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Well, let me give you here a little devotional from Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 to 11. It says, When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And behold, a leper came and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, see that you tell no one, but go your way and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them. Now, when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, saying, Lord, my servant is lying at home, paralyzed, dreadfully tormented. And Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I am also a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. And when Jesus heard it, He marveled and said to those who followed, assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into utter darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion, go your way. And as you have believed, so let it be done for you." So I want to speak to you a few minutes about the Lord's willingness to help all those who have faith in Him. And whether it's you're concerned about yourself, or whether it's you're concerned about someone else who you love, I want you just to simply see this morning that Jesus is willing to help you with whatever concerns you. And there's two examples here, mighty examples of healing. And these kinds of healings usually do not take place in our day. I want to say that God still does heal in our day. It's just that we don't have a healing ministry like the early church did, but God does most definitely heal. But what I want you to see from these verses is that Jesus had just gotten done with the Sermon on the Mount. He came down from the mountain, great multitudes following him. This leper comes worshiping him and saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus put out his hand and touched him. it says, and said, I am willing to be cleansed, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed. So, you have this man who, if you know anything about what leprosy was like or is still like in places of the world today, that it's a very loathsome disease of How can it be described wounds and bruises and putrefying sores? And things like that white patchy blotchy yucky Things on the skin a lot of times they had leper colonies You know where you isolate the leper lepers out. So here this man comes up to Jesus and He's very perceptive. I want you to notice this and He said, if you are willing, you can make me clean. I think that is really a neat statement because it shows by the fact that he worshipped Him, he came up worshipping Him, and it shows by this statement that he made that he was indeed a person who recognized the sovereignty of God, not only in salvation, but also in regard to everything in our lives, whether it's our health, our strength, whatever disease we might have, etc. The Lord knows all of these things, and this man recognized the fact that Jesus was the Son of God. that He was fully God and fully man, or number one, He wouldn't have worshipped Him, but He wouldn't have said this, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Because the Lord Jesus has all power and authority in heaven and earth, and yet so many people around us, they don't even know how great the Lord Jesus is, or really how willing He is to help those who call upon His name. And so this man walks right up to him and says this to the Lord Jesus, and the Lord said, I am willing. And then he reached out to him and touched him. What an amazing thing that to touch the untouchable, which is what Jesus was doing there. But I want you to see the willingness of Jesus that He's not only willing in this man's case, which was a mighty, mighty case of healing, but He's willing in your case and my case to hear our prayers to Him. But we must come believing, too, because look at what it says. Well, he was believing and he was healed right away. And notice the willingness, again, of Jesus. He says, I will come and heal him. He says to the centurion as well. We got the second example right two in a row. In verse five, the centurion comes pleading with him, Lord, my servants lying at home, paralyzed, dreadfully tormented, Jesus immediately, And remember, there's a multitude of people around him. He says, I will go and heal him. I will go and heal him. And this amazing response of the centurion, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof. Again, the recognition of Christ being the son of God. And John the Baptist said, I'm not worthy to unlatch the sandal strap of you, the Lord. The centurion is saying, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof. And so you just speak the word and he'll be healed. I just find this very marvelous and Jesus did too. He says, I'm a man under authority. Look at how he puts this. Having soldiers under me, and I say to this one, go, and he goes. And another one, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. And Jesus said to those, he looked around, he said to those following, assuredly, I say to you, I haven't found such great faith even in Israel. Which means that this man recognized Jesus' authority to be able to do this great thing by just simply speaking a word. And I want you to see that this morning. It's the same way with us. Even though, like I said, we don't see a ministry of healing like we saw in the early church, but yet nevertheless, God does heal. Sometimes he will actually heal, and doctors are astounded and amazed, and the people themselves that are involved, or their relatives are amazed, or the person himself is amazed. But I want to take and apply this to a lot of different things in your lives, where you just feel that you need the Lord's help. Will you not see that the Lord is willing to help you, willing to listen to your prayers, willing to act in accordance with the Father's purpose and will. And if that's the case, that should be a great encouragement to each of our hearts that Christ is so near, which He is, so close to us, that He's in our heart and our life by the Holy Spirit. But this man recognized Jesus' authority, And he said, my servants, I say these things and they do them. You can do that same thing with my servant. I find it marvelous too that this man who is a centurion, who had authority as he did, was so concerned with his servant that he would come to Jesus about it. He really loved his servant. He knew about Jesus, he'd heard about Jesus, and he had faith in Jesus. But there was not time to explain all that. He just simply, when Jesus entered Capernaum, he came right up to him and pleaded with him, it says in verse 5, about his servant. You and I, we ought to be the same type of people with the people we love, that we would plead for them. if we see that they're unsaved or if we see that they have some grave illness, if we see that they have many troubles in their life, problems in their life, things that the Lord can help. The Lord can touch their lives just as really and as surely as He touched this leper, and even at a distance in the second case, we see he just simply says to this man, after he says, assuredly, I've not found such great faith, not even in Israel. He then says to the centurion, verse 13, you go your way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. So, what we need to take notice of is that when you pray, you must believe that Christ is willing and that He is able to act. Now, for whatever reasons, the Lord may not choose to act in the way that you ask or want, but if you ask with faith and you ask believing as these two examples give us, Here, there's every reason to expect that the Lord will act in ways that we don't understand and can't see oftentimes. And at the very least, in terms of the unsaved loved ones, strive with them in their hearts. Either in accordance with our prayers, our example, our faith, all of those are very important to God. in his answers to prayers. Otherwise, Jesus would never have said that. Go your way and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. What a tremendous statement that is. So I just want you to see here today the Lord's willingness and take comfort and take heart. Don't be discouraged. The things that you don't see come to pass right away all things for which you pray and believe that you have received them. Keep persevering in prayer, keep bringing it to the Lord's attention. The Lord's able to do all things instantly, but why does He choose not to? Well, He knows. He has purpose in it. And the purpose regards us, and it regards our loved ones as well. And so we need to see that. And what glorifies God the most is what we should think about in regard to this. But again, I want you to see the Lord's willingness. The Lord is perfectly willing to hear your requests and to answer them. Give help to those who ask Him. I've been reading through the Psalms this year and reading some of Kymon's commentaries. Psalm 62, the last two verses, 11 and 12 say, Once God has spoken, twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God, and loving kindness is yours, O Lord, for you recompense a man according to his work. I'll just read you two sentences here from Calvin, that Calvin spoke on that. And what he was impressing was that we have to remember God's power, but we also have to remember His mercy. And I thought that went well with what you were just talking about. And he says here, The first thing which we must look to is his power, that we may have a thorough conviction of his being a sure refuge to such as cast themselves upon his care. With this there must be conjoined confidence in his mercy to prevent those anxious thoughts, which may otherwise rise in our minds. And I just, I've just been kind of meditating on that at different times this week, that joining of his power and his mercy and his loving kindness. in our lives, that He's able and He's willing because He's merciful. Yeah, faith is that confidence, isn't it, in Christ, as Calvin was just saying there. That's really good. Anyone else? Kind of along that same lines, in remembering His mercy and His power, hearing a message of God's holiness and the man referring mostly to Stephen Charnock and his treatise on the existence and the sovereignty of God, that power by itself doesn't necessarily mean goodness. Power can be evil. But we must couple everything about God, all his attributes, all together, operating at the same time. As you said, with mercy. We have God's love, we have God's mercy, we have Islam's suffering. All that is in operation all at once. And that gives us that great hope that his primary desire that we see in him is that he is loving and he is merciful. And all those actions that we just don't understand, we're finite, he's infinite. So we've always got to think of his love and his power together. Excellent.
The Lord's Willingness
Series Prayer & Sharing Devotional
I wanted to speak to you for a few moments about our Lord's willingness to help all those who have faith in Him. Whether you are concerned about yourself, or concerned for another person whom you love, I want you to see that Jesus is perfectly willing to hear your request and to give help to those who ask Him.
Sermon ID | 52923124321542 |
Duration | 16:32 |
Date | |
Category | Devotional |
Bible Text | Matthew 8:1-11 |
Language | English |
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