The sermon 'Miracles of Mercy' by Jason Dohm focuses on two healing miracles in Matthew 8:1-13, emphasizing the mercy and power of Jesus. The first account involves a leper who approaches Jesus with humility and faith, acknowledging Jesus's power to heal without presuming His will. Jesus, demonstrating His willingness and compassion, heals the leper and instructs him to follow the Mosaic law as a testimony to the priests, indicating the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies. The second account features a centurion in Capernaum, who pleads for his paralyzed servant. The centurion's profound understanding of authority and faith impresses Jesus, leading to the servant's healing at a distance. The sermon connects these miracles to teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, illustrating the principles of faith, humility, and God's kingdom. It also explores the theological implications of sickness and healing as reflections of sin and redemption, and the importance of seeking God rather than solely relying on human means. The sermon concludes by urging believers to see sickness as an opportunity to reflect on spiritual health and to trust in Christ's power and mercy.

The scripture text for this morning's teaching is Matthew chapter 8, verse 1 through 13. When he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped 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, paralyzed, 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 also 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. When Jesus heard this, he marveled and he 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 the east and the 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 it shall be done for you. And his servant was healed that same hour. Heavenly Father, how good it is that you are willing to cleanse us.

Father, we thank you for the gift that Christ offered on our behalf. Father, we thank you for your word, for the power that it has to turn hearts towards you. Father, I ask that you would soften our hearts today as we prepare to hear this message that you would allow your truth to reach our Inward parts father I ask that you give your spirit to Jason father that you would instruct him that you would show him what he Should teach us father. I ask that you would make this a blessed time that would be pleasing in your sight. In Christ's name, amen.

So obviously the last week we finished up the sermon on the Mount. And I just want to take one minute just to reorient us as to where we are in the book of Matthew. The book of Matthew is structured like this. The first four chapters is an introduction that sets the stage for everything that will follow. And there's so much in the first four chapters of Matthew that just has to do with the prophetic utterances of the Old Testament that Jesus is fulfilling in his life.

So the first four chapters of Matthew are building our faith that Jesus really is the Messiah, that God has been promising for hundreds and hundreds of years leading up to Jesus walking on the earth. After these first four chapters that serve as an introduction, there are five pairs. And the pair is a discourse, a sermon, followed by a narrative about what's happening with Jesus, what he's doing, where he's traveling. And so it's discourse narrative, teaching description of what's happening around him. And then another set, discourse narrative.

And then another set, discourse narrative. And That pattern happens five times through the course of Matthew. And then once you're done with those five pairs, then we're right at the end of Chapter 28, which is the end, and there's the Great Commission, which serves as an epilogue. So this is where we are in Matthew. We're just finished with the first discourse, with the first sermon that Jesus has taught.

And now we're entering in a narrative which talks about where he was going, what he was doing, who he was encountering. So for us, the Sermon on the Mount represents 17 weeks. We've been in it for a long time. But Jesus apparently wasn't nearly as long-winded as I was. This was probably the course of a single afternoon for them.

So don't lose your bearings. It hasn't been a long time since we've been back in narrative that described what was happening around Jesus. It's probably been the course of a single afternoon. And that's really what we find. We find that Jesus is picking up just where he left off.

In chapter four, which launched us into the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was going around all the district of Galilee. And he was teaching, and he was preaching about the kingdom of heaven. And he was healing every disease. So that's what he was doing going into the Sermon on the Mount. And this is what we find him doing, coming out of the Sermon on the Mount as well.

Here's what the last verse is leading into the Sermon on the Mount says, great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain. And when he was seated, his disciples came to him. So that's really the last thing that was happening. The great multitudes were following him.

And now we're in chapter 8, verse 1, which says, when he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. So the multitudes proceeded, the Sermon on the Mount, and nothing's changed. Jesus is picking up right where he left off with a teaching ministry, a preaching ministry, and a healing ministry. Also in chapter four leading into the Sermon on the Mount, He's been healing every kind of disease. And it's clear enough that his reputation of this has begun to spread because people are actually beginning to come to him for that purpose.

They know that he's been healing. And so those who are really afflicted are beginning to come to him and ask him for that. And this is exactly what we see in the first part of chapter 8. So let's launch right into the text, starting in verse 2. And behold, a leper came and worshiped 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." So who is coming to Jesus? It's a leper.

And there's a lot of history behind this in the Bible leading up to the time when Jesus comes onto the scene. There's a lot about leprosy. There's two entire chapters of the Old Testament, in Leviticus 13 and Leviticus 14, that are dedicated to what do the people of God do when there is leprosy. Chapter 13 is completely given to how a priest is to diagnose leprosy through a repeated series of inspections to see if there's changes in what's visible. And if it comes down to it that there is leprosy, then there's actually a pronouncement by the priest that this person is unclean.

And so there's an official pronouncement by the priest. Leviticus 14, then, deals with knowing when the leprosy is gone and then what do you do when the leprosy is gone. And it culminates with sacrifices, actually with sin offerings for the one that has been cleansed from the leprosy. And so there's a direct tie, there's a direct link in the Old Testament between leprosy and sin, such that when someone's been cleansed from leprosy, what the priest is supposed to do to proclaim that the leprosy has been removed is to offer a sin offering. So it's very interesting to go back and read Leviticus 13 and 14 and then consider today's passage in the light of that because there's so much Old Testament history on it.

Leprosy is a devastating skin disease. And technically, it's bacterial and it's passed from person to person. So it's very contagious actually. So you don't want to be touching lepers. We see Jesus touch a leper, but this would have been Extremely unusual because leprosy is contagious.

Here's a bit of Leviticus 13, verses 45 and 46. Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn, and his head bare. And he shall cover his mustache and cry, unclean, unclean, he shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore, he shall be unclean. He is unclean and he shall dwell alone, his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

So we learn in Leviticus 13 that there are requirements of lepers. All is not well when you're a leper. There's actually a requirement that you warn people verbally when you're coming upon them that you're unclean. You actually have to declare yourself unclean, unclean. And you can't just live anywhere you want when you're a leper.

You have to live alone. And you have to live outside the camp. So this is the background of the man who's coming to Jesus. He's a man who's had to walk around among the people of God, declaring himself to be unclean, and living alone outside the cities, outside the gathered people of God. And so there are many instances of leprosy in the Old Testament.

And many times when leprosy is mentioned, it's a sign of the judgment of God. For instance, in Numbers 12, Miriam, the sister of Moses, speaks against Moses. And God strikes her with leprosy for doing that. It is a direct judgment of God in Numbers 12. And Moses actually has to pray for her so that she'll be healed of her leprosy.

In 2 Kings 15, King Azariah is struck until the day of his death. That's what the text says in 2 Kings 15, I believe, verse 4. He's struck until the day of his death with leprosy because he would not remove the idolatrous high places. So as king, it was his responsibility to remove the high places where idolatry was being practiced. But he wouldn't do it.

And because he wouldn't do it, God judged him. God struck him with leprosy until the day of his death. In 2 Chronicles 26, King Uzziah, again, the text says, is struck until the day of his death with leprosy, because he goes into the temple to offer incense. And the king's not allowed to do that. That is an office that is given to the priest.

And so when the king takes it upon himself to do what God has given the priest to do, then God strikes him until the day of his death with leprosy. And there are other examples as well. Normally, leprosy is the direct result of the judgment of God. And because of these Old Testament accounts, when the people would see a leopard, that's what they would assume. There's a direct one-to-one relationship between what they see before their eyes, someone essentially being eaten away before them.

It's the direct judgment of God for a sin that this person had committed. And in John 9, Jesus actually addresses this kind of thinking. And so here's the account in John 9, verse 1 through 3. Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sin, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. So Jesus comes upon a blind man. He's been blind since birth. And his disciples have a predisposition on this. His disciples think, because of these Old Testament accounts, and it would have been exactly the same with the leper, the disciples think, who sinned?

Their natural inclination, The question that pops into their mind is, who's sinned, this man or his parents? And Jesus actually says, no. Disease can be that. It can be the judgment of God direct for the sin in a person's life, but it doesn't have to be that. It can actually be for the glory of God.

It can be so that God can display himself full of mercy and faithful to his people. So this man came as a leper, and you can believe that the disciples, like in John 9, were thinking, who sinned, this man or his parents? So it is a leper who's coming. How is he coming? And the summary statement for how he's coming, we just have to say he is coming in the right way.

This leper is a model for how sick people ought to come to God. This leper is a model for how sick people ought to come to God. This leper is a model for how we ought to approach God when we desire something from him, when we are desperately in need of something. We should come like this leper comes. First it says that the leper worshiped him.

Some translation says bowed to him or knelt before him. And all those are legitimate translations. But this is the same word that was used when the wise men came to worship Jesus. And so there may have been something very physical about what the leopard did. He may have bowed down, but to say that he worshiped him is a very, very legitimate translation, particularly in view of the things that he says.

First, he says, Lord. Now, we may get lost in the fact that that's a word that appears thousands of times in the Bible. And because we see it over and over and over and over and over again, it begins to lose its meaning and the impact. So we just get right over the top of that word. But this man is calling Jesus Lord.

The Geneva Bible actually renders it master. And I don't know that that's a better translation, but I do know this. We don't see that word as much. And so it has a different impact when you read it in the Geneva Bible because it's not a word that we see so often. We say, wait a minute, he's coming.

He's calling Jesus a master. And they're both legitimate translations. Here's the Greek word is kireos. And here's what it literally means. He to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has the power of deciding.

The possessor and disposer of a thing, the owner, the one who has control of the person, the master, And then a secondary meaning in the state, the sovereign prince chief, the Roman emperor. And so essentially this leper is coming and he may actually physically be bowing down before the man. But he's acknowledging that he is at Jesus's disposal, that Jesus is the possessor here, and that he is nothing before Jesus, that he is Jesus's to decide what his fate will be, what the outcome will be, is at the pleasure of Jesus. And so when he says, Lord, it is not the same as saying, Sir. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, not the Sir of sirs.

It's a very meaningful, impactful word. And so we should see it right. This is a man bowed down before Jesus, acknowledging that he is at Jesus' disposal. And then he says this, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Now this is beautiful for a couple of different reasons.

The first is that he's acknowledging the power of Jesus, but he doesn't presume to know the mind of Jesus. We get caught on both sides of this sometimes. We're not really acknowledging the power of Jesus, but this leper does. This leper comes and says, if you are willing, you can make me clean. He acknowledges that Jesus has the power to do what is being asked.

But at the same time, he's not presuming to know what Jesus wants to do, what Jesus thinks is wise, what Jesus thinks is a good idea. And this is the essence of worship. It's praise without presumption. It's ascribing to God what we know to be true about him, what the Bible says is true about him. But not presuming that the universe was designed to revolve around us, but quite the contrary.

The universe was designed to bring him glory and to revolve around him. And so here's a leper who's coming who understands this, that God is able, and yet he does not know what would be pleasing to God. And so he's coming and seeking him on that ground and on those terms. Next we see what Jesus actually does. He is willing.

If you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus says, I am willing. And Jesus puts out his hand and he touches him. You or I would not put out our hand and touch this leper, most likely. Unless we did it in the spirit.

But this was dangerous business, but Jesus is completely fearless. This is not the ordinary protocol with lepers, These ones who had to go about warning you, unclean, unclean, so that you'd stay away, so you would not be contaminated by them. But Jesus is not put off by that. Jesus will not have any of that. He reaches out and he touches this man who knows the last time this man was touched.

But Jesus is not afraid to touch him and he reaches out his hand and he touches him. Such fear, such excuse me, such mercy, such lack of fear. Jesus is bold and he is full of mercy and he touches this man. Normally, when you touch a leper you become defiled so that you become ceremonially unclean and things have to happen before you can be restored into a right standing in the people of God. Normally, that's how it flows.

The defilement flows out from the leper. But in this case, it's completely in the other direction. When Jesus reaches out his hand, the defilement doesn't pass from the leper to Jesus. But the healing passes from the hands of Jesus to the leper. And so instead of the defilement flowing in the normal direction, this is Jesus.

This is the Son of God. This is the great physician. This is the healer who is able to overcome all that and pass healing in the exact opposite direction to what would normally be happening. Normally you would become defiled, but Jesus is healing. And Jesus says, I am willing be cleansed.

He just announces it. He just says it's so, and It is so. And finally, Jesus tells this former leper to go down and show himself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. So he's healed. He's clean.

There are no signs, visible signs of leprosy anymore. He's been healed. And Jesus tells him to do something that's really not that small of a thing. They're in Galilee. They're in Capernaum.

If you're going to show yourself to the priest and offer what Moses commanded, you're headed to the temple in Jerusalem for that. So what Jesus is telling this man to do is probably a 70 mile one way trip to the temple. But Jesus wants him to do it as a testimony to them. In what way? In what way is it a testimony that a former leper would go down and say, verify that I've been cleansed?

Well, in this way, that prophetically, these are the things that would accompany the coming of the Messiah. These types of miraculous healings are what would declare that the Messiah is on the ground, that the Messiah has come and is doing the things that were prophesied of him. And so an astute priest, When a healed leper comes, because the healing of leprosy was rare, often it was unto death, like we saw in some of the examples from the Old Testament. This is unusual. When a man comes and says, yes, I've been healed by leprosy.

That means something to that priest. That is a testimony that the things spoken of the Messiah are starting to happen in Israel. It is a powerful testimony, and Jesus wants that testimony to be made. Right there in the temple, right there at ground zero, Jesus wants an announcement to be made that the things associated with the coming of the Messiah are beginning to happen in Israel. Also, he tells them not to tell anyone else.

And this is a pattern that you see in the New Testament. Jesus is frequently saying this. He's frequently doing something miraculous and then saying, don't tell anyone. And it almost never works. We find out in the parallel passage in Mark, Mark 1.45 says this.

However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely. He went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the matter so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside it in deserted places. And they came to him from every direction. So Jesus says, don't tell anyone, but this man, he just can't do it or just won't do it. And he doesn't obey that.

And as a consequence, Jesus actually has to move the locus of his ministry out of Capernaum and into the desert places, because he's just inundated because of this news that is traveling around. Here's one of the things that we learn. For Jesus, these were not show miracles. These were not miracles to draw a crowd. They're not stunts that are being done to draw attention.

They are legitimate miracles of mercy. Jesus healed this leper because he had mercy on this leper, because he saw this man in his affliction, and he saw the faith of this man, and he was willing to make him clean. He wanted to relieve the affliction that had been on this man perhaps for a very, very long time. This man who'd been living in solitary confinement, having to announce his uncleanness to everyone who passed by. And yet, Jesus puts his hands on him and he pronounces him to be clean.

It's a beautiful, beautiful picture of our Savior. One of the things I want us to consider before we move on is how much this account is a demonstration of the things that Jesus has been teaching us in the Sermon on the Mount. When we look at this account and what happens here and then we think back on the things that Jesus has been teaching us in the last three chapters, we see a number of areas of overlap. How about this? Jesus tells us to ask, seek, and knock.

And here's this man coming, believing that Jesus is able to do it and actually is coming. How many lepers were there in Galilee? We don't know. But I bet there was more than one. And yet one asks and seeks and knocks, and he is the one that is cleansed.

We're told in the Sermon on the Mount that charitable Deeds are to be done in secret. And rather than Jesus doing this thing for maximum visibility, he actually tells this man, don't tell anyone. Don't talk to people about this. Jesus is actually practicing what he preaches. He's doing a charitable deed.

Now, ours looks significantly different than his charitable deeds, don't they? We're not healing lepers, at least not to my knowledge. And yet, when Jesus does a charitable deed, he's not doing it for Maximum visibility, maximum impact in that way. But he is doing his charitable deeds in secret. How about this?

Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. There have been all these prophecies that the Messiah would come, the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the afflicted would be healed. And here he is, he's fulfilling the law of the prophets. And When a leper gets healed, there's a prescription in the law of Moses.

And Jesus says, do that. Now, this is ceremonial law. This is actual law that is going to pass away as soon as he's raised from the dead. And yet, today, at the time of this text, it's enforced. And so Jesus says, go do what the law of Moses commanded.

He didn't come to abolish the law of the prophets or to destroy them. Now let's look at verses 5 through 13. Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him pleading with him, saying, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, 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 also 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 doesn't. 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." Jesus is back in Capernaum and we learn from chapter 4, verse 13, that this is Jesus' home base in Galilee. He's been going all about the district of Galilee. And Capernaum is a town in Galilee that sits right on the Sea of Galilee. And Jesus has been using this as a home base.

So a centurion comes. This is a Roman officer that is over 100 soldiers. That's why they're called a centurion, because it's 100 soldiers that this officer is over. And this man has a servant. And Matthew says that the servant is paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.

Here's what the parallel passage in Luke 7 says, Luke 7 verse 2. And a certain centurion servant who was dear to him was sick and ready to die. So between the two passages we know that this centurion has a servant who's dear to him. He loves this servant. But he's paralyzed.

He's terribly tormented. And he's actually near death is what the account in Luke relates to us. Now Luke 7, 1 through 10, we learned something in this text about how to harmonize the different gospel accounts. Luke 7, 1 through 10 gives us extra detail that's not even present in Matthew. So Matthew is accurate, but Luke gives us additional detail.

Matthew's accurate, but Luke's more complete. And this isn't unusual for Matthew. As you compare the gospels, What you find is Matthew is frequently abbreviating and getting right to the point. He is using these accounts to say something very particular, to make a point and pound on it. And if there are details in the story that don't help him pound on that point, he gets them out of there.

And he gets focused like a laser beam on the point that he's trying to make. And so it is with this account. In Luke, we find out that what the centurion is doing is completely in proxy. In other words, the centurion's not really there. The centurion is sending his words through intermediaries.

And so when you read Matthew, it looks like, it sounds like, the centurion's actually there. But that's a detail that Matthew finds to be not to the point that he's making. And so while Luke is a more detailed giver of the account, Matthew is abbreviating. So the words of the centurion are actually delivered by Jewish elders. And the Jewish elders in this region, believe it or not, love this centurion, love this Roman officer.

And in Luke 7, we see why it says, they say, for he loves our nation and has built us a synagogue. So this Roman centurion has actually built the Jewish people a synagogue here in the region where Jesus is. And Jesus is willing to heal, and he offers to go to the home of the centurion. But the centurion again sends word and says, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. So here's a wealthy man, a man of position in the ruling empire, enough resources to build a synagogue, and yet He doesn't see himself as worthy to even have Jesus come under his roof.

And then he shows us something that's really remarkable. And that is that he understands authority in a way that hardly anybody else around him understands. He says, I'm under authority and I have people under my authority. And the argument that he's making is that the obedience that he gets from the people who are under his authority. He says, go, they go.

He says, come, they come. He says, do this, and they do it. Not because he's who he is, but because he's receiving authority. That's the argument that he's making here. I'm under authority, and I have people under me.

And so he sees Jesus. And he sees Jesus doing these miracles. And he says, that's like me. Jesus isn't doing this unilaterally, but there is a God in heaven who, when Jesus speaks, he's under the authority of this. And of course, this is what Jesus himself teaches.

Jesus himself teaches that he was here to do the will of his father. And so when the centurion is acting, he's acting not on his own behalf, but he's acting as a representative of all those up the chain. And he sees Jesus and the effects that Jesus is doing and he knows that something like that is happening. That Jesus is acting on behalf of God Almighty. So did he understand exactly who Jesus was?

Don't know. But we do know this, that he knows when Jesus speaks, it is the mouth of God. Because he knew himself to be under authority, having that authority of those above him to deploy to those over whom he was in authority over. And Jesus marvels at this because this centurion says that Jesus' physical presence is completely beside the point. That there's no need for that, for the healing to take place.

That it's not about physical presence, it's about authority. And he recognizes that Jesus is empowered to act with authority that will do this, whether or not he actually goes to his house. And Jesus hears this, and he marvels. He marvels. And he says, assuredly I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.

And here we start getting these vibes that the Gentiles are being grafted in, that the people of God are just Jews, but that God has a plan that is a lot broader than that. Here's what Malachi 1.11 says. All of us Gentiles should love and memorize Malachi 1.11, because it's our verse. For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. In every place incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

And so Jesus says that many will come from the east and the west, and they'll sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And what he's referring to here is the wedding feast of the Lamb, the wedding supper of the Lamb, that is spoken of in Revelation 19 verse 9. At the marriage supper of the Lamb, it says that we'll sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The actual word is recline, we'll recline. And this is feast language.

This is banquet language. We'll sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at a great banquet. And it is the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is the kingdom of heaven. Not that the natural descendants would be there.

Not that the natural descendants would be those that participate. But those of faith are the ones who will be there with the patriarchs, with all the great saints of old. It is those of faith, not the physical descendants, but the children of faith. Here's what J.C. Ryle says, Many a poor converted heathen who knows nothing but that he is sick of sin and trusts in Jesus shall sit down in heaven.

While many learned English scholars are rejected forevermore, blessed indeed are they that believe." This is the repeated teaching of the New Testament. That it's not physical descendants that will occupy the Kingdom of Heaven. That it's those who trust in Christ. Those who are the children of faith, the children of Abraham in faith, that share the faith of Abraham. Not those that share the bloodline of Abraham, but those that share the faith.

And so there are many who have all the enjoyments of the means of grace. They're under the sound of the gospel week after week. They're under the reading of scripture week after week and month after month and year after year. And yet they do not believe, and they will not participate in the kingdom of heaven. And there are those, like J.C.

Ryle describes, many a poor, unconverted heathen who are just sick of sin and learn to come to the end of themselves because of the oppression and the weight of sin. They have been taught their hopelessness. They have been taught that they are unable to rely upon themselves and unable to trust in themselves and they will trust in Christ and they will be there when those who have sat under the means of grace but have not employed those means of grace will be cast out. This is what Jesus is saying to the Jews and This is what Jesus is saying to the Jews. And this is what Jesus is saying to us.

And it should terrify us. And it should terrify our children. That it might be that they would come and be under the means of grace just as the Jews were. To them were the promises, to them were the oracles of God, and yet many of them never trusted in Jesus Christ, and they were outside the kingdom. In summary, in the Centurion, we have a man who's filled with compassion for his servant.

He is not self-seeking, but he has a servant who is dear to him. This tells us a lot about this Centurion. Here we have a man who is prepared to ask and to seek and to knock. Here we have a man who is prepared to ask and to seek and to knock. Here we have a man who understands authority and rightly ascribes it to Jesus.

Here is a man who knows authority when he sees it. And when he sees Jesus, he knows that Jesus is able to do things that only can be ascribed to God. Here is a man who is full of faith, a faith that surpasses all of what the Israelites are able to muster. And yet, none of this is anything. Loving your servant is nothing.

Being prepared to ask and seek and knock is nothing. Understanding authority is nothing. Being full of faith is nothing, except that the object of your faith is something. The centurion is not the hero of Matthew 8. Jesus is the hero of Matthew 8.

Without a Savior who is able, abundantly able to deliver, this all goes for nothing. And yet, he puts his trust in the object of his faith, as sure, and he's not disappointed. We look at these faithful people and they are models, they ought to be models, but we should never think that these people are anything. Only Christ is something. Only the object of their faith is something.

The centurion was made that way by God. He was brought to that point by God. And so all the praise and all the glory for this wonderful man who is a model for us goes to God because Jesus Christ is the object of his faith. And he's what makes the request sure. Finally, those who make a claim on the kingdom of heaven other than faith, any claim on the kingdom of heaven other than faith results in being cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

There is only one claim on the Kingdom of Heaven that stands, and that is the claim of trust in the work of Jesus Christ. Any trust of ourselves in ourselves will result in this. Will result in outer darkness. Will result in the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Only the claim of faith.

Not the faith that is an intellectual assent to the things in the Bible, but the faith that says, I am untrustworthy, but the work of Christ is trustworthy. I'm trusting in that, is a claim on the kingdom of heaven that will stand. And here's the conclusion of the matter. His servant was healed that same hour. That same hour.

When they get to comparing the times, The time when the servant was cured and got up from his paralysis was the same hour that Jesus made his pronouncement. Jesus says, go your way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. The object of the Centurion's hope is obtained. He put his hope in Jesus and his hope was not disappointed. Brothers and sisters, we should look at this text and we should be built up in our most holy faith.

We should look at this text and know that we have a Savior that we can go to who can make leprosy not be leprosy anymore, can cleanse from that, who can take the palsy, as the King James puts it, or paralysis that is actually going to shortly result in death, according to Luke. And he can just wipe that away. Just in the pronouncement, the same hour. Our affliction might be one hour from over because we have such a Savior. Jesus beckons us to come and trust us.

Come and trust him. Jesus beckons us to come and trust us. Come and trust him. Jesus beckons us to come and trust him. Now I want to spend a minute on the theology of sickness and healing.

We've just been talking about it at the ground level on exactly what was observed and exactly what happened on the spot. There's something behind that in the biblical teaching on what sickness is, what healing is that we should understand to dig down one level. Sickness came into the world as a result of the fall in Genesis 3. Prior to Genesis 3, there's no sickness. Adam and Eve are here, and there's nothing that will cause sorrow, because sin hasn't entered into the world yet.

And yet, when sin enters the world, when mankind, through the first man, Adam, rebels against God, then sickness and death enter the scene. And so maybe we would consider sickness as sort of a down payment on death. Sickness is a little indication of what is in store for those who live in rebellion to God. And that connection is made all throughout the Old Testament. It may be nowhere more clearly than in Deuteronomy 28.

You remember our chapter about the blessings and the curses. Here's Deuteronomy 28, 58 through 61. If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God. Then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues, great and prolonged plagues, and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover, he will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you.

Also, every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of the law will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed." So we have something on the surface. There's sickness. And we look around, and we see it everywhere. But we should always look beyond the sickness and see what God has said about sickness, which is that it came into the world because of rebellion against God, Not being careful to know his ways and to do them. Not fearing this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God.

So sickness came into the world as a result of the fall. And that's why we're sick. Now, Jesus made it clear that it's not always a one-to-one correlation, as we've already talked about, so that we can say the cold that I've had for the last seven years, or however long it's been, just seems like seven years, is a result of this particular sin. It might be that that's true, but it doesn't have to be that that's true. That's what Jesus taught.

But in any event, sickness is in the world because of sin and rebellion against God. And so sickness will not be a part of our glorified existence. In Revelation, the very last of chapter 21 and the very beginning of chapter 22, it says that nothing that defiles will be in heaven, that there's a tree of life there that will bring the healing for the nations, that there will be no more curse in heaven. That's what the end of Revelation 21, beginning of 22 says. So when we get to our glorified existence, we won't find sickness there.

There won't be any lepers to heal there. There won't be any paralytics for Jesus to pronounce well there because sin will not be a part of that existence. Here's what Isaiah 25, 8 says, he will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. The rebuke of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. One of the purposes of sickness would that we would consider that there's an existence apart from sickness for those who trust in Christ.

And it would make us long for heaven. That's one of the purposes of sickness, is that we would understand that it's very finite and a time is coming for those who trust in Christ, where he will wipe away all the results of the curse. And it should make, when we're sick, there should be a longing in our souls for heaven. To think it will not always be like this, but a time is coming when Jesus Christ will wipe away the tears from every face. Secondly, we learn about sickness that It's an instrument of God for his own purposes and his own glory.

God uses it as a tool. Hoffman uses it as a tool for his own purposes and for his own glory. This is exactly what we see in the life of Job. In Job 2, Satan comes and asks permission to afflict Job. And God actually gives Satan the permission to afflict him with sicknesses.

And this is for the glory of God, Because the universe did not revolve around Job, as righteous of a man as he was. But the universe actually revolves around God. And it's for his purposes. And it's for his glory. And it's for his pleasure.

This is exactly what Paul found in 2 Corinthians 12, verses 7 through 10. Here's what Paul says. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities." This is what Paul says, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Sometimes God wants us to be sick. And he knows why he wants us to be sick, and he's doing something with the sickness.

Here's what Matthew Henry says, such servants' bodily diseases are to Christ. In other words, all of our bodily diseases are the servants of Christ. They seize us when He sends them. They leave us when He calls them back. They have that effect upon us, upon our bodies, upon our souls that he orders.

Did you know that God is sending sicknesses upon us and that they leave us when he recalls them? And it's so that they will have the effect on our souls that he desires. With Paul, he wanted to preserve humility in this man that he had given all manner of revelations to. And rather than him being puffed up by it, he wanted to keep him humble, and so he set him this affliction. Now was this a disease or a sickness?

I don't know. But Paul says it's an infirmity, and he says that he learned to revel in his infirmities, knowing that God was working out a purpose for Paul's good and for his own glory. So in the context of that, if that's sickness, then what is healing? It's an overthrow of the curse. It's God taking the curse for the rebellion of man and he is overthrowing that.

Aren't you glad that God is able and willing to overthrow the curse? In Genesis 3 when the curse is given, it is said that there is going to be a mighty war between the seed of the woman, which is Christ, and the serpent. And this is part of that warfare. And there are times where Jesus will just overthrow that curse and provide the blessing of healing. It's a mercy of God.

And so Adam, through sin and rebellion and bringing that upon all of his race, that's you, that's me, is the source, is the source of this being here. But the second Adam, Jesus Christ, is the remedy for it. Adam brought it in, and Jesus Christ can remove it. And in the last day, we'll remove it forever. Psalm 103, this is what Gary read this morning.

I'll read the first four verses again. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy.

God is able to overthrow the curse that man brought into the world through sin and rebellion. God is able and He is willing to overthrow that curse. So we should always look to God for healing. Psalm 103, Who heals all your diseases? We should always look to God for healing.

But the Bible is actually filled with contrary examples of looking to God for healing. And this is a warning to us that we don't find ourselves looking to someone other than God for healing. Second Chronicles 16 verse 12, And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe. Yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord but the physicians." Yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord but the physicians. Now, 2 Chronicles, a condemnation of physicians.

No. But it is a condemnation of forgetting about the Lord and seeking the physicians. I believe that the medicine that we have today is a common grace. I believe that it is actually an appropriate application of dominion. Men, many men of God have studied the works of God and have understood how things work because they have studied the works of God.

And they brought forward things that are helpful. But when we take that and say, now we don't have to depend on God? Look at what medicine has brought us. This is what's being condemned in 2 Chronicles in Luke 8, 43 and 44. Now a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of his garment and immediately her flow of blood stop.

If all you will ever do is seek physicians, God will bring you to the end of that. And it might take you a dozen years, but God will bring you to the end of that and show you that only He is the one who heals. And again, I'm for medicine, I'm for doctors, I go to the doctors, we have all our babies in hospitals, on and on and on. However, it is not right for us to forget God in that. We need to look to God in the midst of all of that.

Here's the bottom line. Sickness and Disease and healing are a picture of something much more fundamental than sickness and disease and healing. It's the surface equivalent of what happens in the human heart. And that's why Jesus many, many times when he's brought a person who's suffering terribly from sickness and diseases, he says not be healed, but he says your sins are forgiven. Because he can look at a paralyzed person and say your big problem is not your paralysis.

It's the least of your concerns. It's your soul that you ought to be concerned about. It's the forgiveness of your sins That is the issue of the hour. So we should never trust in the medicine chest or the pantry for the solution. It's good to eat healthy.

It's good to have medicines, thank God. And yet, these things can never be trusted in. The things that defile us are things that are inside. They're not the things that go into the mouth. They're not the things that defile us.

And Jesus would counsel us to deal with the things that really defile us. Sickness is about more than germs and bacteria. Now, God uses means in everything. It's not to say that you just never have to worry about germs and bacteria. Of course we do.

But there's something behind sickness that's got nothing to do with germs and bacteria that is so much more fundamental. We should look to our souls. John Piper contracted cancer. And when he announced his congregation they had cancer, he rolled out a little document, 10 points, don't waste your cancer. Don't waste your cancer.

He purposed not to waste what God had sent him. Now, isn't that, shouldn't that turn your mind around? Doesn't that completely shift how we would think. When John Piper was diagnosed with cancer, he didn't say, it's the curse of God upon me. He said, it's the hand of God upon me to do something that will please him, knowing that the end of it might be his own death.

That hasn't turned out that way, at least not yet. But John Piper was determined not to waste the things that God was sending him, because he presumed that God was doing it in his kindness towards him. John Piper had been trained by God to know that God is good and faithful. And so if he sends me cancer, then he's doing it for good purposes. He's doing it out of his faithfulness.

Matthew Henry says this. Sin is the leprosy of the soul. And it shuts us out from communion with God. To which, that we may be restored, it is necessary that we be cleansed from this leprosy. And this ought to be our great concern.

The leper says, Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. And that is true about leprosy and everything else that happens on the surface. But what's more important is that if God is willing, he can make us clean on the inside. He can take what are our real defilements. It is not leprosy, and it's not paralysis.

But it is sin and rebellion. And he can take those things that are like scarlet, and he can make them as white as snow. When we get sick, we have to discipline ourselves to consider what it represents. It's corruption in the world. And we ought to ask God, God is this because of a sin of mine?

Is this because of a specific sin of mine? Please show me so that I can repent from it. Every time we get sick, we should say that. If we don't, it's a lost opportunity. It's a wasted cancer every time we do that.

When we just let it pass without considering whether it might be attached to, sent by God to address something that needs our attention. And so God is jolting us with this sickness so that we'll address our sin. We should ask that. And even if we have a sense that there's nothing like that, It's not tied to any particular sin of mine. We should know that the sin of man has brought it into the world.

And things are not right here. There is corruption here. And it's not all outward corruption. It should make us think and long for heaven and long for the time where we'll be done with everything from head colds to leprosy, everything from the flu to paralysis. And all the tears are wiped away and we'll be with him forever.

And we'll sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the marriage supper of the Lamb. And what a feasting it will be for those who have trusted in Christ. We should read these accounts in Matthew 8 and we should rejoice that we have a Savior who is able and who is willing, he is so full of mercy that when someone will come to him in faith, he's so predisposed to be good to them. Another tie-in to the Sermon on the Mount. We have a Father who's predisposed to be kind to us.

And here's the proof. He's been talking about it for three chapters, and now he's doing it. He's demonstrating it in such a beautiful way. To those who will humble themselves and come before him in faith, he is willing. He is full of mercy.

Let's pray. Oh God, thank you. Thank you, Lord. We know that corruption is in this world through sin and rebellion, but that the seed of the woman makes war on all of it. That Jesus Christ was sent to overthrow the curse for all those who would place their trust in him.

God, we rejoice in you. We desire to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom and rejoice in your presence at the great marriage supper of the Lamb. May it be so for us. Give us faith, Lord. Grant us repentance, in Jesus' name, amen.