Matthew 8:1-17
It’s our delight to be here with
you again this morning. We’ve just completed in our congregation
the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s Gospel. And we have
begun to continue on in Chapter 8 of Matthew. So I invite you
to turn to a passage of scripture that your brothers and sisters
have considered in recent weeks as we think about the wondrous
works, the wondrous person, of the Lord Jesus Christ from his
gospel, the gospel of Matthew. Our reading this morning will
come from Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 through 17. Hear now
the inspired, inerrant, and holy word of the Lord. When he came
down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold,
a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, Lord, If
you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand
and touched him saying, I will be clean. And immediately his
leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, see that
you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest
and offer the gift that Moses commanded for proof to them. When he had entered Capernaum,
a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant
is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said to him,
I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord,
I am not worthy that you come under my roof, but only say the
word and my servant will be healed. For I, too, am a man under authority,
with soldiers under me. And I say to 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 said to
those who followed him, truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel
have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from
east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom
will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place, they
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion,
Jesus said, go, let it be done for you as you have believed. And the servant was healed at
that very moment. And when Jesus entered Peter’s
house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with the fever. He
touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she rose and began
to serve him. That evening they brought to
him many who were oppressed by demons. And he cast out the spirits
with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill
what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illnesses
and bore our diseases. Let us go to the Lord for his
aid. Our God and our Father, we thank
you for this passage of scripture. which you have given to your
church that we might better understand and better appreciate and strengthen
our faith in that wondrous person and his wondrous work, the Lord
Jesus Christ. We pray that as we consider this
text, we might see spiritual things spiritually. Oh Lord,
that you would bring to life those spiritual interests which
have brought us here, and also give us a greater yearning and
a greater longing to believe and follow and to be healed at
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for the aid of the Holy
Spirit. In Jesus’ name, amen. One of the things, as we read
through the Gospel of Matthew, as well as all the other Gospels,
that might surprise us time and time again as we read through
is how Jesus’ works were misunderstood in his own day. That somebody
could be a witness to the marvelous deeds worked by and through the
Lord Jesus Christ and yet miss their spiritual meaning, their
spiritual significance. Well, we may marvel at that fact
as we read through the Gospels, but if we consider the Lord Jesus
Christ and the message of the Lord Jesus Christ in our own
day, are we not a generation? Very comparable. very much of
the same mold as those who first saw and experienced and witnessed
the ministry and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The key
to this passage of Scripture that we must not miss, the key
to understanding what God is doing through these healings
through these marvelous works of power is made clear to us
in this final verse of this passage which we have read. In Isaiah,
it was prophesied, He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. Now, we have come with a desire
to worship the Lord. We have come with a desire to
know that the Lord has taken away from us all guilt of sin. We desire in our prayers that
the Lord would be gracious and merciful in our situations, our
trials, our difficulties, perhaps even our physical sufferings. And we want the Lord to take
these things away. But we see from this passage,
and we see from these healings, that the way in which God has
ordained that our sin in particular, as well as the sufferings which
it brings, is taken away, is that Christ must take them to
Himself. That is the way that we are healed
of our sufferings. And that is the way that we are
healed of our sins. Not just that God takes them
away, but that Christ took it all to himself. We see that Jesus
heals us of sin by the power, by the compassion of the cross. We’ll consider that truth in
three points. First of all, from chapter 8,
verses 1 through 4, that Jesus healed at his touch. Secondly,
we’ll see from verses 5 through 13 that Jesus healed at his command. And then finally, we’ll see in
verses 14 through 17 that Jesus heals us at his cross. So first of all, Jesus healed
at his word, at his touch, rather, in verses 1 through 4. When he came down from the mountain,
great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him
and knelt before him, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him,
saying, I will. Be clean. And immediately his
leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, See that
you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priests,
and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them.”
Now, one of the remarkable features about the faith, both of this
leper and the faith of the centurion, is their confidence in the power
of Jesus to heal. We see this in verse 2, this
confidence. Lord, if you are willing, You
can make me clean. And then we see in verse eight,
but only speak a word and my servant will be healed. There is no doubt in the mind
of this leper. There is no wavering in the confidence
of this centurion. Jesus has the ability. He has
the power to heal. Matthew focuses upon the authority,
the ability, the power of Jesus to also highlight His willingness,
to highlight His compassion. Indeed, His desire that those
who suffer from sin and its consequences can be and should be healed. This is meant to encourage us
who believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only is
Jesus able, not only is he Lord, but he is also willing. He is also our Savior. In particular, these healings
bring into focus Jesus’ authority, and on the other, His very personal
compassion. He has compassion personally
to persons in the midst of their suffering in a way that matches
the need of that person in the midst of the suffering. The healing
of the leper is a picture of the healing offered to all who
enter the kingdom of God by faith and dependence on Jesus Christ. These two perfections of Jesus’
power and Jesus’ willingness and personal compassion combine
in one person as to make him unique, as to make him indeed
the only one who can be the Savior of the world. For there may be
many in this world who desire to help others. We would love
to take away the sins of others. We would love to see all men
healed, to seek the good of our neighbor, But we don’t have the
power. We don’t have the power to do
that. And as far as compassion goes,
there is no one who is more full of compassion. There is no one
who desires the good of those who trust in Jesus Christ more
than Jesus Christ himself. He desired it so much that he
gave his life as a ransom for the many. This leper knows the
confidence of the Lord, knows the power of the Lord, but now
he will know in his own experience the compassion of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He says in verse 2, if you are
willing, you can. He will discover in his reaching
out to the Lord Jesus Christ just how willing Jesus is We
may be here this morning, and we may have a confidence that
God, who is the creator of all things, who spoke the world into
existence by the word of His power in the space of six days,
that He is able to do anything in our lives. But we may come
not having as much confidence in His willingness as we do in
His power. but it is in the midst of this
leper reaching out to the Lord Jesus Christ, this beginning
of faith in his life, that he comes to discover just how willing
the Lord Jesus Christ really is. Isn’t that true of the way
that we come to know the Lord ourselves and come to walk before
Him? We see just how willing, just
how much He desires, to take away our sin, to deal with us
graciously in our sufferings and in our trials. The Apostle
Paul says in Romans 1, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now, if we were writing
that, we’d rewrite that the same way. Where, if you want to see
the power of God, where do you look? The Apostle Paul says,
if you really want to know the power of God, find it in the
restoration of one who was dead in sin, but now is reconciled
and made alive to God. That is the greatest manifestation
of God’s power. The gospel is the power of God
for the salvation of everyone. And this power of the gospel,
this power of Jesus’ willingness to save all who call on his name,
was manifested most clearly on the cross of suffering. The power that healed this man
of leprosy is the power of perfect love, which drove our Lord Jesus
Christ to submit to His Father’s will, to hang upon that cursed
tree, to bear it all on our behalf that we might know His life and
His healing. For we know that when Jesus touched
this man who was a leper, that moment he was no longer a leper. And in a way we see that Jesus,
as it were, took to himself the uncleanness of this man. We know
from Leviticus 13 that leprosy was considered a disease that
made one unclean. They were unable to approach
the worship of God in his temple. And indeed, they were socially
outcast, separated from the rest of Israel to live outside the
camp. The leprous person, Leviticus
says, who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the
hair of his head hang loose. And he shall cover his upper
lip and cry, unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long
as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live
alone. His dwelling shall be outside
the camp.” And we know that this was a picture to teach the Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ about the consequences of our own sin
before a holy God. That this leprous disease, in
a way, points to the problem of our own hearts, of our own
personal guilt, and corruption and sin. When it says that the
leper shall live alone when he shall live outside the camp,
what else is that except a picture of our alienation from God, of
our unworthiness to approach Him in His worship? This leper
became clean, and we can become spiritually clean. because Jesus
identified himself with our sin. Jesus touching this man’s leprous
body is a picture of Jesus, as it were, touching out his hand
and touching our sinful heart. Not only does he take our sinful
heart away, but he took our sinful heart, as it were, to himself. He took our diseases. He bore
our illnesses. The meaning of Jesus touching
a leprous man is that He is that kind of Savior. He is that kind
of God reconciling Himself to the world, reconciling the world
to Himself and Jesus Christ. He is one who is able to touch
you in this way. And He is one who is most willing
to touch you in this way, to take that heart of stone, to
replace it with the heart of flesh. He is most desirous to
forgive you, to cleanse you, to make you whole, to restore
you, to fill you up with God’s peace and God’s love. to bring you from the far remote
place near to the very throne of grace because he bore our
iniquities. He identified with our uncleannesses
so that this would be possible. Don’t you want a savior like
that? This leprous man truly did. He reached out. If you are willing,
you can. Brothers and sisters, Jesus is
most willing to touch us in this way. Secondly, we see that Jesus
is revealed to us as the one who heals at his own command.
We see this in verses 5 through 13. Now, when Jesus had entered
Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, saying,
Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.
And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion
replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.
But only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I,
too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I
say to 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 said to those who followed him, truly,
I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.” We
have said that these healings highlight both Jesus’ power and
personal compassion. And while Jesus’ healing of the
leper may have focused upon his compassion, Here, at the very
word of the Lord Jesus Christ, this servant is healed, highlighting
Jesus’ absolute power. In verse 7, we see that Jesus
responds to a request for aid with a willingness to bring salvation. We see how quickly Jesus is eager
to respond to one who is humble and contrite in heart, to one
whose heart is not lifted in proud arrogance, but comes humbly
to the Lord. How quickly Jesus responds to
a cry for help. We see this in Malachi chapter
seven. Who is a God like you who pardons
sin? You delight to show mercy. What joy do we see in these pages
of Scripture as Jesus Christ, as it were, leaps forward in
action, an opportunity to show mercy. It was His delight. It is His delight to show mercy
to you. But we see in verses 8 through
9 that the centurion realized that Jesus’ command, apart from
His physical presence, was able to heal his servant. But only God possesses such power. Only the Word of God can bring
life in this way. In other words, while touching
the leper in a very personal way illustrated to us God’s personal
dealings with us in compassion, Here now, the mere speech of
Jesus Christ, the command of healing, highlights that Jesus
possesses divine authority to bring life from death. In verse 10, Jesus marvels at
this faith of the centurion. Not because it should be surprising
that such a Savior should have those who trust in Him in this
way. What is actually the marvel is how few do trust Jesus Christ
in the way and in the manner in which the centurion trusted
in Him. Is that not still a marvel in
our own day? The marvel is not this man’s
faith. The marvel is that the world is so empty of such faith. Should it not be shocking that
such a Savior, so full of power and compassion, so willing to
come quickly to our aid, who delights to show mercy and compassion,
that such a Savior should have so few who trust in Him in this
way, and that our faith should be so feeble and weak? But we see in verse 11 through
12, that Jesus contrasts this Gentile’s faith in himself with
the lack of faith in Israel. Those who should have best recognized
God’s work in Jesus Christ are spiritually unable to see. They
have eyes which do not see and ears which do not hear. But God
is able to bring from rocks sons of Abraham, And what reason is
there that we too who hear the works of the Lord Jesus Christ
and hear of His mercy and compassion upon the cross, what reason is
there that we should not be among those who recline at table with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? Why should we not have a place
at the marriage supper of the Lamb, that feast of blessing?
when all our labors, all our pilgrimage is done. What reason
is there that you should not trust in such a Savior, that
your faith should not be alongside this centurion, that you might
be among the many sons led into glory to honor Christ with the
faith that is worthy of him, to gladly own that at the word
of Jesus Christ, even your own soul shall go free. Let us not marvel at this man’s
faith, although there is reason to do so. Let us marvel that
there is so little faith like this in the world. Let us also
pray to the Lord Jesus Christ that he might increase our own
faith to know that he is able to heal even at his command. And so thirdly, we see that all
these things point to the healing of the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ in verse 14 through 17. And when Jesus had entered Peter’s
house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched
her hand and the fever left her. And she rose and began to serve
him. That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed
by demons. And he cast out the spirits with a word and healed
all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was
spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illnesses and bore
our diseases. whereas Matthew wrote extensively
of the leper. And we have a long narrative
of Jesus dealing with the centurion’s servant. These narratives are
shorter. They go quickly in the narrative. The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law,
very succinctly and poignantly, again brings into focus Jesus
taking her even by the hand. raising her up gently, this God
of the universe who takes a sick woman by the hand in his compassion. And then we see many who were
healed of possession of evil spirits and various sicknesses. He does it by a word. Again, bringing us back to that
story of the centurion’s servant. The brevity of these combined
narratives does not mean that they are less important. Rather,
we are brought to attention that Matthew is reaching the climax.
Matthew is coming to his point. Matthew is going to bring all
of these stories to their meaning. He took our infirmities. He bore our illnesses. in bringing life and light to
others. He sealed to himself our death
and our darkness. He took our infirmities. He bore our sicknesses. What else can this mean except
that with sin he took everything with it. He took the curse of
sin, the sufferings of sin, our sorrows, our heartaches, even
our own diseases. He took not only your sins, he
took everything that follows from it to heal you. That’s what it took to heal you,
to save you. When Jesus began his healing
ministry, he began taking to himself our griefs. He began
that work of bearing our sorrows. And he did this all his life,
leading up to that great moment when the fullness of God’s wrath
was laid upon him. He began bearing it, and he finished
bearing it on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bore those
sorrows. He bore those illnesses. He bore
that uncleanness of leprosy right up to the cross. He took it with
him to that cursed hill. We see this in Galatians 3. Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for
us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone who is hanged on a tree. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
nailed to the tree, your sickness, your grief, your sorrow, your
illness, your disease, your being cut off from God was nailed to
the cross with Jesus Christ. He hung as the one who bore it
all for you. so that we might no longer bear
it as all. Christ rose from the dead, but
sin and its curse did not. Christ was restored in resurrection,
but illness and the power of these evil spirits could never
rise again. Death is our final enemy, which
the Lord Jesus Christ has conquered. It is forever dead, and Christ
is forever alive. Now, we know that we walk in
this life by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave
himself for us, and yet we still experience sorrow. We still experience grief. We still experience physical
pain and illness and suffering. We still battle against an enemy. How should we consider the truth
of this text, that He took our illness, He bore our diseases?
In light of that reality, we see that Jesus now seals His
death. and His resurrection to us in
the midst of our sufferings. Philippians chapter 3 says, how
did the Apostle Paul want to come to know Jesus Christ better?
I want to know Him in the power of His resurrection and may share
His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death that by any
means possible, I may obtain the resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ took our sufferings
to himself, and now we take Jesus’ sufferings to ourselves in a
different way. He took it to take our curse. We take his sufferings to share
in his life. We share in His sufferings, becoming
like Him in His death, not to pay for sin. It’s been paid once
and for all. We become like Him in His death.
We share in His sufferings in order that we may obtain the
resurrection from the dead. What griefs and sorrows we carry,
what pains we bear, what temptations and evil spirits we battle, We
bear those as those united to Christ, we who are dead in sin,
we who will rise victoriously. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans
that we are dead in Jesus Christ, that we were buried with him
in baptism, and therefore we should present our bodies no
longer as slaves to unrighteousness, but as instruments for righteousness. to present our bodies as living
sacrifices, because now we know that neither sin nor its curse
has any power over the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we know that whatever sorrows we bear, whatever illnesses we
have, whatever earthly sufferings come our way, they make us more
like Jesus. that his sufferings are sealed
to us, that we may obtain the resurrection from the dead. We have such a Savior who is
Lord, who is able at a mere word to heal us. We have such a Savior
who comes near and touches us and heals us of all sin and guilt
and the power of sin. Should not such a Savior have
faith like that? Let us pray. Our God and our Father, we thank
you for giving us such a Savior, one who is able and one who is
most willing and desiring to show mercy. We pray, O Lord,
that we might all be found in that day when the Lord Jesus
Christ returns, found to be around the table with Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob, rejoicing in the salvation of Jesus Christ, thanking him
forever and ever that we have been counted among those who
have been healed and touched in this way. And we pray this
in Jesus’ name. Amen. Can we invite Dr. Ehlers to please come forward
here, serving the Lord’s supper? One of the things that I hope
you’ll notice in our church is that the preaching of the Word
and the sacraments go together. We never remove the font. We
never remove the table, even on Sundays when they’re not in
use. And so we’re to see the pulpit and the table and the
font as means by which God feeds us and nourishes us. And so today
we come to the Lord’s table. To this table, the Lord invites
those who truly by faith have received Jesus Christ as their
Savior, who by faith are resting in Him alone for their salvation,
who by faith truly believe that they are sinners in need of grace. They are like the leper, out
of answers, like the centurion, powerful, but out of answers.
And so we come, whoever we are, helpless and in need of Jesus. He invites those who see themselves
that way to this table, but from this table He excludes. He excludes
those who do not rest in Him alone for salvation. This is
a table for sinners who know their need of a Savior. So let
me encourage you, if you do not trust in Christ alone for your
salvation, let these elements pass you by. But do not let this
day pass you by. Come find one of these men, one
of these elders, our guest preacher. Come find me. Find someone and
say, I want to know Jesus. I want to know the Savior. But
do not let this day pass you by. Pray with me, if you will.
Our Father, we thank you that you feed us, you nourish us by
your word and with the power of your Holy Spirit, but that
today especially you nourish us by of the Lord’s Supper. So we thank you for this meal.
We pray, Father, that now that as we eat this bread and we drink
of this cup, that these would not be ordinary ordinary items
which we touch and taste, but they would be emblems of your
death. They would represent to us and
seal to us by Christ and by the Spirit truly the death and the
application of redemption to us that is ours. We pray, Father,
that you would feed, nourish us, instruct us, encourage us,
lift up our hearts by this meal. We do pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. on the night in which Jesus was
betrayed. After he had had supper with his disciples, he took bread
and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, Take and
eat. This is my body, which has been given for you. And in the
same manner, after the supper, he took the cup and said, This
is the cup new covenant in my blood. Drink all of it. For as often as you eat this
bread and you drink of this cup, you proclaim my death until I
come again.” In another place, Jesus tells his disciples that
he will not eat the meal with them again until he does so anew
with them in the kingdom of heaven. And so we look back on the Passover
when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. We look to the present
and realize God is feeding us much as he did the Israelites
in the wilderness, bred from heaven. But we also look to the
future when we will eat again with our Savior at the wedding
supper of the Lamb. What a joyous occasion that will
be. So, dear people of God, come by faith with thanksgiving in
your heart. Feed on Jesus Christ, remembering
that Christ, our Passover Lamb, has died for us and he commands
that we keep the feast. Amen. you you you you you Our Savior has given His body
for us each. Oh. Yeah. you. The scriptures tell us that by
the stripes of our Lord Jesus, by his blood, we have been healed.
Drink, all of you. Let us stand and with thanksgiving
and comfort sing number four hundred and fourteen, I heard
the voice of Jesus say. so so Yeah. you Brothers and sisters of the Lord
Jesus Christ, look up now and receive God’s blessing upon you.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine
upon you and be gracious to you. And the Lord lift up the light
of His countenance upon you and give you peace now and forevermore. And all God’s people said, Amen. Let’s pause now and bless our
food and then please make your way down to the fellowship, Paul.
Pray with me. Our God, we thank you that you provide for us rich
food, both spiritually and physically. And we pray now that the meal
we eat together would be rich for our bodies and that our fellowship
would be good for our souls. We thank you for this day you’ve
given to us and may we delight even more in it as it continues
on. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.