The Power of Touch and Word

The power of human touch is incalculable.

And one of the negative impacts of this COVID-19, something which is very frustrating to us, is that we have to practice the social distancing. It's very unnatural, isn't it? There are people that came to me after the first service, and I don't know if they wanted to hug me or punch me, but I just kept my distance.

And it's difficult isn't it? Because there's something within us as human beings that wants to touch and to be touched. We know in fact that touch has psychological and physical benefits. Giving someone a hug, a handshake or a kiss releases chemicals in the brain and body which makes them and us feel happy.

You feel a little better when someone you know has hugged you. Touch is the first sense a baby develops in the womb. The skin to skin contact between baby and child regulates the baby's heartbeat, it's breathing, it stimulates the baby's digestive system and helps fend off infection. Touch is so important. That nurturing touch is so important to a child's health, to its cognitive ability and its overall well-being. Children and even teenagers have been shown to be much more aggressive if they've never received that human touch. Touch is so important. These interactions are very, very important for the healthy development of children, and they're important to all of us. Even in adults, touch helps our immune system we are told. And if touch is the first sense that we experience, it's also the last, isn't it? Many of you have been, as I have, to someone who is dying and they may not be conscious, but if it's your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your dear friend, what do you do? You don't stand impassively, do you?

You reach out and you take their hand, you touch their brow, you may bend over and kiss them. Because we're told that touch is the last sense we experience before we go from time into eternity. Could you ever imagine going through life and not being touched? Today we're going to meet a man who because of his physical condition was cut off from his family, from his friends, and from his society. He was, we could call him, an untouchable. He was a leper.

There he is. There is a leper for today. And in biblical times leprosy covered many serious skin diseases, including what is today called Hansen's disease or leprosy. It's a terrible disease. The skin around the eyes and ears tends to bunch.

Fingers and toes drop off or are absorbed. And there is a paralysis, there is a lack of sensation of temperature and certainly of touch. When you think of it, leprosy is a devastating, lonely disease. The leper is permanently in quarantine. Can you imagine if for some reason you were quarantined for life?

No hope. And you're permanently separated. And when people look at you, even kind people look at you instinctively, they flinch. And young children look at you and say perhaps inappropriate things. You have leprosy. Leviticus 13 verse 45, the leprous person 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 out, unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone.

Hear that? He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. That was at the time when they were in their wilderness journey as the tabernacle was there, as the people camped. This man was not allowed to be part of the everyday society. He was to be put outside the camp. And if anyone approached him in order that they would know his condition and not get it, he was to shout, unclean, unclean. What a wretched existence.

Here is such a man. He's lonely. He's ostracized. He is untouchable.

He has constantly practiced social distancing. He doesn't know about touch. Furthermore, he is ceremonially unclean.

He is religiously unclean. But the leper we're going to meet is going to experience the touch of the master's hand. And to be touched by the master hand is to be forever changed. In our study of Matthew, we come today to Matthew chapter 8. Matthew 5, 6, and 7, as we've studied, is a wonderful sermon on the mount. We've listened to the teaching of Jesus. And one thing we discovered about the teaching of Jesus is it is different.

It is unique. In fact, the crowd are astonished at his teaching. For he teaches with authority and not as the scribes. He is the authority. He is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. And he is the interpreter of the law and the prophets. He speaks with absolute authority. He is the authority.

There's no appeal. He never makes mistakes. He never gets it wrong. This is God speaking to us. And Matthew is presenting Jesus as the King. With the King, the King has authority. And now he's moving in his Gospel from what Jesus says to what he does. And we're going to see in our passage today that Jesus not only has authority in his words, he has authority in his actions.

And he's going to heal three very unlikely characters. First, the leper. Secondly, a Gentile. Not just a Gentile, but a Centurion. He's the very figure of the occupying country. Remember, Israel is occupied by the Romans, the superpower. And the Centurion is there to make sure that the Jews behave themselves.

He's a symbol of the Emperor. And Jesus is going to heal his servant. And then he's going to heal a woman. Woman looked as very second-class citizens then.

This was a male-dominated culture in the first century in Israel, and Jesus is going to heal a leper, the servant of a Centurion, and a woman. We can say that he is ministering to outsiders, people you and I may not have first chosen to serve. Do you feel an outsider? I think all of us from time to time feels a bit on the outside.

And C.S. Lewis talks about the inner ring, and people don't feel they're part of the inner ring. In fact, if you're part of the inner ring, usually you've got to compromise something to be part of that inner ring. But people think, oh, I'm not in the inner circle. You ever felt that? That I'm not quite accepted here. You may feel that by coming to Calvary Church. You don't quite fit in. Do you realize that Jesus comes to you?

You may, like me, be an immigrant and feel it's difficult to fit in as an immigrant to American society. You may be listening on live stream in some country on the other end of the world and feel, well, this is for Americans. They're so blessed, but the blessings of God are not going to come to me. Somehow I'm missing out.

You're not missing out. Our Lord Jesus comes to people just like you and me. If you've got your Bible there, will you open it to Matthew, first book in the New Testament, and we're continuing in our study of Matthew. And today we're going to read, first of all, the first four verses of Matthew chapter 8. When he came down from the mountain, he'd given what we call the Sermon on the Mount on the mountain. Some of you have been there as I have, wonderful experience. When he came down the mountain, great crowds followed him.

We understand why. And behold, a leper came to him. Do you see him? Do you see him coming to Jesus? And he knelt down 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 a proof to them. In these four verses, we see the power of the master's touch. Think first with me of the leper's condition.

At least there is no doubt that this leper knows he has a serious condition. Notice what he says in verse 2. Lord, incidentally, he did not call him Jesus. Read the gospels and see how few people address Jesus as Jesus. This leper's theology was good. He uses the Greek word kurios.

The centurion is going to use the same word. Your Lord, he lies, he was different. How much he knew of his theology we don't know, but he knew this.

Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. He knew that Jesus had the ability to heal his leprosy, and he kneels in humble submission before Jesus. Notice that he does not demand healing. He doesn't come to Jesus and say, you've got to heal me. I'm a terrible leper.

You heal me. No, that's not his attitude at all. It's one of humility.

It's one of submission. It's one of recognizing that Jesus is no ordinary man. He is Lord. At least it's a term of respect, and you must have known something about Jesus.

You must have heard something. You must have witnessed something, and he comes and he says, Lord, if you will. That's good, isn't it? Is that how you pray? If you will, you can make me clean. The leper believes that Jesus has the power to cleanse him, but he doesn't know if it is the will of the Lord Jesus to heal him.

So he prays a very short prayer, a very good prayer, a very wise prayer, a prayer of humility. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. You can't improve on that, can you? See, at this time there's no cure for leprosy. There is no doctor. There is nowhere he can go to be cured of his leprosy. And I love the fact that this man, this untouchable, this leper knew that no condition was too difficult for the Lord Jesus.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that God can do all things? And he humbly admits his condition before the Lord. He was unclean. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. I'm unclean. There's nothing I can do to heal myself. There's nothing that society can do, but you Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Now leprosy in the Bible is an illustration of sin. I wonder if you've ever had that humble attitude before the Lord Jesus.

See, leprosy is a kind of disease that's very obvious because it affects the physical features. And as we sit here, as you sit there, even with your mask on, you look pretty good. Some of you arguably might look better with the mask than it's off.

Someone told me that, right? Thank you, Jim. He said that you look better with your mask on than off. But you look pretty good, don't you? As I look down, wonderful people here. But what if I could see your heart? What if I could read your thoughts?

What if I knew about your past, even this week? Wouldn't it be the case that while externally we look good, internally, which of course is much more important, that we're like this leper? Unclean, dirty, wicked. People, the Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. But here is the wonder of the Christian Gospel. In fact, the uniqueness of the Gospel is that however dirty you are and however unclean you are and whatever hideous sins you've committed and if we would be shocked if we could read your mind and know your heart and examine your life over the past few years, in terms of coming to Jesus, I can say this with the authority of the Word of God, if you come humbly to the Lord Jesus and do as this leper did admit your uncleanliness and say, Lord, cleanse me, heal me, forgive me. Listen to John, the apostle, in 1 John 1, he talks about this. 1 John 1, verse 7, he says, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, what does it do? Cleanses us from all sin. He uses the same Greek word as Matthew uses in Matthew chapter 8. That the blood of Jesus is so powerful, so strong, so mighty, that it will cleanse you from all of your sin. Now, if you say, John, we have no sin.

Anyone like that? You're self-righteous, you look down on other people. You think you've got it pretty well together, spiritually speaking. In fact, you're deceiving yourself. One thing about this leper, he wasn't self-deceived. He knew his condition and he humbly admitted it. We call that repentance. We call that confession, an acknowledgement that I have sinned before God. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us, there's our word again, the Greek word, katharizo, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, supposing I offended you, I came to you, said I'm very sorry, I said such and such.

I did such and such. You forgive me, the matter's over. But you can't forgive all of my sins, unless you don't know them. And your sin, while it affects other people, above all is against God. And so we must do, if we're going to receive this cleansing, this total cleansing, this total forgiveness, we're going to break bread this morning, and it would be wonderful if every single one of us here left the sanctuary with this tremendous experience that all of my sins have been forgiven.

They're cleansed, they're gone forever through the blood of Jesus Christ. We sometimes sing, the vilest offender. Are you the vilest offender here? I don't know.

Perhaps it's myself. Paul said I'm the chief of sinners. The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon received, that moment, immediately. The leper is healed immediately. You can leave here totally cleansed, in a moment. That's something you work for, it's all of God's grace.

The leper could not do anything for his condition. And he comes humbly to Jesus. Do you believe that? You've got to confess your sins, you've got to cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ and come to Christ as this wretched man does. Notice what Jesus does.

He reaches out and touches the leper. Don't you love that? Can you see the crowds coming down the mountain? They've heard the greatest sermon ever preached from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're amazed at the authority of Jesus and they're talking about it. They're coming down the mountain and then there's this wretched leper. And the crowds part from him unclean, unclean.

He looks pretty bad. They know what it is. They've seen lepers before. And to their amazement, when Jesus sees them, Jesus stops. You might not have stopped and you probably would have kept on going.

You'd have been concerned with yourself in case you were contaminated. But Jesus stops. Not only does he stop, when the leper kneels before him and says, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Jesus stretches out his hand and touches the leper.

Can you hear the gasp of the crowd? Jesus. This man who'd given such powerful teaching. This holy man, he's touching the leper.

Yes. Did Jesus need to touch the leper to heal him? Of course he couldn't.

We're going to see that in the next section. He can speak and is done. He's the one who in the beginning said, let there be light and there was light. Jesus doesn't need to touch the man to heal him. Why does he touch the leper?

It demonstrates, doesn't it? The great love and compassion and tenderness and healing of our Savior. Because the mission of Jesus was not just to heal. The mission of Jesus was to seek and to save the lost. Here is one who's lost. Yes, he's got a physical condition, but his main condition is that he's spiritually lost. And Jesus is identifying with the sinner.

He's going to go to the cross and take the sin of that leper, your sin and mine on himself and Jesus touches him. We're told that our skin has about 5 million sensory cells overall and loves to be touched. Our lives are of people who may not like to be touched, but they are very unusual people aren't they? Who doesn't appreciate a touch.

A touch conveys more than a thousand words doesn't it? But this touch, this touch of the Master's hand, it shatters all of the barriers of the law and of custom and of prejudice and of expectation. The Lord of glory, God incarnate is reaching down and touching a leper. He's identifying with the sinner. And the leper who's touched is healed by the power of the Master's touch. Isn't that incredible?

Don't you love that? See leper patients lose their sense of touch. They're desensitized. And so the very first touch that this leper had received, I'm sure for a long, long time is the touch from the Master's hand, our Lord Jesus Christ. His skin had become desensitized to touch. That's what leprosy does.

You lose your sense of temperature and of touch, something we take for granted. Can I say, with leprosy being an illustration of our sin, that sin desensitizes us, doesn't it? Have you noticed that about yourself? Here's a kind man, he's happily married, he's got some children, he's very kind, he's very caring, but he gets himself involved in sin. You can choose any sin you like but he's involved in sin. He knows it's wrong but he pursues it and pursues it. His wife suspects all is not right and she speaks to him. And what's happening in the relationship, he's pulling away. He's pulling away. He's not as sensitive and caring to the children as he once was.

What's happening? Sin changes us. Have you noticed that about yourself?

Have you noticed that about others? How is it that people can change sin? Sin desensitizes us not only to God.

How is it that people can hear the Word of God and go out and make no difference? Their hearts are hard, their conscience is seared. Sin desensitizes us and it shatters relationships, doesn't it? And one thing that sin does, it isolates us. It isolates us.

Can I say particularly to those of you who are younger but to all of us, please hear this. Sin changes you and sin always, always, always changes you for the worse. The devil says if you do such and such it will be good and it is good, right? It's called the pleasures of sin. You enjoy that sin. It's thrilling. You feel life has taken on some new meaning, this sin whatever it is.

But it never ends well. Sin is always down, down, down. And as you go down, it's changing. It's changing the way you think. It's changing the way you relate to people. It's certainly changing your view of God. And it never ends well.

In fact, the Bible says the wages of sin is death. It's always, always down. So some of you are on that slope right now. You know what I mean.

You're involved in sin, whatever it is, a relationship, alcohol, dishonesty, unkindness, you're down. Reminds me of the illustration. This is a joke.

The first crowd, I think, were kind of sleepy and somebody texted me and said that wasn't all that funny. I think this is really funny, right? And it illustrates my point that sin never ends well. A man goes up to the 50th floor of a building and he thinks it must be great to jump off. Can you imagine how exhilarating it is coming down?

If you say yes, you may have problems. But he jumps off and it's wonderful. He's passing the 20th floor and there's a man inside in the office and he sees the man falling down. He shouts to the man, he says, what's going on? And the man falling down saying, everything is great so far.

I thought it was pretty good, didn't he? My wife laughed, right? You get it? Everything is great so far. When he gets to the bottom, he's going to be killed.

When you have to explain a joke, it's tough, isn't it? You're involved in sin. Everything's great so far, so far, so far. Sin changes us. Now, what happens here in our passage? As I say, the first sensation of touch experienced after years of leprosy is the touch of Jesus. The power of the Master's touch brings immediate cleansing and healing. Normally, if you're clean and you touch something dirty, what happens? If I'm clean at the moment and this podium is contaminated with the COVID virus, that which is dirty is transferred to me. My cleanliness doesn't clean the podium.

Doesn't work that way, does it? That's why we keep washing our hands. Think of this, the Holy Son of God reaches out and touches a very, very unclean man and he is not contaminated. In supernatural way, the leper is immediately cleansed. It's the power of the Master's touch. Touched and changed by the Master's hand, Jesus says, I will be clean.

Only two words in Greek. Short response, a lifetime of a difference, an eternal difference cleansed by the Master's hand. Now, as we see in verse 4, the leper to go through some ceremonial matters to be declared clean by the priest. It would be a testimony to the priest, to the community that this leprosy was authentic.

There is no, to be no question about this. The leper is completely cleansed. That's going to be certified by the priest and it's going to be seen by people with their own hands. But Jesus tells him, perhaps strangely you think, say nothing to anyone. No, Jesus doesn't want people following him just to be healed. Remember, the primary mission of Jesus is not healing, physical healing, it is salvation.

Will you pray as David prayed after his great sin? Psalm 51, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. You're physically dirty, you take a shower. How can I be clean inside when I'm so dirty and so...