WWUTT 1981 Jesus Heals a Leper and Centurion’s Servant (Matthew 8:1-13)

If you have faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, He has forgiven you and cleansed you of all unrighteousness.

Not because you first believed, but because He first was willing. When we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we just finished up the Sermon on the

Mount. So we continue on in the ministry of Jesus, picking up in chapter 8.

I'm going to read here verses 1 through 13 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the

Lord. Now when Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed

Him. And behold, a leper came to Him and was bowing down before Him and said, Lord, if You are willing,

You can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched Him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed.

And immediately His leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him and saying,

Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented. And Jesus said to him,

I will come and heal him. But the centurion said, Lord, I am not good enough for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

For I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to this man, go.

And he goes. And to another, come. And he comes. And to my slave, do this. And he does it.

Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following,

Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

And I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion,

Go. It shall be done for you as you have believed. And the servant was healed that very moment.

Like I said in the beginning, this is coming right after the Sermon on the Mount, which is the longest discourse in Matthew's Gospel.

I said when we did an introduction to the Gospel of Matthew that Matthew focuses on five main discourses or speeches of Jesus.

The Sermon on the Mount is the first and the longest one. The next one doesn't come up until chapter 10, when

Jesus will send out His disciples. And then in chapter 13, we have a collection of parables.

Here in chapters 8 and 9, we have a collection of miracles that we're reading about. And all of this immediately following the sermon that Jesus just gave.

So notice again Matthew 8 .1. Now when Jesus came down from the mountain, that's the mountain in Galilee where He delivered

His sermon, large crowds followed Him. Remember that Jesus was teaching His disciples in the

Sermon on the Mount when we look at the context in chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. But there were large crowds that were there.

They wanted to see more miracles. They were astonished at His teaching at the end of chapter 7 because He spoke with authority.

And then we go into reading about that authority here in chapter 8, verses 1 through 13.

We're looking at two miracles today, Jesus cleansing a leper and then the centurion's faith in verses 5 through 13.

But there's some similarities between these two miracles, and it ties into the way that the

Sermon on the Mount closed. Let me read to you once again Matthew 7, verses 28 and 29.

Now it happened that when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were astonished at His teaching for He was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes.

And here we read about Jesus' authority in chapter 8. And the first three miracles that are given to us are

Jesus' authority over illness, His power to heal. Now I'm not going to get as far as the third miracle, which is

Peter's mother -in -law being healed, verses 14 to 17. We'll pick that up tomorrow.

But let's look at these first two, and we'll see the similarities between them. Jesus cleansing a leper and Jesus healing the centurion's servant.

So verses 1 through 4 again. Now when Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed

Him, and, behold, a leper came to Him and was bowing down before Him and said,

Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out

His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

And Jesus said to him, See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

Now notice here that the leper being healed is dependent entirely on Christ's willingness to heal him.

It is not dependent on the leper's faith. Jesus never gives credit to the leper's faith here.

There are times when you will hear Jesus say, Your faith has healed you, and we'll see occasions of that.

With the centurion, Jesus marvels at his faith, and the man's servant is healed.

In this particular miracle, in the very first one that we read about, following the

Sermon on the Mount, reading about Jesus' authority over even sickness and disease, the man who believes in Jesus to heal him is not credited for his faith.

It's dependent first and foremost on God's willingness to heal us.

So again, Jesus saying, I am willing, be cleansed, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

The thing that comes from the leper here is him saying, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

And we see that Jesus is willing, and so the leper is cleansed. So credit not given to his faith here, but rather recognizing that it is first the decision of God, whether we are going to be healed, cleansed, saved, whatever.

Our believing in him does not obligate God to do anything, and that's what the leper says here.

He comes completely humble to Christ, worships him. Behold, a leper came to him and was bowing down before him.

But the leper doesn't say, Lord, I believe, so now you have to heal me. He gives full credit to Christ in such a humble spirit to say,

If you are willing, I know that I will be cleansed. And Jesus says,

I am willing, and so the leper is cleansed. And Jesus said, See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

Now, why did Jesus tell the leper not to tell anybody? It's often said that the reason why

Jesus didn't want the leper to say anything was because he didn't want to draw a lot of attention to himself.

I really don't think that's the reason, though, because Jesus has already performed all kinds of miracles.

That drew a whole crowd to him when he did the Sermon on the Mount. And here after the sermon, people are still following him because they want to see all kinds of miracles.

It says crowds are following him when the leper comes to him and asks to be healed. So if a whole crowd is there witnessing

Jesus heal this man, why would Jesus tell the leper not to tell anybody?

Because he didn't want word getting out of this miracle that he performed. People were already seeing the miracles that Jesus was doing.

So what did he mean by see that you tell no one? Well, I think it's revealed more in the conclusion of that response.

He says present yourself to the priest and do the offering that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

So don't go off saying it by your own words or by your own testimony. Follow what's in the law, go to the temple, offer the sacrifice, and they will see you.

And that will be the testimony to them. Not because you said this guy healed me, but because in a continued humility, the man comes to Jesus humble and says, if you are willing, cleanse me.

And Jesus says I am and then cleanses him. So we see the humility of the leper from the very beginning.

It's as though Jesus is continuing to encourage his humility.

Don't let it be by many words that you testify of what's been done to you. Simply obey.

Do what God's word says. And go show yourself to the priest, and then that will be the testimony.

Because remember, during that time, they would keep a record of those who were leprous. And the leprous could not come in the city.

They had to be outside the city walls lest they spread their infection. It was considered unclean for them to be around other people.

They had to have themselves covered with garments. They had to have their faces covered. People kept their distance from them.

Whenever they walked by the lepers, you had, you know, leper colonies where the lepers would gather together.

They couldn't interact with those people who were clean or not sick. So since there was a record of those who were leprous, this man would go into the temple and say, hey, my name's on the record.

That's me right there. And then he would show himself to the priest, and the priest would verify himself, this guy has no leprosy on him at all.

If this is the guy, this is the one who was leprous that we had to put into the registry of lepers, and here we see that he's not even leprous anymore.

And he offers the sacrifice. This is talked about in Leviticus 14, that whenever a person was leprous or had a skin blemish of some kind, and when he was verified as having been cleansed, he was to take a spotless sacrifice and then go and offer it.

And he would be declared cleansed. So this is in keeping with what is said in the law. And by being obedient to the law, that's going to be the testimony to the fact that this man has been cleansed.

And then people will know Jesus has done this, and it is a genuine miracle that has happened in this man's life because Jesus was willing.

Not because the man's faith obligated Jesus to do anything, but Jesus was willing to cleanse him, and he was cleansed.

And so likewise, when we are cleansed, when we're cleansed of our uncleannesses, as said in Ezekiel 36, or as we read in 1

John 1 -9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

When we are cleansed, it's because God is willing to cleanse us. May the name of the

Lord be praised. Praise God. If you are forgiven your sins and you have fellowship with God, it is because God was merciful to you.

Amen? So we go from that miracle into the second one here, and this one references the faith of the centurion.

So before, the faith of the leper is not given any credit, but here Jesus definitely credits the faith of the centurion.

So we see here that, first of all, it's that God is willing, but that's not to say that faith is unimportant.

Faith is very, very important, as is emphasized in this particular miracle. So beginning in verse 5, when

Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him pleading with him. Okay?

So a centurion is a Roman commander, and he has 100 soldiers under him, hence why he's called a centurion, cent meaning 100.

So he has 100 soldiers. That's the kind of commander this guy is. And he says,

Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.

This man also acknowledges Jesus' authority. Now, he doesn't come bowing, at least that's not told to us in the story, like the leper did, but he nonetheless acknowledges the authority of Christ.

What a humble thing, in fact, for this centurion, who's a Roman, and the Romans are over the

Jews right now, right? Because the Jews are under what's basically

Roman captivity, since this is part of the Roman Empire. The Romans are their overlords, and yet you have this centurion who comes to Jesus, who's a carpenter.

I mean, like he's no one of any great relevance. He did not come from any sort of nobility, and yet this centurion comes humbly to Jesus, the

Galilean, the man who hangs out with fishermen, the guy who's a carpenter.

But this centurion comes and calls him Lord, and says, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.

Genuine concern for his servant. So, even though this is a man who probably has great wealth, in addition to being a commander, he's got slaves and servants under him, and these servants have probably been given to him as part of people that the

Romans have conquered. And so since they've conquered a certain people, of the captives, slaves have been given to this

Roman soldier. But you can tell that he cares for those who are in his household.

What a blessed thing that a slave would come into the household of a master who actually cares for his well -being, and you see that this centurion cares for his well -being.

It's not just, hey, I want my servant to rise up and do his job. No, he says of his servant, he's fearfully tormented.

I hate seeing my servant in this condition. Can you heal him? And Jesus said to him, verse 7,

I will come and heal him. Once again, just like with the previous miracle, Jesus is willing.

But the centurion says, verse 8, Lord, I am not good enough for you to come under my roof.

What humility on the part of this centurion. I'm not even a good man. I don't deserve to have you come into my house.

He's acknowledging his own wickedness before the Lord of all creation. Now, how much the centurion understood about Jesus being the very creator himself in human flesh, unlikely that he knew that, but still recognized

Jesus' authority and even a position as Lord, so that he says,

Lord, I am not good enough for you to come under my roof. This reminds me of when Jesus had done the miracle of the miraculous catch with his disciples.

Remember, he told the disciples to throw their nets down, and they pulled in a catch that was so great, they had to get two boats in, and then it was even toppling the boats with so many fish.

And when Peter saw this, he falls down before Jesus, and he says, depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner.

And it's like the centurion's response here is the same. He recognizes the miraculous power that is in Christ and sees his holiness,

Christ's holiness, but the centurion's unworthiness, so that he says, Lord, I am not good enough for you to come under my roof, but if you just say the word, my servant will be healed, for I also am a man under authority.

So, right, as a centurion, he's got commanders that are above him that tell him what to do, and he does it.

And I have soldiers under me, and I say to this man, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my slave, do this, and he does it.

Now, the amazing thing about the centurion saying that is he's showing that he recognizes

Christ's authority not only by the miracles that he has done, and surely the centurion knows about that.

The centurion may have even heard his teaching, may have been among those who were astonished at his words, as said in Matthew 7, 29.

So the centurion knows about Jesus' authority. He's confessing here that he has understood

Jesus' power to do miracles, but he's also, by this answer, showing his faith according to natural revelation.

Like, I've heard you have authority. I've seen that you have authority. And so I know that by your word, you can just say something, and it'll be done.

Because when somebody says a word to me, I do it. And when I have people under me, I say a word to them, and they do it.

So if you really have this authority, I know you just have to say a word, and my servant will be healed.

Natural revelation. Nobody's told him that Jesus could do this. He just knows that he can because of his understanding of authority.

And so Jesus says in verse 10, when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who were following, truly

I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

And with Jesus marveling, it would be like him going, well, well, look at this, guys.

You know, and turning to the people who are around him and saying, I've not seen great faith like this with anyone in Israel.

This is a Gentile. And he has more faith than you do. Jesus goes on to say in verse 11,

I say to you that many will come from east and west, and he's talking about Gentiles, people coming from the nations, and they will recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Now, that surely would have been offensive to a Jew to hear Jesus say that. The Gentiles are going to enter into the kingdom and recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob instead of us.

We're actually descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This centurion doesn't come from them, yet he gets to sit at their table.

And Jesus goes on to add in verse 12, but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, as he makes this reference to the sons of the kingdom, he's not talking about those who are followers of Jesus and are therefore inheritors of the kingdom of God.

He's talking about those who think of themselves as being the sons of the kingdom simply by their bloodline, because I'm born in the line of Abraham, therefore

I'm a son of the kingdom. Jesus says, rather sarcastically using that name, no, the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness, to the outside.

It's another reference to hell. They will be thrown out of the presence of God in a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Those who are weeping will be in mourning. Those who are gnashing their teeth will be in anger. God, how dare you do this to me?

I deserve that spot that that Gentile is getting. What are you doing? And Jesus said to the centurion, verse 13, go, it shall be done for you as you have believed.

And there Jesus gives credit to the centurion's faith. So like I said, it's dependent first upon the willingness of God, but that's not to say that faith is unimportant, because we must believe.

Even the leper believed. We read in Romans 5 -1, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, our coming to believe in Christ is because first,

God had mercy. It's because God was willing to save us, forgive us, to grant us repentance.

And we turned to the Lord Jesus Christ and believed, and so we live. It is first God's decision.

But we must also believe. If God has shown mercy to us, then we will believe.

We will put our faith in Jesus Christ. Our sins will be forgiven, and we will have fellowship with God.

Jesus says, go, it shall be done for you as you have believed. If you believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, it will be done for you.

But your believing in him is because God was willing. Because he had mercy on you.

In Romans 12 -1, Paul says, therefore, in view of God's mercies, let us present our bodies as living sacrifices unto the

Lord, holy and acceptable to him. This is your spiritual act of worship.

So because God has been merciful to you, you must live in holiness, showing that God has saved you.

He has cleansed you. So don't return to your former uncleannesses. Live in the righteousness and holiness of God today.

Because God was willing to save you. Let's finish there with prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the mercy that you have shown to us in Christ. We know that because of what

Jesus has said, our sins are forgiven. We have fellowship with God. We have the promise of everlasting life in your eternal kingdom.

We know that Jesus is returning to judge the living and the dead. And so may we continue to share the message of the gospel with others so that they too would come to Christ and believe and be saved if you are willing to cleanse them of their unrighteousness.

Help us to walk in holiness today before you. God, if there's anyone listening who's convicted of sin, may they repent and ask for your forgiveness and they go and sin no more.

Thank you for your willingness to heal us in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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