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The Gospel Cleanses (Mark 1:35-45) · Mercy Presbyterian Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, everyone.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I want to welcome you to Mercy.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Rob Heron, and I'm the pastor here, and it is really just a joy to be with you.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's possible that you're here and you're very familiar with Mercy.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: You might be here because you're curious about a new sign popping up on Holbrook, or maybe you're here because you're curious about what a church plant is like, or maybe you're here because you are curious about the claims that Christians make.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're here and you're curious, I'm very glad.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are here to proclaim what God has made known about himself.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're also here to openly investigate what God has said every single week, to make the case every single week that what God has said is good and true and beautiful.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say God has made himself known, and when I say God has said, I'm talking about the Bible.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because Christians believe that the Bible is not merely a book, but this book is filled with breathed out words from God.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: These are God-breathed words spoken by God Himself, and they continue to speak to us because they're the words of the living God.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is very important for the church for us because it means that God hasn't left us in darkness.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he's given us his own breathed-out words so we would know him and receive him and enjoy him and love him.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because above all, what his breathed-out words reveal to us is the great love that he has shown to us in Jesus.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as God's people, we gather every single week to be about our first order of business, which is listening.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not primarily to this guy, but listening to God's word.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so my job every single week is simply to restate, to re-proclaim what God has made known about himself, what he has said, so that we would all listen and believe, be strengthened to proclaim it ourselves, and then together learn to embody the beauty of God's word together to one another and to our neighbors.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so with that in mind, I'm inviting us all to listen to God's word as we look at the Gospel of Mark and continue in our series on the Gospel of Mark.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Mark invites us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and to believe that Jesus came into this world to give his life as a ransom for many.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we focused on chapter 1, verses 21 through 34, looking at how the gospel heals.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And today we are looking at verses 35 through 45, still in the first chapter, to see how the gospel cleanses.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So let's give our attention now to God's word.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there Jesus prayed.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, Everyone is looking for you.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling, said to him, If you will, you can make me clean.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, I will be clean.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the man went out and began to freely talk about it and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: The grass withers, the flower fades.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me now for the teaching?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Merciful God, we humbly submit ourselves, asking you as children to our Father, that the seed of your word would be sown in us, and let it take such deep root that neither the burning heat of trials would cause it to wither, nor the cares of life choke it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if seed sown in good ground, let it bring forth thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold according to your purpose and for the sake of your kingdom.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Give your spirit to open, our ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to trust, and direct our hearts through your word to Jesus Christ, so that we might believe and have eternal life in Him.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: This we ask, Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the name of your Son.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's my junior year of high school.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the end of the semester, and it's awards day at school.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they let me know I was going to win an award at awards day at school.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: No cause to brag.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was for a class for upperclassmen who were really bad at science.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think we learned what gravity was, or we were supposed to, but I wasn't going to say no to an award.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I put on my finest white dress shirt so that I could be fit to be present for the ceremony.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right before the award ceremony, though, it was art class.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And during this art class, I was doing chalk art as one does.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also one of those people, if I'm sitting down at a table, at this point, an art table, I'm always gonna be tempted to lay my head down on the table because I think I'm lazy.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And at some point during this making of chalk art and art class, I laid my head down on the table.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I got up at the end of art class, I looked down at my white dress shirt for the ceremony, and it looked like a gang of creative four-year-olds just went to town on it with the most you know bright chalk pieces.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I probably went to the bathroom to try to wash it off, but it only smeared the stain around.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so the only solution I had, the best solution I had was to put on a hoodie that I had bought previously from Hot Topic that would cover up the stain.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Unsurprisingly, this Hot Topic hoodie didn't help all that much.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had an off-white, unclean mess shirt, hot topic hoodie, totally unfit to be present at this award ceremony.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mean, this is a very silly example, but in a way it actually gets to what the Bible means when it uses the language of clean and unclean.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be clean, to be fit to be present at this ceremony.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when the Bible uses the word clean, like the way that it's used here in Mark chapter 1, it's it means way more than a stain being scrubbed off or a stain being covered up.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Being clean, and the Bible's meaning of that word, is about being fit for God's presence.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Cleanness has to do with being fit for God's presence.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so being unclean means something or someone is not fit for God's presence.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that helps clarify what the Bible means when it's pointing out or addressing the problem of uncleanness.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible claims that all of us have been become unclean.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: All of us left to ourselves are unclean and so unfit for God's presence.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And let me go ahead and jump ahead or get ahead of where our brains might go.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think when you hear the phrase we are unclean, we might immediately think of specific actions, things that you might do that from the Bible's point of view are bad.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: As though being unclean equals doing bad things from the Bible's point of view.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bible's idea of uncleanness goes way deeper than just behavior or actions.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Something is unclean in the Bible's meaning if it is infected by and touched by death.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've all become unclean, according to the Bible, because we have all been infected by death.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But how is that the case?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because the root of death, which the Bible calls sin, lives in us.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And death is not fit for God's presence.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, putting it all together, since we are infected by death, we have become unclean.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And because we are unclean, we're not fit for God's presence.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem we all share.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But hearing all the clean and unclean talk, you may you may likely have a gut reaction against that kind of language.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's just not the kind of language we use to describe ourselves or that we use to describe other people clean or unclean.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: But still, as much as we might feel uncomfortable with that clean, unclean language, uh there is a powerful piece of evidence that this problem that the Bible describes, we are all unclean, that problem is real.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that piece of evidence is this the ongoing existence of shame.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Shame.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Shame is from one angle, this feeling that you are unfit for someone's presence or for presence in an entire community.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful feeling that we all experience, shame.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's really interesting is that our society has gone to such great lengths to kill off shame, to just do away with it.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: One of the ways that we've tried to kill off shame is just by saying that it's a lie.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Shame is a lie.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so the solution, the remedy is to tell yourself, you aren't unclean, you are clean, you are worthy.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Another way to try to kill off shame would be, and to get clean would be to improve yourself.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you feel unclean, if you feel ashamed, then just what you can do is actually make some better life choices.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can take better care of yourself.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: But from the Bible's perspective, these ways of getting clean, these ways of killing shame, only go skin deep.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: They can say to you, you are clean, but they can't actually make you clean.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: They can put the hot topic hoodie over the stain, but it can't actually fix the problem.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: They can't actually make you clean.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be clear, very clear from the beginning, what I'm not saying is that all forms of shame are equally valid or that are worth listening to.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: There are forms of shame that are lies and we do need to combat.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the basic existence and experience of shame and the fact that it just won't go away, we all continue to experience it despite our best efforts to kill it off.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It points to the reality of what the Bible is saying.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are all in need of cleansing, we all need to be washed clean.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's what I want us to see today looking at these verses from Mark chapter one.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Mark is pointing us to the one who is willing and ready and able to make us clean.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And looking to the one who's ready and able to make us clean.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want us, here's what I'm inviting us to pray today.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: For the sake of memory, would you actually say that with me?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want to do is help us make that our prayer today by looking at three themes from these verses.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at the fountain, filth, and freedom.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Fountain, filth, and freedom.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So first let's look at the theme fountain.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at that theme, when I say fountain, I'm really asking, what is the source of our cleansing?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And not even past the first chapter of Mark's book, and Jesus is already a local celebrity.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: After performing great miracles and healings and casting out demons, the crowds really want what he's got on offer.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus goes away to a desolate place to pray.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: But his disciples, his followers, they go and they track him down.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can see in verse 37.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: They found him and said to him, Everyone is looking for you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they went looking for Jesus, the disciples, because large crowds nearby in the town heard what Jesus could do for them.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if Jesus would go back to the town and continue with the healings, this Jesus movement is going to get real massive real quick.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can see Jesus tells them in 38, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And by came out, Jesus, he's probably talking about his entire mission.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's been sent for the purpose of preaching the gospel, the news of who he is and what he's done.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's making clear my mission is not to be popular, it's to be the Savior.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And for his mission to go forward, it's more important for him to go out to this desolate place and pray.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout Jesus' ministry, he would withdraw from the crowds, go off by himself, and he would pray.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why would Jesus do this?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was he an introvert?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe not.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did this because the success of his mission relied on who Jesus is.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: The success of his mission relied on who he is.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's the Son of God.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so he would repeatedly, frequently seek his Father's presence in prayer.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: The source of Jesus' power is not magic, it's the life that he shares with his father in heaven.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to cleanse us.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the fountain that cleansing comes from.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus' own life, it's God's life.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll illustrate this by talking directly to the kids in the room.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Every week, I want to at some point talk very specifically to the kids in the room so you can better understand what I'm saying to better help you understand what the Bible is saying.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you feel like you're a kid and you're in this room, why don't you raise your hand because I know who I'm talking to?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody feel like they're a kid right now?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like taking a bath?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like bath time?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you like taking a bath, raise your hand.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't like taking a bath, don't like it, raise your hand.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I bet some of you, I bet some of you do.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I bet some of you really don't.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I bet that those of you who really don't like bath time, if what taking a bath meant, if all that meant was you getting in a dry tub with a bunch of your favorite toys and just rolling around for a few minutes, probably wouldn't have minded all that much.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what would be missing?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: The water.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, the water.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be rolling around in your own dirt for a couple minutes with your favorite toys.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: It actually sounds pretty good.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the point I'm trying to make.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rolling around in the tub without water is not a good idea, right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a good idea if you want to get clean.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Rolling around in the tub without water is about as good an idea as trying to clean our hearts without Jesus.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or trying to clean our hearts without going to Jesus.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the fountain.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in the tub, you need to turn on the fountain.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you get clean.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Without the fountain, we can't get clean.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Without the fountain, we can't get clean.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the fountain of our cleansing is Jesus.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our cleansing comes from Jesus' life, the life he shares in perfect unity with his Father and with the Holy Spirit.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: God is perfectly clean because there is in him no death, only unending life.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so for us who are left to ourselves unclean, becoming clean can ever really be a matter of changing your behavior or doing better.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can't truly become clean by trying to view ourselves differently or telling ourselves, you are clean, you're worthy.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus alone has the power to make clean because he is perfectly close with his father because of his life.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so for us, the only way to be washed clean is to be close to Jesus.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: You need his presence in your life.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I need his presence in my life.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be invited into his presence.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's the only fountain where we can be washed clean.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is way different than the way we would probably typically think that a religion would recommend getting clean, what it would look like to get clean.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: In the religious way of thinking, we might think if someone is unclean, then he needs, this person needs to do a series of steps.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: He needs to obey a series of commands.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And once, in the religious way of thinking, we might assume, once you fulfill those steps sufficiently, then you can be, you are fit to be in God's presence.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is also very different than the way the world typically recommends that we deal with shame.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: The recommended remedy for shame is usually look within you.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Look within you.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Change your perspective on yourself.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the gospel invites us not to a series of steps to complete and not to look within yourself.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: It invites us to go to Jesus because he is the fountain.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: He promises to wash us clean before we get ourselves cleaned up in the least.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he promises to give us what we can't give ourselves.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: He promises to share with us his own life.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's the fountain.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the first thing.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Mark invites us to go to the fountain, which is Jesus Himself, His own life.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so here should be our prayer.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lord wash us clean.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this second theme of filth.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And here I'm really addressing what in us needs cleansing.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm using this word filth, fully aware that it's a very provocative word.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of word that we might say is shaming.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's an intense word.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also an appropriate word if we want to if we want to understand what the Bible is describing when it uses the word uncleanness.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: To see what I mean, we only need to learn just a little bit about the condition that in Jesus' time visibly represented uncleanness.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's leprosy.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: The term leprosy in the Bible covers a whole range of skin diseases.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And at most extreme, it was uncurable, and it meant someone was physically deteriorating and wearing that disease on the outside of their skin.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Leprosy wasn't usually a literal death sentence, but it was a sentence to complete alienation and isolation.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Old Testament book, Leviticus, it commanded that anyone with leprosy in God's, in the community of God's people, wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, unclean, unclean.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so a leprosy diagnosis meant you were unfit in the presence of your community, much less in the presence of the place of worship.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the man with leprosy who comes to Jesus in verse 40, imploring and kneeling before Jesus, he wouldn't have been in the slightest surprise if Jesus had taken one look at him and this disease, this visible death on the outside of his body, and said, Get your filth away from me.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: But why would a leper be treated this way?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: For God's people, leprosy was an outward picture of an internal problem that we all have, an outward picture of an internal problem we all have.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Leprosy is, again, it's basically visible death on the outside of your body, and at its worst, there is no cure.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a problem that could not be washed away through human effort.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an awfully, terribly accurate picture of the infection in our hearts.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: That infection is what the Bible calls sin.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And sin produces death in us because it separates us from God, the fountain of life.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the alienation of the person with leprosy was a painfully vivid illustration of our alienation from God.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was an illustration that makes clear the filth in us that needs cleansing is the power deep within our hearts that separates us from God.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's what needs cleansing.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: On the island of Hawaii until 1969, there was this infamous leper colony that had forced isolation for anyone who was diagnosed with leprosy.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: One man, his name was Henry Malayalua, beautiful name, doing my best to pronounce it correctly, was one of those people who lived on this leper colony for over 10 years.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he was diagnosed with leprosy at the age of 10 and completely separated from his family and everyone that he knew and loved.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote about it later in his life, that experience.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what he wrote about the experience of having to say goodbye to his mother and then move into this leper colony.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: The mama looked at me sadly and began to cry, and she held me against her and cried and cried.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: What was wrong?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I asked.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Had I done something bad?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't answer.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: She just held me and cried.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I asked her again what was wrong.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: She sobbed.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's where you have to go tomorrow.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I will never see you again.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's where you have to go tomorrow.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this was obviously this is the real tragedy for this man.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's the real tragedy for this leper who is imploring and kneeling before Jesus.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's where they have to go.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's being separated from the presence of those who love you.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so in us, the filth that needs cleansing is that power that pulls us away from God's loving presence.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, then our need for cleansing goes way further.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's way more than needing to stop doing bad things.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, when we actively break God's commands, that demands cleansing.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the real problem is that is this power that pulls away from God, which means that what we see as our good works, if used and treated to clean ourselves up, demand just as much cleansing as our bad works.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our good works, if treated as things that can clean us up, demand just as much cleansing as our bad works.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because our so-called good works can lull us into thinking that we don't need God.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the disease in the Old Testament prophet Isaiah that the prophet diagnoses in God's people.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: He writes, we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: For God's chosen people, this disease had infected even just their worst works, but their best works, the best works, making those works like an unclean garment, trying to cover up the problem.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: The modern understanding of leprosy is called Hansen's disease.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the most horrific parts of Hansen's disease is that it kills nerves, it numbs you, so that people with this disease can end up wounding themselves, burning themselves, and not even realizing it, which causes a lot of the wounds on the skin.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way, the most dangerous filth is probably not what we would think of as our unrighteousness, but our self-righteousness.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is most dangerous where it is hidden, killing us while we are totally unaware.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this, I think, highlights one of the most dangerous things about shame.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because we typically feel shame when we feel like we've done something bad.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, then we would typically think that the remedy, the way to kill the shame, is to do good, to start doing better.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that really is like prescribing the disease to treat the disease.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because the disease is separation from God.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the filth that needs cleansing can never be dealt with through our better efforts.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: That would just pull us further away from the fountain.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it also can't simply be fixed by saying, I'm clean, because it's not a matter of self-perception, it's a matter of separation from the God who made you.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the only one who can cleanse you.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the second thing.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mark tells us to grasp how deep our problem goes.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is filth because it's death and because it separates us from God.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it cannot be cured through our efforts to wash ourselves.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so this should be our prayer.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look third at the theme of freedom.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here I'm asking the question: what is the effect of being cleansed?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And with this man kneeling in front of him, Jesus has every logical reason to be repelled.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: The way the leper asks the question might even hint at that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can see in verse 40.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, If you will, you can make me clean.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not if you have the power.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: He assumes you have the power, but I don't know if you're willing to make me clean.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus isn't repelled.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, in verse 41, Jesus is moved with pity.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus looks at this man's condition, and he also looks at him and he knows his story.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: He sees all the years of alienation and isolation and shame.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: He sees all of it.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And his heart stirs with compassion.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And even more than simply stirs with compassion, his compassion here is really scandalous.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's already shown that he has the power to heal with just a word, and yet he touches this man.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: This man who likely hadn't received an affectionate touch in years.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows how long?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I will be clean.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: You see in verse 42, and immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, probably even the most surprising thing.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: We would be surprised by healing, but if anything, the people watching this would have been surprised that Jesus didn't catch this man's uncleanness.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: May have been what they thought was going to happen.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the man's uncleanness doesn't make Jesus unclean.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus' cleanness, his touch, his life makes this man perfectly clean.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is contagiously pure.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the cleansing that he gives this man goes so deep that this man becomes wildly free.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we can see it first in Jesus' instructions in 44.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: He tells the man, show yourself to the priest and offer your cleansing, what Moses commanded for a proof to them.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's free to go back to the community.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: He can go back to the community now.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: But he's also said he can't help but freely talk about what Jesus has done for him.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's just bursting with the news.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has his reasons to tell the man in 44, see that you say nothing to anyone.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And one reason is at least, if this man goes back to the town, he tells people what Jesus did for him, everyone's going to be coming to him, and Jesus won't be able to freely move throughout the towns anymore.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happens.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we should probably read this man's decision, you know, to say what Jesus said, don't talk about this, as revealing the obvious.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's not as wise as Jesus.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no indication that Mark gives us here that we should interpret the man's evangelism, this bubbling up news, as especially disobedient.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: This man has been made so radically free that Jesus must have known this guy's going to spill the beans.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's just so free, he's just bursting with this pure, joyous freedom.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is exactly what Jesus' cleansing does to people.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: It makes them, it makes you, it makes me more free than we've ever been, than you've ever been.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday I was at Fountain City Park with my kids.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was a rainy morning, but I brought donuts, so all was well.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my son was playing at the creek at one point, and uh I should side note and say that he is far more coordinated than I am or ever have been.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this was a rare event, but he fell as he was skipping across rocks in the creek at the park.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And as he fell, his shin went into this really sharp rock and then left this deep gash in his leg.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Very tough.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he's here today.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I see him as he's crawling out of the creek, he's crawling into the mud, and he's getting mud all over himself.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's so it's just so instinctive, it's so obvious what a child needs in that moment.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: What a child needs in that moment is way more than just getting cleaned up in itself.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: If that were the case, you could just throw him back in the creek.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: What a child needs in that moment is he needs to be hugged, he needs to be scooped up, he needs to be dusted off, he needs loving hands to wash the dirt out of his wounds.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he needs to be made free again to run and play freely without shame.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he needs.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Jesus does for us.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: He has every reason to be repelled by the death that lives in our hearts, but instead, he has pure compassion on us.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't cleanse us in a cold, detached way.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he comes so intimately close that he extracts the disease onto himself and kills it through his own death on the cross.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: He washes us clean, removing the sin and death out of our hearts through giving his own resurrection life.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And on that basis, he declares, you are clean.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because he shares his life with you, he says, you are clean.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because he sheds his own perfect and pure blood for you, he says, you belong with me.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you belong in my Father's presence.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And having washed you, he then covers you with this perfect garment of his righteousness, his beauty, and his purity.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: He washes us clean so we can be free to get out from under the power of shame.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And more than that, Jesus wants to take us far, far beyond the question of shame, the question of clean and unclean.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to cleanse you so that you will be so free that you are no longer trying to cover up the worst things that you've done or out, and you're also free from trying to self-righteously accumulate enough that you might be fit to be in God's presence.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: He said he wants you to live in the freedom of having been washed and loved by the God that you are made for, meant to live for, live freely with him.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you get this kind of freedom?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Amazingly, beautifully, it's in the hymn we're about to sing.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Come, you sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, joined with power.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: The only fitness that Jesus requires is that you would feel your need of him.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: The only fitness Jesus requires is that you would feel your need for him.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel your need of Jesus?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then here is the prayer.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me once more?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, wash us clean.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for this word, your word, that promises us that you are willing and able and ready to make us clean.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: And teach us to hear it, to believe it, to lay it up in our hearts and follow Jesus all our lives.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Take this word by your Spirit and plant it deep within us now and forever for our good and for your glory.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.