The Great Physician - Matthew 8:1-4

Well, my name is Eric. If you don't know me, I am glad

you're here with us today. We are in the book of Matthew.

We've been in the book of Matthew, I believe for, I don't

know, maybe 9-10 months, something like that.

And we've now reached chapter 8. We're in chapter 8.

We've finished the Sermon on the Mount, which was chapters 5

through 7. And the book of Matthew kind of

shows us some interesting things.

The author compiles kind of lumps of scripture together in

Matthew. Some of the stories will be in

Mark, also in Luke. But you can you can see that

there are differences in the way that they compiled their

information. And Matthew chooses to compile

like he did the Sermon on the Mount in this big narrative.

And now we've reached this section where we're talking

about miracles of Jesus. So in chapters 8 and 9, many

miracle stories of Jesus are kind of compiled together.

Not all of them are necessarily in chronologic logical order,

because that's not the point of the author.

He's trying to make a point through how he writes this down

inspired by the Holy Spirit. And so that kind of brings me to

a question I'd like to ask as we start talking about the miracles

of Jesus is what are they for? What's the meaning of them?

Is it just that, oh, Jesus does miracles and so miracles are

normative in in the believer's life and we should be looking

for them all the time trying to do them?

Or is it pointing to something, maybe an illustration of a

deeper spiritual truth? I believe that, yes, God still

does miracles today, but these aren't written so that we seek

them out all the time and we're looking for signs and wonders.

We've actually seen in Scripture where people are rebuked because

that's all they're looking for. They need, they need proof.

And yes, Jesus in this narrative and these eyewitness accounts,

it does prove his power. It does prove his authority.

It does confirm who Jesus is, that he's God in the flesh.

It shows us that he's a compassionate God as well, that

he cares about not only just our salvation, but even in the time

that we have here on earth, He cares about every little malady

and sickness and pain that we have going on.

It shows us that he's brought something with them when he

stepped on earth 2000 years ago. Our series is called The King

and His Kingdom. He's bringing a spiritual

Kingdom on earth and he's slowly taking ground and, and while

he's walking around, he's showing what heaven looks like

where there will be no more sickness or crying or pain or

mourning sadness anymore. But ultimately these are also

illustrations of some deep spiritual truths that I think

that Matthew wants us to know, the Holy Spirit wants us to

know. And, and Jesus is doing these

things knowing that we're going to be reading about them later,

trying to figure out what does this mean for my life?

What does it mean that Jesus is doing miracles?

So I want to get into that. And so today we're going to be

in verses one through 4 of chapter 8, and I've titled the

message the Great Physician. The Great Physician because he

is a healer. Ultimately Christ healed many

people. And today we're looking at how

he heals A leper. And it's a little bit about

leprosy. This 2000 years ago and beyond

was an incurable disease and it would be considered that only a

miracle could help a leprous person.

And what we find out is that the great physician, the only one

that has the power, comes in with a compassionate touch and a

word and heals this man. So let me read these verses to

you and we're going to get into it.

It says when he came down from the mountain, great crowds

followed him. And behold, A leper came to him

and knelt before him, saying, 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 his leprosy was cleansed.

And Jesus said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but

go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses

commanded for a proof to them. I've got three points as we walk

through this section by section or verse by verse.

And I want to show you how there is a deeper spiritual truth

underlying in this story of Jesus healing this leper.

And my first point is this. I want to look at the sinners

infection again. We go back to the first 2 verses

that says when he came down from the mountain, great crowds

followed him and behold A leper came to him and knelt before him

saying if you will you can make me clean.

Now as I said you know leprosy was something somewhat of an

incurable disease. What I want you to understand in

this point is that leprosy is an analogy or analogous to sin.

It too is an incurable infection that affects every part of our

lives. So let me tell you a little bit

of what I know about leprosy. Now, I'm not a doctor by any

means, but the studies that I know from what I know in

Scripture and and there are leprosy still exists today.

Many have called it, renamed it Hansen's disease because of the

stigma that comes along with leprosy or being a leper from

the Bible. They they thought we need to

have some compassion and rename it so that people aren't holding

those stigmas. But what is the big deal or what

is leprosy? It, it, it, it's where the nerve

endings in your skin and in your organs don't really have any

feeling anymore. And So what ends up happening is

the skin gets all kinds of rashes, it becomes unhealthy, it

becomes dry, scaly. And also when it gets injured or

cut and infected, it goes unnoticed for so long that

spots, if not whole areas of the body become hideous, disgusting,

even with a, a stench of an of infection and pus.

I know it's a gross kind of a, a picture I'm painting in your

mind, but I'm trying to show you that, that this is supposed to

be painting a picture for us of how, how, how infectious and

hideous sin is in our lives as well.

But most of us, you know, when we get a cut or when we feel

some kind of pain in our body, we're able to go see a doctor

or, you know, put some first aid on it or whatever.

But in this case, what happens is, you know, infections get so

bad that you lose extremities. Fingers, toes, hands, arms,

legs, parts of your nose are falling off.

And it's it's not a pretty sight.

And So what happened to someone who had leprosy was that they

were banished outside of their community.

They were, they were supposed to go live outside the city because

people didn't want to see them. And people definitely didn't

want to come into contact with them, afraid that the the the

disease would pass on to them. In fact, they were called

unclean. It's very interesting, by the

way, that that God made laws all the way back in the first five

books of the Bible that Moses wrote about leprosy with it

being an incurable disease. And here's what it says in in

Leviticus 13. It says the leprous person who

has the D disease shall wear torn, torn clothes and let the

hair of his head hang loose and he shall cover his upper lip and

cry out unclean, unclean. And he shall remain unclean as

long as he has the disease. He is unclean.

He he shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside

the camp. I when I first read this many

years ago, I'm, I'm wondering it was a funny picture I had in my

head. What does it mean that he

covered his upper lip? Unclean, unclean.

Why would he have to do that? But then I realized, you know,

when you're going to shout at people from far away, you

actually do this, right? You, you cover your mouth and

kind of make a, a little horn, you know, so that the sound

extends and, and, and this is the picture of this guy who is,

who is desperate and lonely. And when any human being comes

within a certain amount of of of feet from him, he from far away,

he has to by the law of God, say I'm unclean.

Don't come near me. Now imagine the loneliness, the

hopelessness, the the self loathing that a leper would feel

because of this. He wouldn't have been able to

have any close relationships. And in fact, this disease

ultimately kept him from being able to worship God the way in

which the community was prescribed to gather together to

go to the temple. He would have to be outside and

alone, and ultimately his relationship severed from God

and the people because he's unclean, ceremonially unclean,

to approach God. You see, that's what sin does to

us as well. The Bible says that we're born

with sin. We're born inheriting the nature

that the first human beings brought into humanity.

When they went against God, they decided, I don't want to follow

God's commands. I'm going to go my own way.

My way's a little bit better. I don't trust his words

necessarily. I'm going to do what feels

right. And so they did that.

They followed that feeling, and they brought sin into the world.

And now we all have this natural bent to want to do the same

thing as our our mother and father from the beginning.

And so does it sound familiar to you when we know what God's word

says or we've heard what it says and we say, well, I don't really

trust that. I don't really like that.

There's probably things in Scripture that all of us

naturally, when you hear it, you're like, I don't know, that

doesn't really fit my sensibilities or my my standard

of morality or that just seems harsh or not fun or controlling.

And so anyway, that is the nature that we have as this

separation from God, unable to worship him properly.

And not only that, but our sin, not just our sin nature that we

inherited, it's an infection that affects how we treat other

people. So we we sin against other

people. And now just like the leper, our

relationships are broken, right? Like our sin effects our

marriages. Like when we hurt other people

because of what we do from the natural man or the natural

woman. The the the things that we do

that are offensive or hurtful or selfish even causes that broken

relationship with our spouse. Don't we hate that?

Don't we wish that this part of us wouldn't do things to

displease the other person that we love, that we could be the

servant what we want to be without failing?

Don't we hate it when we when we mess up with that thing that

we're addicted to? We have these addictions in life

that God has said, no, don't do that.

That's going to be bad for you. I remember in my own life I had

broken so many relationships and hurt people because of my sin

and my addiction, and rightfully nobody wanted to be around me

except for my mom. Praise God for the grace of

Jesus Christ that she didn't want to banish me outside the

camp, but everybody else wanted to.

That is the analogy of our sin. This leper, then we need to look

at this guy and say that that that he's a picture of us.

This incurable infection that separates us from God and it

causes problems in our physical lives.

Our bodies aren't working properly anymore.

We get sick. There are diseases and illnesses

that are ever present in our world, in our communities, in

our in our bodies. Mental health issues are more

common than not anymore because of this infection.

There are trains that drive behind me when I'm preaching.

It's not supposed to be that way.

I heard that Satan is a train engineer maybe.

Is that in a song? I think so.

Anyway, there are mental health issues.

We and then we just not only, just all of that, again, we hurt

people. We hurt the people that we love

the most. So the people that are closest

to us are the ones that we hurt the most when we're they're

supposed to be the ones that we love the most.

And maybe we do love them the most, but we also hurt them

almost as equally as much as we love them.

We are in a desperate state, brothers and sisters in in this

world, we are desperate. The there's a theological term

for this. I'd call it total depravity,

total inability. We are completely depraved.

Even the good things that we want to do are tainted with

evil. Jeremiah 17 says even our, our,

our, our hearts are deceitfully wicked.

Isaiah says that our, even our good works are like filthy rags.

I mean, and so we have no goodness that can come to God

and say, Hey, you should choose me or you should forgive me

because of some of the good things that I do.

No, because why? Because Romans 3 says is that

there's no one who does good. There's no one righteous, no one

seeks, no one understands. No, not one.

That's the human condition. We can't even come to God

because of this broken state. We can't even seek Him.

We don't even understand his words in this broken human state

that we live in. In fact, favorite quote of mine

is from Jonathan Edwards. It says you contribute nothing

to your salvation except for the sin that made it necessary.

The only reason we've we're qualified for salvation is that

we're a Sinner, that we are in this desperate state.

But praise God, it doesn't just stay there, but this

compassionate God, this loving God looks down on us in our

state and says, I want to do something about that.

I want to heal them. So what is the hope of mankind

if we're all like lepers and this is an incurable infection?

There's only one person that can help us.

And so now I want to look at the Savior's cure, verses 2 and 3.

And behold, A leper came to him and knelt before him, saying,

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 his leprosy was

cleansed. Only the Great Physician could

heal this disease. It would have taken a miracle

for anyone to be cured and clean from leprosy at this point in

time. Now, one could argue that yes,

there are forms of leprosy enhancements, disease that are

curable or there's there's ways to help it now with modern

medicine. But the point is, is that back

then, 2000 years ago and prior, this was considered only by a

miracle of God. That's why we read that story,

by the way, the the Scripture reading of Naman the Syrian, he

was a Gentile man who had leprosy and his only hope was

that he heard about the God of Israel and said, I'm going to go

seek out this God because that God seems powerful.

He needed a miracle. And what happened was he came

and got healed. That was a story in the Old

Testament. So only the great Physician,

Jesus Christ could heal this disease, and only Jesus, the

great Physician, could take away our sin and make us clean.

It's interesting here in this passage, nobody would ever touch

a leper because that would make you unclean in the Old

Testament. Levitical law.

But Jesus, He doesn't break the law here because Jesus upholds

the law. Because Jesus is God, He is the

only one qualified to reach out and touch this man, to risk

touching this man. You see why others wouldn't

touch him is because they feared that this would transfer to

them. But Jesus being sinless?

God in the flesh, when he reaches out and touches nothing

of our sin could transfer to him and his body because he's

powerful enough, but all of his power actually transfers to this

man. That's a picture of our

salvation, by the way. And in a sense you could say

that Jesus did take on our sin for a moment on the cross.

He who knew no sin, Christ was made to be sin for us so that we

could become the righteousness of God.

And then the power is transferred to the man and the

healing power of the great Physician.

Jesus Christ touches this man and he is healed.

Mark 141 tells the story and it says moved with pity.

He did this out of compassion. I don't know about you, but you

know, it's been quite a, you know, intense few months as

we've been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount and here I

find this wrasp this this kind of exhale of here's the

compassion of Jesus. I don't know if that brings you

any joy or or relief that that your Savior, Jesus Christ,

although you come to him with your brokenness, with your sin,

the sin that you did this week, the uncleanness, where in the

Old Testament you wouldn't have been able to approach this God.

But God came to earth because he was moved by compassion in yours

and my desperate state, knowing that we can't do anything about

the sickness that we have apart from a healing touch of Jesus

Christ. What's that thing that you need

that compassion for from Jesus right now?

Maybe as John said and asked us in that part of our service that

we do every time the confession of sin part where we can confess

to the Lord as we're as we're praying God.

I trust that you can clean me. That's what that verse said.

It's faithful and just to cleanse us from all

unrighteousness in first John verse 9.

What is that thing? Did you know that you can just

confess that to you and him alone.

You don't need to confess that to a priest, even a pastor.

The Bible does say that sometimes though it is good to

confess to another brother and sister sin, that they can pray

for you and you can be healed as well.

But you have access to Jesus Christ himself for that sin that

needs to be cleansed. Or maybe it's a physical,

mental, emotional state that you struggle with that's just a part

of who you are, that you've tried everything in this life to

get rid of it, to make it better, to fix it.

Just know that Jesus has compassion on you during that

time. I love this verse in in Hebrews

415. It says, For we do not have a

high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,

but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet

without sin. The sinless God comes to stand

in our place, to transfer His righteousness to us, but he

still sympathizes with us. Oh, man.

So he comes in compassion and also power and authority.

He comes to remove the religious rituals it would have taken for

this man to be made clean. If you go to Leviticus 14, and

I'm not going to, you know, read the entire thing to you, but it

talks of all of the religious rituals that would have had to

have taken place in order for this guy if a miracle did happen

in his life and he did get clean.

I mean we're talking birds need to be sacrificed, waiting 8 days

dunking yourself in water, then some Rams and lambs being

sacrificed and waiting around and priests, you know, doing all

these different things to satisfy that broken relationship

between you and God. And Jesus said, Nope, those all

pointed to to a particular way in which you needed to be

healed, again pointing back to the great physician, Only

through him. So it's his authority and his

power alone. And so only through him can we

go to get healing from this disease.

Now this then is somewhat of an illustration of how a person

comes to faith in Jesus Christ. I mean, what it looks like I we

can see it right in there. He had heard about Jesus.

He'd heard about the things Jesus been doing, you know, his

preaching, other people believing in him and, and

somehow word had got to this leper.

And So what does he do when he sees Jesus from far off?

He comes up and he kneels before him, kneeling before him.

That's a sign of worship. That's a sign of respect, That's

a sign of submission, surrender. And he says, Lord, he calls him

Lord Master, this is God. He, he believes that Jesus is

God, Lord Master. He wants to submit his life to

him. And then he, he believes in the

power. He says if you will, you can

make me clean. So he doesn't say if you can,

will you make me clean? He says, if you are willing, I

know that you can. This is faith.

This is faith in the Lord Jesus, the power, his authority of him

being God in the flesh. And the leper sees it.

That's what it takes to start a relationship with God, to repair

that sin, that broken relationship to make you clean.

It's we call it repent and believe.

Notice your own sin. Notice your need.

Be desperate like this leper who says I'm willing to bow down

before you. I know that you and you alone

can heal me. We know that in Romans 10/9.

Again, it says if you declare that Jesus is Lord and believe

God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

It's almost a gift to this man that he's in this desperate

situation, because how else do you get desperate enough to cry

out to Jesus unless your situation has so many different

dire consequences and needs? If you haven't been humbled,

it's hard for a prideful person to come to the Lord.

It really is. Why would they need a savior if

they can do it all on their own, if life is good, if they're

content, it's a gift. Think of it that way.

Think of that, that that you even have the ability to see

your sin and be disgusted with it.

That's a gift and that's from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes and he convicts us.

He convicts our hearts and he says you need to look internally

and compare your life with what God has said in His Word and

where you fall short. Don't worry, Romans 3 says all

have fallen short. So humble yourselves with a

broken and contrite heart, and he will come to you and heal

you. And the Holy Spirit's doing this

work in us. It's such a beautiful thing.

First Corinthians 12/3 says Therefore, I want you to

understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says

Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in

the Holy Spirit. Nobody can really get to this

place of true faith that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit.

And that's what we see here. It doesn't necessarily say it in

this text, but you have to interpret Scripture with

Scripture. You have to come to Scripture

with doctrine. And we understand that the Bible

tells us that God is doing that first initial work of the Holy

Spirit was working in this man to get to the place, using his

desperation to get to the place to call Jesus Lord.

The two wills collide. We often misunderstand will.

There's often debates about will and does man have free will.

And what I would just say to you in this text is look at this.

It says if you will, Lord, if it's in your will.

And Jesus says it is my will. So by this man's will, he

himself chooses to come to the Lord to bow down to him.

But it was also the Lord's will that this would happen at the

same time. There are two wills colliding

here and it's happening at the same time.

And beyond that it is a mystery on how it works.

But it is a beautiful one that we, we have our own choices and

yet God is willing and working in the background and his

sovereignty. That's what happens in this

man's heart. And it was a gift, as I said, a

gift to him to get to this place because those who are stuck in

their pride won't get to this place.

Jesus later in Chapter 9 is answering some of the challenges

from the Pharisees when they start to come up and question

him and they're wondering why is he doing these miracles for

these people that are unclean? Why not come to the righteous

people and help them, the religious people and help them?

Jesus answered so beautifully in Matthew 9 verse 12, but when he

Matthew 9:12

heard it, He said those who are well have no need of a physician

but those who are sick. The reality is none of us are

really well apart from Jesus Christ, but Jesus will operate

as the great Physician on those who know they need Him.

He wants to give us all a heart transplant, and for many of us

He already has. And we can say it is well, it is

well with my soul. He is making us well.

He's making us more complete, day by day, week by week, month

by month. The hearts of the Pharisees were

prideful and arrogant. They thought that salvation was

in themselves following the law, not understanding that no one

could measure up to the standards of God.

Salvation is by grace through faith alone.

It is a gift from God that no man may boast about it.

So this man starts out in a relationship with God, and it's

a beautiful thing. This is an analogy of how a

person comes to faith in our desperate state.

But let's see now as we end this, as we get to our last

point, if he'll be able to not only just trust Jesus for

salvation, but for further instructions on what to do next.

So I've called it the doctor's orders.

You know, when you go to the doctor and you know, you start

getting better and he gives you the prescription and and you

know, things are looking good, but he tells you, now go do

this, you know, follow this diet or take this pill or change your

lifestyle in this way. Get some sleep, better sleep,

start exercising. This is again an illustration of

if. We'll go on to podcasts and

YouTube and we will listen to all this type of research on

physical and mental health and and we'll follow the orders of

a, an earthly Dr. on what to do for the most part.

Now, if you're anything like me, you know, I very skeptical of

modern medicine, but that doesn't mean I completely

discounted either. There's lots of good graces from

God. I believe there is a common

grace in modern medicine. This is a whole I'm getting off

topic here, but much more so if we will follow and trust a

little bit human people who tell us to follow these orders that

know better than us in many regards, why wouldn't we follow

the Great Physician and his orders to live out the rest of

this life? So a relationship with God

doesn't just end at faith, it starts there.

Being obedient to his commands honors God and proves that our

faith is genuine. And Jesus does care about how we

lived after we come to faith. So let's look at the last

section. It says, and Jesus said to him,

see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to

the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof

to them. You see, this can be interesting

here because you're like, why doesn't Jesus want to want him

to tell anyone? Aren't we supposed to go tell it

on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere?

Well, yeah, but in this case, remember, this is before the

church had started. Church doesn't start till Acts.

Jesus has a mission to complete. He's doing something.

This also has meaning for us then.

Jesus doesn't want to just do a one time healing on us.

He wants to continue to restore us.

And even in this man's life, he's prescribing him a way to be

restored to the community of God.

He's saying go to the priests first.

Don't go running around telling everybody else about what I've

done. Start living it out first.

Actually, this makes a great case by the way.

For yes, you have a testimony and you should go share it, but

some of us in our zeal should probably hang on and start

walking the walk for a little while they call it.

For some people, when you get this new found understanding of

God's grace and His sovereignty, they call it the cage stage.

You should be in a cage for a while and not be let out until

you get some maturity in you, you know?

But he's prescribing him away the way.

Because remember, Jesus never breaks any of the law.

He's come to fulfill the law. And in Leviticus 14, there was a

way, as I had said, when someone is healed of leprosy, they were

supposed to go to the priest and do this and that and all these

rituals, because it hasn't been fulfilled yet.

Christ hasn't died yet. We're still basically in the Old

Testament in a sense, in the Old Covenant, until he dies and the

the temple veil is torn and then we have no more need for a

temple. But in this period of time, he's

saying go to the priests and be a witness to them.

Remember also that Jesus came to first and foremost come for his

chosen people, Israel, and He was preaching the truth to them,

hoping that they would get it. Even the religious leaders know.

He also knew at the same time that they wouldn't, but it had

to be preached to them first. So go to the religious leaders

and say, and if He was to come and priests that know the Old

Testament would know. This is a miracle, just like a

lot of the other miracles that Jesus had done in front of the

Pharisees. It was Him proving a point.

He's come as King. Now.

You guys were temporary guardians of God's house, but

Jesus, God himself has come and he's come to take over and set

up his reign on earth. So here I am.

That's supposed to be assigned to the scribes and priests and

religious leaders that God came in and healed someone and and he

was willing to even do it by following God's own law in the

restoration of this man. Now, practically speaking, I

would say church isn't an individual or Christianity isn't

an individual sport. God didn't just come save us so

that we could just only have an individual relationship with

God, you know, but he wants us to be a part of a community.

He wants us to be a part of the church, the assembly, the

regular gathering together. Because through the scripture

reading and the prayer and the breaking of the bread and and

and the hearing of the preached word and the serving and the

worshipping, God is working out what He wants to do in you and

all of us when we come together. When we gather together to do

this, So what does this guy end up doing?

Well, it's not in this actual chapter.

If the only way you can find out what how he responded to what

Jesus said was you go to Mark chapter 1 and it says this.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

But 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 desperate places and people were coming to

him from every quarter. So the guy failed.

Before we get too mad at him, isn't that like us?

Again, this is an illustration of us even after we got saved.

And Jesus said, now I want you to go do it this way.

We're like my way's a little better.

Or hopefully you forgive me again, You know, isn't that how

we think of it a little bit. Don't worry, that guy didn't

become a leper again. We can't do enough to lose our

salvation if Christ has truly come in and healed us from this.

But what I would say is this, we hinder God's work when we don't

do it his way. That's what I, I see right there

is that Jesus had a mission and it wasn't to become famous in

the sense of before he got to the cross, he, he, he, his life

was coming, setting up the Kingdom and he was going to come

and die for the people. But because of the work that he

was doing as he was getting to the cross, the three years that

he was here, it caused a lot of commotion.

A lot of people wanted healings and signs and wonders, and they

wanted him to perform for him for them.

But ultimately, Jesus had a mission to stick to.

So part of him saying don't tell anyone.

Don't tell anyone yet because it's not time yet.

Because if you do this, it's going to set apart, set in

motion some events that are going to make ministry more

difficult for me. That's what Jesus was saying.

And, and I guess how that would relate to us is we should just

look at the word when we want to go tell other people because

we're excited. We should do it the way he

prescribed, right? We should go live like we

believe for a while, start walking out the faith, be

growing in maturity, join a church, get some holiness and

sanctification and some accountability in our lives.

And then we can go and preach the Word and we can share the

Word and we can share our testimony and we can share what

Christ has done for us. And I don't want to go into my

pet peeve about how there are so many other people out there in

the world in Christianity who think I'm going to make this

more exciting. I'm going to spice it up.

I'm going to add some emotionalism.

I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and I'm going to

bring it all together because Christ's word isn't enough.

Well, in a sense, when they do that, they hinder the mission.

I wish we could all come together in unity under the

Christian umbrella and trust that God's word is enough to

save sinners. Because it's only by the power

of the Holy Spirit that we come to faith anyway.

So manipulating people into it and coming up with all these

creative ways isn't really going to work.

But nevertheless, for us, we are better witnesses to the outside

world when we will follow Jesus well after salvation.

We all want people to be saved, but let's just do the clear and

prescribed work of the Great Physician and trust the Great

Physician to do the work that only he can do.

And so I'll close with this. Jesus is willing to heal and

cleanse from sinfulness all that would come to Him in faith for

many. You and I have already

experienced this life changing cleansing power.

So then the challenge to the believer then is to find out

what His commands are and then live them out.

And one of them is to be a witness.

When He said go make disciples, He said go into all the earth.

We are to go and to tell other people what He's done in our

lives by sharing and living out our testimony.

Be faithful in doing the ministry that He's given you in

His way. For the unbeliever here in this

room, can you see the infection of sin in your life?

Can you see the evidence of a broken relationship with God?

If you will believe in who the Jesus of the Bible is and trust

in His willingness to restore you, He has compassion on your

state, where you're at right now.

He wants to heal you. It may not be all physical

healing, and He may not take away all of the consequences of

decisions you've made in your sin, but what He can do is

ultimately forgive you eternally and promise you a spot in

heaven. But He does want to do work on

you now as well, and it's a wonderful thing to be adopted by

the Almighty Father who now can love us, watch over us, provide

for us, and discipline us when necessary.

Do you need to be made clean before God today?

Trust in Jesus. He is the sacrifice that is

greater than, more extensive than, more particular than, and

more holy than all of the rituals in the Old Testament

law. He is the one and only true God,

the Great Physician who can heal you and save your soul.

Let's pray, Father. Thank you.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming into our lives, for

coming into our sight and in our hearing, giving us the ability

to see you come down from the mountain so that we could come

and kneel before you. What?

What an opportunity. I pray it's not wasted among the

people here today. I pray that there, if there is

someone who does not believe in you, God, do the work that only

you can do through the hearing of all the scriptures and the

message, the singing, the praying, the preaching of your

word. I pray that that person would

come to faith in you. Do a miracle, Father, make them

clean, heal them of their infectious sin.

And Father, thank you for what you're doing in us.

Thank you that we're no longer that that person, that Wretch

that is separated from you, but you've made us clean and holy.

And now when you look at us, Father, we have the

righteousness of Christ. Thank you, Jesus, we worship you

today. Amen.