witness how his baptism and his temptation point forward to his work as a priest that he is going to do. Now we know that Christ holds the three offices, or perhaps the threefold office, of prophet, priest, and pastor. King, and during his earthly ministry, throughout most of it, which of those do you see Christ doing most often? If not, by far, the vast majority of the time, is he not preaching? Our Lord came to preach when he was on this earth. Isn't this what he came to do? Mark 10, 45 is sometimes called the keystone verse or the summary verse of the whole Gospel of Mark and it states that the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for And while certainly he would give his life as that ransom for many, during his earthly period, he was a preacher. He was ministering as a prophet, a prophet who would come to be greater than Moses, as one who would speak God's words to his people, and as one who was God's word to his people. He came to preach the word of God. He came to preach, which is obvious from the first few verses that we just read, verses 35 through 39, where Simon and a few others who were with him are looking for Jesus. They don't know where He is, and He says that I need to go to the next towns to preach. Preaching is the reason that I have come out here. I also mentioned this morning verse 14 of chapter 1 in which Jesus now appears on the scene as, so to speak, the main character of the act with John the Baptist now locked away in prison and he has this message, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. What we see here, I think, in this text is a focusing in on Jesus' ministry of preaching. In God's providence, Brother Duncan today, for our call to worship, was reading from Psalm 103. And Psalm 103 exhorts us to bless God for many things that he has done for us. One of those things, as was read today, was for his many benefits, including the benefit, it says, of renewing our youth. However, certain problem can arise when we switch around our priorities from focusing rather than on the benefactor, the benefits. and focusing on the gift rather than the giver, the one who is giving those gifts to us in the first place. And I think that actually sets up what we're going to see in this text. So that's where we're going. We've read the text. We see what's going to happen. So I state this here at the front, just just as a frame for where the sermon is going. As you can see in your bulletin, the sermon tonight is titled, Our Merciful Savior. We see here the great compassion of Jesus. And I think the text shows this to us in three different ways, or at least in three different stages throughout the story of this text. First of all, we see the compassion of Jesus is desired. Then we're going to see the compassion of Jesus is demonstrated. Then lastly, the compassion of Jesus is disregarded. First of all, let's look at how Jesus' compassion is desired. And we're going to find this in verse 40, which I'll go ahead and read again. And a leper came to him, imploring him. And kneeling, said to him, if you will, you can make me clean. We see here the leper's desire, which is seen in his approach to Jesus, as we speak about Jesus' compassion being desired. The leper comes approaching, and in context, if you were to read through Matthew, you would find this happens right after the Sermon on the Mount. Right as Jesus is coming down from the mountain, I presume he is surrounded by throngs of people. This leopard boldly makes his way through these crowds who I presume are more than willing to part in order to let him pass through because of his contagious and uncleanness. of the disease that he has and he comes to Jesus. And this is true desire. This is earnest desire that this man has. He obviously has a problem with his disease. very desirous to be rid of it. And so for this purpose he comes to Christ. But don't forget even here in this context where Christ is coming down from the mountain after he has given the Sermon on the Mount. He's just been preaching. So just before this Christ is preaching, and again this helps to kind of set the stage and it sets the tone, the most important thing here is Christ as the preacher. Even more important than his gifts, the benefits that he is going to give to his people. And he recognizes the mercy of Christ. Perhaps this leper has heard from someone who has been healed. Maybe he has a family member or some friend who has told him about this Jesus and he has come. I want to point out to you in verse 40 that when our English translations here, at least most of them, say that he came. It's actually not the most literal way it can be translated. Mark, as the writer that he is, as the way that he frames these really short and compact stories in such a way that they are just filled with intense detail, actually uses a present tense. which is simply a way, I believe, of bringing out the drama, of heightening out and kind of picturing this man's great desire as he is in this process of approaching Jesus. This is used here, I believe, to vividly draw us in to this scene. And you can just imagine the scene. Most of us today probably are not familiar with the ancient disease of leprosy. This word, this leprosy, can refer to any range of skin skin diseases, so I have heard. However, on the worse end, they could consist of people's small appendages falling off and things like that. They could be smelled before they could be heard, so at least that's what I've read, this terrible skin-eating disease. It was sometimes seen as if they were walking dead men. So you have this probably a horrendous sight of a person, perhaps a horrendous smell as well. And this picture here that Mark is drawing as this man is now approaching the Lord Jesus Christ helps us to vividly draw us in what is going to happen, how is Jesus here going to respond. So we see this desire. This desire for Jesus' compassion is shown in the leper's approach. Then we see it in a few of his subsequent actions. And what does Mark tell us? What does he do after the leper approaches? Three things. He pleads. He kneels and he petitions Jesus. And all these, of course, are very pious acts. These are ones that would be fitting for all of us to do if the Lord Jesus were to be here bodily. And of course, if we were to be living at that time as well. These are certainly, as far as we can tell, this far in the text, biblical signs of faith. man is man is coming and he is pleading he is kneeling and petitions Jesus and says if you will you can make me clean what he petitions encapsulates two items. We have the willingness of Jesus and then the ability to make him clean. So we're talking about Christ's will, his mercy, then also his power, his ability to act on that mercy. And certainly God must have both of these things if he is going to be an efficacious savior of his people. We can't possibly afford to miss one of these things, can we? What if we had a God who was loving and who was merciful toward his people, but he wasn't able to save us. He wasn't able to devise a genius plan of salvation. However, that's certainly not the case. We would also have a problem if God was able to save us, if he was able to be merciful, but he was not merciful and wasn't willing to do so. Thankfully, we have a God who is both. A God who is both powerful to act and a God who also will act, who is loving to do that. And as Jesus demonstrates to us, a God who loves to be merciful to his people. Now, I think here, in the words that the leper uses, we might even here have a hint of unbelief. He doesn't say that Christ is willing forthrightly, does he? No, it's almost as if he counts it in a question, in a doubt. In my opinion, it's not certain in the leper's mind if Jesus is going to heal him. He says to him, if you will, you can make me clean. At this moment, it doesn't necessarily look like he has the strongest faith in the world. Nonetheless, he still knows who Jesus is and he still knows that he is the person that he needs to come to in order to be healed. It's good that he desires the mercy of Jesus, that he comes here in faith. Leprosy, biblically speaking, represents sin, and I think that might be here why Mark has this section. In the book of Leviticus, in chapter 13, I believe, there's a whole set of purity laws on what should happen in cases of Leprosy. And if someone is a leper, he is to be put outside the camp. Now, what happens theologically? What is being said theologically if a person is being put outside the camp? What is the camp? The camp is the place where God dwells with his people. The camp is the place where you have these borders of Israel that are drawn, and God is there in the midst of his people, and God's people are there. Everyone else is outside. So at least, theologically speaking, if someone has leprosy, and if that person is being put outside of the camp, there is this ceremonial statement, at least, that he is not one of God's people. This is, in a sense, portraying to us what leprosy symbolizes. It symbolizes the grievous, insidious, heinousness of sin. Now of course we're not saying that those who would have leprosy and would be put outside the camp were actually unbelievers. For example, Moses had a sister named Miriam who did commit sin even though she was a believer and God did punish her with putting leprosy on her body and she was put outside the camp for a time and then she was let back in. However, I simply bring this out for the purpose of showing you that leprosy is this biblical image of sin. And whereas this morning we saw that the cleansing with water represents cleansing with the Holy Spirit, I think we also see that Pollution with leprosy represents the pollution of sin. And how deep it goes and how extensive it can extend on the human body is representative of what sin does to us. In our doctrine of total depravity, we believe that every faculty of the human soul has been polluted and has been affected by sin. So what Christ must do is redeem the whole man. Even the will of man, which had been polluted, must be redeemed. It must be renewed. So that the man which once primarily desired sin, and primarily sought sin, and sought to serve his carnal pleasures, now primarily seeks to serve Christ, not the devil. He primarily seeks what is good and takes pleasure in doing good works, things that are pleasing to the Lord, as opposed to reveling in his carnal delights. This, I think, is what leprosy is representing to us. And so, on a small level, on a microcosm level, Mark is portraying to us the battle against sin and righteousness, good and evil. And even as leprosy must be purged out of this man who has been polluted by it, probably in many, if not most, parts of his body, sin must be purged from and individual before he can have acceptance with God. And so we must come to Jesus for spiritual cleansing, even as this man here came to Jesus for physical cleansing. And as we come to Jesus, we must do so in faith. This was the great need of this man, which was cleansing. And this is something that can only happen by Jesus Christ. This man should not have gone to a different teacher, a false teacher, I mean. If he needed to be cleansed, there was no one on the planet who had the authority to actually touch him. to actually heal him by such means. No one but the Son of God could do this. So we as well must come to Christ in faith. And as the leper came pleading, kneeling, and petitioning, we must come and we must plead. Let us implore, meaning to come earnestly, recognizing our dire need before God. We must come and we must kneel. meaning that we must come humbly before God, recognizing that there is nothing that we can contribute to healing ourself of our own terrible and terminal illness of sin. We must be God alone who supplies everything, even our faith and our repentance. We also must come as the leopard did and ask, meaning come in faith. We must believe in his powerful mercy. We must say, Lord, if you will, or Lord, I know that you will, that everyone who believes in you will be saved, that the sins that are within me, if I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, will be purged by his blood. He is willing to do so, and he has the power to do so. This is what all sinners today must do. They must look at Christ to be saved of their sin. We see Jesus' compassion is desired and then right away we see that Jesus' compassion is demonstrated. Verses 41 through 44. I'll go ahead and read these few verses again. Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priests, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a proof to them. Now, I think we can see how Jesus demonstrates this great compassion in a couple of things that he does here. The first of these is his miracle. And Jesus is demonstrating here his compassion in this miracle. But let's actually back up just a second and see where Jesus demonstrates this just before the miracle. In this little phrase that says that Jesus is moved with compassion. There are a few different words Mark could have used to show Jesus' compassion, his pity on the person at this point. Mark uses a relatively rare word, one he doesn't use terribly often, to describe this, these really, for lack of a better way of saying it, these feelings of true pity, compassion that Jesus has as he looks upon this other man whose body is probably wasting away, who is certainly an outcast of society. Mark uses actually the strongest of these few words that are available in order to show the depths of this emotional reaction that Jesus is having, of course, in his human nature. We also see Jesus' compassion demonstrated in the miracle itself. In the very fact that Jesus is willing to reach out and touch this man. Jesus touches a man who is untouchable. This is a man who probably, as I intimated earlier, was able to progress up to Jesus with relative ease. Perhaps he's crying, unclean, unclean, as his leprosy is showing. Perhaps he is wearing garments that indicate that he is a leper. Perhaps people can smell him as he is coming and as he is going. And I can just imagine in my mind's eye, people are darting to and fro, left and right, in order not to be within a few feet of this person. However, Jesus is untouched by him. And Jesus himself does touch him. He touches this outcast. And of course, as I said before, I believe only the Son of God can do this. licensed to do this, whereas if a regular mortal priest were to touch this man, it would be the pollution of the leper that would affect the priest. However, We certainly believe God's grace is greater than our sin. We also believe that God's power is greater here than the disease of leprosy. And God's power here, exercised through Jesus incarnate, heals the man's leprosy. Jesus wills him to be cleaned. He expresses that verbally, I will, and then he is cleansed. All this as well is related to Jesus' preaching ministry. Now perhaps that sounds abrupt. However, it's something that I think that we need to introduce. Kind of at the beginning of the sermon here, I try to set up the contrast of what can sometimes happen. If you confuse the main thing for something that's not the main thing, If you value the benefits themselves rather than the person who is giving them to you, and trying to highlight that contrast, I want to bring out to you a few things here that are relevant, at least in terms of Jesus' miracle. Mark only uses this word compassion two other times in the whole gospel, this particular word. Both of those times are in reference to Elisha's miracle and to Moses' miracle. This is an implicit connection that shows part of Jesus' ministry as a prophet. These two times where this word is used here, and now this is coming back to me, are in the feedings of the 5,000 and of the 4,000. And this miracle, I should say, these two instances are similar to things that Moses did and Elijah did. And of course, we are familiar with Moses in Exodus chapter 16 who, through God, multiplies manna for the people. What fewer people seem to realize is that Elisha does something, 2 Kings chapter 4, which actually sounds a lot more like Jesus feeding of the 5,000. There is bread that needs to be multiplied, it's scarce, and Elisha performs the miracle, and then there is even more left over. This is just covered in a few verses at the end of 2 Kings chapter 4. However, Mark, I think, is giving us a specific tie to these passages and also to what these Old Testament prophets were doing. And this shows us that even in his ministry of healing, Jesus is exercising his office as a prophet. In some way, his healing of the leprosy is connected to his proclamation, what he's doing as a prophet. Also, note the fact that in the Old Testament, the healing of leprosy is a sign of a prophet. There are only two times in the Old Testament that we see this happening, and we see this happening with Moses and Elijah. When God commissions Moses to preach to Pharaoh, what is one of the signs that he gives to him? He gives him the sign of putting his hand inside of his coat, taking it out, and then seeing leprosy all over his arm, and then putting his hand back into his coat, taking it out again, and seeing his skin be clean. We also see Elijah do this with Naaman. Naaman, who is a leper who is commanded to dip himself seven times into the Jordan, and his leprosy is clean. So there is clearly, I believe, a connection here between Jesus and these Old Testament prophets, just in the fact that he is healing a leper. And this shows that what Jesus is doing here, his healing of the man's leprosy is connected to his preaching ministry. And we're going to see a little bit later on how this connection actually works, what the relationship is. Right now I'm just going to state it. So we have seen that Jesus' compassion is demonstrated in His miracle. And we're also going to see, in a little bit more briefly here, that it's demonstrated in His command. And yes, I believe that even in this command that Jesus is giving to the person, He is actually showing him mercy. He is actually here showing him compassion. And Jesus here says something which on the face of it probably does not sound that compassionate to most people, is it? This is what he says. See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as the proof to them. In this text, Mark here, as I suggested, as Mark likes to do, is compressing a lot of strong language into just a few words. I'm going to try to bring some of those things out for you. So when our texts say in verse 43 that Jesus sternly charged him, let us recognize that this is a relatively uncommon word and it's a very strong word. One commentator wrote this, this is a strong word which literally means to snort at one or to address in the sternest way. Another commentator wrote this, he says this is a surprisingly harsh word in this context since it often implies an attitude of anger or displeasure. And looking at the word myself and some of the studies I was able to do, this certainly seems to be the case. A word that indicates now that Jesus is expressing some anger in this response that he is giving to him. And then it says Jesus sends him away, which actually is the exact word that was used in this morning's sermon for the spirit casting out Jesus into the wilderness. This word which Mark often uses for the casting out, the hurling out of demons, is now being used as of Jesus, as he is thrusting out this man here. And so, in a sense, this whole sentence here can be translated thus, he invade against him and he drove him away. So we have all this strong language that Jesus is using in his command to the person. And what here is he commanding? One thing that he's commanding here is the man's silence. The second thing he commands is his departure, and this is when he is sending him away, and that really dovetails into the third thing, which is the offering. So Jesus commands the silence. He commands that he This commands his departure and then Jesus commands that he gives up this offering because he says go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded to you. And then Mark adds as a proof to them, or perhaps as a witness to them. And I think here that we have the key to the relationship between Jesus' sign Jesus healing here, this miracle of healing the man and his preaching ministry. It appears to me that in sending this man to go to the priests to offer himself and to offer for himself what is what is required as a proof to them or as a testimony to them that this is going to be a witness to Jesus himself. This man is going to be able to go back to the temple and tell the Pharisees and the scribes and those religious leaders over there that Jesus is the one who has the authority to cleanse a person of leprosy. And I believe, of course, the message that should be conveyed is that if Jesus has the power and the authority to cleanse a man of leprosy, he has the power to do the very same thing over sin. And if a man can do that with sin, a man certainly must be God. This man is the great prophet. This man here must be worshipped. And so we have the sign and perhaps the thing that is signified. It's a sign. The cleansing of the leprosy, this miracle, is a sign. It's not an end to itself. It's a witness to Jesus in his preaching ministry. It's a sign of cleansing, which is to remind people of the great gospel that Jesus preaches of repentance, faith, and conversion. Cleansing of the soul. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the message, these two things must not be confused. Psalm 103 exhorts us, encourages us to bless the Lord for his benefits to us. The Lord has given great benefits to us, has he not? But we should not treasure these things and prize them above the Lord himself. In fact, the good things that God has given to us, God has given us good life and health right now as several of us are very, very much privileged to enjoy, if not many of us here. Those things should point us up to the Lord and make us be grateful to Him and make us thank Him all the more for those things that He has given to us. It would certainly be a reversal of their purpose if we were to turn the gift into the focus. Imagine if you were to walk into a friend's house who has invited you over for supper and they have spent hours in the kitchen making this wonderful gourmet meal for you and you just Walk in right on time. You barely take the time to say hello to your friend. You scoff down the food, this delicious, wonderful food that's been prepared for you over these hours. You really treasure that and you really do enjoy it. That's the best part of your time there. You ignore your friend and then you walk out. That's what it would be like if we were to treasure the gifts that God has given to us without treasuring the God who has given us these gifts. And I believe that Jesus is giving the man such a stern warning because he knows that that's exactly what this man here is about to do. is not going to show appreciation for the message of Jesus. It's only going to show appreciation for the thing that symbolizes that message. Now, a few moments ago I said that I believe that Jesus is demonstrating his compassion in this command, so let me just answer this question. How is this compassionate? How is it merciful for Jesus to speak to the man in this way, especially considering the fact that you have these surprisingly strong words that are found here in this text. Even Jesus appearing to have anger over this man and or what he is going to do. I would say to all of you that God's warnings are always merciful. That God in giving us warnings is being compassionate. If you're at a place in your life or if you're or if someone is beyond life. If they've already died, no more warnings are coming to that person. That's not a good thing. That person is in dire straits and they have lost all hope. If perhaps a person becomes so hardened in this life, their conscience has simply sinned against the light of God and the light of nature so many times, the warnings don't really sink in anymore. Their heart never flares up. and their conscience never pricks them when they are going into sin. That person is in grave danger. That person is not receiving the warnings of God. The very fact that people can receive the warnings of God, either externally from the Word here as they are still living, or internally, especially and importantly in their hearts, is a symbol itself of God's mercy and compassion. That it's not too late. And so indeed, what Jesus here is saying to this man, I believe, is extremely merciful. Jesus gives him more light. Jesus gives him more truth. And as a result of these words that Jesus is giving to him, this leper should have even less reason to go and do what is wrong. He should have even less reason to go and do what he actually continues to do. He has even greater accountability, so to speak. and he would have less excuse for any disobedience. Unfortunately, that's exactly what we see. And hastening on in verse 45, we have our third main idea here, that Jesus' compassion is disregarded. And I will read this final verse once more. But he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter. We see, first of all, very plainly, the leper is disregarding Jesus' compassion. And we see this in the fact that the leper begins preaching, actually, of all things. The translation I'm reading from here says that he began to talk freely about it and to spread the news. I don't know what all the translations that the rest of you might have read, but the technical word that Mark uses is the word for to preach. Mark is saying that the leper is out here actually preaching. He is proclaiming what Jesus has explicitly told him to be quiet about. He begins preaching. He begins spreading the word. We have, as it were, this explicit contradiction between what Jesus told the man not to do. He says, don't do this thing, don't go spread the word, and that is exactly what Mark says that the man begins to do. And then the tense that Mark actually uses here, for both of these terms, when it says that he begins to talk freely about it and to spread the news, this tense indicates the action is ongoing. It's not just a single time that he set up shop and preached. I almost get the image that for a short period of time this man was a traveling evangelist, just kind of going around and just never ceasing to preach about what Jesus has done. And in these few words here, Mark, I believe, is again emphasizing the severity of this man's disobedience. This thing that ordinarily would seem to be very natural for any God-fearing person to do. In fact, it seems like something that a God-fearing person probably should do to many of us here, if it were not for the fact that Jesus told him not to do this. So that certainly raises the question, doesn't his action show that he actually did love Jesus? I think that's a valid question. I think that's a question that many people who are reading this text probably would ask. Yes, Jesus told me not to go tell about him. Perhaps Jesus is simply being He doesn't want his name to be made known. He doesn't want to bring glory and fame to himself. But certainly, there's no problem if I go and do it for him, is it? That is certainly not a holy way for him to think, if that indeed was the way he was thinking. I don't know. What I do know, what is certain, is that what the man did was wrong. If he loved Jesus, he would have obeyed. What does Jesus say in John 14, 15? If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Obedience will show that you love Christ. So unfortunately, this leper demonstrates that it is not Jesus that he loves. It is his gift that he loves. He does not love the benefactor here. He is in love with the benefit that he is getting from him. So, what's a question we can ask ourselves? It's very easy to look at this man's disobedience and to criticize him and to judge him, and there's a certain sense in which we should do that. We can judge him in the sense of saying, we can make the judgment, he is wrong here. We must also be careful that we do not fall into the same trap. Now what trap is that? Maybe not necessarily hearing a direct word from God, hearing from Jesus Christ himself and doing the exact opposite, but loving what God is promising to give us instead of God himself. Many people want to go to heaven, but not all of these people want to be with God when they get to heaven. Can you think of that simple example? The heaven wouldn't be heaven if God wasn't there, would it be? It would be paradise, certainly. It would be a wonderful place. There would be no more crying or pain, no more sorrow, no more death. But you're not going to be with your God. Your heart is not going to be fulfilled. I am reminded of Moses' dialogue with God right after the sin of the golden calf. And I believe I remember Moses pleading with God and saying, Lord, if you do not If you are not with us, we will not progress. We're not going to enter in this beautiful promised land if we're not going to do it with you. I would rather be here in the wilderness of Sinai, somewhere in the hot Middle East desert, with you in your presence, Lord, than be in the rich, luscious promised land without you. I think that has to be the attitude that believers today should equip themselves with. If the choice were given to us, we should rather choose to have God and to have difficult circumstances in this life than to live a a very rich and prosperous life without it, for certainly this is far better. What would it profit a man if he were to gain the whole world but to lose his soul? Certainly, I think here of this leper, at least in his mind, in his world, he had gained the whole world. Perhaps his life sentence had been reversed. He could now be incorporated into Jewish society because he had contact with Christ. And because this great story happened and had preached so much, he may have been relatively well known at this time and place. However, the indicators are, and I can't make any definitive judgments, that he did not have true faith. At least he did not have a saving, trusting faith that rested in Christ as his Savior. Maybe he repented of the sin later. We don't know. Scripture does not tell us that. Let's look as well here at the consequences of disregarding Jesus' compassion. And this is going to amplify the effects and the consequences of this man's sin and make it look even worse. So, here at the end, in verse 45, we read that Jesus' ministry is barred from the city. He's not able to openly enter out into a town. We also read that Jesus' ministry is withdrawn to the desert. And that, nevertheless, Jesus' ministry is slowed because people are coming to Him from everywhere. Now look at this scenario, which I call an ironic reversal. What did I say the leper was out doing? The leper is out here, out in the open, preaching. Now look at the other figure, what he's doing. What's Jesus doing? Jesus is not in a city. He can't open a city. He cannot enter to a city, the text says. He's out in desolate places. So the leper is already doing what Jesus should be doing. Jesus should be the one who's out here preaching. And Jesus apparently has taken the place of the leper. He's the one who's out in these desolate places trying to be away from people. So I think that Mark is painting for us this ironic reversal of these places. That's happening as this man, as a consequence of this man's disobedience of Christ and of him prizing Christ's gift instead of Christ himself. Certainly, this is evil. Whereas preaching is to be the higher goal, and this is to be supported by good works, by the deeds, by Jesus' miracle that He is doing. What we see in the leper is that he prizes the deeds themselves, what Jesus can do for him as the highest goal. And again, that's supported by his own preaching. This is his false gospel, which, interestingly enough, perhaps might remind us today of the prosperity gospel, of people who are more concerned about the things that God can do for us and give to us in life. than the salvation of the soul, the eternal soul that God is offering to us. Just take a moment to think about the foolishness of that. If you were just to imagine, you could sit down with a perfectly rational person, a man who is poor and a man who is unsafe, he's going to hell, and you could offer him two options. You can say, you can either have riches in this life and stay unconverted, you can die in your sins and live forever in hell, Or you can stay poor in this life, but you can have spiritual richness. You can enjoy a rich relationship with the Holy Triune God, Jesus Christ himself, in this life. And when you pass from this life into the next, you will enjoy an everlasting period of time of pure bliss, joy, and fellowship with this God without any sin at all. Which do you think a perfectly rational person would take. Of course, we imagine if such a person existed, if they were not polluted by the irrationality of sin, that they would desire that which is eternal, that they would desire that which is heavenly, that their minds would seek those things that are above. These are the things that we should look for and we must not become so foolish as to become so focused on the things of this world to become entranced on riches, to become entranced on wealth. to become entranced on being healthy and living this good, well lifestyle. And none of those things are bad. As a matter of fact, during this sermon I've been saying that these things are in fact good gifts from God. They're just not supposed to be the ends in themselves. They're not supposed to be our focus. They're supposed to point us to the God who is above, who has given us all these wonderful gifts to love Him and to treasure Him ultimately. We must prize the true gospel, the true cleansing of our spiritual pollution of sin, because this alone can save. We must hear this gospel preached. And of course, we must come to Christ if we are ever to be cleansed of our sin. And I believe here in this text we have seen, brothers and sisters, a marvelous demonstration of God's mercy, God who is rich to forgive us of all of our terrible sins in Christ. Christ heals a man here whom he knew would disobey him, a man whom he knew would even provoke hindrances to his ministry. Mark is presenting to us this great, this deep compassion of Jesus as it is first desired and then demonstrated and then even as it is disregarded. We must be like Christ. We must be merciful ourselves because God has called us to be like him. This is not just the end of the story, as if it were the moral of the story here is for us simply to be like Jesus, simply to be merciful like Him. But no, our mercy must be based on Christ Himself. It must be based on Him as our model, looking to Him what our mercy should look like, but also as our source of mercy. It is only because of our union with Christ that there is any good in us. There is anything good that God is working in us out of which we can show mercy to people. Because we are putting off our old man, putting off our new man, and God has crucified that sinful nature in giving us the Holy Spirit and in changing our desires. Paul writes this, Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So it is as Christ is living in us as believers that we are able to show compassion and mercy to others. It is through this power that Paul writes there in Galatians, we must be cleansed. Paul writes elsewhere, 2 Corinthians 7, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, completing our sanctification in the fear of God. So brothers, let us do good. Let us show mercy. Even as God has been abundantly merciful to us and has showered us with the gospel preaching that you have heard today. He has sent his son. All of us today have access to scripture. Most of us probably know several pastors. Maybe we can't even count the number of pastors that we personally know on our two hands. We have plenty of access to the truth and many, if not most of us here, have been converted. We have been shown this mercy internally and God has come down to us and has given us this new life and cleansed us from our inward leprosy. Let us show a similar mercy to others, and let us know that there is a Savior who forgives sins, and show this. And in doing so, we then will be imitating our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our merciful Savior. Amen, let us pray. Heavenly Father, you are truly good. Let us bless you. Let our souls bless you, O Lord, for all that you have done for us. Your mercy is too deep to understand. And as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, we can also pray that you would help us to understand the great depth, the height, the width, and the breadth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, to be filled with all the fullness of God. Lord, may this be accomplished in us. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, our Lord's day is drawing to a close. Let's end with one more song of worship and praise for our Lord. Please turn with me in your hymnals to hymn number 558. That man is blessed who fearing God. Hymn number 558. And as you are able, please let's stand together. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave May blessed be he who makes what's law his portion and delight, and meditates upon that law with gladness day and night. That man is nourished like a dream, Set by the riverside. It's leaf is green and fruit is short, And thus his works abide. Awake ye like the drilling chaff Of spade from off the land, Ye shall not gather with the trust Nor in the judgment stand. The mortal are the righteous from their way to Him is come. The way of sinners far from God shall surely be worthwhile. Please bow with me in prayer as the Lord sends us out unto this week with his blessing. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we pray that you, the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, that you would equip us with everything good that we may do your will. working in us that which is pleasing in your sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Go with God's blessing.