The Pope's Mother-in-Law

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. So the centurion humbled himself and turned to Christ for help. This Roman expressed faith and there's evidence here based on what Jesus said.

He showed more faith than 90 something percent of the Jews of that time. So the centurion, like the leper, he believes Jesus has the power to heal. Also the centurion was acutely aware of his own unworthiness.

And that's kind of the part I want to focus on. Are we aware, because we've hopefully all here we've turned to Christ, but are we aware of our own unworthiness? I would argue you have to be aware of that before you can truly turn to Christ.

In Luke's account, he indicates that the Roman thought himself too unworthy to even approach or speak to Jesus. Instead, he reached out through intermediaries. That's not brought out in Matthew's account, but that's apparently what happened.

Hey, can you go ask Jesus for me? So that's what's taking place. So with both of these stories, the leper and the centurion, both men had faith, but both recognized that they were unclean. The leper was unclean because of his disease, and the centurion was unclean because he was a Gentile.

He was outside of God's covenant community of faith. And both men would be viewed as what by the Jewish people?

Undesirable.

I mean, they'd be viewed as a lot of things, I'm sure. But they'd be viewed as sinners. I mean, these people are sinners. They are outside of the grace of God. The Roman, for sure. I mean, the Romans were cruel.

This man was violent. That's what they would have assumed, even if it wasn't true. So the Roman, he's a dog. He's a sinner. And then you say, well, how would they say that about the leper? I mean, here's this poor guy, you know, living off by himself.

Why would they say that about the leper? Because that's the way they thought back then. Some people still think this way. That if something bad happens to you, if you have a disease, there's some tragedy, well, you must have done something to deserve it.

God must be punishing you. So if you contract an illness, that's the judgment of God. That's the way many of them thought.

Now, is that true?

Not necessarily. So the point is, both men would have been seen as sinners, as undesirables, as outcasts. But how did the Lord see them? See, this is what we need to do. We can view people that way, too.

We can have that temptation to, you know, I want to stay away from this person. Well, I don't want to have to deal with this person. You might not want to admit that, but that temptation is there, right?

So Jesus didn't see them that way. Obviously, we want to see people the way Christ sees them. Sometimes we get caught up in the details, though, right? It's easy to do. A Roman soldier, I mean, he's an oppressor.

Look what his people did to our people. And it's not like the Jews didn't have any good reasons to dislike them.

They did.

But the way God sees things is often very different than the way we see things. And we want to avoid this trap. You know, I talked about at the beginning, you know, having a one-dimensional view of Jesus.

This is what people do. They have their idea of what God should be, and they only focus on those parts of the Bible that fit their view, and they leave everything else out. So they form and fashion a God or a Jesus of their own imagination, and that really is a form of idolatry.

We want Jesus, no matter if he's angry, if he's compassionate, if he's giving some kind and encouraging words or some challenging words, we want Jesus for who he is, amen? But we also want to see people for who they are, or we want to see them as God sees them.

So both men recognized their own uncleanness. They turned to Christ, and Jesus, out of his great compassion, he heals the sick. And he commends the soldier for his faith. I can imagine if there are some Jews or, you know, scribes and Pharisees watching Jesus praising up a Roman soldier.

Can you imagine what they would have said? He's a traitor, or worse. So what does this tell you? People, you know, this is repeated. You've probably heard this. You know, when we get to heaven, there will be some people there that you're going to be surprised.

You'll be surprised who's there, and you'll probably be surprised who's not there. So the Jews who thought they had a free ticket in, Jesus is saying here, you're going to be cast out because you think you're entitled.

You know, you're looking down on people. You don't want them to be saved. You truly are judgmental, and you sort of take delight that these people might depart from the Lord's presence from all eternity.

But Jesus is saying to the leper, or to the Roman soldier, to the Gentiles, to all the world, the sinners of the world, he's saying, you will be in the kingdom. That's what he's saying to the Roman. You will be in the kingdom of God.

Now, of course, you have to have faith in Jesus. We understand that. But Jesus shows great compassion for all who trust in him, and it doesn't matter the person, their background, what they've done. Jesus shows compassion to all who believe.

Amen?

And I'm thankful for that, because I'm not deserving of it. You're not deserving of it. But there's a lot of people in this world, they do. I do deserve it. I'm a good person. Heaven wouldn't be the same if I'm not there.

Some people have that attitude. So Jesus has great compassion. Isaiah 30, verse 18, says, Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore he waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice, and how blessed are all those who long for him.

And then, of course, James 4, verse 6, a passage we know quite well, that God resists the proud, but he gives grace to who? The humble. Now, if you have leprosy, it's easy to be humble. But the Roman soldier, he had reason to be proud, and yet he humbled himself and came to Christ.

So what's the title of the message? The Compassion of Christ. And today, as you know, people are focused on the love of God and on this subject of the compassion of God. And, you know, the reason why I don't always emphasize that as much as maybe some people think I should, the reason, I think, is because most people, the love of God, the grace of God, for most people, it's presumed.

I mean, most people just assume that. Most people in the world today, if they do believe in God, in a God, most people would believe that, yeah, he is a God of love, which, of course, he is. But when you talk about that to the exclusion of everything else, then you, again, get that one-dimensional Jesus who's sort of really like an idol because he's only this one sliver, and Jesus is actually much more than that.

So this focus all on love all the time, love gets redefined. We've talked about that a lot. So my point is, for the most part, in the world today, the love of God is assumed. The grace of God is assumed, so much so that people think I don't even have to believe in Jesus.

I'm golden no matter what. But we still talk about it, right? Because God is love. That is what the Bible says. And without the love, why is Christ so compassionate?

Why?

Why did Christ show compassion on the Roman, on his servant, and on the leper? It truly is because of the love of God. Everything comes from God's love. So he is compassionate because he is loving. The word compassion is defined this way, a strong feeling of sympathy and concern for the suffering of others.

Do you have compassion on people? Some? There's an honest man.

Yes.

So some of you probably said, oh, yes, but then maybe you didn't want to say that because you know you don't always have compassion, right? But compassion is a strong feeling of sympathy and concern for the suffering of others.

But just as the love of God is more than a feeling, right, the true love of God contains some action, so compassion, it calls for action. Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to relieve people's suffering, whether it's physical, mental, or emotional.

Jesus did this. We see it. He healed these men. And we see another example of this in verses 14 and 15 where Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law. Now, some of you, did you know that Peter had a mother-in-law?

Who has a mother-in-law?

Yeah. Yeah.

So Peter had one, too. I'll tell you why that's significant in a moment. But it says, now, when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother lying sick with a fever. So he touched her hand.

Again, that touch, you know, it shows compassion, tenderness. So Jesus touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and served them. So we see that Jesus showed compassion not just on strangers, but also he showed compassion for his friends.

But just a side note why the mother-in-law thing is important. Some of you know where I'm going with this.

Some of you don't know.

The mother-in-law is here, maybe nervous where I'm going with this. But it's believed by many religions. Some Christian churches believe that church leaders should not be married. That's a pretty common belief in the world today, that pastors, priests, bishops, church leaders should not be married.

You're aware of this, right? In Catholicism, they teach that Peter was the first pope. And one thing that everybody knows about the popes, they're not allowed to be married. And, of course, you know, the popes claim to be infallible, and the joke is, well, if they were married, they would know they're not infallible because their wife would tell them.

But Peter, if he were the first pope, which he's not, okay, that's fiction, but if Peter were the first pope, hey, he has a mother-in-law, right? I've never met a person who has a mother-in-law but not the wife.

How would you get the mother-in-law but not the wife? What kind of deal is that, right? I have a great mother-in-law, okay? But you want the wife, too. But I digress. Hey, let's get back on track.

I've got to pull you back in, you know. But this is the heart of the Savior. When he saw someone suffering, he wanted to relieve that suffering. And that should be the same for us. When we see someone going through a hard time, we see someone in pain, someone dealing with it, we want to help.

We should want to help. So if your heart is heavy this morning, I have a word for you. If you're in pain this morning, whether your pain is physical, emotional, or psychological, if you turn to Christ, if you depend on Christ, the Scripture says, cast all your care upon him for he cares for you.

Jesus has compassion on you. You say, yeah, but they were healed and I haven't been healed. We're going to get to that. There is healing. But there's no more clear example of that care and compassion than what we see here in the Gospels.

God took on human flesh to walk among us lepers. Let me repeat that. God took upon human flesh to walk among us lepers. I'm not a leper.

Yeah, you are.

You have a spiritual leprosy called sin. We all do. And it's contagious and it's spread to all men. Romans 5 .12 says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned.

So not only do we have this spiritual leprosy, if you will, we're also Gentiles, like the Roman. We are Gentiles. Now, I'm pretty sure all of us, most all of us, are Gentiles according to the flesh. We're not Jewish.

We're not descended from Abraham. But even if you were, you know, every person is born a Gentile in this sense that we're born separated from God. We are only brought near by what? The precious blood of Christ.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscornickchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.