We sang the offertory, Great is Thy Faithfulness, because something struck me this week, frankly, and I was talking to a lady, and she went to the church that I was in many years ago, and I remember when she was there, we were doing a series on Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiastes deals a lot with death. And she said to me, she said that you were always talking about death, and I really needed God to get through life. And I went home that day, it was last week, thinking about that, that one of the things that a preacher does is prepare people to die, right? Because we're all gonna get there, no matter how young you are and healthy. But that's not it, that's not all of it. It's also to prepare people to live, right? And there's a line in that song that struck me right in my mind as I was driving down the street, and I said, how could you say it any better? It says, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Amen? God, in his word, gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. I mean, if I wrote a hymn like that, I probably wouldn't have to work anymore. No, I probably would. That and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee. But anyway, what a beautiful way to express it, right? In just a few words, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. This morning we're in Matthew 8. We've just left the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is on the Mount teaching his people. And as he comes down from the Mount, things happen. And there at verses one through 17 this morning is the bite-sized chunk that we bite off. One second, I can't talk and drink at the same time unless I was a ventriloquist or something. Hear now the word of God. When he, Jesus, came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him saying, I will be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them. When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord, I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I, too, am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. In that place, there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And to the centurion, Jesus said, go, let it be done for you as you have believed. And the servant was healed at that very moment. And when Jesus entered Peter's house, I love this. I love this. There's something embedded here for you. I want to know if you get it. He saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word, and he healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. The Word of God. I want to ask you a question. It makes me want to sing, but I got to suppress that. Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in, no I can't do it. Do you believe in miracles? I'm gonna ask you another question, it's slightly different and it means a lot to change to the question. Do you believe in the miracles? And what I mean to say is, do you believe in the miracles that are recorded in the scriptures? Big difference. Big difference. A miracle is an extraordinary work performed by the immediate power of God in the external perceivable world, which is an act against nature that only God can do. And miracles were given for a specific purpose at a specific time. And that purpose was and is, I say, to confirm that the message of the gospel was from God. Remember, Jesus is preaching not like other people. He's preaching like someone who has authority. And they say, he's not like the other people. He's not like the scribes. He preaches with authority. This guy has got to be God, or he has the authority of God. And Jesus is going to drive it home, because right after he gets done telling them how it should be and how it is, he does three separate miracles. Why? to confirm the fact that He is God, so as to confirm the truth of His Word. Okay? God just doesn't do gratuitous miracles in the world now. Usually, He does them, if He does them at all in this eon, to confirm His Word. If you go to different places on the globe where the Word of God has never been preached, there are places on the globe where people never had the Word of God. We have missionaries that are translating the Bible in a place that has never had a Bible. They'll translate a book of the Bible, and that'll be the first time that they ever read the words. And God, often in those places, will do miracles to confirm to them the truth of that word. You see? And the words of the Bible, the miracles recorded in the Bible, confirm for us the authority of God in his word. Amen? So if you believe the miracles of the scripture, they confirm that what Jesus is saying is true. Because no one ever healed the leper. And no one ever healed somebody and said, yeah, he's healed by the word, by a word, right? I had a friend who had a big birthday in his life, and he said, you know what, I went up to Mount Wachusa, to the top of the mountain, and I wanted just to go up there, and I just wanted to pray and thank God for all the years he's given me. I said, what a beautiful thing, I never thought of that. you know, to go up on the mountain to get closer to God, so to speak, right? You drive up to Mount Wachusett. I don't know how high Mount Wachusett is, but it's gotta be pretty short. I mean, Mount Washington, I think, is 6,000 feet above sea level. Mount Wachusett's probably about a couple thousand, maybe. Anyway, if you think about that, right, do we need to go to the mountain to get closer to God? No, we don't. You could go into a hole and get closer to God. You could go into a drill pipe. You could go into your basement. You can be anywhere and reach out to God and be just as close as if you were on the mountain, right? And Jesus here, with a word, heals this guy. He's never seen, he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't even know the nature of his sickness. And then he goes to Peter's house. And isn't it very interesting, I love this, that Peter has a mother-in-law. Some traditions teach that Peter was the first pope of the church, and no pope was ever married. So Peter must have been the first guy with a mother-in-law and no wife. Why would you want a mother-in-law unless you were married? Would you say, you know, I'm not married, I'm a single guy, but I'd love to have a mother-in-law. So here, kind of embarrassingly, Peter has a mother-in-law, which means he has a wife. But this mother-in-law is a widow. And Jesus is not asked to heal her, she's sick. He touches her and she's healed. And that's the third miracle in our passage this morning. And so, these miracles, they prove that he is who he says he is, and he has authority to say what he says. And the question is this. Faith is a miracle. if you think about it. There are people in the world today who could read the Bible and say, that's bunk, that's junk, I don't want any part of it. It's just words on a page. The deconstructionist movement, which is coming hard and fast into our communities, and that movement is saying, oh, the Bible is just a means of oppression. That's all it is. It's just a bunch of old white men trying to oppress everybody. Paul was a misogynist. He didn't believe in woman preachers. Oh, Paul's terrible. And I don't really believe all that. It's just a power play for the white establishment to control everybody else. And so people are leaving the faith in droves through what's called deconstruction. It's actually touched our church in a previous way, in just a little way it did in a previous place. Somebody said, I don't want to be banged over the head with the Bible, i.e., I don't want to submit to the Bible. I want to do it my way. What is a man? What has he got? Every time I hear that song, it makes me puke. Paul Anker wrote it, but Frank Sinatra made it popular. But, you know, I don't want to do it my way. I want to do it God's way, amen? Because the people that do it their way, they're not going to be on the way to holiness as we talked about in the beginning of the service. They're going to be in a different world, road. And I think ACDC saying of that road, they're going to be on the highway to hell. So I don't want to do it my way. I want to do it God's way. Amen? And my way tries to get ascendancy. It tries to get in there, my way. Oh, come on. My flesh says, no, no, let's do it this way. And you say, no, no, no flesh. It really is like the cartoons. It's like there's an angel on your ear and a devil on the other side. And you have to choose between which one you're going to go with. You know what I mean? And as we think about it. But the faith is a gift of God, and it's miraculous. It's the same thing as saying a blind person sees. When I, in 1979, okay, before May of 1979, when I picked up a Bible and read it, it was gibberish to me. It didn't mean nothing to me, right? I could have thrown it out. I wouldn't care about it. But when I got saved, I'm reading this book, and the words are jumping off the page. Because I had the gift of faith, and I understood it. And I continue to understand it. And so, with eyes to see, God has given you, a blind person, spiritually blind, that is, spiritual eyes to see. And sometimes it happens very slowly. That's why God says, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, right? You come to church. The more you come to church, the better off you are. Not because you have to get to look at me, but even though my wife thinks I'm cute, you might not. But anyway, but you come to hear the word and you know what it says? That the more you hear the word, Faith is implanted in your heart. We invite people to church not because we want to fill a building. We invite people to church so they come to faith, so they're not lost. They're not on the highway to hell. They're on the highway of holiness to God. Amen? So that's why we invite people in. It's a beautiful thing. And so, not only is faith a miracle, salvation is a miracle. Every person that's saved is a little walking miracle. Here's why. If you think about it, okay? It's very, very interesting. And I just skipped 300 notes, but here it is. That's good for you because you don't have to sit here as long. Why is it a miracle? Because when we could do nothing, Jesus Christ did everything. Your salvation is a miracle because the most foolish message, says the Bible, has become the most powerful message in your life. We were once dead in trespasses and sins, and now we are made alive in Christ. And the Holy Spirit's job is to convict us of sin, illuminate our hearts to the truth, and regenerate, bring our souls to life, and that's a miracle. Your salvation is a miracle because it was initiated by God and not you. I don't know about you, but I was a bystander, frankly. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I'm incapable of charting my own path to God. I don't know how to get there. But he does. and he came and got me. We don't know Jesus because we sought after him. We know Jesus because God seeks after us. And if you know Jesus this morning, you can take great comfort in the fact that Jesus sought you. He knows who you are, and he came to get you. Amen? And you know what? He chose you. That's a big deal. And you know what that means? He'll never let you go. You might let him go, right? Like a little kid crossing the street, you might let go of your daddy's hand, but daddy ain't letting go as you cross 495, right? Because if he does, it'd be a problem, right? You'll be a pancake or a waffle. with a truck tire in your eyes. But anyway, your salvation is a miracle because without Jesus, you had nothing. But in Jesus, you have everything. You have everything. You couldn't buy what you have in Jesus. You couldn't buy it. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn't even buy it, you know? Now, just the word here, God is not dependent upon our faith to do a miracle. Some people think that because there are parts of the Bible where Jesus does require faith, but he is not hostage to our faith. And many times he does miracles despite people's lack of faith. But oftentimes he does require that people have faith in order for him to do a miracle. So it goes both ways, okay? So, here's the first thing. The leper knew. Now, a leper, this is a Jewish leper. It's not a Gentile. He's got a skin disease. It's incurable. It may not be Hansen's disease, which is leprosy today, but it's a skin disease that has no cure. And lepers were ceremonially unclean. You couldn't touch them because you could get it. Right? And so they couldn't be with everybody else. They had to be apart from everybody else. They were like not with their families. They were not worshiping together at the temple. They were unclean. And if they came into a place where there were people, they had to keep saying, unclean, unclean, unclean, and tell people. They were unclean. It's kind of like the backup lights on a truck. Beep, beep, beep. Unclean, unclean. Right? Can you imagine going through life like that? You go to the grocery store. Unclean, unclean. People are like, ugh, get away from me. You think COVID's bad, right? When you're going to have COVID, people treat you like a leper. But no, no, this is really bad. So anyway, so the man comes to Jesus, and he falls to his knees, and he says, Lord, he calls him Lord. He says, if you are willing, you can make me clean. That's perfect, isn't it? Isn't that prayer? Prayer knows, through faith, that God's able to do anything. He's able to do anything. The question is, is he willing? And that was the question for the leper. He says, I know you can make me clean if you're willing. And when we pray, we pray the same way. We ask the Lord, and a lot of times people in their prayers, like Jesus, say, nevertheless, not my will, but yours. Because we know Jesus' will is perfect, even for us, right? Because, okay, maybe you have an illness and you pray that the Lord would heal you miraculously. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. And if he doesn't, it's the best thing for you eternally. You see, we don't know that, we don't like that, but it's true, right? Certain people are not healed, but it's the best thing eternally. We don't understand why, but it is the case. So he does, he always does what is right. He always does what is in your best interest. Always. He's never wrong. And you don't have to worry. You pray and leave it in His sovereign hands. He's able, and if He's willing, it will happen. And if He doesn't, it's because He's not willing, because He's got something better for you. So there's nothing you have to worry about. It's called trust, right? It's always been a matter of trust. Always. So Jesus touches the leper. My goodness. Everybody else wanted to get as far away as they could from the guy, because if you touch the guy, you can get it. And if you touch the guy, you became ceremonially unclean and you would have to leave your house. You couldn't go to church. You were over there in the corner somewhere, homeless. Jesus touches him. And the people must have gone, Right? But what happens? Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, the leper becomes clean. And Jesus remains clean. And he says, don't tell anyone. You know why? He didn't want him to tell everyone because they would have rushed Jesus, and they would have interrupted what he was trying to do, and that is die on a cross for our salvation. Amen? But the other thing he wanted the leper to do was to go and show himself to the priest. Why? so that he would be restored to the community. He could go back to church. They would say, all right, here's a certificate, you're clean. You can go back to church, you can go back to your house. You're back into your community. And don't you know people need community, don't we? People need people. We can't live alone. We really can't. We need relationships. We need to have one another. Life is meant to be lived that way. It's not good for man to be alone. He says it in the Bible, right? And so we need to be in community. And what better community to be in than with the people of God? It's the most beautiful community there is. Right? And so we're blessed to be in that community. And that's why this particular passage motivates us to social action. We wanna help people who are poor, who are homeless, who have needs. We want them to be helped and also to be in community. Amen? Yeah. To be in the warm bosom of the church. The second miracle was the centurion. And this is up in Capernaum, which is the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee. This is Gentile country. And this guy is a Roman soldier. And what he is doing is the Romans are occupying Israel. They're occupying the land. and they are charging taxes to everybody, and they have to pay Rome, right? You want good roads? You gotta pay your taxes. And the Roman roads were fantastic, and Roman peace was costly. Pax Romana was very costly, so you gotta pay your taxes. And even the Jewish guys who were the bag men for some of the tax collectors, would actually charge more than what they were supposed to take and skim off the top. They were bag men. So the centurion is guarding, is sick and needs healing. Now this guy was unlikely not married. He was not married because he couldn't be. He would be in the service of Rome for 20 years. He could not be married, but he could have a concubine. You know, and he might have had a concubine, but you know, he had a servant, and servants were very close. This servant particularly close because of the Greek word that's used. So this is like his right hand man who's dying. And anyway, he's sick, and he didn't ask Jesus for anything. He just told him that he was sick and needed healing. And Jesus said, I will come and heal him. And like any good wife, he said, no, you can't come to my house. Did you ever ask your wife? Yo, yeah, I'm driving home from church. Yeah, I just invited three people over from church today for dinner. And your wife goes, what? You invited people to our house. I said, yeah, this is what we're supposed to do. Well, you could have told me. The place is a mess. I've been busy. Oh, my God. How could you have done that without asking me? Right? All you can see in your head is the vision of the probate and family court. I don't want to go there. Lord, please, not the probate and family court. They'll skin me alive. And your wife said, well, we need to take him out to a restaurant or something. But this guy, it wasn't, I don't think because he had a dirty house. I think it was because he felt that Jesus, Jesus was too good for him. He was a, you know, Gentile. Jesus was sent to the Jews. Not only was he a Gentile, but he wasn't a good Gentile because of what he did, guarding the bag men, you know? And the guy extrapolates. It's so good when you can extrapolate information from your life and use it as spiritual lessons. He says, look, Jesus, I'm a man under authority, right? I'm a centurion. I have people under me. I say stuff, and they do it. I give commands, they do it. I could be in another place, and I say, do this, do that, do this, do that, and they do it, right? That's not like your kids, right? Everybody's got kids. You say, do this, do that, don't do that, and they do the opposite. But when they get old enough, they'll be fine. But anyway, so he says, just say the word and he'll be healed. Because just like I have authority over men, soldiers, you, Jesus, have authority over all of creation. And I just say, you could just say something and it will happen. And isn't that the case? Just say the word and he will be healed. Right? And it's the same with us. Lord Jesus, we could pray. If you're willing, just say the word and it will come to pass. If he could speak creation into existence, he can speak healing into existence. Amen. So in your life, you have to think about your own circumstances. You may go home this afternoon with your little kids and they be running around like crazy people and you see how, you know, your poor wife, feeds them, and they spit their food out, and they don't say thank you, and that you parents do everything for them, and you never get a mom, thank you, I love you, you're the most sacrificial person I've ever known in my life. Right? It just, but you can see how, That shows us a picture of us, right? There are people all over, even us, sometimes that are spitting out the food that Christ gives us, despite His sacrifice for us. And so we can learn spiritual lessons from our own situations and extrapolate from the smaller thing to the greater thing, like the centurion did. Amen? You follow me? And you have to ask yourself a question sometimes. And that is this. If you are sick, do you want to be healed? You know, not everybody does. Some people love to be sick, get all the attention that they could get. I know when I'm sick, boy, yeah, it's rough. I always go right from sickness to death, and I'm on my deathbed, and my poor wife, she has to cater to me, and I'm just a helpless person. When I'm not sick, I'm slightly helpless. But when I am sick, I'm very helpless. Anyway, there are some people that love to be sick. If they're in a conflict with somebody else, they love to stay in that conflict, talk about that conflict, right? Feed off that misery. And that's not how it should be. That if we can be well, then be well, right? Get well. And so we have this wonderful display where Jesus shows that with a word he heals somebody. He speaks it into existence. Now you have to be careful that you don't think that you have the same power. Some people in the church think that they can speak things into existence, but that probably is not the case. So be careful about that. Now, Jesus marveled at the man's faith. He marveled at it. he thought it was wonderful that this Gentile had such faith. And what he said was, there'll be Jews that will not be in heaven. The chosen people, largely, will not be in heaven, but the Gentiles will be. And the proof of that is this morning, right? Largely, there are Gentiles in the church. It's the time of the Gentiles. This is the age of the Gentiles. And Gentiles are streaming into the church, and the church is made largely of Gentiles, non-Jews. There may be some Jews, I don't know if there's any Jews here, but largely, the time of the Gentiles. But at the end of things, right before the end, there'll be a massive influx of Jews into the kingdom of God. We don't know when that's going to be exactly. We don't know what that's going to look like. But that's what the scriptures tell us in Romans. So Jesus marvels because the ones who were chosen, the ones who should know better, have taken faith to be works. And this guy, he's got it right. He doesn't take faith to be works. He takes faith to be faith. And he has faith in Jesus. It's a powerful gift. Faith is a powerful gift. Isn't it? Why is it a powerful gift? Why? Because Jesus, the Lord God, is pleased. with faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. But with faith, it's quite possible to please Him. It's not like we're trying to earn anything, but we're trying to please Him, aren't we? I want to please Him. And when you live like you want to please Him, because you do want to please Him, it's a whole different life. Some of the things you ask for are so quickly and readily granted. You see the goodness of your Father. Right? Think about anxiety and mistrust and fear. All of those are not of faith, right? Why would I be anxious? Why would I not trust Him? Why would I be afraid? Do we need to be afraid? No, we don't. We don't. We have to speak to that, don't we? You know? All of us do get that way sometimes, but it's not because we're trusting. It's because we're not trusting. As we trust, the fear and the anxiety fades. If you're going to a hospital and they're going to open you up, you're having an operation, what's the worst thing that could happen? That you die and go home to be with Jesus? Oh, goodness, that's terrible. No, that's wonderful. And I dare say that it will be an illness that will take you out, right? Or an accident or the return of Jesus. Who knows which? Right? So not everybody is healed of everything because there's one final one that translates you into glory. Amen? Now, as they say, everybody wants to be with the Lord, but the process is something that we don't want to think about. Right? We are the most blessed of people. The faith grows among faith filled, realistic people who have a big God. How big is your God? Do you have a big God or do you have a little God? I guess if we were able to give each person a test, there might be people in here that would have a big God and some that would have a little God. Right? Let me explain. And I think this is a valid thing. We read God's Word to realize who God is. The more we know God's Word, the more we realize who God is. He says who He is in His Word. and our imaginations are usually unreliable. If you don't read his word, you cannot know him as he ought to be known. So the question is, are you a big Godder or a little Godder? Robert Wilson was a seminary professor at the esteemed Princeton Theological Seminary in the early 1900s. One of his students during that time was the famous preacher, later, who went to the 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Donald Gray Barnhouse, a hero of mine, who was the predecessor to James Montgomery Boyce at that beautiful church. Twelve years after he graduated from Princeton, Barnhouse was invited back to Princeton to preach. And as he stood up to preach, he noticed the old professor, Robert D. Wilson, sitting there, and he went over to greet him, and the guy said to him, I only come to hear my students preach once, and I'll never come back to hear you preach again. When you preach, all I'm looking to know is whether you're a big godder or a small godder. And if you're a big Godder, then I'm happy because I know that your ministry will be great and you'll do many things because you believe in God in the immensity, to the extent possible, of who he actually is versus a little God that has truncated him in your own mind. And so the gentleman preached. And Wilson told him at the end, you have a great God and God will bless your ministry. And it turns out that Dr. Wilson was quite correct. You can still read Donald Gray Barnhouse's sermons as they are still in print. And he died decades ago. Though he is dead, he still speaks. Our view of God, listen, listen, listen, listen. Our view of God, are you listening? No, no, I said, are you listening? Our view of God ultimately shapes what happens in our lives. There, I said it. Our view of God ultimately shapes what happens in our lives. Our view of God is part and parcel of our faith. Faith always takes an object. In the words of A.W. Tozer, the most important fact about any man is what he, deep in his heart, believes God to be like. We tend, by a secret law, to move toward our mental image of God. When we imagine a little God, we assume he can only do little things. When we look at the world, we think that God is absent and out of control. People are like that today, right? God's not absent. He's not out of control. There is chaos, but he's allowing that chaos for a reason, largely the judgment of the nations, right? Some might say, my God would never do that, but they're not talking about the God of the Bible. They're talking about the God of their imagination. Rather, God is so magnificent, He's magnificently transcendent, but He is imminent. He's a million miles away and He's right here. He's here this morning. He is with us and He will never leave us nor forsake us. The power that he can summons at a word is beyond your capacity to understand or imagine. Amen? And yet, we insult Him with our anxiety and our worry and our lack of trust. We substitute a small God in His place and we shouldn't. It's the Word of God that must fill our understanding of who God is. We must realize through God's Word, He is a big God. And that's the only thing you need to know. When your God's too small, your problems are too big. But when your problem's too big, you retreat in fear and insecurity. But when your God is great, your problems pale into insignificance and you stand in awe as you worship the King of kings. Amen? Is anybody with me? Can anybody say amen? How big is your God? Is He big enough to intervene? Is He big enough to be trusted? Is He big enough to be held in awe and ultimate respect? Big enough to erase your worries and fill your heart with peace? Remember, the more you know God, the bigger He becomes. Think about that. The more you know Him, the bigger He becomes because you realize how big He is. Amen? When I was a baby in the faith, just starting out with my wife, we got the electric bill. Oh God, how are we going to pay that bill? It's like, if he can save your soul, he can help you pay your electric bill. Amen? That's why in the Psalm, Psalm 4610, put this on your refrigerator and I'll shut up. It says this, be still and know that I am God. That's what he says. Amen? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the great grace you have given us, that we know you, Lord, and that you are expanding our understanding and realization of how great and magnificent and good you are. Thank you for these words showing these miracles. And we pray, Lord, as we continue on in life, that you continue to give us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. In Christ's name, amen.