Cleansed from a Leprous Heart | Matthew 8:1-4 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] for this afternoon we're going to be in the book of matthew continuing our study through the gospel of matthew if you'll turn in your bibles with me to matthew chapter 8 matthew chapter 8. and we're just continuing in our study through the gospel of matthew we have spent the last 10 weeks in the sermon on the mount jesus's longest recorded sermon that takes up the entirety of matthew chapters five six and seven so we took our time ten weeks going through those three chapters to really listen to what jesus had to say and and now we're continuing with that same storyline it tells us here in matthew chapter eight i'll read verses one through four that jesus comes down from the mountain so he's on the northern coast of the sea of galilee he just delivers the sermon on the mount that's why it's called sermon on the mount there's a small hill there and then in chapter 8 verse 1 it says when he had come down from the mountain great multitudes followed him and behold a leper came and worshiped him saying lord if you are willing you can make me clean and then jesus put out his hand and touched him saying i am willing be cleansed immediately his leprosy was cleansed and jesus said to him see that you tell no one but go your way show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that moses commanded as a testimony to them let's pray father it's good to be in your house today and i thank you for those who are here and those who are watching online today we just want to commit our study to you always lord that you would use it now to speak to our hearts we thank you that you're so patient with us and loving with us lord and that you've given your life as a sacrifice for our sins so help us to read this story with eyes that we'll see and ears that will hear what you are showing us today we love you and we give you praise we give you glory and honor in jesus name and everybody said amen one of the most debilitating diseases and ultimately deadly diseases in biblical times uh was leprosy as we read here in this story where this man with leprosy comes to jesus and asks to be cured the term leprosy appears 68 times in the bible some form of that word 55 times in the old testament 13 times in the new testament several people are mentioned by name in the bible as having contracted leprosy the first time that anyone is mentioned in the bible with leprosy is miriam the sister of moses the year is around 1450 bc and in that incident god actually strikes her with leprosy because she was showing disrespect to her brother who was the leader of the jewish people at the time god ended up healing her so all as well but that's the first mention of leprosy in the bible when miriam the sister of moses was stricken with it later there was also a famous syrian general in second kings chapter five by the name of naaman who had leprosy and god chose to heal him as well in the new testament there's a man named specifically with the title simon that's his name the leper in matthew 26 he's known as simon the leper no doubt because of the condition that he was afflicted with and it tells us in matthew 26 that simon the leper invited jesus to his house for dinner and jesus went now normally someone with leprosy would never invite someone uh to their house for dinner let alone you would go to their house for dinner if they had leprosy so it is believed that even though there's not a specific indication in the gospels that jesus healed this guide is believed that simon the leper was actually someone that jesus had healed of leprosy and thus in return this guy is inviting jesus to his home for dinner and so there are several instances mentioning leprosy in the bible and people specifically by name who were afflicted with leprosy today leprosy is called hanson's disease it is named after the norwegian doctor who discovered the causative bacteria called mycobacterium leproid dr g a hanson discovered the causative organism in 1873 but it would be more than another hundred years before any kind of a cure would be found for leprosy it wasn't until 1981 that a a combination of antibiotic drugs were found to be effective in the treatment of leprosy so otherwise this disease went untreated uncurable for about four thousand years it is transmitted generally by direct person-to-person contact usually repetitive contact over a prolonged period of time it it was thought back in jesus day that leprosy was highly contagious turns out not to be as contagious as they first thought sound familiar but anyway i digress um and the thing about leprosy is you can be infected with it and then symptoms don't show up for anywhere from four to eight years so it has this long dormant period in one's body where you can be infected but then the symptoms don't show up for several years the symptoms start on the skin with a rash or a sore and then it travels this bacterium travels to your peripheral nervous system which is outside the brain and around the spinal cord and then it spreads to other parts of your body particularly your hands and your feet your face your eyes your ears patients with leprosy experience disfigurement of the skin and bones the bacteria ends up causing a a twisting a distortion of of one's bones and in fact um people with leprosy end up with this classic condition of claw-like hands because the the the bones begin to even bend and ends up looking like like claws the characteristics of of like a claw and people with leprosy end up experiencing a loss of feeling and muscle paralysis a facial changes include the thickening of the outer ear the collapsing of the nose leprosy would become a very debilitating and disfiguring uh ailment that would cause a lifetime of suffering not only physically but emotionally as well and in every in every way there was suffering to say nothing about the stigma and and the stress of having leprosy and and how that really caused you to be somewhat of a social outcast in fact uh people with leprosy and biblical times were required to announce themselves so that no one would come into close contact with them so they had to go around saying unclean unclean about themselves to give fair warning to people so that you could scatter and and not be in close proximity to them now i want you to imagine the the stigma of that the shame of that if you were to think for a moment right now something that afflicts you or something that you are ashamed of in your life and you were required to announce yourself with that every place you went and so try to put yourselves in the shoes of people suffering with leprosy in this day where where it wasn't anything hidden this this was a very public stigma this was a very shameful thing that people were carrying around this this disease and and they had to announce themselves in this way and even though there is now effective treatment for leprosy as i mentioned with a cocktail of different antibiotics the world health organization still estimates that around the world today there are 208 000 cases still of leprosy mostly in africa and asia but 208 000 cases of leprosy in the world today and in the united states there are an estimated 6 500 cases of leprosy still in the united states believe it or not and just last month three cases in loudoun county okay she got my joke it's a joke i'm totally joking but i just say that some for those of you who are real germaphobes you're thinking i'm already wearing a mask now what leprosy in loudoun county it's okay it's okay that was a joke the last part about loudoun county it's okay those of you now can be relieved you germaphobes who are hitting the panic button on that one as if i didn't have enough now i'm going to have leprosy and you hypochondriacs you know those of you who during the whole little spiel i just gave you on leprosy are looking at all the little rashes on your skin weren't you you were you know who you were you're like this might be leprosy now that i think about it it's not leprosy relax i remember as a kid though being in that still as an adult i could be someone in that hypochondriac category ask my wife but i remember as a kid i was like eight nine ten years old somewhere in there and um and we went to a church service where this missionary was sharing about his um ministry to um people in india and in particular he was ministering to people in a leper colony in india and i remember sitting there as a kid you know going to this church service you know it was like missions night where you know like a nine-year-old kid doesn't really want to go to church on missions night most nine-year-old kids don't even want to go to church at all to be quite honest with you so i remember being dragged there which is not necessarily a bad thing you know when your kids are still young drag them to church eventually they might grow up to be pastors but anyway and so i i'm i'm there in this in this church service and listening to this guy talking about you know ministering to people in india with leprosy and i didn't really understand leprosy so he starts you know saying about what it is and showing pictures you know the slide shows which is a wonderful way to spend your night just looking at pictures of people with leprosy but anyway i remember sitting there and as the guy was talking he said similar to what i said although i think he said ten years uh in my studies i have found that four to eight years before symptoms might occur i think he said ten years and i remember him saying you know i might very well be infected with leprosy but it won't show up for another eight or ten years whatever he said and i remember sitting there thinking great i cannot go near this dude but you know how it is in particularly smaller churches where the only way to get out of the church is to shake the pastor's hand and so i knew that the missionary is going to be and sure enough standing at the back of the church and the only way to exit was to shake that man's hand which i again was forced to do and then for the next like 10 years i was looking at myself like maybe there's something anyway i'm fine so i know you're fine too all right an upset about the disease itself there was a common misunderstanding in biblical days about leprosy people thought that god afflicted people with leprosy as punishment for their sin that was commonly thought in biblical times that if you got leprosy you were being punished by god for some sin in your life the fact is that leprosy was not punishment for sin but leprosy in the bible is a picture of sin what do i mean whenever leprosy was spoken of in the bible including our own text here in matthew chapter 8 every single time leprosy is mentioned in the bible and someone is cured of it it is never spoken of in terms of being healed it is always spoken of in terms of being cleansed even in our story here look again in your bibles in verse 2 the guy says to jesus lord if you are willing you can make me clean and jesus then put out his hand and touched him saying i am willing be cleansed the original greek language of the new testament is greek and the greek word for clean or cleansed is caterizo and casarizo is where we get our english word cathartic something that is cathartic has a cleansing effect kind of a purifying effect so even the very language about leprosy in terms of its of its cure is spoken of as cleansing not of healing not of healing because it's a picture of our sinful condition though itself as a disease was not punishment for sin it's a picture to us and so there is this parallel in the bible between leprosy and our sinful condition both the characteristics of leprosy and the cure for leprosy paint a picture of our sinful condition and our need for cleansing as well now before i get up onto how it's a parallel let me first make mention of a major exception between leprosy as a disease and the picture that it paints of our sinful condition and here's the major exception leprosy is acquired sin is inherent okay leprosy is something that was acquired you could be fine one day and then infected the next you could be perfectly healthy one moment and then infected with leprosy the next moment so it was acquired it was a it was a disease it was a bacteria whereas our sinful condition is not acquired it's not like you know you're fine one day and then you say your first lie and now you're a sinner the truth is that we are born with a sinful nature it is inherent we have inherited it from our uh parents adam and eve and has been passed down through every generation this is why david would write in psalm 51 verse 5 when he said surely i was sinful at birth sinful from the time that my mother conceived me in her womb so david understood this as a spiritual principle that that us our sinful condition is not acquired we inherit it even in conception when we are conceived we are conceived bearing the sin nature of of our ancestor parents adam and eve and and so that's why we carry this condition because when adam and eve first sinned and rebelled against god sin entered the human race the human race became spoiled and it became passed on as a spiritual trait from generation to generation in the same way that blue eyes or brown eyes are physical traits that are genetically passed down from generation to generation it is also true that our sinful condition is a spiritual trait that is genetically passed down from generation a generation ever since adam and eve rebelled against god so we inherit that so it's inherent in us we are all sinners we it's not acquired it is inherent and it is a defect that we all possess and paul would write in first corinthians 15 22 he would say for as in adam all die meaning because we inherited this sin nature from adam we we are all you know spiritually dead so in christ we shall all be made alive so that's our hope in knowing that christ offers a remedy for our sinful condition but we're all sinners we're born into sin it's not acquired it's inherent ever since adam and eve sinned it's been passed from generation to generation it is genetically something that we are predisposed to as part of our makeup and so jesus dies to redeem us and to give us life into our spirit that which was uh made dead because of of our sinful condition now that said here's how it's a parallel when we look at the condition of leprosy in the bible it is a picture for us uh of our sinful nature and in four different ways and i'm going to show you right from this story the first one is it's progressive it's progressive like leprosy which starts out as just a rash or some kind of a skin condition it ends up progressing to the point where it causes bone disfigurement paralysis and even death and in the same way sin has a progressive nature to it james would write it this way in james 1 14-15 he said but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed then when desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death so there in james 1 14 to 15 james talks about how hey it starts with temptation now temptation itself is not sin the bible makes it clear that jesus was tempted in every way as we are yet was without sin so temptation is not sin itself but it is the entry point because if we give into temptation now it's sin and once we give into temptation if we don't repent of that sin then it leads to death so there's this progressive nature to sin and what we end up seeing is that it's not only progressive in in terms of how it leads to sin but the very sin itself is progressive and what i mean is if you don't deal with sin in its infancy you will end up realizing that what once brought thrill no longer brings thrill and so you have to step up the sin game to find the same kind of dark adventure in ways that it used to bring pleasure but now it doesn't there's this insatiable element to our sin nature and we need to understand this you know even as christians listen if you've accepted christ as your savior your spirit has been redeemed regenerated but your flesh is still at war with your spirit because there's still a carnal side to every single one of us where our flesh desires things that are contrary to the spirit paul talks about this paul talks about you know the things i wanted to do that's what i didn't do the things i didn't want to do that's what i ended up doing and he speaks about this internal battle that rages within every single person who's a believer where your spirit's been regenerated so your spirit wants to please god but your flesh is not you know your spirit is housed still within a body and your body and the pleasures and not every physical desire is wrong obviously but there are some sinful desires that are wrong that are constantly wanting to lead you into areas of sin contrary to what your spirit wants to do so your spirit wants to please god and your flesh wants to please yourself and so there's this constant battle and there's this war within and what we end up realizing is if we don't deal with sin in its infancy when temptation comes our way if we don't nip it in the bud at that point then we will begin to see how insatiable our sin nature is and how much it will not be satisfied with the the pleasures of yesterday so we have to step up the game to try to find even a greater sense of dark adventure if you will it's it's in a similar way that you know drugs can um you know enslave people uh the progressive nature of drugs it might start out like with a gateway drug like marijuana so somebody's just smoking pot and then they're like you know well now this doesn't really give me the same kind of buzz like it used to so i need to step it up and then they step it up to cocaine and then well that's not really and then it goes to heroin and then it goes to opioids and what happens well the gateway drug may not be something that kills somebody but opioids will and that's the way that sin works it's like well if we don't if we don't deal with it in its infancy it will lead to death there's this progressive tendency this insatiable part of our fleshly nature that is not satisfied like it used to be so we have to constantly be dealing with this and just like leprosy is progressive it starts out with just a little rash but it ends up causing disfigurement of the bones and ligaments and and uh and inflicting people with with tremendous pain and ultimately death that's that's the way that sin operates in a similar way and and so it is progressive that's a similarity number two it is desensitizing uh one of the things about leprosy is that in the advanced stages of leprosy it leads to nerve sensory nerve damage and people in the advanced stages of leprosy lose feeling in their extremities and so a lot of times they do great damage to themselves because they can't they can't tell that something's hot and so they go to touch it because the sensory nerve endings are deadened by the disease and then they end up burning themselves uh and so they can cause tremendous damage uh you know it contrary to popular belief leprosy is not like flesh flesh-eating bacteria where you know your your fingers begin to fall off they they end up either being amputated or falling off because people do unintentional damage to themselves because the sensory nerve endings are gone things become numb in their body and that's the way sin is if sin goes unaddressed you start to become numb about things what once brought you under conviction no longer does what once you felt a guilty about you no longer do you become desensitized it's what the bible refers to in first timothy 4 2 when paul says about having a seared conscience as with a hot iron you know when a hot iron is applied to skin you know like say for example when cattle are branded uh the flesh when it comes into contact with a searing hot iron that flesh will become scar tissue and that scar tissue will be desensitized it won't have feelings you've just damaged the nerve endings now and in a similar way when we don't deal with sin we become desensitized what once convicted us doesn't anymore and so this is the same progressive nature of leprosy that we need to be reminded of sin in a similar way has a similar effect the longer that sin goes unaddressed the more desensitized to it one becomes the less you feel guilty and sorry about something and you become numb to it number three we see a similarity in that leprosy is isolating people with leprosy would end up in leper colonies that actually have to go live with people who were afflicted with the same disease if you got leprosy back in the day you immediately had to leave your family you would join a leper colony that became your new family that became your new community you could never go back home because again prior to 1981 there was no cure for leprosy it was a certain death so you had to leave your family for their sake join a leper colony that became your new family that became your community it became very isolating you had to self-isolate with others who reflected with the same condition sin does the same thing to us we become isolated from the people that we love and we start running with the people who are doing what we are doing and who are living like we are living and we end up joining their colony so to speak our community becomes the people who share our same sinful lifestyle sin as this natural way of isolating us it causes us to cluster with other people who are doing the same thing and we end up being isolated from people we love we end up being separated from god and in isaiah 59 2 it says but your your iniquities have separated you from god and your sins have hidden his face from you so it's isolating and then lastly number four it is incurable and fatal without god again up until the 20th century with modern medicine no one survived leprosy you got leprosy it was a death sentence it was a slow painful and certain death unless you've got a miracle from god which is what happens here to this guy in matthew chapter 8. now jesus tells this guy to go show himself to the priest and he tells him after he heals him he says i want you to go offer the gift that moses commanded this is what jesus tells him and when jesus says that to him he's actually mentioning a protocol that's found in leviticus chapter 14 that god instructed moses in the levitical law to write out a protocol for someone who was healed or cured of leprosy and the steps that they needed to take in going to the temple and praising god and offering a sacrifice to the priests now what's interesting to me is that obviously because god knows everything god knew when he instructed moses to write leviticus 14 in the whole protocol about how one would be cured of leprosy god knew when that instruction was being given in leviticus 14 that no one would ever exercise it not apart from a miracle from god because there was no cure for leprosy you weren't suddenly you know you didn't just suddenly overcome leprosy you got leprosy it eventually led to your death so even when god instructs moses i want you to write down leviticus 14. god even knew no one's going to exercise this apart from my intervention you got to believe that when this guy showed up to the priests after he had been healed by jesus and and he's like well i'm here to offer the sacrifice of leviticus 14. the priests are probably like leviticus 14 where even is the book of leviticus we we haven't even we haven't seen one of you people coming in here healed like this what what's this all about yeah well jesus sent me leviticus 14 that's the whole deal god knew that no one would even be able to exercise the protocol apart from him and this is important for us to understand we're all dying of the same incurable disease it's called sin and if god hadn't intervened we would all die of this incurable disease like leprosy there is something that is killing all of us we are dying a slow painful certain death and the only sin cure is a miracle from god mankind cannot fix himself none of us can fix our condition only god can and so god provided that miracle for us that miracle for our leprous heart if you will was when he sent his son jesus to die on a cross for our sins there's no other remedy apart from god for our sinful leprous hearts and god decided to bring a cure in the form of his son jesus who would on a cross for our sins pay the price for what was killing us that if we by faith would believe in jesus christ as our personal lord and savior that he died for our sins god in flesh taking the punishment intended for us he took then we might have our sins forgiven and we might experience the cure of our terminal illness because jesus came to die for our sins that we might have life through faith in his name and you know what's interesting in first john 1 9 when it tells us how to come into relationship with jesus first john 1 9 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins listen and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness now again that's first john 1 9 you know what's interesting is the same word cleanse in that verse iso the same word in matthew 8 for the cleansing of the leper you see our hearts are sinful every single one of us we're in need of a savior the only remedy the only miracle that can cure us is the sacrifice of jesus who died on a cross for our sins three quick things about that number one jesus is always willing to make us clean in this story the guy says to jesus lord if you are willing you can make me clean and jesus replied in verse 3 i am willing be cleansed jesus is always willing to make us clean if some of you are here thinking to yourselves yeah but based on what i've done i don't i don't know if god could ever forgive me jesus is always willing to make us clean every single time are you willing to humble yourself and come to him and ask to be cleansed that's the real question because he's always willing to make us clean number two god's cleansing work is immediate i love in this story in verse 3 it says immediately his leprosy was cleansed wouldn't you love to have been standing there and watched this guy however distorted his body had become because of leprosy suddenly everything got restored to normal his the cartilage around his ears his nose his face just suddenly became brand new and isn't that beautiful the way it paints a picture for us that immediately when we confess our sins and come into relationship with christ and ask him to save us and forgive us of our sins god doesn't sit there and go let me think about this you know you've done a lot of stuff and so let me think good and long about this no no immediately in response to our humility immediately will make us clean and then lastly we see here that god's grace becomes our testimony because at the end of verse 4 jesus says go on your way show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that moses commanded as a testimony to them in other words let your life when you go to those priests and they see that you've been totally cleansed let your life be a living testimony of my grace and that's how it is for us because when god forgives our sin and he does his cleansing work in our lives and brings us into relationship with him then it will be a testimony to others of god's amazing grace amen amen praise god amen and so as i close in prayer if you don't know christ as your savior today if you don't know that cleansing work you know the fact of the matter is in a spiritual sense listen we're all lepers and there's only one remedy and that's when god does that miraculous work to cleanse our hearts of all sin and so if you don't know him as your personal lord and savior i invite you to accept him today and make a decision to invite christ to be lord of your life would you pray with me right now lord we come before you grateful for the cross thankful for your love and your grace in our lives and when we see a story like this in the bible about this leprous man who came to jesus and and jesus cleansed him and made him whole what joy that must have been for him that day and what an amazing testimony wherever he went of what christ has done for him and in a similar way lord we can be living testimonies of your amazing grace where people can look at our changed lives and and and see and recognize that god must have done that work because we can't fix ourselves we can't change ourselves and so lord i'm thinking right now of anyone who might be watching online or anyone here in the sanctuary or those later who will listen to this and how many might be struggling with knowing that they're really cleansed before you that they're really forgiven that they may not have a relationship with you that today i pray would be an opportunity for them to just come to you and say lord if you're willing cleanse me because you're always willing to cleanse us you stand ready to forgive us you died on a cross to provide for us the cure for our sinful condition and so i'm going to pause on my prayer with your head still bowed and i'm just going to invite you if you want to trust christ today as your savior you can just pray this simple prayer with me and open your heart humble yourself and invite christ to come in and forgive you of your sin and enter into a relationship with him every relationship begins with a decision and you can make a decision right now to have relationship with jesus christ and so you can pray a simple prayer like this just pray this with me just say lord jesus how i thank you that you love me so much that you would die on a cross for my sins i can't fix my sinful condition but you can so cleanse my heart right now lord forgive me of my sins cleanse my heart and my mind wash away the things of my life purify me i receive you as my personal lord and savior i accept jesus christ as my lord i surrender my life to you jesus thank you for forgiving me thank you for loving me and cleansing me from all my sin in jesus name i pray amen and amen now listen before you leave if you prayed that prayer with me there's going to be a pastor down front here who will be happy to give you a bible if you want to get a bible just come up and receive one and then we'll send you on your way we don't want anything from you we just want to be able to give you a bible so if you want one you prayed that prayer come and receive it god bless you all have a great day god bless you [Applause] amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 10,939

Rating: 4.8285713 out of 5

Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, Biblical sermons, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, great sermons by great preachers, What is Leprosy, what is leprosy in the bible, our sinful condition, am i sinful, how can i be cured of sin, Is leprosy deadly, is leprosy fatal, is leprosy a punishment for sin, leprosy is a picture of sin, is leprosy sinful, how does Jesus heal people of leprosy, cleansed from a leprous heart, matthew 8:1-4

Id: ms12GexnCtc

Length: 36min 24sec (2184 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020