What Kind of Messiah Is This? Matthew 8:1-4

The Stigma of Leprosy and the Reality of Human Sickness

We have gone through a season where health has been on everyone's mind. At any given time since the fall of mankind, there has been sickness and physical ailments. But there are certain times in history where health is more on the front burner.

There have been pandemics throughout world history where health is the focus for better or for worse. This has been the case with COVID -19 since March. COVID -19 carries a stigma with it, almost unlike any other physical problem someone can have.

You have a cold? No big deal. If you have pneumonia, this does not get much attention, even though it is serious. But when it becomes known that one has COVID -19, everyone wakes up. You see that on the news.

This person was diagnosed with COVID -19, almost like they had stage 4 cancer. Now, it is getting attention not because it is more serious than other viruses or physical ailments, at least in most cases, but because it is infamous.

It is infamous. Now in Old Testament times, there was a particular disease that carried a stigma with it almost like no other. And that was leprosy. Leprosy still exists today, but it is rare and its treatment is effective where one can live a normal life.

The treatment was discovered in Norway in 1873 by a man named Amar Hansen. Leprosy is a very serious physical condition. As one author wrote, it is a bacteria that spreads on the skin, then leads to spongy, tumor-like swellings affecting internal organs and weakening the bones, making them susceptible to other diseases like tuberculosis.

As the bacteria spread, nerve damage occurred, leading to a person being crippled at the feet, and the hands became useless. The nerve damage also occurred around the eyes, leading to blindness. While the nerve damage led to a lack of the sensation, there was no pain.

The person wouldn't feel pain, but there was disfiguring that was taking place that would debilitate them. And people would look on at lepers and see this. As one author wrote, by this time one can see the person in this pitiable condition is a leper.

By a touch of the finger, one can also feel it. One can even smell it, for the leper emits a very unpleasant odor. Moreover, in view of the fact that the disease-producing agent frequently becomes hoarse, and you can now not only see, feel, and smell the leper, but you can hear his raspy voice.

In the Old Testament, in Leviticus chapter 13, when one had a less serious form of leprosy, they were considered clean. Others were thought to maybe have leprosy, and they were quarantined for seven days, and in some cases, seven more days.

Sound familiar? After 14 days, if the symptoms did not worsen, the priest at the temple would declare them clean. These people dodged a bullet because those who acquired the more severe form of leprosy, known as Hansen's disease, had a very difficult life ahead of them.

Leviticus 13 .46 tells us that leprous people were to be kept out of the camp in isolation. They could only be around other lepers because this bacteria was highly contagious, and there was no human cure.

This skin disease that went with people greatly affected one's social life, which was even worse than the physical condition itself. Lepers were outcasts. They were those who faced humiliation. They had a disease that could not be cured, and they were cut off from normal life.

Lepers lived a life of suffering, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We know from COVID -19 what isolation is like, and all of us have experienced isolation to some extent. As a church, we went two months without meeting, and those who have had the virus or been in contact with one who has had the virus has been required to quarantine for 14 days.

In fact, there's some people in our church today who don't have the virus. We don't think they do, but they're quarantined because they were around someone who may have had it. It's not easy being cut off from society over long periods of time.

We are made to be in community. We've experienced that recently. The difference between COVID -19 and leprosy is that with COVID -19, there is an end. We don't know when it will end, but the season where this virus is the focus will pass.

But for the leper, this was not so. Every leper had this strong desire to be healed, to be able to get back to their old life. The lepers in the first century who lived in Galilee had a unique opportunity that others in different periods did not have.

They could be cured through a man, a man who walked among them. This man was not an expert doctor, but God in the flesh. And he could do things that no other man could do. This morning we are going to see Jesus perform a miracle.

What we are going to see is that this is not why Jesus came to earth. The physical was not His focus. The spiritual was. So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 8. We will look at verses 1 -4.

And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 966. The sermon is titled, What Kind of Messiah Is This? And here's our big idea. This is what the sermon is calling you to do. Follow Christ for the right purpose.

Follow Christ for the right purpose. And we're going to see two reasons why. But before we jump into our text, let me give you a little recap of where we were a week ago. Last week we closed out the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus wrapped up the greatest sermon ever preached.

What we saw the last four Sundays is that Jesus summed up life in four categories. Two paths, two teachers, two disciples, and two foundations. There is truth and there is falsehood. Jesus simplifies life once He got to the end of the sermon.

Either we are going on the path of life or we are going on the path that leads to destruction. The fourth category that Jesus explained was showing us that there are two foundations in life. One foundation is Jesus and this is sturdy ground.

The other foundation is when one goes their own way. This is a foundation that is built on sand and it crumbles. The sermon last week called us to build our lives on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ.

And when one does this, he or she will stand at the final judgment. When the winds and the rain and the flood beat against that house, the house stood. Why? Because it was built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ.

The Leper’s Faith and Jesus’ Compassion

Now let's move on here to our text this morning. We are now done with the Sermon on the Mount but now we are going to see Jesus in action as He continues His ministry in the Galilean region in northern Israel.

Let's begin by looking at verses 1 and 2. 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.

What verse 1 tells us is that Jesus just finished His sermon and He comes down from the mountain where He preached. And as He comes down from the mountain, we read that great crowds followed Him. Now we get a little taste of this in our world when someone famous is out and about and people are like, oh, look who that is.

And then people flock toward that person. I remember hearing the story of people going to the PGA championship at Hazeltine Golf Course in Minnesota. This was back in 2009. One person who experienced this said, The crowds that followed Tiger Woods were similar to the crowds that followed Jesus in ancient times.

Woods is going from hole to hole. Masses of people are following Him. There's other golfers there. They're not following those people. They're following Tiger Woods. And this is what it was like in the first century.

Jesus, wherever He went, He drew crowds. They followed Him where He went. What we read here is that Jesus goes from preaching to helping people one-on-one. And here He is about to minister to a man who was ostracized from society.

Now we already learned about the background of leprosy in the introduction. This was a horrible condition. And it carried with it a stigma unlike any other condition. One author I was reading said that ancient Jews made a list of 61 defilements.

In other words, if you were defiled by one of these things, there was degrees of how bad they were. Some were worse than others. The number one defilement was coming into contact with a dead body. What was number two?

Number two was leprosy. Coming in contact with a leper. As we see in these two verses, this leprous man desperately wants to be healed. And he knows about Jesus' power. He would have known there was no natural cure for this condition.

So his only hope was for the supernatural. We live in a time where people scoff at the belief that there could be anything supernatural. But this comes from the sinful heart that has an animosity toward God.

Romans 1 verses 21 -23 says,. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking. And their foolish hearts were hardened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

So those who reject God and the supernatural are not coming from a place of intellectual superiority. They're coming from a place of moral inferiority. What I mean by that is that they don't want God to exist.

They don't want God to run their life. So they say, you know what? I'm going to come up with some reason that God isn't there and let's not believe in the supernatural. And we see that in our world. Now I've never been to Israel, but my parents have been there a few times.

And what I know is that people in that part of the world believe in the supernatural without batting an eyelash. I heard a story about the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. He was asked what their foreign policy was.

You know what his answer was? He said, miracles. He says, God protects us. This part of the world knows miracles unlike the skeptical West, the West that we live in. This was the region of the world where extraordinary things happened.

This is the place where God did mighty works in the Old Testament. And this is the place where the God-man, Jesus, walked. This is the place where he would eventually be risen from the dead. This leprous man believed in the supernatural.

To this point, Jesus had already healed many in Galilee. The news spread and he would have heard this. Matthew 4 .23 said, He healed every disease and every affliction among the people. We don't know if the lepers saw others get healed from a distance or if the news passed and he heard about it.

What we do know is that he believed Jesus could do this. What we see in verse 2 is that this leper had a lot of courage and faith. What we read is that he came to him. As we read this, we should admire the faith of the leper.

He believed that Jesus could perform this miracle of healing him from this horrid disease. What we have already seen from the Old Testament is that lepers were excommunicated. They were cut off from society.

And yet this man pursues Jesus. What is interesting is that Jesus, as God, he wrote the Old Testament law. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. They gave the law of the Old Testament. Where in Leviticus, it talks about these lepers being cut off from the people.

And when I say cut off, what I mean is they were separated from them. They were put in a camp with other lepers. And they couldn't go out in the open in society. So Jesus knows this law from the Old Testament.

So you might think, well, this leper is approaching him. And so he's going to tell the leper, you go to the camp where the law tells you to go. But does Jesus do that? No, he doesn't. What Jesus said about himself in Matthew 11 .29 is that he is gentle and lowly in heart.

He wants people to pursue him. He wants people to come to him. He doesn't drive people away. In fact, John 6 .37 says that everyone who comes to Jesus, he will never cast out. What Matthew 9 .36 says is that Jesus had compassion when he looked at the crowds.

So when he sees all these people going every which way, most of whom are going the wrong way, and as he looks at them, he has compassion. And by the way, there's something to think about this. When we look at our world, and when we look at how far our world has fallen from God, what's our response to that?

Do we hit them over the head and laugh and mock? Or do we have compassion and say, what a horrible place to be. I feel so bad for this person. And then pray for them. That should be our response as we look at the world we live in.

One mark of a true Christian is that you have compassion. You look on someone and you feel sad for them, and you want to help. You don't mock them.

You want to help.

I've enjoyed hearing a story by Mark, Mark Brooks that is, when he worked in the prison system as a correctional officer. There was a time when Mark was not compassionate towards certain prisoners because they did such horrible things, and he thought they were just getting what they deserved.

But as God worked in Mark's life, compassion grew in him even to the most unlikely people. The people the world would spit on and rejoice as they looked at their misery, as they were being punished for their crime.

During the season when God was really working on Mark's heart, there was a man who committed heinous crimes. So heinous, I won't even share them publicly. This man was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the doctor told him that he only had months to live.

As Mark looked at this man, he was filled with compassion. And he shared the gospel with him. I think you shared the gospel with him, right? Or you had a good gospel conversation with him. This compassion to one most would not show compassion to was something that he didn't once have, but now the Lord graciously gave him this ability to have compassion on this man.

Lepers were people who many did not have compassion toward. And these are people who had this disease at no fault of their own. And yet, they were looked down on by society. Even though in Old Testament times God isolated lepers from the community, this does not mean he treated them as second-class citizens.

We see that right here. The God-man is so kind to this leper. As he comes to him, he listens to him. He doesn't send him away and say, go back to that isolated camp where all the other lepers are. He receives them as he comes to him.

Jesus Cleanses the Leper and Shows the Heart of God

Let's read Jesus helped this man in verse 3. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him saying, I will be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. So what we see is that Jesus tells the man that he will heal him and he does.

We see the power of God here. He wasn't given a medication where the doctor tells him, you know what, you'll take this medication and you'll feel better several days or several weeks from now. Immediately, this man is healed as Jesus touches him.

That's incredible. And Jesus was glad to do it. Isaiah 61 verses 1 and 2 says this concerning Jesus. This is a prophecy about Jesus. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn.

What we see here is how big the heart of Jesus is. He came to this earth to heal. He healed people physically and he healed people spiritually. The Lord's desire to heal and his willingness to heal shows how gracious God is.

At God's heart of hearts, he is a gracious God. Now this doesn't mean that he's not a God of justice. He very much is a God of justice. He will punish every wrong. But God is a gracious God. When God punishes the wicked, by the way, Ezekiel 33 11 says that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

Now he is satisfied with his justice, yes. He doesn't regret sending anybody to hell because everybody who is in hell deserves to be there. He knows that's right. But he doesn't throw a party. I remember hearing someone say that one time.

I was like, yeah, that's right. At his heart of hearts, God is a gracious God. Now leprosy is a good symbol for the biggest problem that all humanity has. We look at the world right now and we wonder, what is the problem with the world right now?

One word answer.

Sin.

Sin is the problem with the world right now. You get rid of sin, there's no problems.

There's no wars.

There's no friction. There's no political turmoil. There's no bad neighbors. There's no bad families. There's no bad friends. There's no backstabbing.

There's no murder.

Sin is the problem with the world we live in. And leprosy is a good symbol for the biggest problem of all humanity. The spiritual condition of sin. It's not a coincidence that this is the first healing of this chapter.

As we will see, Jesus will heal several more times before this chapter is over. The ancient disease of leprosy symbolizes sin probably better than any other disease at this time in history. As one author put it, leprosy is a graphic illustration of sin.

Like leprosy, sin infects the whole person. And it is ugly, lonesome, corrupting, contaminating, alienating, and incurable by man. Lepers in ancient Israel were vivid objects of sin. But Psalm 103 verse 3 says this about God.

He heals all our iniquities and heals our diseases. It's humbling when you realize that we all have this enormous problem in common. Left to ourselves, we would be hopelessly lost forever. But God in His love sent Jesus to die so that we might be delivered from our spiritual disease.

The disease of sin. This disease will forever isolate us from God if we will not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that He came to the earth to die for our sins and was raised gloriously from the dead.

As Jesus touches this man, He is clean from the thing most plaguing Him in His life. And when we believe in Jesus, we are set free from that which most plagues us.

And you know what?

It's a beautiful truth to realize that you are a sinner. Because in order to fix the problem, you have to know what the problem is. The problem is sin. Once you realize you're a sinner, then you're given the good news.

The good news is the Gospel. What Jesus Christ did on our behalf. When He came on a rescue mission to save sinners. In this life, this side of heaven, that freedom begins as followers of Christ try to live sinless lives and pursue righteousness.

It won't be perfect. We know that. But the freedom starts. This bondage to sin. The freedom starts when you follow Christ. And in the age to come, you will be completely free from sin. Everyone who knows Christ as their Lord, Savior, and treasure.

That will be their experience. Complete freedom. So the physical healing here is symbolic of the spiritual healing He gives us through freeing us from our sin. And this is the first point. Follow Christ for the right purpose.

The first reason why is that He came to cleanse you from your greatest disease. The disease of sin. The second reason why we are to follow Christ for the right purpose is Jesus did not come to wow the crowds.

He did not come to wow the crowds. Verse 4. Let's read this. 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.

At the end of verse 4, we read that Jesus tells the leper to go show himself to the priest. In the cases where the lepers in the Old Testament were healed, they would go to the priest and offer the gift that was commanded in Leviticus 14.

And so what this tells us is that God supernaturally healed people. There was no medication that would heal anybody, but at times in the Old Testament, God would heal someone. And when they did, they were to go to the priest and offer a gift that would officially declare that they were clean.

Earlier in this sermon, we applauded the leper for his courage in approaching Jesus and his faith in believing that Jesus indeed could heal him. But in Mark 1 .45, the parallel passes to our text in Matthew, we read that he disobeyed.

Mark 1 .45 says that he, the leper, 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.

So he let it out. Jesus told him, don't tell anybody. The leper goes out, tells everybody what had happened. And what we see is that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town in the region of Galilee.

But even though he couldn't enter a town, as he was out in the country, people would find him. And so there were still crowds following him. Now as we read this, we might ask the question, why would Jesus say this?

Why would he tell the leper, don't tell anybody? It is true that Jesus healed many, and this is one of the ways that he would show that he indeed was the Messiah. But he didn't want to be known for this alone.

The primary reason Jesus came to the earth was to save sinners. Luke 19 .10 says that the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. What we must understand is that the mainstream belief in first century Judaism was that the Messiah would come in power, drive out his enemies, and reign.

The Old Testament did not predict two comings of Christ. Some Jews read the suffering Messiah of Isaiah 53 and they thought there must be two Messiahs. One who suffers and one who comes in power and reigns.

They had no concept of the Messiah suffering and then rising from the dead. So there could not be one Messiah who suffered and reigned according to their belief. Even the disciples, that the twelve disciples were caught in this.

When Jesus told them that he was going to die and rise again, their response was one of perplexity. They're like, what? That's not what we've been told. Jesus did not want Jews to misunderstand who the Messiah was.

If people knew Jesus mostly through his power of healing and doing other miracles, this would be a problem. And Jesus knew this. They would believe the false understanding that he was the Messiah who came only in power.

But that is not the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. This is why his teaching ministry was so important. He wanted people to know what they needed to know about him and what God calls everyone to do.

So this is why he did miracles in private and hid his Messianic identity to most. We see this other places in the Gospels. In Luke 8, verses 49 -56, Jesus healed a little girl by bringing her back from the dead.

After healing her, he told them, tell no one that he did this. He wants everybody to know that he did this. He told them, don't tell anybody. In Matthew 16, Jesus revealed to the disciples that he is the Christ.

After telling them this, he charges them in chapter 16, verse 20, tell no one that he was the Christ. At this point in his ministry, Jesus did not want most people to know that he was the long-awaited Messiah predicted in the Old Testament.

He did not want people to follow him for the wrong reasons. There were many thrill-seekers who loved being around him because he could do all these mighty miracles. It's neat being around a guy who does this.

But Jesus did not want this. He wanted people to follow him, submitting to his lordship and believing in him as Savior. After Jesus' resurrection, he told the disciples in Luke 24, verses 44 -48, he said, I fulfilled all of this.

I am the Messiah of the Old Testament. And then he tells them at the end, go proclaim that forgiveness of sins is accomplished in my name. So now he's telling them, go tell the world about the Messiah.

Everything about the Messiah. But during his ministry, he was slow to reveal his identity. This is what Jesus wanted people to know about him. And if they only looked at his supernatural ability, they would miss the point of why he came to earth 2 ,000 years ago.

He came on a rescue mission to save sinners. In our day, it seems that some churches operate like many of the Jews of the first century. They thought that power displayed a large crowd following one. They thought that that was evidence of God's work.

If there's a crowd, that must mean God's working. That must mean God's stamp of approval. Isn't that what Jesus did? He did great things and he got big crowds. When your goal is to put on a show to get big crowds, almost always there will be compromise.

As my old pastor has said, what you win them with, you win them too. In other words, whatever brings people in the door, you have to keep doing things to keep them there. But if Jesus is the reason you're in the door, you're going to stay.

Once I heard a church, they did a raffle for a truck. Oh, they got crowds to come. But are they going to stay? Three months later, you have to do a new truck. And keep doing that. That would get expensive, right?

Man.

But Jesus wanted people to believe in him for who he was. And by the way, this is not just a problem with church leadership. It's a problem with people who desire a church that will entertain them and not function how a church should function.

As 2 Timothy 4 .3 says, the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires. In this fallen world, Jesus was not impressed with crowds.

Nor should churches be. If crowds are the measure, we are an epic failure. I can even write that in my notes, by the way. I'm just thinking about this. But we're not a failure. God is working among us.

I believe that. Churches do not exist to draw crowds. They exist to create real disciples. Quality disciples. Disciples, by the way, who can stand up to what's happening in our country. To the oppression that might be on the way.

We need to be a church that is prepared for that. Jesus wants quality disciples. People who follow Christ for the right reasons. Jesus wants to be the Lord of your life. And this is my goal and my prayer for Eureka Baptist.

That we would grow together. Doing life together. Doing the one another's together. There's a passage in Romans 12, verses 9 -18 that talks about what a church should look like. Let me read this to you.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit.

Serve the Lord.

Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints. And seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. That's what a church is supposed to look like. That's a healthy church. This is what true disciples do. Those things I just read. We are not here to wow.

We are here to grow and live together on our journey to heaven. Throughout Jesus' ministry, we see this. He was not interested in big crowds. Isn't that remarkable? When you read the Gospel, that should stand out to us.

He's not interested in big crowds. He often had big crowds. But he wasn't thinking, man, we're really doing good. Let's keep getting people to come. There was one episode in John 6 where Jesus preached and everybody left Him.

And only the disciples were with Him. The 12 disciples. And Jesus said to them, are you going to leave too? And you know what they said to Him?

Where else would we go?

You're the only one with the words of eternal life. That shows true disciples.

Right there.

Jesus preached hard things that drove people away. And only a handful were with Him. He was interested in sincere disciples. People who believed in Him for the right purpose and were willing to follow Him no matter how much the cost.

During Jesus' ministry, He knew that people would follow Him because of the wow factor and not what He taught. And this is why He told the leper, don't tell anyone, in verse 4.

But the leper,.

Who was just healed, made things harder by letting the news get out about Jesus' supernatural ability as Mark 1 .45 informs us. Jesus did not want to be a world famous magician where people followed Him for the glamour that their sinful hearts desired.

This was so in the first century and it's still so in the present day. Churches need to be built to foster an environment where people do not follow Jesus for the glamour. What you win them with, you win them to.

But Jesus' plan is to build a church with genuine followers of Jesus Christ. So we are to follow Christ for the right purpose. And we see two reasons why in this text. The first is that He came to cleanse us from our greatest disease.

The disease of sin. And also, the second reason is that He did not come to wow the crowds. People can follow Him for the wrong reasons like many do. And many in the first century did. Many do today. And may this church be one where we follow Him for the right reasons.

Where we're 100 committed to the solid foundation of the Word of God that Jesus has handed down to us through His apostles. And may we live.

By that.

And not be tossed to and fro by the new thing that's on the block. So this is what God calls us to live for.

In our lives.

And so may we do that. And people who understand this are true disciples. Now next Sunday is going to be a unique Sunday. Unlike maybe anything you've ever seen. We're going to have a harvest festival and again, it's not to wow the crowds.

We don't want to undo the whole sermon by doing that next week. Our morning service is going to be the harvest festival but the goal is still going to be the same.

To glorify God.

And to be helped. That everyone who comes would be helped and encouraged and challenged. And so next Sunday will still be that but it's going to be done in a different way. We're going to be singing some different music.

Mark is going to be playing a lot of country gospel songs next week. And Laurie, I think you're planning on singing with them too. And so I look forward to having that time with all of you. So you won't want to miss it.

Please come out. And the sermon is going to be different too. Because we're going to look at the history of our church and how God has worked over the last 140 years at Eureka Baptist. So please come next Sunday.

Prayer for Genuine Disciples and Salvation

Let's pray. Father in heaven, I'm amazed Lord at how you accomplished things in the first century when you came. You drove many away with your message. The miracles drew people to you and then once you started teaching, things thinned out.

Because you called people to count the cost and many were not willing to count the cost. And those thrill seekers who followed you for the wrong reasons ran away. But those who were genuine stayed with you.

And my prayer, Lord, is that our church would be full of people who are rock solid believers, genuine believers, who are willing to follow Jesus for the right purpose.

Lord,.

My prayer is that if anyone is here today who doesn't know Christ as their Lord, Savior, and treasure, my prayer is that they would believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved. That they would realize that He came 2 ,000 years ago to cleanse us from our sins.

And my prayer is that everyone in this room would have that. In Jesus name,.

Amen.