The message
But the reality is, not to bust your chops right off the bat or the get-go, but the reality is we are very self-centered, right?
I looked at Samantha because she has a sweet face, not because she's self-centered. Samantha is probably one of the most caring and generous people I have ever met in my life. Every time around her, I feel guilty. And so, I don't like to be around her much.
She is so kind. It freaks me out. Freaks me out that people could be like that. And so I don't I don't know why I digress. Anyway, so but the reality of this situation is Jesus comes down off the mountain and what he is accomplishing is not for an individual. It's not to lift people from their woes, although he cares about that.
It is to it is to validate that the words and the authority he just spoke in he has this was prophesied about meaning that God had a plan for the leper. God had a plan for the centurion servant. God had a plan for Peter's mother-in-law. God had a plan for these people. And he was going to declare by through Jesus and Jesus power to be able to heal them that what he spoke and the authority he spoke with and his kingship is validated by and through his power.
So this was not then these healings were not for the people. They were a benefactor of it. This was for authenticating who Christ was. There is a chase today happening not only in the life of the church but in the life of every individual that exists.
There is a chase. You remember being in elementary school playing tag on the playground. How many of you remember playing tag on the playground? Right. It was fun and it was not fun. I really liked being it. I liked being it because when I was it, I didn't have to worry about becoming it, right? Was just already it. And I wasn't running away from people. I had the power and the authority to decide who I would run after. I liked being it.
Was awesome. I love chasing people. I didn't really love being chased, but I love to chase. That was a lot of fun. Today, we are looking at a picture of a chase. It is happens in the life of the leper. We see him chasing after God. We will see other people following and chasing after God. Let me ask you a question. And I think that what it does is it peels back a layer in the heart of the church specifically today and in the heart of every individual that exists today. It peels back a layer and helps us be able to identify what it is we're exactly chasing.
Particularly because he's speaking about the miraculous because he's speaking about healing. Because he's speaking about touching the areas of your life where you need a touch. Where he's talking about redeeming you and cleansing you and helping you come out of a sickness and an illness that you can't get yourself out of, no doctor can help you with, no person can redeem you from. And it is eating you away, tearing apart your flesh and destroying you from the inside out. You are no longer who you used to be.
You don't look the same. You don't talk the same. You don't walk the same. You don't live the same. It is corrosive. It is it is debilitating and it is life transformative. And you have been affected in every area of your life. Ladies and gentlemen, sin does this. It has a subtle way of finding itself from the inside of your heart to the outside of your hands and your eyes and your mouth and your lips. It finds its way and it corrupts every part of you to the degree and it happens so slowly.
Track with me. It happens so slowly that even in the life of the church, even as a believer of Christ, you don't see that sin has had its way with you.
You no longer mark it as sin because it happens so sweetly and so slowly that what is sin and destructive you call good.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:37
We put religious language around it and we celebrate it as if it's good but it's destroying you.
Then there are some people who identify that it's a real problem. And what you're chasing is not necessarily Jesus. You're chasing a solution. Everybody wants a solution to their problem. Each one of you today came with your own type of problem today. You know with it lingers in the frontal cortex of your brain. It's always tickling you and telling you that it's there. The reality is it infiltrates every part of your life. And the reality is it's shaping you daily.
We have problem. It speaks to you. It talks to you. And some of you what you're chasing is to get away from your problem.
And some of you because of the mercies of God, he might touch you. He might heal you. But as soon as he does, the truth about what you were chasing will be revealed because you will deny him as soon as you get what you want.
Some of you say you're chasing Jesus, but what you really want is your own healing.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:13
And so then it instructs the way you interpret this text. It instructs the way you look at chapters 8 and nine. The reality is the king who sat on the hill, the one who speaks with authority, the one who came to save you from sin and redeem you from brokenness is not who you're chasing.
You want the benefits of him, not him. And so now we each sit and we wrestle because no matter how much you love God, there is a part of your life where you sit in the midst of this declaration and you have some part of you that wants what comes from him more than him. Every single person in this room has a tinge of that in them.
It shapes how you live. It shapes your conversations. It shapes the way you work. It shapes the way you treat those you say you love. It has a shaping effect of every dimension of your life. And there is a difference between a person that's motivated by self and a person who is motivated and chasing after Christ. What are you chasing today?
Are you chasing his benefits? Or are you chasing him?
Is Jesus enough if he doesn't heal?
The point of this healing is not to get people to chase him. The point of the healing is for us to realize he's worthy of being chased.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:57
And he's enough whether we're healed or not. He moves mercifully on some of our behalfs and he heals us and some he doesn't. And the reality is he's still good. Yes. And he's worthy and he's enough.
If I have Jesus, I have everything. I think the hymn says, "do you believe that?" And so we see his authority. We see that he is the one. And I'm going to say this, too. I'll say this, too. And basically, I'm preaching my whole sermon before I get to my sermon, but I just can't help myself. Okay? So, I'm not getting a grade on this, so I can do whatever I want. Okay?
The focus of this as you interpret Scripture is to validate the power of the word which he was. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He is the son of God who was the word who came. And every time you hear the word it's like a double-edged sword. It feels so good and it feels so bad.
It is cleaning and it is judging and it is healing and it is burning and it is double-edged in every way.
The word of God. And so he speaks a word from the mountain. Now track with me here. And then he comes down and he operates in authority to validate the word.
The focus of the healing is not what you get. The focus of the healing is value the word. Track with me. Some of us would rather exchange the word for a healing. That's why we would prefer so let me give a disclaimer. There's nothing wrong with conferences. There's nothing wrong with going to a worship night. There's nothing wrong with worship concerts. There's nothing wrong with loving Jesus. There's nothing wrong to listen to Christian radio.
There's nothing wrong with that per se. Depends on your heart.
It's amazing though because in our conferences and in our worship and in our concerts and in ours that there's very little word, right? Yeah. Just make me feel something. I just want to be moved. I want to be moved but not changed. See, he changed his heart with his word. So we chase after things that are not him. We chase after things that serve us.
So just like the healing give me I mean give me a service where I feel moved and then I will say as a profession on my Facebook the Holy Spirit must be in the house. He's in the house whether you feel him or not.
See
Your ability to feel him has nothing to do with his presence.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:16
The good thing about God is he's here and everywhere you move and you speak and you go, you are moving inside of God. Okay? So, he's present. He's present in your home. Whether you want to acknowledge him or not, he's present in your car whether you want to acknowledge him or not. He is speaking over your life. That's why your heart still moves. That's why your heart still pumps. That's why you still there's air still in your lungs because when he stops speaking over your life, baboose, you're done.
His word upholds the earth. His word keeps the planets moving on an axis. His word is declarative. His word is eternal. His word is echoing across the chambers of the galaxy and still doing what he did the first day of creation.
His word upholds everything you see and feel and ex and experience here on earth. We should value his word.
Some of you have exchanged his word for a feeling.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:29
Don't do that in this text. Don't do that in this text. He's trying to help you value his word, not what you can get from him. What are you chasing? Your personal healing or Jesus?
What are you chasing? All right, there's my introduction to chapter eight and nine. Okay, what is this introduction saying? I don't like it. Point one. Point one, the leper came to Christ because he knew his need. Remember what we just talked about? What are you chasing?
And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." That's interesting.
Not you can put my fingers back on my hand that have rotted and fallen off. Not could you give a brother a nose again because that fell off yesterday. I only have one lobe left dangling by little pieces of skin and flesh. I'm rotting away. Hook a brother up and give me my fingers back. I used to play guitar and now I can't.
They call me Thumper. I wish I could take that back, but it just came out of there. It just popped out of there. I sometimes delete creative edit. Delete if you will. He didn't say that. He says, "will you cleanse me?" Yes. You know what that's saying? Only Jesus has this kind of power, right? He's speaking beyond what ails him to what condemns him.
See, some of you can never get beyond the needs of the flesh and your emotions or your hurt. Some of you are like a native worshiping around your problem. You talk about God. You say the name of Jesus after you've talked 15 minutes about your trouble.
And the reason you staple on Jesus on the back end of talking about your trouble is because Jesus is simply a remedy.
He isn't a savior. He's nothing more than ibuprofen when you have a headache. We have no true relationship with him. We just simply want him to serve us. Just serve me.
Some of us can never get out of a hurt because we're too busy worshiping it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:17
And you do that when you're when you say you're chasing Jesus, but you're really not.
See, he doesn't talk a request to get new fingers or new nose or new ears. He didn't request that. He requests something that could only come from Jesus. He's requesting something that had been prophesied years, hundreds and hundreds of years before. He knew him.
Notice he went and he presented himself to the priest and the priests couldn't heal him. They couldn't cleanse him. They could only declare him as dirty and unclean. But this is a priest unlike any other priest. Yeah. This is who we would refer to because there was a high priest and even the high priest couldn't cleanse him. He simply could mark him as unclean. And many of you are professional at that.
You gossip around tables about it. You talk to other people about how other people are so unclean. You are proficient and effective at declaring others unclean. But
There is a difference between your ability to identify something and your ability to change something.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:32
This is unlike any other priest they have ever seen.
He is a high priest unlike any other high priest. And he comes to him with the acknowledgment that he has cleansing authority.
That's great. Some of us can't see beyond our temporal need to understand there is a deeper cleansing work that needs to be done. You know why? Because we're chasing a solution and not the God of the solution. This man fell down in worship. That moment would have been shocking to the crowd. Lepers, they just didn't approach people. They were actually marked and put outside the society. This is where Jesus dies is outside the camp.
You need to understand he came for people out there excluded, pushed out, not welcome. There are people who you've been unwelcome your whole life. You've been made fun of. You've been an outcast. You've been put aside. It came for people like you. People that feel forgotten. People that feel un unreachable. People that feel impossible. People that feel they've gone too far, sinned too much that God would never redeem them. He died outside where people were put to be cast out.
According to Leviticus, they were ceremonially unclean. There is a deeper problem than your sickness. There is a there is an uncleanliness in you that will etern bring eternal death, not temporal one. He goes and reaches out to God to have that changed. They were separated from community life. Removed from where some of you introverts in the house is like, "Woo, need me some of that." Separated from community life.
Sorry, that's just a little personal diet tribe there. Lacy sent me a little funny video of an introvert like avoiding doing stuff. I laughed until I almost threw up cuz I was like I think I have done all of those things. It was funny. But this is not fun to live in isolation. Nor were you created for it.
Nor were you created for it. You know, if a finger's cut off from the body, it dies. See,
Some of you are dying because you've made introvertedness your Lord.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:23
Me included. Are you with me? I'm not picking on Lacy and me. I'm just saying I might deny community because it exhausts me, but I understand the importance of it because it brings life to me.
So sometimes we do what's necessary even though it's not convenient. Are you with me today? Everybody has their thing. Some of you extroverts need to go get quiet for a second. Just five seconds. Quietness. Sorry. Just sorry. You need to meditate on things. They call it thinking. Just think for a second. Just dwell for a second. Stop talking for a second and think about a thing. You don't have to fill up the noise.
Silence is good. That's not natural for you, but it's good for you. It's good for you. You'all with me? So sometimes we do what's uncomfortable because it brings life.
This man came to Jesus in a crowd when he shouldn't have having to declare his uncleanliness. It's not fun to come to church and declare your uncleanliness. It's better to hide it. So when people ask you how you're doing, I'm fine. You don't go I'm unclean. You know what I mean? But there is some healing that exists and is helpful for you in the declaration of your need.
And sometimes, let's see, when you're chasing Jesus and you're truly after him, you will do the thing that makes you uncomfortable. You will say unclean and you will fall at the knees of the one who can cleanse you. You will do that because your discomfort and what people think about you and how it makes you look is not important. When you meet that which is greater than your inconvenience.
We see his motivation of his heart because he moves into things that he knows will bring life even though it requires discomfort.
See,
I'm afraid today that the church is in trouble because we have stopped preaching people into discomfort.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:46
But God, I believe the enemy, I believe ultimately God because he's sovereign, but I believe he allows the enemy. The enemy goes up before the Lord. Can I do this? And he's like, "Sure, you can do that." And then you know there's that's in the Scripture and I believe the enemy God enemy post a problem at every before every promise.
See, some of you want to snatch up promises without going through a problem. And the church be happy to preach you happy and by the b part of the way that happens is we have no one in the church that's holy because everybody's happy. And sometimes we have to do what's uncomfortable because you don't get a promise without going through a problem.
Well, I don't know about that, Sean. Even Jesus had to face death for you to snatch up a promise.
I'm better than him, man. I don't have to. It's all about promises. No problems.
Sometimes a problem is a test of the tress of your chase and what you're chasing.
Yes, this man came. Why? Because he had been through. He had been brought to the end of himself. Many people assume that hardship automatically does that. They think pain naturally humbles a person or cancer naturally humbles a person or broken relationship absolutely naturally humbles a person or hurt or abuse naturally humbles a person. They think that suffering itself redu produces repentance. But while trials may unsettle a man for a season, that humility often lasts as long as the crisis remains, and only that long in a lot of people. As soon as the pressure lifts, we see pride return.
When the fear fades, self-confidence returns. When the pain lessens, old sins return. And
Troubles may shake a life, but trouble alone does not transform a heart.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:29
It is the word of God that brings a sinner to repentance, not cancer. Okay, let me set you free today for people who feel led to declare the good news of people and see them come to life in Christ. Let me let me let me free you today. It is not your apologetics that convinces an individual to turn from death to life.
And repent of sin. That's immensely discouraging because I'm in the final leg of my degree in apologetics. And the extent of the paper that I am writing to close out my degree is this. His word does it. Yes. It don't matter the it doesn't matter your argument. It doesn't matter how well you do it. It is the declaration of the word. And a 5-year-old child can declare his word as it was spoken and people's lives can be changed. You don't need a degree. You don't need to be a pastor for 25 years.
You don't need to be a scholar. You just need to declare his word right inside and in between the letters of his word is the power to transform lives.
Problems don't change it. Arguments don't change it. Degrees don't change it. Your ability to debate don't change it. It don't change it. Your science degree to explain the truth, the scientific truth behind God being real. Don't change it.
That's right. His word changes hearts. That's why he's trying to authorize the authority of his word by what he's doing in this moment with the leper.
Don't chase what you can get from him when you can chase him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:20
That is the context of this miracle. Jesus has preached the sermon on the mount. Whether this leopard heard Christ directly or heard reports of his words and works and something had convinced Jesus alone was his hope.
Listen, the word awakens us to our alienation from God. The word awakens us to our affliction under sin. The word awakens us to our inability to save ourselves. And this man knew his need.
And when a man truly knows his needs, he stops protecting his appearance. And as we said earlier, he came low. He came humble. He came believing. And let me tell you, that's how every sinner must come. You cannot come with high eyebrows and tipped noses. No one enters the kingdom through pride. The heart that comes broken and trusting in the heart Christ receives. Number two, Christ touched the rejected and transferred wholeness. Now, this is just this is just crazy.
Oh, man. As a father, I've transferred a lot of stuff to my kids. Most recently kidney stones. Now, Ashen is a true he's carrying the torch, man. He's carrying the torch on. Now, we hope it's just one and done. He's done. I am kind of sadistically happy that somebody gets to understand my pain. There might have been some chuckling when he was moaning and laying on the floor and saying, "have they forgotten me in this joint? I need medicine."
That was sad and a little funny. A little funny what was going on. And so we transfer stuff to our kids. Stuff that's not good. How many of you can attest? I've transferred some stuff to my kids and you began to identify that right when they began speaking.
You know what I mean? How many of you have got on to your kids for saying something that then in five minutes you heard yourself saying? Because we transfer stuff to our kids. The reality is we so quickly transfer that which is bad and it seems very difficult to transfer that which is good.
But
There is such a purity to Christ that there's nothing else to transfer because he's only good.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:11
So for him, it's just as likely that he would transfer something as much as you would transfer to your child. And any kind of engagement or touch or or collaborative connection, something gets transferred. Every time you're in engaged in a relationship, how many of you know there's transfer happening?
That's why you got to be careful what company you keep on because you're getting stuff on you and you're getting stuff in you. Because connection brings transfer. I'm just preaching just generally speaking here. Every relationship brings transfer. Young people, I'm speaking to older people here today because some of you hadn't even learned this yet. But young people today, okay, I see two over here and then pass the second roll.
I can't see anybody. So, we'll just point out there to other people who might be young. Young people today, listen to me. Your listen, your circle of friends matters because they your trans stuff is getting transferred. You're like, "but I'm the good one." The Bible says, "No one is good but God." See, the greatest problem is to think you can hang in a certain crowd because you're good. Because that lets me know you don't know you need Jesus.
You think you are him. That you can transform a group of people who are unclean with your cleanliness, but even you need to be made clean. See, the longer you're I'm on a diet tribe. Listen, the longer I'm on a something slippery slope, a soap box, we're going.
The longer you're in church, the more you begin to think that you're the one who can help the people around you.
Get a title as pastor and you almost get a black belt in spiritual taekwondo of wrestling with yourself all the time to help yourself understand titles don't lift you to Christ level you need cleansing Christ touched the rejected and transferred wholeness.
I love this. Before the Lord spoke a word of healing, he touched the man first.
Matthew wants us to see something. He wants us to see that this touch is staggering because no one touched lepers.
They were avoided. They were feared. They were excluded and they were treated as if they are already dead. They suffered not only disease in the body but rejection in their soul. They there is a suffering deeper than temporal sickness. It is a suffering of rejection to be unwanted, to be dismissed, to be avoided, to be tolerated but not embraced. To feel that your presence is a burden to others.
Some wounds are not caused by disease. They are caused by abandonment.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:54
Some scars are not left by illness. They are left by betrayal and neglect and dismissal. Some people appear functionally functional outwardly but inwardly carry years of rejection.
This man knew that pain long before leprosy damaged his body. Rejection had bruised his soul. And then Jesus touched him. That touch said that words alone what words alone could not say. Jesus could have spoke a word and he could have been healed. But he touched him anyway.
He said to him, "You're not untouchable. You're not beneath dignity. You're not forgotten. You're not too defiled for mercy. You're not beyond compassion." Our Lord addresses the man's rejection before he addresses the man's disease.
He touches the deeper wound first. Who does? Jesus does. Not a lover, not a friend. Jesus. And there's something glorious here. When others thought of touching him, they feared contamination. But when Jesus touched him, there was no transfer of sickness to Christ. There was a transfer of wholeness to the man.
Listen, uncleanliness does not move upwards from the leper on the ground towards him. Purity moved outward from Jesus. Corruption did not spread to Christ. Wholeness spread from Christ to him.
Defilement did not stain the Holy one. The holy one restored the defiled.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 37:56
In this time, the Jews, particularly the priests, who had been established to declare that which is clean and unclean.
We are seeing here more than a declaration. We are seeing here a power on display, a new level of authority and priesthood. Number three, Christ saves people to rule their lives. I love this. This is my favorite part. Listen to this if you don't listen anything else. And then in three sentences, you can stop listening again, but hear me on this.
And Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone, but go." What to say that? Present yourself to the priest, but go.
Immediately after healing the man, Jesus gives commands. Now, that's important. Christ does not merely save people from misery. And this is what you need to hear today if you're considering making him your Lord. It is not you merely being saved from misery, being healed from your problem, being forgiven for your sin.
He saves people unto submission. So before you declare him as Lord, understand he will be that. Well, Sean, why are you creating a hurdle right in front of the altar? I didn't. He did.
Because there's a difference between loving what you get from him and loving him. And it's most clearly seen in your submission to him. And this is still true today. Many people want a helpful Jesus but not a ruling one. They want peace but not holiness. They want comfort, no correction. They want forgiveness, no authority. They want rescue, no repentance. But
The Christ who heals is the Christ who commands. And the first evidence of real transformation is not excitement. It's obedience.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:12
Anybody can become emotional in crisis. Anybody can make a promise in pain. Anybody can speak highly of Jesus when desperate. But changed hearts begin to obey Christ. Period. Some people love grace as long as grace asks nothing of them. But grace that saves also sanctifies. Grace that pardons also transforms. Grace that cleanses also governs. If Christ is truly savior, he will be Lord in the practical direction of your life.
There is no other way. That means how you speak, how you forgive, how you love, how you handle money, how you pursue purity, how you respond to truth, where Christ reigns, obedience begins. My final point, Christ leaves every single man, woman, boy, and girl without excuse.
He says, "Show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them." That's what he's after here.
Jesus sends the man to the priest. According to Leviticus 14, the priests would examine carefully. They would verify the cleansing and they would have to acknowledge the evidence.
Then they would face one question. Who did this? And the answer would have to be Jesus. Don't miss the point here.
Israel did not reject Christ because there was no evidence. They rejected him because their hearts were hard.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:26
The same goes for you today. Yeah.
Every single person under the sound of my voice is sitting in this room today or who will listen back online, our small audience who listens online, you have an option and a decision to make.
You will not reject him because there is not evidence of him. You will reject him because your heart is hard. He is who he says he is. Hundreds and hundreds of prophecies, 100% of them in fact have come true about Christ. So documented historical evidence. He has fulfilled them all. And they too had Scripture. They heard truth. They saw miracles. They examined proof. And they still refused him.
The warning matters now. You can sit under preaching for years. You can know doctrine mentally. You can admire truth intellectually. You can feel conviction emotionally. And you can still resist Christ personally.
Light does not automatically soften hearts. Sometimes light hardens those who refuse it. And every sermon heard increases responsibility.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:54
So it's important today what you decide. He is who he says he is. And he is different than any other priest that has ever come. What and who are you chasing?
You chasing your healing? You chasing him? You're chasing a bigger bank account or you chasing him? There's some kids in the house that wish their parents would chase him more than their bank account.
Because that means that if they were chasing him more than what happens in their bank account that they would that their parent would be more available for them.
Because when God is your Lord, he doesn't remove you from whom he's entrusted you with.
Your job will do that. Your job will demand so much of you neglect your family. Men have trouble because they show their love through provision. And you should provide. Men, probably there may be some men in the house that need to get a job and go provide. I don't know who you are, so I'm not thinking about a name. That's why I said it.
But you should feel uncomfortable today because you should be providing for your family. It's pretty instructive in the word. Be a man. Go provide for your family. But don't don't sacrifice your family on the altar of providing for them to show love for them.
When you bow at the feet of Jesus, and I'll close with this.
When you're truly chasing him and you bow at his feet, everything attached to you bows with it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:17
When you simply bow to him to get something from him, everything attached to you does not bow with it. So, we can see whether you're truly bowing to Jesus or you're simply doing it to get something from him by what bows around you. You with me today? What are you chasing? Are you chasing Jesus or are you chasing what you can get from him?
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