Jesus is Willing and Able to Cleanse You

Good morning. Open your Bibles to Mark chapter 1 please. Mark chapter 1. I got the call from Sharon telling me about what Dave, what Dave Nerland was going through So, let's read the text. And then we will go to our Lord in prayer. Mark chapter 1, verse 40.

And a leper came to Jesus, imploring him. And kneeling, said to him, If you will, you can make me clean. Moved with pity, And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. And he said to him, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. 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 priests and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them.

But he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter. Let us pray. O God our God you are faithful and true and both able and strangely willing to do good things for sinners like us It is a divine mystery to be told and to understand to know that though we are sinners though we are deserving of nothing good from you but only your wrath you kindly and wonderfully give us your goodness and grace and mercy that found in Jesus I pray God that our hearts would be directed to him right now.

I pray that you would help distractions, anything that would stop your word from not only being faithfully proclaimed, but also being faithfully received. Would you powerfully work in us this moment and now to receive your word. I pray that you would be with Dave as he ministers to his son. I pray that you'd give him patience. You would help him to be faithful, to take care of him.

God, I pray that you would encourage that whole family. So we praise you and we thank you for this Lord's Day that we get to celebrate the work of salvation that you have won. Let us focus on you now. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So in order for someone to be helpful at all, in order for someone to be helpful at all, one must be both able and willing to help.

Those are the two major tenets. If you are going to be helpful, you must not only be able to do the help, but you have to be willing to do it as well. So people look all around at the world and they see suffering, pain, and misery, and they can feel it within their own very souls, and they can ask the question, is God both able and willing to help? In fact, in Sunday school recently, that was the topic of discussion.

That since there is misery, since there's turmoil and hardship and suffering, perhaps God is either powerful but not willing to help, or he's willing but not able to help. Well the healing of the man with leprosy this morning reveals that God is both able and willing to save us from our greatest problem in this life And that is our misery That is our sin This is a truth for you who have never come to Christ. Or you who are a believer for a while and have fallen into sin.

Our God in Christ is both willing and able to save you from the sickness of sin that plagues you. And so we should come to Jesus as this man does in this narrative today and receive help from the God who is both able and willing to help us. So let us look at that this morning as we first and foremost see this man's approach to Jesus, as we see this man's approach to Jesus.

And it's one of complete and utter desperation, as we'll see. Look at verse 40 of chapter 1 in Mark again. And a leper came to Jesus, or a leper came to him. Luke also records this same miracle of healing from Jesus, and he gives us a little bit more information that's helpful. Luke says in Luke 5, 12, there came a man full of leprosy. So not only is this man coming to Jesus with leprosy, but he's full of it.

And that means this disease has progressed to a point of no return. That's it for him. There could be hope that it would go away, but this man is full of it from head to toe. There is no hope of it leaving. He has no hope, and he is utterly miserable under this condition of leprosy. In fact, one can say he is literally a living death.

He is experiencing a living death being full of leprosy. With this disease, it's a living death physically, and the fact that open sores and swelling would spread deeper across the body and also deeper in the body, in the tissues of the body. There would be nerve destruction. The disease attacks nerves, causing a loss of pain sensation. There would be self-injury then because of that, without knowing it, because you can't feel it.

1 1 There would be a loss of fingers and toes often from repeated injuries or infections There would be tumor-like growths, and there would oftentimes, as it progressed further, be blindness. There's one horrific example from medical history, and if you get queasy, then close your ears until I put my hand down. Some leprosy patients had their fingers eaten by rats while sleeping because they couldn't feel pain.

And so this is a horrific and awful disease. And this man's full of it. We're not given the exact details, but we can imagine his misery. We can imagine his terrible state he's in. Not only is it a living death physically, but it's a living death socially. These people were forced to live outside the camp, as we see from Leviticus 13.

In other words, they were outside the community. They were separated from family, could not live with their spouse or children or in their community. Imagine having a disease where you had to say goodbye to your spouse and your children. There's no physical contact. Even accidental touch made the others unclean. There is required for you to, if you have this disease, to shout unclean, unclean while covering your upper lip whenever people even approached you.

And you could not greet people because greetings, especially then, always involved physical contact. People avoided them by six feet and if the wind was blowing at 150 feet. This was a living death, both physically and spiritually, and he was, what Luke says, full of it. And we've got to understand the connection that's being made spiritually, that sin is a living death disease.

It starts small but spreads like wildfire in our life with the goal of numbing you until you die. That's why so many people stayed out last night watching at bars Ohio State lose rather than wanted to come to church today. It makes them think that this is what I am to do for life. It numbs you and numbs you and it keeps you from things that are truly valuable to life indeed.

And socially we know sin drives separation between our neighbor and the person who has this. This problem, it makes you unclean to worship the God who made you and whose image you are made in. Perhaps the difference here, though, between our condition in sin and this man's condition of being full of leprosy, is Satan will keep those who are terminally ill with sin ignorant of just how bad it is, whereas this man is fully aware how bad his condition is.

He is miserable with this sickness and he knows exactly what is driving his misery. So this man being sick with leprosy represents the sinner who has been awakened to a sinful condition and is miserable and in desperate need because of it. And so we see again going to Mark 1 40, a leper came to him imploring him and kneeling said to him. Now some people ask, is he doing this as a way of worship or as a way of begging?

Again, full leprosy, imploring him, kneeling. And they ask, is this worship or is this simply just him begging? And honestly, I think it's the latter. Not to say he didn't have any kind of worshipful spirit within him, but I think the point of the passage here is that this man is in misery and he is in a state of begging for help. In fact, we see again in Luke 5, 12, and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, is what Luke said.

So this is what this man is doing. He is at the end of everything. There's no hope at all. And he is just left with begging Jesus for help. The NIV perhaps captures this well in our text in Mark when the NIV says, A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees. This reveals how he views this man.

He views his sickness. He's in total misery. I had poison ivy pretty bad a few weeks back. And if I had Jesus right before me who was able to heal, I would go to him and say, hey, it would be really nice if you could get rid of this. But I wouldn't be at total wit's end like this man. 1 Tzessalonians 1 Corinthians 1 Rheumon 1 Cepharon Hibuth 1 Sinai 1 Corinthians 1 Mephthia 1 Peter 3 Simeon 1 Vittian 1 Rhoamian 8 Kodos 1 Ramp 1 Shem 1 Laban 9 Ophiel 1 Thet We have a little problem that needs to be corrected No we need to come to Jesus as this man is in full misery understanding his misery how awful of a position he's in, his illness is awful, and he's at his wit's end.

So he comes to Jesus begging. We also see this sick man's view of Jesus, not only of his own illness, of which he is miserable, And we also see the sick man's view of Jesus and what he says to Jesus. It shows what he thinks of Jesus. Look what he says in verse 40. On his knees begging, if you will, you can make me clean. He says he's able, but he perhaps is not willing to save this man.

If you will, you can. You can do it. You're able. But the question is, are you willing, Jesus, to save, to help me? I think we need to appreciate for a moment that this man's conviction that Jesus is strong enough to cleanse him, to heal him, he would be a mess. As I've already said, he would look like a mess, his life would be a mess, and yet he is fully convinced that despite just how bad his disease is, he, that is Jesus, is powerful enough to heal him.

That's not the question in his mind. You are able. And I think we need to appreciate that aspect of faith in this man for a second. The fact is, and we look earlier in this chapter, chapter 1 of Mark, verses 32 through 34, this man would have heard about Jesus healing and healing and healing. We read in verses 32 through 34, For that evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons, and the whole city was gathered together at the door, and he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.

So the evidence was overwhelming to this man who was inflicted with this terrible disease that he had great power to heal. And so this man believed Jesus was powerful enough to do it. And this is really how you should view Jesus with your sickness of sin. If you have the heart to receive it there is countless testimony that Jesus is powerful enough to heal your sin Throughout church history throughout the scriptures it is overwhelming We should never doubt the ability, the power of Jesus to save, to heal.

It is overwhelming if you have a heart to receive that very thing. Both initially he has revealed himself as a powerful savior to justify the sinner and to make them righteous before God. And it has been revealed progressively throughout their sanctification, their lives, that he is powerful enough to cause someone to walk in darkness and sin, to walk in newness of life and healing.

The testimony is overwhelming. And just like this man heard the testimony, so we hear the testimony of this healing. Power of Jesus. So we ought to marvel and see his conviction. You're able. You're able to do this, Jesus.

You're able to heal. Jesus is powerful enough. But we got to ask ourselves, why does this man think that Jesus perhaps would not be willing? Because again, to be helpful, you need to be able and you need to be willing. If one of those things are off, you will not be helpful. So this man says you're able.

But he says if you're willing, you can do it. Mark doesn't say why exactly. He questions at least his willingness to heal him. But I think we can get two likely reasons. One, I think it's because this man did not follow the proper protocol for people with leprosy as we've already alluded to. Remember Leviticus 13, 45-46, it says, A 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. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. And in desperation he came right up to Jesus begging him to be healed. So perhaps such boldness would cause Jesus not to be willing to heal him. I think another reason why this person questioned whether or not, whether Jesus was willing to heal him, is when Jesus healed people, he typically touches them.

When we see in the Gospels when he heals people he typically touches them And surely he wouldn be willing to touch leprosy would he We see in Mark 1, 30-31, Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. And we see, look at the examples of Jesus healing.

It's typically something in which he touches the person with it. So this man is not sure if Jesus would be willing to touch his disease, which potentially could spread and would certainly make Jesus unclean. We see in Haggai, chapter 2, verses 12-13, Haggai makes the point of saying that things, clean things that touch unclean things always become unclean.

He says, if someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? And the priest answered and said, no. So then Haggai said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? And the priest answered and said, it does become unclean.

The point is, is that we become unclean very, very, very easily. And the old covenant law, things became unclean by coming in contact with unclean things. And so perhaps this man's asking, is he willing? Because he thinks he would surely touch. And become unclean himself? You remember the story that Jesus tells of Luke 10, in Luke 10, verses 30-37, the Good Samaritan, right?

You have this man who has been robbed and beaten almost to death. And you have a Levite and a priest go by and they don't want anything to do with helping that man. Now, there's several different reasons probably why. And one of them is that was a dangerous road up to Jerusalem from Jericho and they probably didn't want to get beat up themselves by the people who perhaps were around.

But another likely situation as to why they didn't want to help is they did not want to become unclean. To touch blood? To touch potentially a dead body? I don't want to become unclean. And so they keep on going until the Samaritan stops and helps them. So this man's desperate behavior is driven by being inflicted with an overwhelming sickness and having confidence in the power that Jesus could heal.

Yet he is plagued with not being sure of Jesus' willingness to heal. And I know there are plenty of people in this room who struggle with the same conviction as this man has here. I know Jesus can heal me from my sin, but is he even willing to at this point? Some of you have put off coming to Christ for years. And foolish preference for your leprosy. How could Jesus be willing to save me now after 10 years of shuffling?

Some of you have been in Christ for years and years and you're still struggling with that sin? Whatever that sin is. How could Jesus be willing to save me from this when I'm struggling with this sin after being in Christ for so long? Is he even willing to heal me? In fact, I think every believer in this room has gone through a season in which they are struggling with a sin that they feel like I should not be struggling with at this point in my walk with Christ.

Is he even willing to put up with such foolishness? Surely we know that Jesus is powerful enough to heal, but is he even willing at this point? We need to hear these words from Jesus here and see his healing power just as much as this man with leprosy needed it as well. This is what happens with the healing. In verse 41, we'll see first why Jesus heals.

In verse 41, and we see why he heals. In verse 41, moved with pity. Moved with pity. We get the answer to the concern of the sick man in regards to the will of Jesus to heal with these words right here, don't we? The entire pathetic and miserable state of this man caused pity to spring up in our Lord's soul for him. Pity is a sympathetic sorrow for one suffering distress or unhappy.

It should amaze us that God took on flesh and was moved not to disgust not to wrath not to indifference but our Lord Son of God took on flesh and was moved to pity How much are we, as we look around our world, moved with irritation by the sin of the world? We even become indifferent because we see the sin, the darkness, and it irritates us. God took on flesh, and when he came, he was moved to pity.

And we see this revealed in this man here. We see the reason why Jesus heals, we see the why of his healing is that he was moved with pity for this man. And we see how Jesus heals next. We see in verse 41, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will. So, he stretched out his hand and he touched him and he said to him, I will. You see, again, I think this is speaking to the potential, will he do this?

For he usually touches those who have the sickness and will he be willing to touch and potentially become unclean and receive the disease itself? And we see the way Jesus healed answers his will. It says, he stretched out his hand and touched him and he said, I will. And this is exactly what Jesus does when he heals us of our sin. You see, we needed a Savior who was willing to touch our affliction, touch our disease, touch our sin to make us whole.

We see in 1 Peter 2, 24, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. Or Galatians 3, 13, And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one of us to his own way. But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

See if you ever doubt Jesus willingness to save meditate on the fact that he bore his people sickness on the cross He bore his people's sin on the cross. He was willing to reach out and touch our very iniquities, touch what made us unwhole, touch what made us unclean, for the very purpose that he would make us clean. You see, a father reveals his willingness to save his son by jumping into the waves of the ocean to return him back to the boat.

He will reveal his will to save his child from drowning in the ocean by jumping into the waves himself. And this is what exactly Jesus has done. He has reached out and touched our iniquities by taking it upon himself. So this concern of Jesus being willing is answered in the fact that he reaches out and touches this man's uncleanness. And then we see his ability to cleanse in the command.

Look at verse 41. He says, be clean. So it moved with pity. He stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will. And here's the power and the command. Be clean.

We really need to be sensitive when Jesus commands things. Because what we are seeing is the son of God and divine power in the command. So Jesus is willing. And we see that by him touching the diseased man. Telling him, I will. And the power is revealed in the fact that he declares or he commands, he commands, be clean.

When Jesus commands, obedience always follows. We see this in Mark often. Remember when he calms the storm in Mark 4, look at that real quick, verse 39. The seasoned disciples are terrified in the storm, in the boat, and Jesus' command was enough to bring peace and tranquility. In verse 39 of 4, And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to it commanded Peace be still And the wind ceased and there was a great calm Or we see Jesus commanding the fig tree in Mark 11 verse 14 Look at that.

He goes to take of it to eat. There's nothing there which there's a spiritual significance to there that we're not going to get into. But he said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And we see later on that the tree obeyed the command of Jesus. And we see Jesus command the demons, give commands to the demons, and the demons obey. Look back at Mark 1, verses 21 through 26.

Go back to Mark 1, 21 through 26. And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him. And then there was this big struggle for that to happen. No, and the unclean spirit convulsing him, crying out in a loud voice, came out of him. You see, when Jesus commands, there's obedience.

Death, he commands the dead to come alive. Discipleship, he commanded his disciples to follow him, and they did. And sickness, when he commands sickness to be healed, it is healed. That is the power of Jesus on display. And also, when Jesus commands sins to be forgiven because of his work on the cross, they are forgiven. And we see this in Mark 2, verses 4 through 5.

Remember, when they could not get near Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down on the bed the man who was paralyzed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. You see this is coming from the Son of God who has all power to forgive. So Jesus is willing to touch this illness and he has the power to command it to be no more.

This is the healing on display for us. And so we see in verse 42 of chapter 1, Of Mark, we see the healing itself. Immediately, the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. The healing came immediately on the command of Jesus, the Son of God. But notice, not only is the man made clean from his leprosy, but Jesus is not made unclean by the act of reaching down and touching the disease.

And it's an amazing thing here that not only can he make those who he commands to be clean, but he doesn't receive their uncleanness by doing so. Anytime you use a rag to clean something dirty, the rag is going to become dirty. Or anytime in the Old Covenant as an unclean thing came in contact with a clean thing, the clean thing becomes unclean, as we talked about earlier.

But Jesus reveals his power and glory in that he is able to heal to the uttermost and remain clean himself, which is why he is both able and willing to save. So although Jesus received our defilement on the cross and died a humiliating and awful death, he rose again on the third day showing that sin and death and defilement are defeated. Both in your life and his.

And so he is at the right hand of the Father as the king of a kingdom that heals people of their sin, showing he is both able and willing to heal. He can heal even you. As you awaken to your miserable condition, just as this man with leprosy did. And as you cry out to a willing and able Savior to heal you of your sins. This is exactly what this man has received and what we receive in Jesus as well.

We spend just a moment now looking at the post looking at what happened after the healing Look at your text at Mark 1 43 through 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and set him away at once and said to him See that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priests and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them. So Jesus tells him, don't even talk to anyone, just go straight to the priests and show them that you have been healed so that the whole process that Joe was so gracious to read for us can happen. So that you can be declared clean by the priest and you can partake in the sacrifices that are needed so that you can then rejoin the community so that you can be healed and no longer separated from the community.

Jesus tells them don't even talk to anyone but go and obey the law of Moses here. But there's another reason, right? He's telling them to have no contact so that he can be clean and join the community again. But there's another reason why he tells them not to talk to anyone and just go to the priest. And that is to avoid excessive attention for Jesus, who's trying to minister in populated areas.

We see in Mark especially that Jesus is not able to minister in big populated areas because people keep on sharing the news of what he's doing for them and it creates this great popularity. And so there's a reason, there's another reason here. Jesus is saying, don't tell anyone about this so that he can continue to minister in these areas. But we see him, how he responds in verse 45.

You know, it's hard to blame the guy. But in verse 45, he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news. So that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town but was out in desolate places. So we see that then Jesus gained his popularity because he could not keep his mouth shut. And it doesn't appear like he ever goes to the priest to show, okay, I'm healed, so now I can go and talk to people.

He goes directly to the people in excitement and said, guess what happened to me? He's not obeying Jesus here, but my goodness, it's hard to blame the guy. And what beautiful though and what I want to point us to as we then finish this is that thankfully you know what Jesus commands us after he heals us of our disease of our sin of our leprosy of our depravity of brokenness etc The great commission in Matthew 28 18 he said to his disciples All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. You see, once Jesus accomplished his mission, he tells the people who have been healed, because he's both able and willing to save them, to go and tell others of my great healing, power, ability, and willingness.

And so in our gratitude, in our healing, in this great gift and treasure we've received from Jesus, we joyfully go out and proclaim the excellencies of his name. There is a God who is both able and willing to heal you of your sin. He's done it for me. The misery of your sin is meant to lead you to a Savior who is able and willing. The same Jesus who commands the winds and waves to obey him could command your sickness of sin to be healed, for he died and rose again to enable this very thing.

Come to him in desperation, yet confidence that he will heal you as you put your faith in him, and carry with you the amazement of this healing every day as you obey his commandment to go and tell others of the healing that is possible only in him. There are those of you once more who have never done this and be confident in what the scriptures say He is both able and willing There are those of you who are struggling with sin terribly and you wondering is he even willing to save me from this sin after I fallen to it over and over again And Jesus reveals to us here he is able and willing He is moved to pity with your pitiful condition. And he has done everything needed to heal you of this sickness.

Believe upon him, rely upon him, and trust yourself to him and praise him for this healing that he has done. God in heaven, thank you for Christ. I thank you, Lord, that we have all these examples in the Gospels of how Jesus is a powerful and willing Savior. Lord, I think of my own frustration with the world. I think of my own frustration with other people.

And I consider the patience of our Lord. The fact that he is willing to step into our defilement and to heal us and to cleanse us. The fact that his power is revealed in the fact that he has not then defiled himself. Instead, he conquers fully our defilement. Lord, I ask that you would help us to be amazed by this Savior. I ask that you would help us to renew afresh for us to look to this Savior.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to see the different defilements that hang on to us. I ask that you would help us to look to Jesus with those defilements. I pray that you would help us to understand and know who this Jesus is. That we'd see his tender care and love for sinners like us. And his complete ability to do the work that he came to do. That is to create a holy people for himself.

So Lord, would you encourage us with this? Would you strengthen us with this? And would you enable by grace and mercy it's found in Christ to walk forward in newness of life without defilement. Lord, we thank you for his great work for this to be even possible. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.