In the sermon, Scott Brown delves into the themes of authority and mercy as portrayed in Matthew 8:1-13, where Jesus heals a leper and a centurion's servant. Brown emphasizes the dual nature of Christ's authority and mercy, noting that a ruler with only one of these qualities would make for a dangerous world. He relates the physical healings performed by Jesus to the greater spiritual healing offered through the Gospel, asserting that healing is a picture of the Gospel's power to save. The sermon discusses the universal experience of sickness as a result of the fall and how it can drive individuals to seek Jesus, enhancing faith and dependence on God. Brown highlights the faith of the centurion as an example of recognizing Jesus's supreme authority, contrasting it with the lack of faith found in Israel. He explores the relationship between sickness and sin, suggesting that while some sickness results from sin, others serve to glorify God. The sermon encourages believers to prioritize faith and prayer over purely naturalistic remedies, understanding sickness as an opportunity for spiritual growth and reliance on God's sovereignty.

Reading from Matthew chapter 8 verses 1 to 13. When he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, a leper came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

And Jesus said to him, See that you tell no one, but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them. Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, saying, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, dreadfully tormented. And Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word and my servant will be healed. For I am also a man under authority, having soldiers under me.

And I say to this one, Go, and he goes, and to another, Come, and he comes, and to my servant, Do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said to those who followed, Assuredly I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And I say to you, that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' Then Jesus said to the centurion, Go your way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. And his servant was healed that same hour.

Let's pray. O Lord, we so desire that you would open up our eyes to see wondrous things from your law, that you would keep us from error, that you would show us the things that we need to know today. All of us have come here, Lord, under your great and wonderful sky that you've established. And now, here we are, Lord, together. And I pray that you would come and pour out your spirit upon us, that you would illuminate our minds, Lord, that you would that you would keep me from saying anything that I shouldn't say and that you would help us Lord to love these words that you have provided for us today.

Amen. We're here before a passage of Scripture that really extols two great things, and these two things are the authority of Jesus Christ and His mercy. Now it would be a very dangerous world if the ruler of the universe had all the authority but no mercy. Or it would also be a terrible world if the rule of the world had no mercy but no authority. So here in this passage, though, we have both the authority of Jesus Christ and His great mercy.

And it's such a beautiful passage. So as we consider the healing of the leper and of the centurion servant in Matthew chapter 8, I just have to tell you that I'm transported straight into the world that I'm living in today, the world of sickness. Just three days ago, a friend of mine who's about my age died of cancer. His funeral is Monday. Then last night I heard of another, a dear friend, whom the doctor says, again, probably about my age, doesn't have very long to live.

So this morning we have before us words of help to understand the world of disease and sickness and the heartache that has come from the tragic results of the fall in the Garden of Eden. And what we find here is that the Lord Jesus Christ presents himself as having exclusive power over sickness and disease. And we find him here as the healer of sicknesses. Now, sickness is a universal aspect of our world. And all people have been sick.

There's not a single person in this room who has not been sick. Some of you are sick today. Some of you have ailments that are pernicious. They continue. You do not know what to do about them.

You've tried to cure them. And you've run out of remedies. And so, you know, we have to ask, you know, why is it that there is so much sickness in the world? And the fact that all this sickness is never completely preventable. And so here we are as a people, very much like the people that were before the Lord Jesus Christ, with maladies that they don't know how to fix.

And so that's what we have here. Now, there's so much here. There's the whole picture of the gospel. Because whenever you encounter healing, you encounter a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We'll talk more about that later on.

The healing that Jesus Christ does, it always points to the power of the cross to break the power of sin and death, and to finally create those conditions in heaven where there are no more tears and there's no more sickness. And so, whenever there's healing, there's a picture of the Gospel. Here we find Jesus addressing the effects of the fall, because in the trail of the fall is sickness, a world of sickness and death. And we also find ourselves, you know, put in a position to consider the relationship between the sovereignty of God and faith and healing and how to deal with our own thoughts about all these things. And it's such an eminently practical text because everyone in the world has been sick at some point in their lives and have cried out to something, have gone somewhere for help.

So this is a very universally applicable text. And what we find from here at On in Matthew, you'll find a number of encounters with sickness. Now, in verse 1 we read, He came down from the mountain. So Jesus has just come down from this great sermon explaining the kingdom of heaven. He's been explaining this most critical matter for all of life.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. If you don't understand the kingdom of heaven, then you don't understand how anything fits together in the world So Jesus has just taught them with authority and the last words we read, you know out of the Sermon on the Mount Is everybody's astonished because he taught as one with authority, not as the scribes. He was quoting the Old Testament. The scribes were quoting all kinds of other things. And so now, Jesus turns from the teacher to the healer of diseases, and the winds, and the waves, and the demonic powers, and every imaginable kind of sickness that mankind can have.

And so here Jesus turns from this didactic instruction in the Sermon on the Mount to a whole world of diseased mankind and the various maladies from psychological to physical maladies and spiritual maladies that are upon the human family. So now in Jesus, he heals the leper, two paralytics, he stops a fever, he calms a storm, he casts out demons, he raises a girl from the dead, he gives two blind men their sight, and on and on and on. There are nine miracles recorded in chapters eight and nine. So imagine, just imagine the scene here. He comes down from the mountain and then after he has spoken with power, now he exercises his power.

And nothing like this has happened on this scale in the history of the world, I don't believe. We don't know of anything that has happened with such dramatic and comprehensive power, so that all people are being healed. The world has just never seen anything like this. And I don't believe that the world has had seen anything before like this with such astounding thoroughness, and nor from the time that Christ left the earth, have we seen anything quite so like the healing ministry of Jesus Christ. And all these miracles, of course, we know why they were given.

In John chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, we're told why these things happened. These things were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing in Him you might have life in His name. So all these miracles that are taking place beginning in chapters 8 and 9 are for this purpose. Of course we read in chapter 4 that Jesus was performing these same kinds of deeds of His authority. We notice that the great multitudes followed Him in the second part of verse 1, and this phenomenon is going to continue to characterize Jesus' ministry.

Although many will leave Him. In fact, all will leave Him at some point. But multitudes are following him. And then in verse 2, really an amazing thing happens, something that is completely surprising. A leper comes to him, of all people.

A leper comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's something here in these next two chapters that I hope you can see if you read it carefully. That when We read the words, and behold a leper came. This really launches what will be a theme, just a consistent theme throughout the next two chapters. Because people are constantly coming to Jesus.

It's the theme of coming to Jesus. You remember what that was like. You came to Jesus Christ. He gave you a desire and you followed Him. You found Him because He gave you energy and strength to seek Him.

And so that's what's happening here in this passage. And I'll just show you some examples. Verse 2, a leper comes. In verse 5, a centurion comes. In verse 19, a scribe comes.

In verse 28, a demon-possessed man comes. When we go to chapter 9, in verse 2, the disciples bring a paralytic lying on a bed who has been beset by sins and he's healed. In verse 10, publicans and sinners come to Jesus. In verse 11, Pharisees and scribes come to him and they ask him a theological question. In verse 18 in chapter 9, a ruler whose heart is broken over the death of his little daughter comes to Jesus Christ.

It was this death that drove him to Jesus. And then in verse 19, a woman who for 12 years had an issue of blood, she spent all of her life savings on it, and she comes to Jesus and touches the hem of his garment. People are just coming and coming, and then In verse 27, two blind men come. In verse 32, a mute and the demon possessed come. So this is a section of scripture where we see people coming to Jesus Christ.

What a blessing it is to come to Jesus Christ. That's what all these people are doing. It ought to just bring back such memories of hope and comfort and joy in those days when we came to Jesus Christ. If you've not come to Jesus Christ, Come to Him. Like all of these people came in humility, in faith, in desperation, and in the belief that there was really only one person, there was only one thing that could help them or heal them to relieve their shattered consciences from demon possession, from all the things that had happened to them.

That's what's happening here. People are coming. It reminds me of Psalm 119 verse 71 where David says, it has been good for me that my soul was afflicted. All these people were afflicted and their afflictions caused so much good to come to their souls. Now that's the key to all the healings that are happening here.

It is good when your soul is afflicted because it drives you to come to Jesus Christ, the place of your only hope. And of course Jesus, you know, is moved with compassion And he is filled with authority for those who come to him. Now, many commentators at these first three miracles, the healing of the leper, the healing of the centurion servant, and the healing of something that might seem so small, the fever of Peter's mother-in-law. That these things, these three, probably happened in the same day, a busy day for the Lord Jesus Christ. And what a great day for those who were compelled through their sickness to come to him.

But here what we find is a leper has come. Now What is leprosy? It was the deadliest and most fearsome disease of the ancient world. And there were rules and regulations that were made that isolated lepers from the rest of the community. The rabbis said that a leper could not, you could not get more than six feet, closer than six feet to a leper.

And if the wind was blowing 150 feet, these people were isolated from normal life. Lepers hardly ever recovered and nothing could heal them. They had no freedom to come to anyone. It was a disease of despair and isolation and being cut off from fellowship and social contact and the normal proximities of kindness and conversation and things like that that normal people are able to enjoy. Now this leper felt freedom to come to the greatest teacher who ever lived.

That's an astonishing thing. He broke all social barriers here and he comes to Jesus Christ. You know, leprosy really is a terrible disease. It's a disease of loss of sensation. It's a disease where everything becomes numb and you can't feel your pain anymore.

That's the worst thing about it. For example, if the leopard puts his hand over, if he was alive today, a range, and it was hot, he could not feel that it was hot, so he would just really touch it, his hand would be burned. There's a book that was written several years ago by Paul Brand about his work among the lepers in India, and he talks about different ways that leprosy ended up, you know, for the demise of people. He talks about going into a storeroom and he couldn't turn the lock because it was rusted. And a little Indian boy comes and he takes the key and he says, I can open it.

And he just turns the lock just like that. And Dr. Brand looks on the floor, and there's blood on the ground, because that boy, the key had cut right into his flesh all the way to the bone. He didn't even feel it. He didn't even know that it happened.

And that's the problem with leprosy. He tells the story of a man who was washing his face with hot water every day and eventually became blind because the water was so scalding hot he could not feel how hot it was. So if you have leprosy you're sleeping in the night and a rat chews up your finger, you don't know it until you wake up and look at it the next day, and you still can't even feel it. That's the problem with leprosy, is that it just numbs the pain. You know, pain is good.

Pain drives you to do something. And We often think how terrible pain is, but pain actually is meant to drive us to do something. And we know that when it comes to sickness, you know, the sickness of pain is meant to do a number of things for us. We should seek remedies, because pain is given to us for that purpose. Pain is good in that sense, because it helps us to know what is going on around us.

You know, Paul Brandt tells stories of men just walking on broken glass and not even knowing it, having their feet shredded by that. So if they had had the pain, that wouldn't have happened. So pain is good. Leprosy was also a sign of judgment in the minds of people of that day because of particular things that had happened, like with Gehazi and Miriam and Uzziah. They were all struck with leprosy because of their sin.

They got sick because they sinned. Many people who are sick are sick because they sinned. And we need to carefully consider our sins. Whenever we're sick, it should be the very first thing that we should consider. And then leprosy was put under management.

It was put under the instruction of the priests, because it was thought to be a spiritual matter. In Israel, God commanded that a leper would go to the priests for cleansing, because it was thought to be a spiritual matter that was underlying all these things. Plus, it was very dangerous for the rest of the community. And so there were things that were commanded. And they believed that only God could heal.

That's why Naaman believed that only God could heal his leprosy. In 2 Kings 5 he says, am I God that I'm sent to recover a man of a leprosy? Well, it was something that was thought that only God could heal. And what we find here with this leper, it says in verse 2, look with me there, and he worshiped him saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And so here the Leper comes with a heart of worship.

He's bowing down. The word that is used here just indicates sort of a falling down on your knees and crying out to God, being so dependent upon Him. Oh, and He worshiped Him. This is an instance of the worship of God in a very public place. And he calls him Lord.

And he's worshiping before he is being healed. Now what we know from scripture about healing is that that Jesus healed so freely, everyone everyone who's healed doesn't repent. Everyone who is healed doesn't turn to Jesus Christ in their hearts because he is so merciful towards sin and sickness to even heal those who are dead in their trespasses and in their sins. This is the great mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot miss His enormous mercy for those who are suffering.

And so he says, if you... So he worships, that's the first thing he does. I just want us to see very clearly what he does. He's worshiping, and then he comes in faith, and he offers up... I'm just going to call it a prayer of faith or a cry of faith, Lord if you are willing make me clean.

This is a very appropriate prayer. Oh Lord if you are willing make me clean. All of us know that every time we pray that prayer we've not been healed. And so this is the prayer of this leper that is an appropriate prayer. Oh Lord if you are willing you can make me clean.

It's a very appropriate prayer and I'm confident many of you are praying this prayer even here today for the particular maladies that have been laid upon your brow. And then he came with faith. He had faith. He believed that Jesus Christ was able. He just wanted to know if he was willing.

Those are two things that are separate, because he's always able to heal. There has never been a sickness that he cannot heal. But the question is, in his wisdom, according to his divine, sovereign plan for all things, to glorify himself, is he willing to heal? And so that's the matter, that's before this leper. He wants to know if Jesus Christ is willing to heal him.

And it appears that he understands that he may not be willing to heal him. In the same way that he may not be willing to heal you or me of the malady that is upon us now. He came with a spirit of dependence. I think it's fair to say that he didn't demand to be healed. He wanted to be healed.

But did he actually ask to be healed? He didn't claim any rights. It seems that he would have been willing to continue as a leper because he's asking if the Lord is willing. And then in verse 3, Jesus healed him. Then Jesus put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed.

And immediately the leprosy left him. What a fantastic set of words to read. He was willing, and there was an immediate healing. Now, he could have been healed without a word or with a word, but rather Jesus healed him by touching him. And this was probably the first time this man had been touched in many, many years.

Can you imagine the impact of the Lord Jesus Christ reaching out and touching you. If no one had touched you, no one was allowed to touch you. No one was allowed to go near you. You were unclean. People would cry out in the streets, unclean, unclean while you walked by.

There wasn't a hope at all for you ever to be touched by anyone. I mean, you can just think for a moment about the blessings of human touch, of holding a baby in your arms. This man would have been deprived of that. Of putting your arm around or embracing your wife. This could not have happened.

It would have been unlawful. This man had not been touched. And here, the Lord Jesus Christ defies all of these things and He touches them. He had not been touched in a very long time. And so here what we learn is that Jesus has instantaneous authority over all diseases, including one that is like this one.

This one here, leprosy, it is so obvious, it is ugly, it is incurable, it's pervasive, it's destructive, it separates you from people. And Jesus is able instantaneously to heal you of any malady, whatever it might be. This is why we read in Exodus 15, I am the Lord who heals you. Or in Exodus 23 verse 25, I will take away sickness from among you. Or in Psalm 103, verse 3 as we read this morning, He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.

Or as in Jeremiah 30, I will give you back your health again and heal your wounds. Or as in Deuteronomy 7 15, the Lord will remove from you all sickness. Or as in Isaiah 46 verse 10, I'm sorry, in verse 46, 11, yes, I have spoken it. I will bring it to pass. I have purposed it.

I will also do it. So Jesus here is demonstrating his perfect authority and instantaneous ability to heal all sickness. And he can do it right this second today if he desires it. And then Jesus instructs this leper not to say anything about it. Now, he very specifically issues him a command.

See that you tell no one, but go your way and go to the priests. And so these are the two instructions. And why did Jesus tell him that? I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine.

Now we do know in Mark's telling of this story that because he went out and told people that Jesus could no longer go into the city and he had to go to a remote place because of the press of the crowds. Maybe that's why Jesus told him. But I have absolutely no idea why Jesus would ask him to do that. Besides, who can be quiet about something like that anyway. So it was a very difficult instruction but he did disobey the Lord.

Here's John Calvin speaking of this. Those who allow themselves to be guided by inconsiderate zeal act improperly because the more eager they are to please God the greater progress do they make in rebellion to his commands." So I don't know if that's the answer to the whole thing, but whatever it was, he did not obey. And he says, go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded. So the law demanded sacrifice for lepers being declared cleansed and you can read it in Leviticus 13 and 14, but there was sort of an elaborate process that had to be engaged. The entire chapter 14 itemizes all the different things.

The leper was to bring two birds. One was to be sacrificed. The other let go free. Then there were sacrifices brought. There was a seven day period.

If the house was defiled, the house had to be cleaned and maybe even completely torn down and burned. But there was a whole process that had to be engaged with a leper that's explained there. Okay, so what can we learn? What can we learn from the leper and his healing? Number one, it was the sickness that drove the leper to Jesus.

And so whenever there's sickness, we have to consider the purpose and the blessing of sickness. Even though it is a curse from the fall, God has designed it for purposes just like this. And here's, I'll just put it in the words of Charles Spurgeon, who said, I venture to say that the greatest blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness. Sickness has frequently been of more use to the saints of God than health has. So that was virgin.

That it can be of enormous usefulness to you. That while it is such an amazing blessing to have health, There's something that can be even a greater blessing and that is sickness. Because it does what it did to all these people that we itemized earlier. It drives them to Jesus. It drives you to cry out to God.

It makes you dependent. It increases your faith. It makes you see the greatness of His power, your littleness, and the tremendous dependence that you have upon Him for everything, including that fever that you have. So that's one thing that we learn. By the way, the Scottish pastor David Dickinson wrote this, on the bed of sickness the Lord ripens his people for glory.

And to the elder himself it is often a scene of instruction and revival." He's talking about when people get sick and they call the elders of the church. And he says, it's on the one hand, the bed of sickness, ripens his people for his glory, But it also becomes the scene of instruction and revival when elders come and instruct. Spurgeon tells the story of the great cholera epidemic in London, where everyone was, well, many were leaving town, but he and his pastors were going house to house. And they were instructing the sick. And he says the gospel spread mightily during that time because they were not afraid to go get sick of cholera.

They went in and they prayed for the sick. The second thing we learn is that it was Jesus' exclusive power to heal that healed this leper. And then thirdly, I just want to say this now because We're going to be in narratives where sickness is being dealt with. And I'm going to say something now that I hope we can constantly remember when we're considering these narratives about sickness. And that is that healing is a picture of the Gospel.

We're going to encounter many sicknesses now throughout Matthew, but we need to understand that sickness is a picture of the Gospel. And here's how. It is only by the willing hand of God that anyone can be saved. No one was, it does not depend on the will of man, but only on God who has mercy. No one was ever saved unless God opened their heart.

God is completely sovereign in salvation. And only Jesus Christ can cleanse the sinful soul. It is only by His hand, only by His willingness. And God is just as sovereign in salvation as He is in healing. That's what the Bible teaches.

He is just as sovereign in healing as he is in salvation. So when you see healing in Scripture, it is a parable of the Gospel. The leper and the centurion, they completely understand that they are dependent upon Jesus Christ for healing. And that's exactly how it is for salvation. The same helplessness that the leper had, the same helplessness that the centurion had regarding his servant, is the exact same helplessness that you have in securing your own salvation You are completely helpless to save yourself Christ must be willing He must be willing to save you or you cannot be saved.

And he must be willing to heal you or you cannot be healed. So when Christ touches us with His blood, we become cleansed. And when a man touches a leper, he becomes clean. But when Jesus Christ touches a leper, he becomes clean. So when Jesus touched this leper, he became clean.

In the same way that the Apostle Paul was speaking of in 1 Corinthians 6 when he said, some of you have been thieves and homosexuals and idolaters and all kinds of things. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were cleansed. This is an act of divine mercy. The leper was cleansed in the same way that the soul is saved by the healing touch of Jesus Christ. You were washed.

You were cleansed. You did not do it to yourself. So it's a picture of the gospel. And I'm sure that leper concluded the same thing that David did in Psalm 119 verse 71. It has been good for me that my soul was afflicted.

Okay, so that's the leper. Now let's move on to the centurion and his servant in verses 5 through 11. Now, when Jesus had entered to, or 5 to 13, now when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him pleading with him. And of course now the scene moves to Capernaum here and while it might have been astonishing to think that a leper would come to Jesus, an unclean person would come to Jesus. It's just as astonishing that a Gentile Roman soldier would now come to Jesus in humility, in brokenness, in dependence, in crying out to Him for mercy.

I mean, imagine a Roman soldier crying out to Jesus Christ for mercy. This man served in the most powerful empire in the world. And also imagine how different this scene is from the last. Jesus is before a leper whose body is broken, he smells, he can hardly talk because his throat is being destroyed and he is despised. And now a man with weaponry, he has command over 100 soldiers, he probably has his armaments on, he's confident, He can speak a word and it will be done.

He is a completely different kind of presence than we find with the leper. What an amazing contrast. Here Jesus Christ is such a good Savior, He is such a merciful Shepherd that He would come and bring all people from the bottom of society to the top of society and bring them together. But they all come on the same terms. Humility, brokenness, crying out to Him.

So here's this really amazing scene of the centurion coming. He was no ordinary Roman soldier. He loved the nation. He had built a synagogue. And he had many friends among the Jews because the other Gospels tell us that the Jews, some of the Jews were coming and making this appeal for him as well.

He wasn't the only one making the appeal. He had many friends among the Jews and it's interesting that apparently you can go and see the ruins of a synagogue in Capernaum. It was probably the one that this man built. He built a synagogue, so says the other gospel writers. God has his remnant in many places.

We should not despise people in every place, because God has his remnant there. Even among the centurions. Now Jesus, whenever he talks about centurions, he always talks positively. He always has nice things to say about centurions, which is why he should always be nice to Tommy Vestal. He's one of the centurions among us.

But he was a Roman soldier, and he was a Gentile. He was pleading, his request is, Lord, again he comes just in the exact same way as the leper, he's saying Lord, he's placing himself under his authority. He recognizes that his authority cannot do what needs to be done. He needs an authority of a superior. He needs the authority of Jesus Christ.

So he says, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented. And so here's this servant, and he has compassion on his servant. He cares for his sufferings. He's seeking a cure for his servant. Now this is very much in contrast to Roman slavery.

Roman slavery viewed servants as just living tools to use any way you want. But that's not the way this Roman centurion was treating his servant, because he was a Christian, because his heart was toward God. And here again, he says, Lord. He's not like those who say, Lord, Lord, but do not do what the Lord says. He says he is saying Lord in the right way.

And so there's a very humble and gracious disposition and then Jesus does something he offers to come. Jesus says to him I will come. He's willing. He's actually willing to come. What an amazing thing.

The centurion wasn't even expecting him to come. But he said, I will come and heal. Those again are some of the most wonderful words you can ever hear. I will come. I will come and heal.

I mean, how many times have you desired that of the Lord, that he would say, I will come? I think back of the various difficulties even that my wife has had in her in her own body. Some, you know, very pernicious afflictions and how often we prayed, Oh Lord, please come, please come. And that is the kind of prayer that is being prayed here. But here the Lord says, I will come and heal him.

And so this centurion, he becomes a beggar. And Jesus becomes his servant to the Gentile. It's such an amazing picture. Jesus is going to come now and serve. He's not only the servant who rules, he's the ruler who serves.

He's now serving the centurion. This is your Savior, this is your God, this is your Jesus who rescued you. He takes the towel of servanthood and he serves his people in the same way here. Often that he served this man. Interesting that the centurion says, calls Jesus Lord when he was required to say, Caesar is Lord.

Something had happened to this man to say that. His heart had submitted and he said, Jesus is Lord. And that was the key to it all. And then we see the centurion's faith in verse 8. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.

So you see his disposition of humility and unworthiness in coming to Jesus. And then you see his faith, but speak only a word and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one go and he goes, and to another come and he comes, and to my servant do this and he does it." So he has faith But he also recognizes what is the ultimate theme of these next two chapters, and that is the authority of Jesus Christ. He recognizes the supreme authority of Jesus.

That's why I said at the beginning that Jesus turns from the authoritative teacher to the healer with authority. Because that is the main issue here, that Jesus Christ has authority. When you leave this place and you just, what did he say? Just remember this one thing, Jesus Christ has supreme and exclusive authority over all sickness and not just that, but everything else. That's the theme, That's what I'm trying to say.

That's what's here. That's why the centurion is grappling with this whole matter of authority. Because he understands what authority is like. But he knows that there's a greater authority than greater authority than himself. He understood the use of power and how power is delegated.

And then Jesus says, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. So Jesus was amazed at this. So, I mean, just think about this for a minute. No one in Israel had greater faith than this filthy Gentile. And of course Jesus has been talking about faith, you know, all the way through the Sermon on the Mount, And now he shows us an example of a man who does have faith, who really, with all of his heart, believes in the authority of Jesus Christ, and trusts that if he is willing, he will do what he desires.

And so, later on in Matthew 8, Jesus is going to say now to his disciples, now think about this for a minute, he just says he's not seeing such faith as in this man here. By the way, I don't believe The word great is in the original Greek, it's implied, because it is absolutely great faith. But he says later to his disciples, oh you of little faith. Here are these contrasts. The Gentile who's not supposed to have faith, the disciples who do have faith, and they're playing opposite roles.

And that's the way it is often with us. We often are playing a different role than what we represent ourselves to be playing. And we learn here that distance is no obstacle for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I was thinking when I got up early this morning of the words of introduction to A.W. Pink's book, The Sovereignty of God, where he says, who is regulating affairs on this earth today?

God or the devil. That God reigns supreme in heaven is generally conceded. That he does so over this world is almost universally denied. If not directly, then indirectly. So we often indirectly do not regard Jesus Christ as having authority by many, many things that we do and think.

I think also says, here's the fundamental difference between the man of faith and the man of unbelief. The unbeliever of the world judges everything by worldly standards, views life from the standpoint of time and sense, and weighs everything in the balances of his own making. But the man of faith brings in God, looks at everything from his standpoint, estimates values by spiritual standards, and views life in the light of eternity. Doing this, he receives whatever comes as from the hand of God. Doing this, his heart is calm in the midst of the storm.

Doing this, he rejoices in hope of the glory of God." And I believe that was the kind of faith that this centurion had. Now then, Jesus explains how pivotal faith is. And in verses 11 through 13, he says, and I say to you that many will come from east and west and sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So here now the first become last and the last become first.

Those who are supposed to have faith, the sons of the kingdom, the Jews are going to be cast out into outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. The nearest are set aside, the farthest are included. The harlot, the tax collector, comes in while the religious person who has an outward life is excluded. And again, Jesus brings us to that theme that He's been working all throughout Matthew so far. Jesus was just completely contradicting everything the rabbis had been teaching them.

In 2nd Baruch, the apocryphal book, it illustrates the Jews gathering together at this absolutely gigantic feast and what is on the table the Leviathan has been cooked and all of Israel is eating the Leviathan and and there are so many gathered around the table and this Leviathan is there with it, they'll eat. The sea monster. And in order to illustrate just the eternal abundance of food and blessing of the children of Israel, except one thing, there's not a single Gentile there. And so when Jesus does this and he talks about the fact that these will be thrown into outer darkness, he is contradicting the entire religious establishment. And of course it gets him to significant trouble.

And So Jesus gives this illustration about faith because faith is the issue. The centurion had faith. The leper had faith. Faith in what? In Jesus Christ's exclusive power to heal and to save.

That was the ground of their entire being. That's what caught them up. That's what they were fixated on. That's what captured their souls when they were sick. And so should it be with us.

And then Jesus says to the centurion, Go your way. As you have believed, so let it be done for you." And his servant was healed that same hour. What a blessing. Can you imagine his trip home after Jesus had said that to him because he believed it. He actually believed it, I'm sure.

He may have been, though, in the weakness of his flesh, wondering, I wonder if it's really true. That's probably quite likely, because he was a human being like the rest of us. And we would wonder whether it really was true what Jesus said. And so I'm sure the centurion concluded, it was good for my servant that his soul was afflicted because Jesus Christ's power was exercised. Okay, now I want to turn to some applications.

And at this point I have 11 applications. Are you ready? Number one. Number one. Notice where these healings happened.

In the city streets, and this should help us to see what kind of way we ought to be going through life, how we ought to consider our lives in public. We bump into sick people all the time. What should we do? We should be doing what that centurion did. We should be bringing them before Jesus Christ.

Application number two. Notice that physical presence is not required for healing. And this stands in such sharp contrast between the way that faith healers operate today, where they make it very plain that you have to come to them. You need them. They have got to lay their hands on you.

The holy person has got to do it. Well, this story just sort of blows that up. You actually don't have to be present. Healing's going to happen over many, many miles. So we should not let miles separate us from the blessing of God by refusing to pray.

Number three. And this is sort of an application or a result of the first two things that I've already said. And that is this, who is it? Who is it that you should be bringing before the Lord? How forgetful we are of the sufferings of our friends and our neighbors.

Even the Gentiles, even those wicked people, who are they? What wicked person out there is suffering and you've not prayed for them because they're just not part of your crowd? Jesus didn't operate like that at all. Test this, test this according to Scripture and let me know if you think it's true. Jesus did not distinguish between the godly and the ungodly at all.

In fact, He healed ten and nine came back with nothing and only one came back to be thankful. So Jesus is concerned about sufferings across the board. Are there people that your heart is so hard toward that you will not pray for them for their healing. And maybe they live in a different city or different country. Doesn't matter.

They're yours. You know them. Number four. There's no need to fear sickness. God is in control.

He can cure it in a moment. He will cure it someday. He has healing in his wings. But he may not be willing now. If he is not willing, he should not fear what's happening.

It's not appropriate for us to be fearing sickness because God is sovereign over it. Number five. Let me just go back to this about No fear. I'm not going to make an argument against medicine, but I'm going to make a statement here that I want us to understand in light of that. This is not an argument against medicine.

But it doesn't matter what medicines you use. You will only get well if God wants you well. You can take all the right medicines, and if He doesn't want you well, you're not going to get well. You may take a perfect remedy that fits exactly your malady, and It gets everybody else well, but it won't get you well if God doesn't want you well. Number five, diseases are often the servants of Jesus Christ.

Here's how J.C. Ryle speaks of it. Sickness helps to remind men of death. That's a good thing. Sickness helps make men think seriously of God and their souls and the world to come.

Sickness helps to soften men's hearts and teach them wisdom. Sickness helps to level and humble us. Sickness helps to try men's religion, what sort it is. It's the soul's advisor. It is an awakening to the conscience.

It is a purifier of the heart. Surely I have a right to tell you that sickness is a blessing and not a curse, A help and not an injury, a gain and not a loss, a friend and not a foe to mankind. So long as we have a world where there is sin, it is a mercy that it is a world wherein there is sickness. Surely the first lesson which a sick and dying world should learn should be to prepare them to meet their God. He says, bear it patiently and that your habitual readiness to feel and help your fellow men will be a blessing.

He says, so what do you do when you're ill? Where do you mean to turn for comfort? Or what do you mean to rest your soul? On what do you mean to build your hope? From whence will you fetch your consolations?

Sickness is often a servant of God. To try you, to give you a greater vision of everything that's good. And so we should always look heavenward with sickness, which is why Moses said in Deuteronomy, Now see that I, even I, am he, there is no God besides me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, nor is there anyone who can deliver from my hand." That should cast all of your remedies in a particular light and shadow. Again, not that remedies are wrong.

I don't believe they are. I've encouraged some of you to go to the doctor at different times in the history of this church. So we're not talking about that. But we're talking about something that's so important, about the authority of God over sickness. Number six, some sickness results from sin.

In many of the cases where Jesus is healing, that's the problem. And there's much that we could talk about. I think we can get to more of this. We'll see some examples of how sickness or sin is really the root of the sickness. And whenever you get sick, If you're like most people, your impulse is to run to the medicine cabinet or the remedy rather than to your sins and to consider if you've sinned.

Perhaps you're sick because you have been gluttonous and you've been eating too much of something, and that's why you're sick. Or maybe you eat the wrong things that are hurting you. And it's because you have a sinful gluttonous approach to food. When God deals with food, he very, very often deals with it in terms of the sin of gluttony. So some sicknesses are just a result of sin.

But we don't want to acknowledge that first, because we really think we're all right. We're okay. Everything's fine with me. It's not my problem. We're so, we're often, often people remain in sickness because of self-righteousness and they've not carefully inspected as Jesus had those who were sick inspect themselves.

When the Apostle Paul or I'm sorry in James where James says if anyone is sick let him call the elders of the church. Well, there's this whole long section about repentance. And if he has sinned, then he'll be made well. The assumption is that when the elders come, there is sin that can be tied to that sickness. Now, that's not the only reason people are sick Because we know that people are sick for the glory of God and other reasons.

But it is one reason among many that people are sick. Number seven, And this is the point that I just introduced. Some sickness does not come from sin, but for the glory of God. In John chapter 9, we see a brilliant example of this, where Jesus saw a man who was born blind, and his disciples said, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents?

And Jesus said, neither. Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him." I mean, this example is there because the disciples just assumed that his sickness was from sin, but it was not from sin at all. But it was, It was something, the sickness was a player on the stage of the glory of God. The sickness was there to declare how great and mighty God was. Even though He is blind from birth.

Imagine how his parents languished over this, but he was given this blindness so that the power of God would be manifested in him. And he had to live many years for that glory to be shown. But his sickness was a character on the stage of the glory of God. And then number eight. When we think about sickness we should consider the emphasis of Scripture.

The whole of Scripture leads to a particular emphasis when we think about sickness and health. It's not the only thing that we should consider, but it's the emphasis. And the emphasis is repentance, second, trust in divine power, and thirdly, recognizing the importance of calling the elders of the church to pray for you. So that should be our focus when we are sick. Not to the exclusion of remedies, necessarily, but at least that should be our knee-jerk reaction.

You need your reaction. Number nine, understand the times in which you live. You live in a naturalistic world and all of its remedies. And most of the people of the world have succumbed to the creation of gigantic financial interests in the big drug companies, in institutions, in all kinds of remedies, money-making ways. There have always been snake oil salesmen.

There have always been people who've promoted a new remedy. Just be careful. And you have to figure that out on your own. But understand, you live in a time that has two particular features. One is, all problems can be solved by using medications or some kind of treatment.

That's the bankrupt wrong ethic of the world because it's not true. All of your sicknesses can't be solved that way. Again, this is not an argument against taking dominion and learning how things work and how our bodies work and finding medicines that make our bodies work better. It's not an argument against it but you have to understand that we live in a world that is so massively naturalistic. God is nowhere And so we often get by with no faith, but just remedies.

And we need to be very careful living in this kind of world that we live in. Because, I mean, The whole world medical economy is really based on the proposition that we can just give you something to make you well. And it's wrong to be sick. That actually isn't true. So we have to be very careful in the kind of world that we live in.

Living in this kind of world can lead to, I'm just going to call it an overprietorization of what I'm going to call the three D's, diets, doctors, and drugs. Now, while I'm an advocate of all three of these things, from personal experience, in my own life, I know that they can become larger than they were meant to be. I know that for myself. How many times have I reached for ibuprofen when I should have gone far deeper than just ibuprofen. But see, I live in this naturalistic world, you know, and I'm fallen, and so I'm going to grasp for naturalistic cures and to prioritize them over the other.

Again, the issue is prioritization, not exclusion. Number 10. Sometimes God wants you to be sick. God wanted Job sick. God wanted Paul sick.

So that he would say, when I'm weak, I'm strong. So that he would not trust in the flesh. God wanted these men sick for a particular reason. Job was a completely different reason. Paul, it was to deal with him.

For Job, it was to declare that Job loved God to the forces of darkness. With Paul, it was to teach Paul not to trust in his flesh, and God wouldn't heal him of it. Jesus said, I'm not willing to heal you of that. So sometimes God wants us to be sick. Often we think that God's primary concern is that we feel great.

God's primary concern is not that you feel great every day. He may want you to not feel great so that you will be like a leper and like a centurion who cries out to Him. If you don't feel great today, then praise God if your heart is turned toward Him and you're dependent upon Him and you have faith in Him alone, that you truly believe that He is the one who can heal all of your diseases in a second. Sometimes God wants us to be sick. If we make feeling good our God, then there's a way, there's a way that we can in the midst of that just forget the gospel.

That we are born into a fallen world and that Jesus Christ is the only hope of a fallen world and all of its sickness is spiritual and physical. So it should remind us that we live in a fallen world. And then, 11, finally, how Jesus Christ came to heal us of our infirmities. We see how often He healed. We see that He is a healer.

We see that He can heal at a touch or with a word at a distance, things that are incurable by man. We see how merciful he is. We know that he will in that great day finally relieve all of his children of all of their diseases and their infirmities. And I just want to close with reading the words of Thomas Brooks. This is from Jeff Pollard's Free Grace Broadcaster, Comfort and Affliction.

A gracious soul secretly concludes, As stars shine brightest in the night, So God will make my soul shine and glisten like gold, While I am in this furnace, and when I come out of the furnace of affliction. But he knows the way that I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23.10. Surely this affliction shall proceed in the purging away of my dross. Isaiah 1.25. Surely as plowing of the ground kills the weeds and harrowing breaks hard clods, so these afflictions shall kill my sins and soften my heart.

Hosea 515. Surely as the plaster draws out the infectious core, so the afflictions that are upon me shall draw out the core of pride, the core of self-love, the core of envy, the core of earthliness, the core of formality, the core of hypocrisy. Psalm 119.67. Surely by these afflictions, the Lord will work in me more tenderness and compassion toward those who are afflicted. Hebrews 10, 34.

So my prayer for us as a church today is that we understand more clearly the nature of sickness, infirmity, and healing. That we cast our cares more upon Him than any other means, that we would be that people spoken of in Psalm 146, happy as he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord raises those who are bowed down. May it be so. Let's pray. Lord we've been born into a sin-sick world, and oh, help that world to drive us to you.

Amen.