Good morning. Bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters in Escondido, from the Escondido United Reformed Church, and from Westminster Seminary in Escondido. It's a joy to be with you this morning. I had the privilege of worshipping with and preaching to several times the RP congregation in Shawnee. I've not preached in Mineola, but I have worshipped with the saints in Mineola and Winchester someplace in Illinois, I don't remember where it was. I did a conference. I want to say Grays Lake, but I don't think that's right. I've been with your brothers and sisters in San Diego many times, so it's a joy to be here. It's always good to worship the Lord the way he has commanded. Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter one, and I'll be reading from, starting in verse 35, through verse 45. Gospel of Mark, chapter one, and the reading beginning in verse 35. Would you rise for the reading of God's word? God's word says, end in the morning, Rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. And Simon, and they that were with him, followed after him. when they had found him they said unto him all men seek for thee and he said unto them let us go into the next towns that i may preach there also for therefore came i forth and he preached in their synagogues throughout all galilee and cast out devils there came a leper to him beseeching him and kneeling down to him and saying unto him If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And he straightly charged him, and forthwith sent him away. And saith unto him, see thou say nothing to any man, but Go thy way, shew thyself to the priest and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. But he went out and began to publish it much and to blaze abroad the matter in so much that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places. And they came to him from every quarter. You may be seated. The Gospel of Mark, as I understand it, traditionally, as understood in the church, was written after Peter's visit to Rome. Now, don't worry about having Peter in Rome. Sometimes people have said to me that, well, we don't wanna say Peter was in Rome because then that will get you the papacy and we know that can't be true, therefore Peter couldn't have been in Rome. Relax. There's no evidence in the New Testament, certainly, no evidence in the second century that anyone regarded Peter as a pope. There's no talk of any papacy in the second century. It just isn't any, I mean, as a matter of historical fact, nobody's talking about Peter as a pope. Nobody's talking about any popes in the 3rd century. People, the first person to claim to be pope probably didn't occur until the 4th century. So this is, we're not even sure of the, Succession, there are different lists of succession about who might have followed Peter. One has Linus and Clement and one has somebody else and I don't remember who it is. So not to worry. So the evidence seems to be that Peter was there. And then Mark wrote this gospel as a follow-up and sent it to the congregation in Rome. And it has certain indicators in the gospel that indicate that it was sent to the congregation in Rome. One of the indicators is this adverb immediately. If you've ever read the Gospel of Mark, you see the adverb immediately more than the other Gospels. Immediately, immediately, immediately. It's very interesting. It's the shortest of the Gospels. It's the most fast-moving of the Gospels. Remember, most people in the ancient world couldn't read. So that most people and almost nobody had a copy of the various canonical Gospels. And so that the way people knew the Gospels was to hear them. These were read texts. That's very important. Sometimes people talk about the Bible as if we've always had 12 printed Bibles in our homes. That just isn't the case. Printed books didn't become really widely affordable. Arguably, you could say the 17th century, they're still a little expensive. Really not till mechanization, till you have mechanized, automated printing. And what we know as modern paper, that they really become affordable and widely available. And mass literacy was not a thing really until the 19th century. And by the way, we're on the other side of that curve now. We hit mass literacy, and now we're on the other side. I say that as a person who's been teaching graduate students since 1997. So Mark writes this gospel to the congregation in Rome to sort of follow up Peter's visit and to remind them of the things that Peter had said and to communicate the gospel to them. If you ask what is the main message from Mark to the congregation, it is to say something about, to help them understand something about the king and his kingdom. The Romans, if you've ever been to D.C., or anywhere in the D.C. metro, or ever known anyone who's worked in D.C., lived in D.C., they will tell you that what gets discussed in D.C., which is basically the capital of the world, is power. People are always talking about who's in, who's out, who's on this committee, who got this assistant secretary or assistant to the assistant secretary of this department or that department. This is the constant discussion in DC. People, and this is the discussion that people have who are not even in government. It's so pervasive. Everyone's very aware of who's in and who's out, who's in power, who's in charge. So everybody in Rome knew a fair bit about the empire. So in Rome, they're at the center of the empire. And again, here we are on this end of the continent, and deliberately so, a long ways away from Washington, D.C. But if you were in D.C., you'd have that sense that you're at the center of the world. It's fascinating to see all these people from all over the world streaming to D.C., because that is where, as they see it, that is where all the power is, that is where all the authority is, and that's exactly the way it was in Rome. in the 40s. So Mark wants them to know, yes, you know about earthly power, you know about secular power, you know about civil power, you know about Roman power, you know about imperial power, but I want you to know about a different kind of a king who came with a different kind of power and a different kind of kingdom. And there are three things that he wants them to know about that king and his kingdom here this morning, as you can see. I titled this section, The Powerful Presentation of the Kingdom. The first thing that we see about the nature of the kingdom, if we look at verses 40 through 42, is the compassion of the king for sinners. Caesars were not known for their compassion. Caesars were not revered for their compassion. They were not honored for their compassion. We don't remember, perhaps the greatest of all of them, Julius. for his compassion. We remember him for his, well, some of us remember him for his literary skill, but most people remember him for his military skill. He was good at killing people. He was good at subjugating people. He was good at expanding the empire. And he was good at controlling his political opponents, at least until he wasn't. But he was not known for compassion. Our king, who is king of this transcendent, glorious, eternal kingdom, which has made its entrance into human history, our king is known for, in part, his compassion, and he manifests his compassion in a remarkable way. We might not fully appreciate now how remarkable his compassion is. Now, very few of us, unless you've lived in Hawaii and worked in very specific places, you've probably not had contact with people with leprosy. It's almost eradicated. Leprosy was a very serious problem in the ancient world, and the word of God gave very explicit instructions as to what to do about lepers. and it might be worthwhile just to listen for a little bit from Leviticus 14. I'm going to read, if it's all right, from the English Standard Version, just because it's a little easier for me. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest and the priest shall go out of the camp and the priest shall look. Then if the case of the leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed, two live birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet yarn, and hyssop. And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water, and he shall take the live bird with the cedar wood, and the scarlet yarn, and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water, and he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease, and he shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird go into the open field. And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean. After that he may come into the camp, but live outside his tent seven days, and on the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair from his head, which I guess I'm there, his beard and his eyebrows, and he shall shave off all his hair, then he shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water and he shall be clean. So that's the regulation for, and we'll see why that's relevant for when somebody is actually clean and verified as clean. When you have leprosy, Children, think of this. You had to walk around announcing that you were unclean. You had to walk around. You go to school, even if you were, we schooled our children at home, but I went to public school, and some of you may go to Christian school or public school or maybe a school, or maybe you have co-op groups. Imagine going to the mall. and having to announce or going to school and having to announce as you walk through the hall, unclean, unclean. It'd be terrible. It'd be humiliating. He'd be dispiriting. He'd be very discouraging. That was a public health service. It was a necessary thing. Leprosy is contagious. You'd be very, very careful about it. And so it was a kindness, it was a grace to warn people, but it was very discouraging and very dispiriting for the person that had to do it, because everybody had to get out of the way. You literally were unclean, and not just ritually unclean, but literally unclean, and people had to get out of the way, and they couldn't touch you, they couldn't see you, or they couldn't come into contact with you. We know maybe a little bit about that just after what we've been through over the last three years. Isolated from each other, locked down. I don't know how it was here, but we were for a time locked down pretty hard. I don't know that we all necessarily obey all those rules exactly the same way. It's pretty hard to keep Californians indoors all the time. when it's 73 degrees, and we're lucky it is out there. So at any rate, but maybe you have a sense of what that is. Can't go see grandma, right? She's in a nursing home, don't want to make her sick, right? And so some people were really actually isolated for a long time, sadly. When you think about what Leviticus 13 and 14 say and what it requires and the status of a leper within the church, if you will, now go back and look at verse 40, and a leper came to him. That's not right. A leper can't come to him ordinarily. A leper has to maybe send someone to go see him stand off in a distance. Now look at this. He comes to him, so he's in close proximity, this is not right, and begins imploring him. He kneels, which is appropriate before a king, and says, if you will, you can make me clean. Now look at verse 41. This is of our Lord, Jesus, moved with pity, moved with compassion. We could translate it. Now watch this. He stretched out his hand and, Touched him. You can't do that either. That's a violation of the rules. Unless you made the rules. Unless you were the one who was in the garden and said to Adam, the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Unless you were the one who was at the top of Sinai and was thundering. So that everyone was terrified, and he said, don't touch the mountain. Even if an animal touches the mountain, he has to die. Then you get to say, and he allows the leopard to touch him. That's extraordinary. That's extraordinary. That's not done. I don't know, maybe in Phoenix you probably have this, we have this, homeless camps in San Diego. You go hang out in the homeless camps? Just hang out, stand around? Let people who haven't bathed for two, three weeks, months, years, with who knows what kinds of diseases, addictions, insanities, come up and grab hold of you? You let that happen? Come on, be honest. Probably not. I wouldn't advise you do that. Actually, it wouldn't be a very smart thing. It's like Jesus going right in the midst of the worst homeless camp that you probably haven't seen. The really bad ones are not the ones you see on the streets. The really bad ones are the ones that are deep. We have a big park in San Diego, Balboa Park, and you'd have to know where to go to get to go there. But were you to go there, you would not want to go. You shouldn't go. It wouldn't be safe. The cops don't go unless they absolutely have to. That's how unsafe it is. That's the kind of place where Jesus goes. That's the kind of king that we have. That's the kind of compassion he has for you, for sinners. Yes, he is a judge. Yes, he is righteous. Yes, he is a king. Yes, he's ruling all the nations with a rod of iron. But he also rules his people with compassion and with grace. Grace is favor. We say this word grace, and I don't think we really understand what it is that we're saying. I'm sure we do. I don't think I do. I don't think anybody really fully understands, but it means favor. Unmerited favor, favor that we don't merit, favor that Christ has merited for us. It's being accepted, it's being loved, it's being embraced, it's being adopted for Jesus' sake by favor alone through faith alone. You are dead in your leprosy, if you will, taken figuratively for sin. Dead in sin, unclean. God, the Holy Spirit moved this leper, and the leper didn't care anymore about the rules. He just wanted to be clean. He wanted to be saved, and he knew that Jesus could do it. And he didn't care about anything else. And that's why he came, and that's why he begged him, and that's why Jesus was moved with pity, and that's why he stretched out his hand and he touched him, and more than that, He says, I will. The Greek text says, I will be cleaned, be pure. We could translate it, actually. You're no longer unclean, you're no longer impure. I will. I will it to be. By his will, he makes it so. Not because the leper did anything, not because there was anything in the leper, not because he foresaw anything in the leper, not because of anything other than his grace. and His mercy. That's why it's so. I hope that this morning you grasped that a little more clearly than you did even before you came this morning. That's the nature of grace. That's the way it is with sinners. Now, the narrative gets... I don't know how to characterize it. It's interesting. We almost could say strange, complicated. Verse 42, and immediately the leprosy left him. Well, yeah, we'll finish this first part. And he was made clean. So Jesus says, I will, and it's gone. By the way, that's what happens to your sin. Yes, you still have sins. Yes, in his providence he still sees your sins, but in, justification, God has declared you righteous, and immediately you are righteous. Immediately you are clean. Your sins are gone. Yes, you continue to sin, but relative to his acceptance of you, your sins do not change that. I think that's really important to understand this one. Relative to your righteousness with God, your sins do not change that. It's not like, well, I was in favor, but then I sinned. Oh, now he's not happy with me anymore. We could talk about Him chastising you. We could talk about Him correcting you. But He always loves you. Why is it important for you to grasp this? Because the evil one wants you to think, well, you know, you were good, but then you sinned, and now you're out. That's not true. He wants you to think that you sinned, and now you're out, out of favor, so that you'll leave. I'm here to tell you, you're not out of favor. You're still in favor. He still approves of you. I'm not telling you to sin, right? You need to repent, you need to mortify, you need to struggle, but you are going to sin, and when you sin, you are still accepted. That's why you can go to him and confess your sins, and he accepts you, he forgives your sins. That's the nature of the Christian life. It's built on grace, not on your works, not on your performance. All right, second thing. Now this is where it begins to get a little complicated. In verse 43, Jesus, here the ESV translates it sternly charges him. We don't really have a good way of translating this expression. Some people say almost angrily. That's probably not quite right. So sternly is all right. Seriously would be a good way. Solemnly, that would be a good way of translating this, solemnly charged him. That's interesting. There's not sort of the way we expected the story to go. Guy's clean, guy's forgiven, guy's accepted, and you think, all right, let's start planning the celebration party. This is outstanding. This is the best of all possible outcomes. But Jesus says, no, there's an intermediate step, and He solemnly charges him. What does He charge him to do? He sends him away at once, and what does He say in verse 44? See to it that you say nothing to anyone. It's a very interesting thing about Scripture. You know, in American evangelical religion, this verse would not exist. If American evangelicals were writing this narrative, this verse would not exist. See to it that you say nothing to anyone. By the way, the solemn charge, that wouldn't exist either. That's not part of American evangelical religion. Silence is not part. Constant noise. I know, I used to be one. And the way this would have been written when I was a young evangelical was, now go out and tell everybody what happened. You know, the ancient Christians actually didn't do that much, typically, that much talking about their faith to other people. When I was a young Christian, I was told, if you're standing in a stoplight, somebody's standing next to you, chances are they're not a believer, you have a moral duty to witness to them. If you don't witness to them, they're gonna go to hell, and that's gonna be your fault. Maybe a car hits them, and then that'll be your fault. And so we labored under that kind of guilt. It was terrible. Now, I'm gonna come back and tell you why I think you should talk to people about Christ. But I want you to talk to them for the right reasons, and at the right time, and in the right way, and with the right expectations. It's interesting, you know, we don't have any place, I've been thinking about this, you know, Jesus warns us about not throwing pearls before swine. Again, in American Christianity broadly, in American evangelicalism especially, We've lost this sense that there are pearls and there are swine. Every year in one of my classes, we read the martyrdom of Polycarp, who's a great early Christian, he was a pastor, and he lost his life for the sake of Christ. He was a pastor in Smyrna, which is Izmir in Turkey, right on the coast. And he lost his life only because he was a Christian, only because he was a notable pastor. And at the end of his life, he was given an opportunity to persuade the mob that was yelling for his blood, and he refused to do it. And again, our American Evangelical friends would say, well, absolutely, you should do that. You should give up that opportunity to witness to all those people. And he refused to do it because he knew about pearls and he knew about swine. He said, you I will talk to, name a day and a time, and I will be happy to give you an account of the Christian faith. We've been taught to respect those in authority over us, but I'm not gonna talk to this mob. Isn't that interesting? I think he knew something about keeping silence. See to it that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest. This is what's really going on here. All right, Jesus knew Leviticus 14, and he knew what Leviticus 14 required. Go show yourself to a priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them. He wanted there to be verifiable evidence of what had happened, not just some report. Well, I was this way and now I'm that way, although there's, we have John 9. But this is a special case because this is a leper. And he wanted him to obey the Levitical laws. Having broken the Levitical laws by coming and touching him, after that, now go obey the Levitical laws. Silence is a really big theme in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus in the Gospel of Mark repeatedly tells people, now don't tell anybody about this. Keep this to yourself. I think that says something about the nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a real reality in the world, but it's not the kind of reality, the kind of power, the kind of influence for which people are often looking. They're looking for a king on a white horse, and a gleaming sword and a visible expression of earthly power. That's not the nature of the kingdom of God. The nature of the kingdom of God is much more like the mustard seed. The kingdom of God is oftentimes And I don't have to explain this to you. You're in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America. It's often a small thing. It's often a marginal thing. You know about small and marginal. I know about being small and marginal. My congregation in Kansas City, when I was in the RCUS, was 40 people. We met in a renovated gas station on I-29 and 35. We ran a radio commercial that said, Right? You've probably driven right past us. Most of Kansas City has. We were 40 when we came. When I came, we were 40 when we left. We had great restrooms, though. We had the best restrooms in the denomination. I think that's actually the nature of the kingdom. I think that's a lot closer to what the kingdom of God is than whatever it is, I can't think of the name of the congregation in Houston with Joel and Victoria Osteen. It's like 40,000 people in a converted basketball arena. People think, Americans think, well, that's the kingdom. No, that's not the kingdom. This is the kingdom. Silence has more to do with the kingdom than noise. because it's not our kingdom. We don't get to make the rules. We tend to make the rules according to nature, but the nature of the kingdom is not according to nature. It's according to grace. The kingdom comes and advances on its own terms, in its own time, in its own way. The kingdom comes, on its own terms, advances in its own way, on its own time. If you're gonna set up a kingdom, you wouldn't, by nature, send an obscure rabbi to an obscure place, and that's what Jerusalem was. Pilate was there as governor because he wasn't very good. He wasn't very influential, didn't have the right friends. Nobody wanted to be governor of Judea. and then have him be crucified. That's no way to make friends and influence people in Rome. One of the first things that the Romans said about the Christians is, you people follow a crucified man. That's disgusting. Who is this Crestus, they asked. They actually misspelled his name, his title, Christ. They called him Crestus instead of Christus. Twice, two historians actually used that for, for Jesus. That's how obscure he was. But now think of it. Were it not for Jesus, we wouldn't even know the name of Pontius Pilate. The only reason we know the name of Pontius Pilate is because we say it in the Creed, because he's associated with Jesus, because he had the privilege of being in the presence of God the Son incarnate, the King over all things. who said, my kingdom is not of this world, were my kingdom of this world, would my servants be fighting when I called down legions of angels? But I'm not, and they're not, because it isn't. All right, last thing. The powerful presentation of the kingdom comes in compassion for sinners. It arrives in silence. but it also arrives in deliverance, in an unexpected and unasked-for announcement. Look at the last verse, verse 45. But, the text says, not, and so he went and did as Jesus commanded. But, that means this is a contrast. But he went out and began to, as the ESV has it, talk freely about it. The text actually says, he went out and began to preach, is what the verb says. He went out to preach, which is exactly what Jesus told him not to do. He did the wrong thing. And what's the consequence of it? Well, he goes out and he preaches, and he spreads the news, and the consequence is that Jesus could no longer enter a town. but was out in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter. We're supposed to, I think, as we think about verse 45, we're supposed to be struck by the mixed nature of this thing. He's being disobedient. He's doing what he's not supposed to do. But even as he does what he is not supposed to do, God uses it to bring people to Christ. That is the nature of the kingdom. It's never quite in this life the way it's supposed to be. And it has negative consequences. Jesus starts out, if you go back to verse 35, he starts out in a desolate place. And his purpose is to come and to manifest the kingdom and to announce the kingdom and to preach the kingdom and to demonstrate the kingdom. But now so many people have come to him, look where we find him in verse forty five. He's back out in desolate places. Just not exactly what he what he had intended to do. But there it is, people streaming out. To the savior. Because he just because the leper just couldn't keep it to himself. This is the last thing I want to leave you with. Two things. Our Savior was made desolate for you. He went out to the desolation. He went out to the desert for you. He was lonely for you. He was hungry for you. He suffered for you. His whole incarnation was a humiliation, we say. He became incarnate. He was in the womb of the Virgin by the powerful, mysterious, miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit. God the Son, who was in the beginning with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and nothing came into existence except that which came into existence through the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory full of grace and truth. That person was in, right, that divine person, eternally begotten, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, consubstantial, of the same essence of the Father and the Spirit was in the womb of a virgin. And he was born. Do you know he had an umbilical cord? Your Savior had an umbilical cord. That's how much he loves you. And he endured all those years, three decades of humiliation for you. He obeyed the law for you. He suffered under Pontius Pilate for you. and he was in desolate places for you. That's not the kind of king for which people ordinarily look, that's not the kind of kingdom for which people ordinarily look, but that's the kind of king that God sent, that's the kind of kingdom that Jesus has established. A kingdom where the king is in desolate places. But it's also the kind of kingdom where a guy who gets healed of leprosy is so overwhelmed by that fact he can't stop himself from announcing, and he goes out and announces it. God the Holy Spirit uses it anyway. And what did he say? Did he begin explaining the two natures of Christ, the Trinity, and all the deep mysteries of the faith? No, he did not. I'm rather sure he did not know those things, but I do know what he did know. I used to be a leper. You ever seen somebody you haven't seen for a while? Or somebody whose appearance changed? They're not dressed the way you remember them. They don't look quite the, and then you, oh, oh. Oh, yeah. Well, imagine this guy goes into town, right? I'm the leper. No, you aren't. No, I'm the leper. No, you can't be. You look fine. Your clothes are disgusting, but you look fine. It would have actually been better had he gone to the priest. He would have had objective verification. Look, all the hair's gone, followed all the rules. He didn't do that. He goes and he announces, and he says, I was a leper, and now I'm clean. And still, for all the imperfections, God used that. You have friends, you have relatives, you have coworkers, you have neighbors, and you're scared to death. You don't know what to say, you don't know how to say it, you don't know when to say it, and you're just not sure how it's all gonna go. All you have to do is say two things. I was a leper, and God made me clean. That's all you have to say. I was a leper, God made me clean. You don't have to explain the Trinity. You don't have to explain the two natures. You don't have to explain the regulative principle. You don't have to explain any of that stuff. That will come. How do I know? Because I was the recipient of a really bad account of the Christian faith as a 15-year-old boy. But you know what? He spoke up, and he told me that Jesus loved me. And God used that very imperfect witness to bring me to new life and true faith. I can remember in my mind, children, when I was dead spiritually, and I remember how the world looked through those blind eyes, if you will. And now I know what the world looks like with regenerated eyes. And God used that leper in my life who said I was a leper, and now I'm clean. Won't you put your trust in Jesus, too?" You don't even have to say that. You don't even have to make the invitation. All you have to do is tell the truth, just like the man who was born blind. Read that sometime, and look at the interaction between the man who was born blind and the authorities. Finally, at the end, he says, you seem to be really interested in Jesus. Do you want to follow him, too? I hope this morning that you come away with a greater, deeper sense of how much Jesus loves sinners, and what the nature of his kingdom is, and how wonderful it is to be in that kingdom. Let's give thanks. Lord Jesus, we give you thanks this morning for your glorious word, this wonderful narrative of how you powerfully save your people, and how despite There are sins and flaws and imperfections. You use the message as it goes out. The message is so powerful that you use it even when it's done incorrectly. Oh Lord, hear our prayer. Forgive our sins this morning and we pray that the message would go out and that your kingdom would continue to advance and that the lepers in this world would be delivered and that your name would be praised in your church edifying. Hear our prayer, accept our thanks, and bless your word. For Jesus' sake, amen.