The Approachability of Jesus | Luke 5:12-16
Sermon Transcript
Good morning. Good to see you. All year, we've been going through a series on the life of Jesus, and we're in a series now on the works of Jesus, and that's where we are today. Well, years ago, when I was a seminary student, a man by the name of Dr Albert Mohler, who was and still is, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He was a guest speaker at the Chapel of the seminary I was at now in the 90s. Dr Mohler was instrumental and leading the what was known as the conservative resurgence that went throughout the Southern Baptist Convention in the 60s and 70s and 80s, a lot of the teaching in the seminaries had gotten theologically liberal, and they were teaching things like the resurrection didn't happen, and Jesus is not God's Son. These were going on in Southern Baptist seminaries. And so that kind of turned around under some of his leadership among other people as well, and he's one of the reasons why our institutions are good places now, and they still hold the Bible in high regard. In any event, I spoke to him afterwards, as a seminary student, introduced myself, and, you know, I don't know what I said. I just probably said, Hey, my name's Charlie, or whatever. And, you know, and he shook his hand. It was nice. And about 10 years later, when I was in ministry, had a vacation week, and I was in Columbia visiting my family, and he came and preached at my home church. So I said, Oh, I like to go see Dr Mohler again. So after he preached the sermon, and afterwards, I came up to him to reintroduce myself, and as I was talking, he said, Yes, Charlie, I remember you. Great to see you again. Remembered my name. Now, listen, I was the children's pastor on staff. This is before the time of like social media, where you can know people or know of people, and there's no reason why he should have known and remembered that short conversation I had when he does that every week across the country, speaking at places multiple times a week. Clearly that was a gift from God for someone to have a mind like that, but his approachability and his interest in speaking with people was real and it was noticeable. It was palpable. Have you ever met someone who was really, really approachable. You knew you could come up to them for anything, and they just had a presence about them that you knew you could come to. And when you spoke with them, you felt like they were talking to you, not over you, not past you, not through you, but to you, just a welcoming and approachable person. If you could have met Jesus and the biblical times, he would have met this description. I believe he was, and still is very approachable. Today we're looking at a passage of scripture that shows just how approachable Jesus was and what that means for our lives. Luke, chapter five, starting in verse 12, while he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy, and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, 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 the leprosy left him, and he charged him to tell no one but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded for a proof to them. But now even more, the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear Him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he will withdraw to desolate places and pray heavenly father, as we gather here today, Lord I pray that Your will be done today in this worship service. Lord that as you command us to pray that you would forgive us of our sins, that was we are to forgive others. Lord that today you would keep our mind on you. You would keep our mind from temptation. Lord that you would fill everyone today with your spirit, that you would fill me with your Spirit, that you give me your words to speak today, father and Lord, that You would show us today what your word is speaking to us, and we would receive it in Jesus name. Amen. I want to show you today three things. That Jesus requires of us when we approach him, he's approachable, but we are we do not have permission to stay the same when we approach Jesus, when we come to Jesus and interact with him, we should be forever changed, and we should be continuing to change throughout our life. Number one, coming to Jesus requires us to break our isolation. Coming to Jesus requires us to break our isolation. Verse 12 says, while he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. I love how that description just describes, just all over the man's body, white skin disease. Now, in Jesus' time, leprosy was considered and it was highly contagious and an incurable disease, and like other physical diseases, it was often seen as a consequence of sin in the person. The man had leprosy because of something he had done in his life. So he was considered a symbol of alienation from God. So lepers were ostracized, and they were forced to live apart from their families. They were forced to live apart from their communities, and they could only live in other colonies full of lepers, where they could interact with each other. So it was a lonely life. It was a physically painful life, and because many believed they were lepers, because of some sin in their life, they were also living with an incredible amount of guilt and shame. So that would be the man's frame of mind. But remarkable thing happened. This leper bravely went against the social norms and expectations, and he came to Jesus. He approached Jesus. Now, in those times of a leper passed through a community, he was required to wave his arms and shout as he was approaching unclean, Unclean, unclean. So imagine this leper coming to Jesus, shouting, unclean. Jesus would hear him. He would see him as he came closer and closer. Bible says and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Now he's using the word clean because, yes, he wants to be healed, but he was considered unclean ceremonially by the Jewish people. Make me part of the community again. Make me to where I can interact with people again. Make me clean. This man's faith in Jesus, ability to not only heal him, but to make him clean. It outweighed his fear of rejection. It outweighed his fear of social stigma. As he was walking toward Jesus, people children would be running away in terror looking at him, but he didn't care, because he saw Jesus. If we're going to come to Jesus for anything in life, we have to break whatever isolation we find ourselves in. Spiritually speaking, we all find ourselves in certain types of isolation we have first before Jesus can be our Lord and Savior, we must all leave our spiritual isolation. We have to leave whatever the world has taught us is right that is actually harming our spiritual lives. Even believers can find themselves spiritually isolating. It may be adopting a false view of the world, a false way to live. It may be listening to false teaching. All these things can cause spiritual decay in your life, and you must have the courage to leave those comforts behind and come to Jesus for spiritual healing. We also experience social isolation when we're not coming to Jesus on a daily basis. We feel a specific isolation and loneliness. We all felt this during covid for eight weeks. We couldn't come to the church, and it was isolating, feeling we must quit that behavior. Look at Hebrews chapter 10, and let us consider how to stir one up, one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as it is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. More, and all the more, as you see the day drawing near, we're called to be together in Christian community, Ecclesiastes four, nine through 10. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up when we come to Jesus, we are not meant to to find ourselves socially isolated any longer. We come out of our social isolation, some of us might find ourselves from time to time in an emotional isolation when we when we suffer, we may find ourselves feeling disconnected about our own feelings, about our own emotions. Maybe we've pushed something so far down we're scared to deal with it. Emotionally speaking, we too, need to seek healing and wholeness through the love and grace of Jesus. Look at Proverbs. 18, one. Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment. We don't need to isolate ourselves, even mentally, even we can have negative thought patterns. We can have self destructive behaviors. We need to run to Jesus and come to Jesus and ask Him to renew our minds, through His Word, through his presence, through his healing, he can make us clean. So coming to Jesus requires us to break out of our different forms of isolation. Number two, coming to Jesus requires us to enter into community. Coming to Jesus requires us to enter into community verse 13, and Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him, and he charged him to tell no one but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded for a proof to them. Through His healing, Jesus not only restores the man's physical health, but he also reconciles him to God and the community we've already touched on how Jesus brings us out of isolation, but he doesn't just bring us out of isolation, he brings us into a community of believers. This leper was told to go to his local synagogue, and he was told to see the priest. Jewish law instructed that after leper was healed, to go see the priest and have a ceremonial cleansing. Look at Leviticus 14, one through two, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, this shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of His cleansing, he shall be brought to the priest. Now, what follows for 20 something verses is a long list of what they were supposed to do, which included bathing and making animal sacrifices and all these things. So that's what he said. He said, Go to the priest and then do all these things that need to be done. But the key is that once these ceremonial rituals were completed, this person was now again in the community of believers. That's why he wanted to be clean, so he could be with people again. When you receive Christ, you are spiritually healed, and part of your cleansing process is now to come to church and now to worship with a community of believers. You're to come to church and you're to learn more about Jesus and the word of God, and we are healed and we are clean in God's sight. But this process never ends. Coming to Jesus requires us to enter into some type of Christian community. Jesus didn't say, well, you're healed, you're clean. Now go back to your leper colony. He didn't say, go back to living a life of isolation and loneliness. He said, Now go back to where you need to be, be cleansed, to be checked off by the priests so you can be part again of the covenant of community believers in the synagogue in your town. Being part of a covenant community is important for many reasons. For. First, it is essential for our spiritual growth, being in community with others, mutual encouragement, mutual accountability, support in our spiritual journey. We fellowship together. We read Scripture together, we worship together. We pray together. We grow in our faith together through our faith and knowledge of God. Secondly, it helps to serve others and do ministry. See, being part of church isn't just what we can get out of people, it's what we can give people. It provides opportunities for us to serve others. Use our gifts for people, outreach to people, do mission work and other ministries. Third, being in a community gives us relationships. Church community provides this this place to build, build these meaningful relationships with others, who who share our faith, who share our value, everything, everybody in this here today have at least one thing in common, if you're a believer, and that is, we are all children of God, Jesus, Christ is all of our Lord and Savior. We have that in common. It binds us together. No matter where you're from or or your background, we all have that in common, and God pulls us together for that. It helps us navigate the challenges of life. It helps us have joys together. It helps us. You know, many of you know Mr. Bill McCall's funerals today, and we had visitation yesterday, and we had over 1000 people here, probably last night, just coming through, is what they estimated. But, you know, I've done performed many funerals and many church members, but every now then there'll be someone who doesn't have a church connection, or they did, but they didn't really come, and all people don't know them. And I've done those funerals, and they're small because they didn't have a church connection. They didn't have the church family. But every one of you, when that day comes, if Jesus doesn't come back before that, are here today. There will be church people at your visitation. There will be church people at your funeral, because you are in the community of believers. And the more you come, the more people will be there. The more you know it, the more you get to know the more that you minister to people, the more impact that you put on someone's life, the more people will be there, because God has designed relationships to be part of that church community. Fourth discipleship. Being part of this community is allows for us to grow in who we are, in Christ, Jesus, and as you get older in age, people younger in age come they need to be helped, to be taught. This is how a man of God lives. This is how a woman of God lives. This is how, this is how it is to be a father, a Christian father, a Christian husband, or a Christian wife or a Christian mother. They need to be modeled and discipled. They're not going to get it in the world. They get it here in the church. And then finally, fifth, as we get into community, we learn how to witness. We learned how to be evangelistic. We learned how to share the love of Christ with others. We learned how to be a light in our communities and together, our collective witness has a huge impact on individuals. Imagine if our church just never existed, just ceased to exist. Would it leave a hole in the community? Would the community miss us? I think it would. I think it would. But there are many churches that close throughout the country, probably every day, that people don't even know they've closed now, how sad is that they're not doing what they're called to do. They're not witnessing to the community. They're not making a difference. Jesus requires us to enter into this church community so we can be a blessing and we can witness to our surrounding community. Monks corner needs to know that we're here. I believe they do, but they don't ever need to forget that we're here. Finally, number three, coming to Jesus, requires us to deflect attention. Deflect attention. Look at verse 15. But now even more, the report about him, went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear Him and to be healed of their infirmities, but he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. Jesus did all he could do to avoid attention with this healing in. He didn't use this as a platform to grow his social media page, or whatever that would be back then. He didn't use this as a startup to get his ministry really rolling. All right, I healed this one guy. We really got it going. Now, what's next? That's not the way he did healing. People came to him. He healed him. Typically, people would come to him. A lot of times you look at his healings. He wasn't looking for people to heal. They came to him. They took the tiles off the roof and lowered down. They they came to him. They touched his garment. They did whatever it took. They approached him and said, Jesus, I need help. He wasn't really looking for that. But when people came to him, he healed them, and he specifically told the man, don't tell anybody. Just go and tell the priest. But people still heard about it, and they heard about it because it was a great act of God. It was a miracle. We live in a world where I think increasingly more every day, it seems like we feel, or many people feel, that we must showcase and celebrate every good thing we do, because if we don't tell someone, did it really happen? The tree falls in the forest and no one sees it? Did they hear it? That whole joke you've heard about right? I probably told it wrong. I don't know, but we feel like we got to tell everyone every good thing that we do. Here's the challenge. Can you do something good for a person in the name of Christ and not share it with others? Jesus tried, he tried hard to do that, which seems counterintuitive, because he's here to preach of his kingdom, but he tried hard not to. How can we deflect attention? I'm gonna give us several ways. I think the Bible tells us, as Christians, how we can go against the grain of our culture, and how we can be salt and light, but deflect the attention from ourselves and put it on Jesus where it should be. Number one, avoid seeking recognition or praise. Jesus never sought recognition or praise, but he deserved it the most. Look at Matthew chapter six, starting verse one, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father, who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. He says, If your goal is recognition or praise, you'll get it. That's your reward. He says they received that. He says, That's not your motivation. As a Christian. He says, If you're going to give the needy, give to them, but don't tell everybody. Don't show everybody. And now with social media, we can show every little thing. I can just walk around with a camera and videotape my entire life and just stream it live if I wanted to. Isn't it crazy that we could some people do that. It's crazy. That's the world we live in as Christians. We need to deflect attention, God will give it when he needs it, but avoid seeking it. Secondly, refrain from boasting or showing off Look at Proverbs. 27, two, let another praise you and not your own mouth. Stranger, not your own lips. I should take this this. I should take this passage and put it on social media and say, Isn't this a great thing to write? How ironic would that be? Right? All joking aside, look what it says. Let another praise you, not your own mouth. Let other people give you praise. And if it's a good work of God that God wants to highlight, it'll happen. God will use it third, keep your good deeds private. Now, I feel like years ago, this was it seemed like a lot more people did this kind of thing. You know, I just remember my grandparents talking about things that they had done and people had done that never people never knew anything about, right? But now it's not that way anymore. It feels like everybody's gotta tell everybody what they do. Keep your good deeds private. Look at Matthew six, three through four. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. You'll have the heavenly rewards. God knows our heart right? He knows our our motivations. So. God will give you what you deserve. Fourth, don't compare your acts of righteousness with others. Don't compare your acts of righteousness with others. You know, the Bible says there's no righteous person, no, not one. Isaiah 64 six says this, we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away. He's saying, even when we do something good and we do something for the Lord Isaiah says, it's still tainted. It's not perfectly clean. So don't compare your righteousness with the perceived righteousness of another person, because we don't even know how righteous that act is. It's polluted as well. It's clean as well. Don't compare your life and your deeds with another it might seem perfect and holy and righteous. Well, Isaiah says we're all sinful. We're all polluted. Don't compare. And finally, number five, really this, that could all be summed up in these and this right here, strive to have genuine intentions and motivations. It's a heart issue. Genuine intentions and motivations. Look at Philippians. Two do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility. Count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. See when we become a Christian, that old person dies, we are buried in our sins. We are raised to life. Is what baptism shows us. The old person has died, the new person has come. We are now no longer attention seekers. We are Jesus seekers. We are coming to him. So we must learn now how to manage that. It's not all about us. It's all about Jesus, about who he is. Jesus was so approachable, so that you could come to him. You could feel comfortable coming to him like the people in the Bible did, whether you were paralyzed, whether you had leprosy, whatever it was, whether you were blind, you could come to him. You could leave your former way of life because you wanted a new life. You wanted to be healed. You wanted to be made right with God. You wanted to be cleansed. Jesus sees your sin. He sees your leprosy, and he wants to heal you, whatever you're struggling with today, whatever you're tied up in today, and you're like, I need to get out of that. I need to leave that, whether it's a way of thinking, whether it's a sin problem, whatever it is, Jesus says, Come to me and I'll heal you. And he says, Don't go back to the leper colony. Says, Go do what you need to do, and get back into community. Jesus is approachable, so you can find him, put your faith in Him and be a part of the community of God that he calls the church, Heavenly Father. To close our time together today. We thank you that you save us not into isolation, not into an island of ourselves, but you save us into a Christian community. And yes, Lord, we are people together. And yes, Lord, there are people in churches who are going to sin against each other, and many people quit going to church. They get out of habit of church because something that's happened to them in a church or someone who sinned against them in a church, and Lord, we all know that we're all sinners in need of a Savior, but well, we should love you more than we love our hurt. We should love you more than we love the bitterness that we hold against people. We should love you and thank you for saving us so that we can learn how to forgive and continue Lord, following you as you continue to clean us, as you continue to make us whole, as you continue to lead us to follow you as believers, but We love you. If there's one in here today that's never placed their faith in you, never placed their trust in you today, Lord, I pray, Lord that you would save them today. You would make them right with you, and Lord that they would follow you today. And for those of us, Lord that know you help us. Be the type of Christians that we read about today. Give us that power, give us that strength, give us that humility. We ask these things in Jesus name amen.
