So I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, loving kindness is my religion. Loving kindness is my religion. Now, it's nice to be loving and kind. That's great. But that doesn't work as a religion. And the reason that doesn't work as a religion is because it doesn't do anything about the problem of our constant failure to be loving and kind. Nor does it do anything to restore our broken relationship with God. Right? So in today's passage of Scripture, Jesus tells us the reason why He came into the world. And I'll give you a little spoiler here. It wasn't just to spread love and kindness. There's way more to it than that. The answer is in verse 17. So if you skip all the way down to chapter 2, verse 17, listen to what Jesus says, or what Scripture says. It says, On hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners." That's why Jesus came into this world. He came into this world to call sinners, and He describes them as being sick and in need of a doctor. You see, the reason we all constantly fail in our efforts to be loving and kind and honest and self-controlled and patient and all the other things that we know we should be but we fail to be. The reason we fail is because deep down inside our souls, there's a horrible sickness, a disease. And this is where religion comes in. No religion is worth anything unless it can do something about that disease and repair the damage that that disease has done, especially the damage that it's done in our relationship with God. That's what is the measure of whether a religion is worth anything or not. And today we begin a new section of the book of Mark that shows us three men that Jesus encounters a leper, a paralytic, and a tax collector. And each one of these three encounters teaches us something about that disease that we have, and we're going to see the glory of the incomparable Christ as He deals with that disease in three different men, and He teaches us what God does about that problem, how he deals with it. So we left off last time in the middle of Jesus speaking to her. He's traveling all around Galilee from village to village, village to village, preaching. Mark 1.38, look at the verse 38 there. Jesus replied, let us go somewhere else to the nearby... They wanted him to come back into Capernaum. And he's like, no, let's go somewhere else into the nearby villages so I can preach there also. That is why I have come. So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. So Jesus is out there on this tour, He's on the road, in between villages, and something very ugly happens. Something very unpleasant, something designed to teach us about this disease of sin. Verse 40, a man with leprosy came to Him. Now, if you took a show of hands back in the first century Middle East and asked what's the worst possible disease that you could ever catch, everyone would agree, hands down, it's leprosy. leprosy. It was the most feared disease there was. It was horrible. Lepers had grotesque, oozing, bloody, open sores from head to toe. Their hair would turn yellow and then white and then it would fall out. It affected their voice. The smell was horrible. It was considered highly contagious, and so lepers were outcasts in society. Leprosy just absolutely destroyed a person's life. One rabbi was bragging about how ritually pure he was, how religious he was, and he bragged, he says, I throw stones at lepers lest they come near me. That's how righteous he was. It was a horrible disease, and so God used leprosy as one of the main illustrations in the Old Testament to teach us what sin is like, our disease of sin, what it's like. Now, this is not to say that it's sinful to have leprosy. That's not the point. It's not a sin to have a disease. But leprosy is a disease that does show us in a way that we can see a reality that we can't see, and that is what sin does in the heart. What leprosy does to you physically in your body, sin does spiritually. Leprosy destroys your body, sin destroys your soul. Leprosy is physically contaminating, sin is spiritually contaminating. Leprosy is systemic, it's not just superficial, not just skin deep, goes down deep. Sin is same way, it's not just superficial, goes way down deep to the core of your being. Leprosy was incurable outside of a special act of God. The law of God had cleansing rituals that were prescribed for each specific kind of uncleanness, but not for leprosy. There was no cleansing ritual for leprosy because it couldn't be cleansed. The leper just had to live out there in isolation by himself, away from people. And if he ever did see any people, he had to warn them by covering his face and shouting, unclean, unclean, so everyone would know to keep their distance. Because if anyone ever touched a leper, they would not only catch the disease, but they would instantly become ritually unclean themselves. That's Leviticus 5.2. If a person touches anything ceremonially unclean, even if he's unaware of it, he has become unclean. Instantly, you're unclean, just like that. As a Jew, there was nothing in the world worse than touching a leper. There's nothing you could touch that would be worse than touching a leper, no matter what. Don't ever, ever, ever touch a leper. That's the way they thought. And all of that was to illustrate to us the damage done by the disease of sin and to teach us about our relationship with God, how it damages that relationship. It alienates us from God. Just like leprosy alienated a person from people, sin does the same thing to God. It alienates us from Him because it makes us utterly loathsome in His sight. It makes us disgusting to God. If you can imagine, like, if you looked right now and there's a giant spider, like, crawling up your arm, or, like, you look down, you feel something, and you look, and there's a big snake, like a four-foot snake, and it's, like, crawling up your chest right now, your reaction, that is what it's like when God looks down and sees our sin. It's just loathsome. It's disgusting to Him when He sees our sinful hearts. And so as a result, we can't approach God. We're separated. Habakkuk 1.13 says God's eyes are too pure to look on sin. He just can't do it. Exodus 33.20, no one may see me and live, God says. If you did see God in a sinful condition, you would be burned up. God is like the sun, and we're like a piece of paper, and you just can't get too close to the sun when you're a piece of paper. Romans 1.16 says, the wrath of God is being revealed against the godlessness and wickedness of men. Psalm 5.4 says, you are not a God who takes pleasure in evil. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong. Well, that's a pretty... You're probably sitting there thinking, why did I even come here today? This is horrible. I mean, this is not encouraging. That's a terrible situation, but it's the real situation between sinful man and God, which is why our only hope is the thing that John the Baptist was preaching about way back in verse four of chapter one, the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is our greatest need. The reason I described all that ugliness of sin is so we can understand how important forgiveness is. Because if you don't think sin is very ugly, you're not going to think forgiveness is any big deal. And forgiveness is more, it's not just getting off the hook for punishment for sin. It's way more than that. It's not just avoiding hell. Forgiveness of sin is the repairing of what was broken in your relationship with God so that you're close again. And there's nothing in between you and God anymore. And so that's forgiveness. And we can ask for that. We can ask for forgiveness. But if God is that repulsed by us, like a snake or a spider, then is He really gonna be willing to forgive when we ask? Well, that's what this first encounter is about. Verse 40, a man with leprosy came to Him. So this guy just comes right up to Jesus. He doesn't do what he's supposed to do. He doesn't yell, unclean, unclean. He just walks right up. This highly contagious, wasted away, destroyed, rotting mass of decaying human flesh walks right up to Jesus, gets close, and you can see the disciples. So Jesus is there. Disciples are here. All of a sudden this leper comes. He gets close enough. They see he's a leper, and the disciples are all like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? Wait, wait, wait, what are you doing? And they're all backing off, backing off. Jesus doesn't move. He just stands there and he lets this guy come within arm's reach. And then the man falls down on his knees and then on his face. And then he opens his mouth and it turns your stomach when you smell this guy and you hear his grating, raspy voice say, verse 40, if you are willing, you can make me clean. What's Jesus gonna do here? How is Jesus gonna respond? I mean, Jesus, the epitome of holiness, this guy is ugly sin, the epitome of uncleanness. Look at verse 41, Jesus' response. Filled with what? Compassion. Not revulsion, not disgust, compassion. Now here's a question. How did they know Jesus was filled with compassion? I mean, compassion's a feeling. How do they know what Jesus is feeling? Clearly, was it a tear in Jesus' eye or look on his face? Somehow it was obvious to the people standing there how Jesus just felt in his stomach compassion for this man. What a contrast between that and those religious leaders throwing rocks at him. Now look at what Jesus' compassion drives him to do. In verse 41, Jesus does the unthinkable. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. And you can add, and the whole crowd gasped, and Peter passed out. I mean, he touched the leper. Now, Jesus didn't have to do that. Jesus, very often, He would heal people just with a word or a thought. He didn't have to touch. He didn't always touch people. But this guy, He wants to put His hand on him and touch him. And I've heard some people say, Oh, Jesus was willing to be made unclean. This made Jesus unclean. Is that true? I don't think so. Jesus would have become unclean if He touched a leper. but he didn't really touch a leper. Look at what it says, verse 41. I am willing, he said, Jesus said, be clean, and immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Jesus didn't touch a leper because the moment Jesus touched him, he wasn't a leper anymore. We touch something unclean, we get defiled. Jesus touches something unclean, it gets cleansed. Verse 42, immediately the leprosy left him and he was clean. Didn't start gradually clearing up. Immediately, leprosy gone. He looks down at his stumps and pop, pop, pop, pop. There's fingers, everything, perfect hands, skin, nice tan, everything. Hair's back, right color, eyebrows, eyelashes, it's all there. Every trace of leprosy gone instantly. When the sun came up that morning, this guy was a hopeless mass of sores and corruption, more dead than alive. His whole existence was a burden. Now he is clean as the wind-driven snow. That fast. And the reason Jesus came into this world is to do that with our hearts. with our leprous heart. We're all born spiritual lepers. Isaiah 64 6, all of us have become like one who is unclean. All of us, on the inside, we're like this guy. What this man is a picture of, we are in reality. And so we need forgiveness, and we think, well, if God so hates, is so disgusted by sin, is He really willing to forgive us? So the most poignant words in this whole passage is in verse 40, when He says to Jesus, if you're willing, if you're willing, I know you can do it, I know you can make me clean, if you're willing, and Jesus says, I am willing. Are there any more marvelous words in the whole Bible than those three words? I am willing. So is God willing to forgive us if we ask? Yes. Yes, He is willing. But how can that be if we're so repulsive to Him? If He hates sin so much, how can He forgive something He hates that much? Well, we're going to find out later on in the gospel, but there's a clue right here in this passage. Verse 43, look at verse 43. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning. See that you don't tell this to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priests and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them." Instead, he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but stayed outside in lonely places. The leper used to be isolated out in lonely places. He was the outcast. Now he's going around talking with everybody. And who's out there in the desolate places? Jesus. He's the one in seclusion now. You see what happened? Jesus traded places with this man. And that is a profound illustration of what Mark is going to explain further later in the gospel, of how Jesus can cleanse spiritual lepers like us. He's willing to cleanse us, but in order to do that, it meant trading places with us, so that when we get to the end of the book and we see Jesus hanging on a cross, suffering the wrath of God on sin, the punishment that we deserve, He's suffering that punishment in our place, because He traded places with us, that's why God can forgive us. So, that's how God forgives us, just because Jesus suffered in our place and took the punishment He deserves. All right, so all that tells us Jesus is willing to forgive. Now let's look at the next encounter. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door. And He preached the word to them. So he does what he always does, he just says, oh, there's a crowd, I'll start preaching. So he's preaching the word, and then on the outer fringes of the crowd out there, away from Jesus, verse three, some men came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four of them. So if you can imagine Jesus, he's in a house, the house is packed, and then outside of the doors of the house, there's still some crowd there, and then these guys come and they're trying to get in. And they're carrying a paralytic. Now, this guy, he's paralyzed. He can't move. He needed 24-hour care. He wouldn't have been able to live in a facility like this, independent living. He needed 24-hour care, had to be carried everywhere he went. Fortunately, he had some really great friends, and they hauled this guy from wherever he was to where Jesus was. They're carrying him. We're almost there, guys. It's just down this street, and down on the end on the right, that's his house. I think he's going to be there. And they come down, and they come around the corner, and as soon as they come around the corner, their hearts just sink. Oh, no. Look at the crowd. And they try to press their way through the crowd and get into the house. Nobody lets them in. They can't get in. So they do the only thing they can do. You turn around and leave. Right back down the road they came on. There they go. Meanwhile, Jesus is still in the house preaching His heart out. He's in there preaching a sermon. He's talking about the kingdom of God. He's making all these points, these great, amazing points about forgiveness. about forgiveness of sins, and what is this? What is coming down on them? And Jesus is preaching, and there's debris coming down on Him, and noises up there. Nobody's even listening to Jesus, and they're all looking up at the... What's going on in the ceiling here? There's some noises, there's some debris falling, and now you can see daylight through there, and somebody's digging through the... And they look up there, and then they see. It's those four guys! with the paralytic. When they walked back down the road, they didn't go back home. They went and got some ropes. And they came back and somehow hoisted their buddy up onto the roof of the place. And then they cased it out and figured out right where Jesus was standing. And they got it right on, dropped it right in front of Jesus where Jesus was standing. I was thinking it was a good thing it wasn't me, because I wouldn't have gotten it right. I would have missed it, and then been in the wrong room, and I would have five holes in these things before I finally got them. But these guys, they get it right on. They're right in front of Jesus. They figure, you know, if we take our friend and drop him right on Jesus' head, then he can't ignore us, right? So, verse 4, they made an opening in the roof. Literally, they unroofed the roof right where Jesus was. Now, this is such a dramatic moment. And the way Mark tells it here, he switches to the present tense, which means he wants us to picture this. He wants us to imagine it. No one has said a word. It's silent. See, look around the room. There's the Pharisees. They're sitting there, scribes and Pharisees, they're sitting in front, thinking, arms folded, thinking, I wonder what horrible sin this paralytic committed in order to deserve this curse from God. Maybe there's a guy over on the side with his sick baby in his hands thinking, man, I wish I would have thought of that. I should have let my baby down through there. Then look at the paralytic. His face is beet red, embarrassed, all eyes on him. He's shaking in fear. He's looking up at Jesus. What is this rabbi going to do? Am I in trouble? The crowd in stunned silence, just sitting, watching, waiting. Four upside-down heads poking down through the ceiling. They want to see, too. They're watching. They're up there looking. What's going to happen? What is Jesus going to do? What's He going to say? And if you followed all the healing accounts up through the gospel to this point, you know exactly what's going to happen. You totally expect Jesus to just heal the guy at this point, just say, son, your legs are healed. And that's always what happens at this point in the story with a healing account. They bring him to Jesus, and he sees it, and so that's what you're expecting. But Jesus is full of surprises. He doesn't do... Instead of saying, son, your legs are healed, He says, what does He say? Son, your sins are forgiven. Nobody saw that coming. And you're there, you look down and say, well, yeah, okay, you forgave his sins, but did you heal his legs? And you're looking at his legs, you're seeing if, are they starting to twitch? Is there any sign of healing? No, guy's just as paralyzed as ever. Jesus didn't heal him. What do you think happened here? Do you think Jesus misunderstood what they were wanting? And finally He figures out, He's like, Oh, you wanted me to heal? Oh, my bad. I'm sorry. I was thinking He wanted forgiveness of sins, but yeah, I should have known. He's on the stretcher. Yeah. No. No. No, Jesus knew exactly what everyone expected. He knew exactly that they came here because they wanted Him to be healed, but He doesn't heal them. Instead, He forgives them. Why? To teach us something very important. What's that? To teach us what's more important, this guy's heart or his legs? This is very important because we don't look at people the same way Jesus does. We always think the body is what's important. We always think people's physical needs. We've got to meet people's physical needs. Do you know if Jesus walked up to a quadriplegic and forgave his sins, healed his heart, but didn't heal his body and then walked away, that would be a wonderful day for that guy. But if Jesus walked up to a quadriplegic and healed his body so he could be an Olympic athlete, but didn't heal the disease of sin in his heart, that would be a horrible, horrible thing. The spiritual is so much more important than the physical. We look at some crippled person and say, oh, poor guy, he can't walk. Jesus looks at that guy and say, oh, poor guy, he doesn't have forgiveness of sins. He's lost. He needs forgiveness. The paralysis is incidental compared to what's in the heart. If we could interview, if I had a guest speaker this morning and it was that paralytic, we could get him down from heaven and interview him right now. And he spoke to you, I think I know something of what he would say. I think he would say, you know what, back when I was living in this earth, I thought, man, if I could get my legs back, if I could walk again, that'd be the greatest thing. I thought that was my biggest need. But now looking back, I've been living with Jesus for about 2,000 years in heaven now, and I can tell you without any question that what He gave me, the forgiveness of sins, is worth infinitely more than just being able to walk around for the few years I was on the earth. So Jesus forgives him. He says, Son, your sins are forgiven. Still, those are the only words that have been spoken this whole incident. Nobody else has spoken. Jesus said that. The scribes, Pharisees, they're there. They're not saying anything. They're not saying anything, but they're thinking plenty. We get to see their thoughts in verse six. Now, some of the scribes were sitting there thinking to themselves, why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Now, that last part is true. Only God can forgive sins, right? Only God can forgive sin. I mean, it's great that Jesus has the willingness to forgive. We saw that with the leper, but does He really have the authority to forgive people's sins? Because only the person sinned against can forgive the sin, right? Somebody sins against you, I can't forgive that person, you have to forgive that person. Only the person sinned against can do the forgiving. And so when Jesus said, I forgive you of all your sins to this guy, you realize what He's saying? What Jesus is saying is, all the sins that this man had committed his whole life were all committed against me. That's quite the claim. No wonder they accuse him of blasphemy. He's claiming to be God. Well, verse 8, immediately... So this is all... They haven't said any of this. They're just thinking this. They're just thinking it. Immediately, Jesus knew in His Spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts, and He said to them, why are you thinking these things? Jesus always responded to people's thoughts. It had to be kind of unnerving for people. But they hadn't made a peep. Jesus responds to their thoughts. He's like, oh, you're questioning, I know what you're thinking, you're questioning whether I have the authority to forgive sins. Fair enough. Fair enough. I realize you can't see forgiveness of sins. You can't see this guy's heart. So let me do something you can see. Verse 9, Jesus asked him a question, which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, take your mat and walk, but that you may, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, that's an important phrase right there, So that you'll know that, he said to the paralytic, he didn't finish his sentence with words, he finishes it with an action. He said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. Kind of risky, right? Every bit of Jesus' credibility is totally on the line right here. This guy, for whatever reason, he doesn't get up right now, Jesus is exposed as a total fraud forever. I mean, that's the end of Christianity, right? Everything is on the line. Jesus doesn't hedge his bets like Moses striking the rock just in case it doesn't work. I mean, this is... He just says, no, no, you want proof? You don't want to know? See my credibility? Here it is. Watch this. So here's how you know I'm a credible guy. Get up. Well, what happened? Verse 12, he got up. He got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all. Jesus didn't do his miracles in a corner. Everybody saw it. This amazed everyone, and they glorified God, saying, we've never seen anything like this. So right at that moment, you look down at this guy's legs. When Jesus said, get up, and you look down at his legs, and you just see his legs at that moment go from little atrophied sticks to suddenly they have muscles. And Jesus altered the guy's brain and gave muscle memory so that he could balance. That's the point of carrying his bed. I mean, he's got enough balance, he can walk, carry his bed, and carry it all the way home. He didn't need any rehab. This is an instantaneous miracle, like all Jesus' miracles. Here's the point. God never expects us to believe on blind faith. He always gives adequate proof. Always. And it says they glorified God. That means they gave God full credit for this. The point of that is, everyone realized that what they just witnessed, only God could do. This is something only God could do. And so if Jesus can do one thing that only God can do, that means Jesus is God, which means Jesus can do anything God can do. Everything God can do, Jesus can do. Including what? Forgive sins. So Jesus has the willingness to forgive. I am willing, he said to the leper. And he has the authority. He's got the power. He's God. He can do it. All right, that's the second encounter. Now let's look at the third one. The third guy. Here we see the extent of this forgiveness. How far does it go? And another thing, what is Jesus' attitude towards the forgiven? And that's a really big one, right? Because sometimes you sin, you ask God, please forgive me, please forgive me, and you say, okay, he forgave me, but still you're wondering if he's a little bit irritated at you still, right? Is he kind of, is God, you know, he forgave me because he had to, but he sort of doesn't like me? Or what's his attitude towards somebody after he's forgiven them? That's what we need to know. So let's look at this third encounter. Verse 14 of chapter 2. As Jesus walked along, He saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. And if this was a movie, then everything would go real dark and there'd be real sinister, scary music because this is the villain. Tax collectors were the worst of the worst when it came to evil and wicked, immoral reprobates who had no regard for the law of God at all. Tax collectors are listed in the Jewish Talmud with unclean beasts of the Old Testament. They're just like another kind of unclean beast. And they would have had to be pretty tough, rough, strong characters because they had to enforce their taxes, right? If somebody refused to pay, they had to enforce it. So Levi, here's this Levi, big, rough guy surrounded by some serious muscle and weapons. Someone you don't want to mess with. You just pay your taxes and be on your way. Well, Jesus is about to mess with him. We just saw Jesus confront the religious authorities. Now he confronts the government authority. Verse 14, He saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. Now remember, in everybody's mind, what the Messiah is supposed to be, the job description of the Messiah in the Jewish mind in the first century is to come and defeat Israel's enemies and give them military dominance. And so Rome is occupying Israel right now. They're the ones taxing through Herod. And now, here he is, here's Jesus, claiming to be the Messiah, and now He's confronting the government. He's going up against the government. You see what everyone would expect here? Oh, this is it. He's going to start a revolution. He's going to refuse to pay taxes, whatever. So Jesus walks right up to this big, rough, scary man with all His guards and His weapons and all that stuff, and He looks him right in the eye, and He gives him an order. motion is, let's go. Nobody saw that coming. Jesus doesn't go after Levi's power, he goes after Levi's heart. And he calls Levi to be one of his permanent followers, one of the 12. Now what an absolute, colossal waste of time this sounds like. I mean, on the face of it, Jesus, do you realize what you're calling this guy to do? You're calling this man to walk away from everything that he's ever cared about in life, everything that has ever excited him in life, and his livelihood, his job. He'll never be able to go back if he walks away from that booth. You really think, Jesus, this guy's gonna be interested? Verse 14, Levi got up, So this big, rough, mean, intimidating oppressor came to his feet, approaches Jesus. Maybe the thugs working for him, the enforcement, they come, step forward towards Jesus. Verse 14, Levi got up and followed Him. Followed Him. All conversation stopped. The only thing you hear is the sound of Levi's sandals as he's following after Jesus. Jesus rules men's hearts, and he wanted this man's heart. And so he took it. Now, this does not help Jesus' reputation at all. 150 years after this, A man by the name of Celsus mocked the whole Christian movement by saying this. He said, But Jesus didn't care. In fact, he took it even further. Listen to this. Look at verse 15. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples. So Levi goes out, he invites all his low-life friends to come and have a big party with Jesus. And Jesus goes to this party. Now, here's what you have to understand. Sharing a meal with someone, that's an act, even in our culture, that's an act of closeness and friendship, right? It's an act of intimacy. but way more in that culture even than in ours. And who you eat with says something about your identity, who you identify with, who you're associating with. That's why it mattered way back in junior high, which table you sat at at lunch, right? That could make or break your whole junior high career. Why? Because that's the group that you're associated with. It raised a lot of eyebrows when Jesus Sat down and ate a meal with all these lowlifes So you're there you're at the dinner and there's Jesus Enjoying a nice medium rare lamb chop and laughing Sitting next to a child molester and right next to him a rapist a crackhead ex-con But they've all repented of their sins, and now they're all following Christ. Verse 15, they're all following Him. And so, He's having a party with them. How far does this forgiveness go? All the way to the bottom. Doesn't matter how wicked your sins are. all the way to the bottom. And the other question, what is Jesus' attitude towards those He's forgiven? Does He harbor a little bit of resentment still? A little bit angry with them? A little bit, hmm, you're on probation? No. He wants to have a party with them, even if they've committed unspeakable, horrendous, horrific acts. The moment Jesus forgives you, you are as clean as that leper. Your heart is as clean as that leper's skin. And He's delighted. God is delighted to be near you. He's delighted to be near you. He wants to eat with you. He no longer looks at you through the lens of your past sin. It doesn't affect the way He feels about you. It doesn't affect the way He thinks about you or looks at you at all. What a marvelous truth. So, What have we seen? We're all desperately in need of forgiveness, right? We all have spiritual leprosy, that disease. Jesus has the authority and the willingness and the eagerness to completely forgive anyone, no matter how sinful, but not everyone is forgiven. Not everyone is forgiven. So what do you have to do to make sure you are forgiven? How can you know for sure that your sins are healed? Your heart is clean. What does the Holy Spirit teach us in these three accounts here? Well, here's what we can see, just real quick, and I'll wrap it up. First, you have to realize you're sick. When they ask, look at verse 17 again. When they ask Jesus, why are you eating a meal with all this scum, all these lowlife sickos and everything? Why are you eating with them? Look what Jesus says, verse 17. It's not the healthy who need a doctor. And we'll explain that more next week. But he says, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. He specifically says, I have not come to call the righteous. I'm not interested in them. Jesus only came into this world to cure the disease of unrighteousness and wickedness and sin. So if you're not a vile sinner, Jesus isn't for you. He doesn't have anything at all for you. If you're righteous and good in your own eyes... Now, we know, of course, everybody's a vile sinner. Every human being has committed sin against God. But there's a lot of people who think, well, I'm not that bad. I'm pretty good. I'm a good person. They don't think they have a vile, putrid, spiritual, rotting disease in their heart that disgusts and angers God, because they think they're pretty decent. And after all, they're not as bad as the really bad people. Or, you know, I do all these religious observances. I've always read my Bible and prayed and gone to church and give the offering and all that. Or, I've got good intentions, or whatever. They come up with all these self-righteous things, ideas, ways to make themselves righteous in their own mind, and so they don't really need forgiveness. And so they don't get it. Jesus said, I didn't come to call those people. I only came to call the people who realize they are vile sinners. That's it. That's it. So, if you want forgiveness, step one, you've got to realize that you need it. You've got to come in humility. Look at, just go back to the leper. Look at the leper in verse one. What was his attitude when he came to Jesus? Did he say, Jesus, you should accept me because I'm not as unclean as the other lepers I know. I know some lepers that are really leperous. I'm not as bad as them. Is that was his attitude? No. Did he say, all right, all right, there's some things about me that are unclean, but there's other things about me that are very clean, and those counteract and cancel out the unclean part. No, that'd be nonsense. Now what did he do? Verse 40. What does chapter 1, verse 40 say? He came to Jesus and begged him on his knees. And then it says he went down to his face. That's the posture of broken, reverent, contrite humility, and total submissiveness to Christ's authority. What does he say? He says, if you're willing. I'm just, it's totally up to you. Totally up to your mercy. So how do you get this forgiveness? You come to Jesus in humble reverence and acknowledge the loathsomeness and ugliness of the guilt of your sin. And that's number one. Number two, then, from there, you just simply trust Him. You don't have to earn this forgiveness. You can't. All you can do is trust, and that's what activates Jesus' compassion. Look at what He says to the paralytic, verse 5. This is guide number 2, chapter 2, verse 5. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Jesus forgives sins on the basis of faith and faith alone. That's it. That's the only thing that makes God forgive someone. Faith. And that's everywhere in the Bible. That's how it was for Abraham. That's how it was for all those people all through Scripture. That's how it was for this guy. That's how it is for us. Romans 3.28, a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Just faith. Just faith. So if you have faith, you're forgiven. You don't have faith, you're not forgiven. That's it. That's it. And in this case, it actually started with his friend's faith. The guy's friend's faith. He says Jesus saw their faith and forgave the guy. And that's another thing we see routinely in Scripture. God will have mercy on one person because of the intercession of someone else who has faith on his behalf. Now most of the time in the Bible, intercession takes the form of prayer. This time, it's in the form of action. It's not intercessory prayer, it's intercessory action. They tore a hole in the roof and brought the guy to Jesus. They were creative and insistent and persistent in getting their friend to Jesus, no matter, even if they had to tear a hole in a roof. And when they did it, it says Jesus saw their faith. You know you can see faith? You can see faith because it acts. Faith is active trust in Jesus. Active trust in Jesus. There is no such thing as faith that doesn't work. Sometimes people will try and tell you, oh, just let go and let God. You ever heard that? Let go and let... As if, in order for God to work more, you have to work less. The smaller your effort, the greater. No, that's not what the Bible teaches. What we see in this passage is the exact opposite. The more God works, the greater the intensity of the action of the person who has the faith. But it's not activity to justify yourself. That's not what you're working to do. It's activity to get close to Jesus. That's what you're working to do. That's the response of faith. There are people who, they know the Bible backwards and forwards. They can quote you verses in the Greek, and they have all this theology and everything else. They're as religious as they come, but they would never ever tear through a roof to get someone to Jesus, to even get themselves to Jesus. They'd hardly walk across the street to get to Jesus. Bible knowledge is worthless if you don't use it to get to Jesus. So how do you receive forgiveness of sins? From the leper, we learn you come to Christ in total humility and acknowledge the severity of your deeds. From the paralytics, friends, we learn it's on the basis of faith alone. You trust, active trust in Jesus. What do we learn from the third guy, Levi, the tax collector? What did active trust in Jesus look like in Levi's case? Well, he gave up his life of sin and followed Jesus. He followed him. In other words, repentance. Repentance. That's always the response that true faith has towards sin. Repentance. You want forgiveness of sins? Repent. Come to Jesus in humility and faith. All right, so we've seen all our need for forgiveness. We've seen the disease. We have seen the source of forgiveness, which is Jesus, who has the authority. He's got the willingness. He's got the eagerness. It's why He came into this world. And we've seen the requirement for forgiveness. Humble faith, come to Christ in humble act of faith and repent of your sin. One last point, the response of forgiveness. Now that you're forgiven, what do you do? Well, in the first account with the leper, it shows us the wrong thing to do, the wrong response. Verse 43 of chapter 1, Jesus sent him away at once with strong warning, don't tell anybody, go show yourself to the priest so they can go through the process to verify that you're clean. Jesus wanted the priest to officially pronounce this guy clean so that they could paint themselves into a corner. Anyway, He gives this guy a very simple command, don't tell anybody, go to the priest. What does he do? The exact opposite. Verse 45, instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. He does the opposite of what Jesus commanded. He knew the right way to come to Jesus with a request. That, he got right on. That was great. But once he got what he wanted, what happened to all his humility and all his reverence and all his trust in Christ and everything else and his submissiveness? It's gone. He got what he wanted, now he's on his way. He's not interested in obeying Jesus. In verse 45, as a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Now Jesus, He can't even enter towns because it would attract the wrong kind of crowd. It would just attract thrill-seekers. And so He doesn't even go into these towns that He was going to go to. And you've got to think, that's horrible. Think about those towns. They would have gotten a visit from Jesus. Now they're not going to because of that guy's disobedience. How tragic. So that's the wrong response to being forgiven, disobedience. Contrast that with the next guy, the paralytic. What was his response? Jesus said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, go home. He got up, took his mat, and walked out. Obedience. He does exactly what Jesus says. And it's at the moment that he decides to obey that he's healed. He's still crippled. Jesus says, get up. And it's when he decides to get up that he's healed. When He chooses to obey, only then does the strength come. So what's the right response? First, obedience. When you get forgiveness of sins, obey. Second, do what Levi did. Invite all your friends and bring them to Jesus. Do what those four friends did. Bring your friend to Jesus, even if you have to tear a hole in a roof. Get your friends to Jesus. And when you get forgiveness from God, obey Him, invite others, and then finally, last thing, celebrate. You've been forgiven of your sins. Act like you've been forgiven. Put a smile on your face. Jesus gets criticized for attending this party with all this feasting, especially because the day that Jesus did that, He's at this big party, He's eating all this food, great big buffet, all this stuff, and it says it's a banquet. And it happened to take place, I believe, on a fast day. So all the religious people are fasting. So they're all starving, they're fasting, their face is all white and everything, and they're just beleaguered. And then they see Jesus, He's supposed to be the Messiah, and here He is having a banquet. And like, what are you doing? Why aren't you fasting? And Jesus said, it wouldn't be appropriate to fast. This is a time for celebration. These people are all repentant. It would not have been appropriate for him to fast while Jesus was present because he's the one who has the authority and the willingness and the eagerness to forgive all of our sins. If you come to him in humble faith and repentance, that's for celebrating. That's not time for fasting. Celebrate. Well, some of us have done some really horrible sins in our past. I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, We've all got some deep, deep, deep stains on our soul. Some of you have had sick, disgusting things done to you. And you feel dirty because of that, even though you didn't even do anything wrong. Somebody else did it to you. where in some cases, maybe horrible things were done to you, and you also did some things that were wrong, and you've never even figured out in your mind where the line is between the two, and so you don't even know what to confess and what not to confess because you just got this kind of cloud of guilt and confused, generalized sense of dirtiness, and you don't know what to do with it. Or maybe you got the most disgusting kind of filthiness of all, and that is self-righteous pride. Oh, I'm a pretty good person. Whatever the variety of uncleanness that's in your heart, no matter how deep it runs, Jesus can clean you with a single touch, and He will. 1 John 1, 9, If we confess our sins, He is righteous and faithful and just to cleanse us from our sins and all unrighteousness. Forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Psalm 51, 7, Cleanse me with Hissip, Lord, and I will be clean. Come to God like these men did, with deep reverence, broken humility, repentance, total submissiveness, and active trust. Come in faith, ask for cleansing, and He will make you whiter than snow. Then you can express your gratitude and joyful obedience to His commands, and He will rejoice with you. Let's pray. Dear Lord God, thank you for providing for forgiveness of sins, even though it costs you your Son to do it. Thank you for this great provision. We're so grateful. We ask that we would respond the right way. Lord, if there's anyone here who's not forgiven yet, I pray that you would draw them to you in broken humility and contrition, repentance, and faith. For those of us who have been forgiven, Lord, fill us with joy and gratitude, teach us to celebrate, teach us to care more about the heart than about physical things, temporal things, and fill us up with joy. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.