Pilgrim Bible Study
The compassion of the King Mark 1:40-45
Hello and welcome to episode 6 of Pilgrim Bible Study with Pastor Chris. In today's lesson we'll be exploring the compassion of Jesus Christ as he interacts with the leper and mark chapter 1. As we dive into this powerful story we hope you'll find new insights on how God feels about us and our responsibility to love others. We are nearing the very end of mark chapter 1 and this is one of two times that we see in the New Testament a healing from the leprosy. This is the only one of two times that we see this in the gospels the others in the gospel of Luke where there were a group of lepers that Jesus healed and what's unique about this passage that we're looking at is that Jesus we see something unique in him we see how Jesus felt. We often hear about his parables we often look at things that he did which the things that he did or what mark concentrates on but in this case we hear about how Jesus felt and that's very important the sermon titles the compassion of the king and I want you to understand what that means to us and our understanding of who God is and how he views us and what our obligation is as believers. So first I want to look at verse 40 sorry let me open my giant Bible again and it says that a leper came to Jesus in the siege town falling on his knees before hidden said to him if you're willing you can make me clean and the first thing that we see about the leper that he had either seen the miracles of Jesus or he heard about them but either way he believed that Jesus could heal him and that forced an action and his action was to come to Jesus the only question he had was was Jesus going to be willing to do it and I want you to understand something about leprosy what a horrible disease it is it's actually not gone from the world at least one source that I read said there's over 200,000 people with leprosy today it may be much higher this is predominantly in third world nations it's also known as Hansen's disease and it is mostly painfully painful socially and emotional it is physically painful but not for long it kills and destroys the nerves of the body and so therefore body parts are actually lost and it causes horrible discoloration of the skin and what's so bad about it is that in the Old Testament they people with leprosy were commanded to depart from the rest of the fellowship of Israel they had to walk around with their mouths covered and they had to shout out unclean unclean and so this was a person who wasn't just suffering physically but he was suffering very much emotional he was a social outcast and so he trusted in Jesus's power to heal the question as always is do you there's a really good analogy here to leprosy and comparing it to sin sin I don't know if you realize as much worse than leprosy you know if you don't have complete assurance of your salvation today understand that you can today right now where you're sitting and the disease of sin is worse than leprosy because everybody has everybody Grumman's 323 says for all of sin didn't fall in short of the glory of God so there's no one who escapes this particular disease were born into it and its effects are lastingly terminal in Romans 623 it says for the wages of sin what you earn is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord so you know it has an ongoing effect what this does is if you leave this earth without putting your faith in Jesus Christ or repenting of your sin then when you leave this earth there will be a second death after the first one there is a physical death that we all experience every human being will at some point experience this but there is a second death for those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior so this this disease has worse effects than leprosy and the fact is that only Jesus can cure it in John 14 6 Jesus said I am the way the truth in the life no one comes to the Father but by me and so I just want to make that offer to you today that if you've never trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior then you can be a part of the family of God you can be forgiven and and Jesus wants to do it on Romans 10 13 says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved that's you too on verse 41 we see his reaction to the leper and it's important that those who are not sure their salvation understand this too and understand it if you are a believer and you're just struggling and you're feeling down Jesus was moved with compassion so we learned something about God here we learned that God cares about human suffering you may have not have thought of it you may feel like no one really cares about your current situation you feel like no one understands but the Bible says and heavers that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are yet without sin and so because he was tempted as we are yet without sin we can come boldly before the throne of grace knowing that Jesus not only cares for you but he understands how you feel and so he was moved with compassion and that's an exciting thing we see this again in another place one of my favorite verses in the Bible because it's the shortest verse in the Bible John 11 35 says that Jesus wept I love this verse because it reminds us of again of how God looks at people how God feels about you how God feels about me here in this circumstance Lazarus had died Jesus knew what he was going to do he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead but when he saw the effects of sin when he saw those that were suffering and crying and hurting over the loss of Lazarus it says that Jesus broke down and wet and you know that's what he feels about you regardless of who you are that's how he feels about you and if you've never trusted in Christ is your word and Savior that's how much he loves you he hurts with you and you know there's another passage in Mark 10 21 this is a different circumstance there's a rich young ruler who Jesus knew would reject him he knew he would reject him you would choose his riches over Jesus but it says in this passage that Jesus looked at the rich man and loved him so this is God this is an insight into who God is and you know for God's children the question is will this world see the love of Christ in you and I I've seen it in our church a lot there are different times when I was out of work where my family was struggling and I had brothers and sisters in Christ come alongside my family and help us and I've seen people in our church do wonderful things to help other people and we this is a challenge for us to love like Christ loves understand that the Bible says really clearly that we are being conformed into the image of God it's it's everywhere in the Bible God wants us to make us like Jesus Christ and so you know we need to reflect that love that we have through the Holy Spirit you know when I when I think of a really good examples I think of Mr. Rogers our youth group years ago used to joke that pastor Spaulding looked a lot like Mr. Rogers and he came to really take that as a compliment Mr. Rogers Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister who regularly taught lessons of love compassion and selflessness to children whereas Sesame Street focused on teaching kids numbers and letters Mr. Rogers taught kids how to be a good neighbor and that's what God wants us to be and you know I think about the call that we have to go out into all the world with the good news of the gospel and in Acts 1e that says will receive power from the Lord to share the good news of the gospel and he says in Jerusalem Philadelphia our neighborhood here this is our Jerusalem Judea Samaria Samaria represents people of different cultures do you have friends do you have people that you love who look different than you who have the different culture that you are a different background you should because that's the kind of love that God has and I'll give an example Mr. Rogers there was the 1964 Civil Rights Act but a lot of states and a lot of people did not honor this law and they continued to practice segregation and as a matter of fact at the time Mr. Rogers show was on there was an event that made national news where there was a hotel owner who owned a pool and there were people of color in that pool and he kicked them out and he poured cleaner into the pool while they were there well Mr. Rogers didn't let this go unnoticed because he had an answer to what he thought of it he had an episode not long after this had happened where he was in a swimming pool out in front of his house and he was dipping his feet in the water an officer Clemens what a character from the show was a man of color Mr. Rogers offered to have him take the pool and share the pool with him officer Clemens said but there's only one town he said we can share the town together let people see that in us we are one family in Jesus Christ and we have a country right now that's racially divided I believe that revival in Jesus Christ is the answer because in Christ we are one family we love each other and so let people see that great love in us as well as we move on I'm sorry I got very emotional but I think that's a beautiful story as we move on we see that when Jesus was moved with compassion he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him I'm willing to be cleansed he also reached out and touched the man he did more than just heal him he could have said be healed or he could have even thought be healed and the man would have been healed but see here's the difference is that that man had been devoid of human contact devoid of human love and touch so Jesus did more he reached out as him and touched an untouchable person and displayed that love and then verse 42 says and immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed so when Jesus heals he doesn't heal by halves he completely heals and you know that's that's why when people are sick we pray for healing because we know God can completely heal and our only question is the same as the leper he said are you willing that's why a lot of times when we pray we said Lord if you're willing give a complete healing because we know that he can do it and he can do actually much more than we would ever ask so he heals this man immediately and completely verses 43 and 44 verses 43 it says he sternly warned him and immediately sent him away and he said to him see that you say nothing to anyone we'll stop there for a moment Jesus said to the man don't go spreading this around he showed compassion on him he gave him the healing he asked for but Jesus already was having people crowd him and so he for a very specific purpose asked the man not to spread it around because he wanted to continue on with his ministry and goes many places as he could and then the other part of verse 44 it says but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a testimony to them now this was Jesus doing two things number one he was saying and declaring that he would be obedient to the word of God that he was always out to do the Father's will so should we we should be out to do the Lord's will at all times and this is found on and Leviticus 14 there was a for cleansing of leprosy there was a specific sacrifice that had to be made and present yourself to the priest this would include this man going to the temple in Jerusalem so he would have to go some distance to do it but Jesus is always up he's always upholding the law but he also did it as a testimony to the priests even though he didn't want everyone to know that he had personally healed this man he was declaring the glory of the kingdom of God coming to earth so God would get the glory from the healing so Jesus was doing those two things giving glory to God the Father because God's glory is our chief goal remember that at all times and he was also upholding the law and and so he's declaring those two important things now we want to look at his reaction we could choose to be stern to him about the leopard but we want to look at all the reasons why he may have done what he did verse 45 says but he went and to be again to proclaim it freely and to spread the news about to such an extent that Jesus can no longer publicly in our city but stayed out in unpopulated areas never coming to him from everywhere so it had a really negative effect now the man may have done it because he was so grateful he just wanted to tell everyone but the point I want to make to use this we can never rationalize disobedience to God whatever it is if we are disabagging and saying well I'm doing it for this reason well I'm doing it for that reason no we can't rationalize disobedience to God because disobedience to God will never have a positive result it just can't so he may have been not well but it just it worked out bad and Jesus knew it would and remember this John 14 15 says and this verse needs to be before us every day if you love me Jesus said you will keep my commandments and so he should have the baby but he didn't and as a result it kind of put a real hindrance in Jesus's ministry in that he now had to go to unpopulated areas and even then people were coming to him from everywhere so it actually lessened the amount of places Jesus could have gone to so again if you disobey God there can be no rationalization for it and won't work yet so as I close this message I just want to say this that if you've never put your faith in Jesus Christ ever know that to those who receive those who believe in him is given a right to be called the children of God that's kind of love that he has he wants to be your daddy he wants to love you in a way that you've never been loved before and he wants you to live for his glory and I just want to tell you that whatever you give up when you become a Christian being the disciples not easy whatever you give up cannot compare to the glory that God will reveal to us in Christ Jesus it can't compare and so I want to urge you today be reconciled to God and for those who are already believers let us practice the love and compassion of Jesus Christ in this world let's go out like some of us did yesterday sharing the good news of the gospel let us go out share Christ and meet physical needs as well and God will get the glory amen thank you for joining us for today's episode of Pilgrim Bible Study we hope that you found this discussion on compassion of Jesus Christ both thought-provoking and inspiring remember to practice the love and compassion of Christ in your daily lives sharing the good news of the gospel and meeting physical needs along the way God bless you all (soft music)