movement – wanted His undivided attention

o wanted all of heaven on him

o this is what we mean: “Come by here my Lord, come by here….”

This shows the reality of the man’s desperation to be made well, but also the conviction that Christ could do it.

Worship is the act of man whereby he seeks to stop God so as to be the focal point of the attention and affection of heaven.

Now we know that we cannot stop God, but the idea is that we worship the Lord so as to ask of His attentiveness to our lives.

· Going to God for healing and help is an act of worship!

· Going to God for forgiveness and salvation is worship

·

This man needed healing and forgiveness and he came and worshipped Jesus

What moves him to this act of worship?

Recognized his hopelessness (nothing else could do)

Sometimes the Lord must strip us of all other options so as to move us to draw near to Him. Genuine hope (faith) - audacious hope (faith) do not exist until one realizes that no other options are available that can avail him of his need

Genuine faith is desperation of the soul to find God because it has no other recourse. Where there are options faith cannot be truly exercised.

Woman with the issue of blood – Sam Cooke put it this way:

“There was a woman in the Bible days; she had been sick, sick so very long

But She heard my Jesus was passing by so she joined the gathering throng

And while she was pushing her way through her way through

Someone asked her, What are you trying to do?”

She said If I could just touch the hem of his garment I know I will be made whole.”

“She spent her money here and there until she had no more to spare

The doctors they done all they could but their medicine would do no good

When she touched him the savior didn’t see

But still he turned around and cried “somebody touched me

She said it was I who just wanna touch the hem of your garment I know ill be made whole.’

Like the leper she pressed through and this is what worship is: pressing through

PRESSING THROUGH THAT WHICH STANDS BETWEEN ME AND JESUS – BETWEEN ME AND FORGIVENESS, SALVATION, JOY, DELIGHT HOLINESS, ETC

He does not come by

o precedent: to this point Christ had healed no leper

o promise: no promise heard that Christ would heal

o prompting: none had called him to come

He comes because he has no other options

Recognized Jesus

How he knew, we do not know, but that he knew about the power of Christ is evident in his words:

“If you will, you can make me clean.”

Jesus had the power, but there is one question: is He willing

Is he willing? - is it his will, desire and purpose to make me clean?

THIS MAN IS A LEAPAR! WOULD JESUS IDENTIFY WITH MY LEPROSY?

WOULD HE BE WILLING TO COME INTO CONTACT WITH THAT WHICH

WOULD BE TRANSFERRED TO HIM?

The point: we cannot make God willing to do what He has the power to do

Is he willing to do what no other has done? Hang around me (others shun me)

Is he willing to be seen with me? (Others are repulsed at my sight)

Is he willing to identify with me?

Leprosy was seen as sin and the leper as being rejected by God (this man comes to the one who rejects Him. He wondered if He was willing to be identified with one whose sin made him an offense to God:

"I can but perish if I go;

I am resolved to try;

For if I stay away, I know

I shall forever die."

- He came not by precedent: but we do (God has saved sinners)

- He came not by promise but we do (all who call upon the name of the Lord w/b saved

- He came not by prompting but we do (Jesus says come unto me all you who are heaven laden, burdened by the weight of sin; I will give you rest

(2) The Greatness of the Grace of Christ

Jesus said: “I will, be clean”

* Jesus says that it is his desire,

“But notice Jesus did not first cleanse him and then touch him; he touched the one who was unclean, in his unclean state. And then, only then, did Jesus say, “be clean” (Mighty to Save, Phillips p.31)(Romans 5:8)

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus could have merely spoken a word – this is what he does in the next miracle.

The Centurion’s servant (5ff)

Verse 8: “But only speak a word and my servant will be healed.”

He touches Him as a visible sign of being identified with the leper (wow!)

The compassion of Christ is heart of the audacity of hope conviction

While others in the community and in the synagogue: the pagans and the religious; friends and family shunned this man and ran away from him whenever he was near: Jesus, despite the norms of the day, identified with this man.

All are lepers, since all fall short of the glory of God and all sin and go astray.

But are not you glad that Jesus is not like us? He would have been well within His right to stay away from this man and not suffer the ridicule or shame of being associated with him, but even this leper , as Hebrews 2:11 says He is not ashamed to call him brother.

There are a lot of times I am ashamed to call friend and brother, but the wonder of it all is that Jesus, with all of my leprous nature and all of the shame that He would incur by even being near me, has done more: he touched me:

I am telling you tonight, that the Christ who once touched this leper and called Him brother, is not ashamed, regardless of where you have been and what you have done, to touch you and call you brother.

KEY===== Say something in this point, at the end, about verse 17point it back to our conviction (point #1)

A. He took and bore: leprosy did not go into outer space: He took it

o Hanging on the cross we have:

§ A leprous, lying, deceiving, pagan, adulterous, murderous, coveteous, slandering, backbiting, gossiping, idolater who also happens to be the Son of the living

I know you do not like to think of it this way, but this is what crushed him – your sin, and my sin which he willingly bore for our sakes:

2 Corinthians 5:21: “He became sin for us”

It was my sin that held him there

The great hymn writer and theologian Horatious Bonar penned these words:

‘Twas I that shed the sacred blood;

I nailed him to the tree

I crucified the Christ of God;

I joined the mockery.

Of all that shouting multitude

I feel that I am one;

And in that din of voices rude

I recognize my own

Around the cross the throng I see

Mocking the Sufferer’s groan;

Yet still my voice it seems to be

As if I mocked alone”(Stott, Cross of Christ, p.60)

When I look at the cross I see no one there but myself; When I look at the cross I see no sin upon the Savior but my own

B. Healing is in the atoning work of Christ

This is no call to forsake physicians; rather it is a call not to forget that you know the Great Physician. Yes, you go to the doctor when you are sick, but you go praying to the Great Doctor who, regardless of the prognosis, can, if he is willing, make you whole.

When I was 12 etc…

What Moved Jesus to this?

Mark 1:41

“filled with compassion”

Luke 5:12 reads that he was “a man full of leprosy,” full means entirety of the man; but we know from John 1:14 that our Lord is “full of grace”

There is no sin that is greater than the grace of God

Romans 5:20: But where sin abounds, grace abounds much more!

Some in the world say,

- “God cannot love me.” But He loved the leper)

- “You do not know what I have done!” He loved the leper

- “You do not know where I have been” (He loved the leper)

- You do not know who I am (He loved the leper)

“Jesus is willing to save you, not because of what is in you, not because you are lovely or loveable, but because of what is in him. He is ‘filled with compassion.’” (Mighty to Save, Phillips, p 30)

The fact that Jesus touched a leper was a powerful demonstration of his willingness to put loving concern above social taboo.[2]

o are we then, too good to be seen with the lepers of our day?

The answer of our Lord shows that He has come to take away the wrath of God for sin.

The Leper is the picture of what sin is: contrary to the secular and cultural theologians of our day, it is not “God help those who help themselves.” This leper is unable to help himself and thus must go to the one who is well able.

Jesus says: Be clean: You can be clean tonight

Spurgeon wrote:

“The ‘I will’ of an emperor may have great power over his dominions, but the ‘I will” of Christ drives death and hell [away], conquers disease, removes despair, and floods the world with mercy.” (Mighty to Save p.33)

(3) The Commitment of the Changed Heart

Mark 1:45 tells us:

“…he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.”

Jesus charged the man not to speak because he did not want to be seen a merely a wonder worker, or so political figure.

But the man spoke: He could not help himself!

When the audacity to hope meets the greatness of Grace the logical expression is the tell someone what the Lord has done for you.

· we can talk all night and all day long about bad stuff

When the Lord changes us the natural response of the meeting between audacity of Hope and Great grace is this: I’ve got to tell somebody!

· Isaiah

“Here am I, send me”

· Woman at the well

“Come see a man!”

This man spoke because this man knew what he was delivered from and what He was delivered to. Often times we do not speak because we have not recognized the beauty and the enormity of just what God has done for us in Christ:

· we have not been fully met by our sin

· we have not been fully honest about our sin

Thus we have nothing for which to tell about. Not this man

Beggar trying to tell others where to find bread

What a testimony:

· left a leper, returned whole

§ this is the power of the witness: not how eloquent a man or woman can be, but how convincing the change!

The result? (the power of a changed life)

· Even in desolate places, people came from every quarter to see this man who had made this hopeless leper whole:

Connecting the point:

Your hope is the connection to your spiritual healing and your healing because the living proof of the message (the gospel) you bring

[1] Preached at Glendale Baptist Church during the Sunday evening service [2]Carson, D. A.: New Bible Commentary : 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA : Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, S. Mt 8:1