I Am Willing

Okay, Those of you who don't know me, my name is Brian and lead pastor here and excited to jump into week five in the Gospel of Mark. And so we've just been slowly walking through this gospel, and we're gonna continue to slowly walk through it for quite some time. Probably a year and a half, two years. And so that is what we will be doing. There's this. I don't know what it's called, but a grid. It's some kind of social thing. It's what. Let me just. It's called this. The skill will matrix. Okay. It's just this grid where it has. Able and unable, willing and unwilling. Okay? And so if you are unable and unwilling, then you're just a human. You know what I mean? That's just. Yeah. Okay. Welcome to life. If you are unable but willing. Right. That's someone who's just. Yeah, I'm excited. I want to help. But it's just like, ah, bless your heart, right? You just can't. Right? You're just not the person for the job. And then you have people who are able and who are willing, and those are the superheroes, right? You're like, you can get this done and you should get it done. And then there's the people that are able to do something and are not willing to help out. And these are the villains, okay? These are the ones like Scar. Unfortunately, those who grew up in the 90s, you're like, oh, no, why do you bring Mufasa into this? But Scar, Taka, is that his name? He was able to save Mufasa. He was able to, but he was unwilling. So today I want to look at. In this passage in Mark. We're going to be In Mark, chapter one, looking at verses 35 through 45, this phrase from Christ himself of I am willing. Just a quick recap. It's hard to know how much to recap when we spend so much time in a book. But in Mark, chapter one, starting in verse one, it's how the book starts. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Mark. It's not Mark's gospel. It's not Matthew's gospel. It's not Luke's gospel. It's not John's gospel. It's always the gospel, the good news. It's what it means. This is the good news about Jesus. So it's the good news according to Mark about Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed one, the one that has been prophesied about and we've been waiting for, for thousands of years. The Son of God, first point that I have is God and I time. Has anyone ever heard that phrase before? It's like a super church thing that I grew up that was like, hey, did you have your God nigh time today? And I would get graded and if I had God nye time. True story. Meaning like my devotions, right? Did I spend time with God reading the Bible and praying and that's what we used to call it. I asked Google, put into Google when's the best time to have your devotions and this is what the Google machine said. Morning. Morning devotions. Many people find morning devotions to be the most beneficial time. A strong start that provides a spiritual breakfast. Nice grounding you in God's word before the day challenges begin. Jesus himself often prayed in the morning. Setting a model for this practice. Mark 1:35. Hey, look at that. So Google quoted the text we're gonna be at this morning. What's it say? And rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he, Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed. Okay, well, it sounds like, and it reads like Jesus woke up early and had his devotions and prayed in the morning. So that's what we should do, right? Unfortunately, I've heard that that's not what this text is teaching. Okay. It's a good practice if you have your devotions in the morning and you wake up early and you read your Bible and you pray, you, hey, great, good for you. Okay, that's not what this text is about. How do we know that? Well, because there's a difference between what is descriptive in the Bible and what is prescriptive in the Bible. Okay. What is prescribed and, well, you would say, well, this is Jesus. Shouldn't we emulate and do everything Jesus did and does? Well, he was crucified when he was 33. Okay, so let's maybe not jump to that conclusion that I need to do everything like Jesus. I remember when I turned 34, I got really depressed. Cause I didn't do everything Jesus did. You know what I mean? It's like, what are you talking, bad theology? Bad theology. So it's good to read the Bible, it's good to pray. That's not what this text is about. Okay? It's just simply describing this is what happened. And actually, Mark is gonna only talk about three times when Jesus prays. And every single one of them, right? When he goes and prays, something bad is about to happen. Right? He's about to be betrayed. Okay? Every single one of Them So you could actually argue from the Gospel of Mark. You shouldn't have your devotions in the morning like Jesus because it's bad, okay? Bad things happen. That's not the point of the text. Okay. All right. God nighttime, God on my dime. Here we go. I've got a good one for you. This morning I spent way too much time. I had that God nighttime. And I was like, I'm going to make this work. So I forced it all. God on I time, God on my dime. We see this in verse 36. And Simon, that's gonna be. He's gonna be Peter eventually. And those who are with him searched for him and they found him and said to him, everyone's looking for you. And he said to them, let us go to the next towns that I may preach there also. That's why I came out. And he went all throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. You might say, well, hang on a second. That doesn't sound bad. No, it doesn't sound bad. It sounds like Simon's just saying, where's Jesus? I wanna go find him. Peter here, unfortunately, and it's hard to grasp in our language, is not doing something so great. He's wanting to capitalize and almost monetize Jesus already this early in the ministry. He just healed his mother in law, Peter's mother in law. And he starts casting out demonstration and he's like. And he starts growing in fame. And he's like, yeah, Jesus, let's go. Let's keep. Let's keep doing this. And Jesus, even to the demons, and we're going to see it again today. He's like, hey, not yet. Pump the brakes. I don't need the fact that I'm the Messiah getting out there. I will be killed for that. I'm not ready to be killed. I will eventually, but not yet. Let me just read here from Jonathan. Not Jonathan Edwards. Sorry, James someone Edwards. The Greek word behind looking for occurs 10 times in Mark, and in each instant it carries negative connotations. The first two occurrence occurrences refer to interference of Jesus and obstruction of his ministry. Here, what we're looking at in 3:32. It is next. It's next to refer to disbelief and selfishness. And the remaining occurrences refer to attempts to kill Jesus. Okay, so it's a bad thing. Seeking connotes an attempt to determine and control rather than submit and follow. Okay, so Peter is trying to control rather than submit and follow in this respect. Seeking for Jesus is not a virtue in the Gospel of Mark, but it's interesting because we'd read that and go, of course it's a good thing. Nor are clamoring crowds a sign of success or aid to ministry. Here as elsewhere in Mark, enthusiasm is not to be confused with faith. Indeed, it can oppose it. So I just want to kind of let that preach for a second in a sense of application. Where do we attempt to control rather than submit and follow? And I just have a list of ways that we, at least that I could think of that we tend to do this, That I want to control. I want to control when I pray, how I pray. And God, I want you to answer my prayer, how I pray it. I've got plans and I've got ambitions and God, I want to control my life. I want to be in control. I remember it was at Heaven Almighty when Steve Carell. Steve Carell, is that his name? That he's Noah in this story and Morgan Freeman is God. And Morgan Freeman is meeting with Noah and is like, hey, you're going to build this ark. You're gonna build an ark. And Steve Carell goes, you can't do that to me. I've got plans. And Morgan Freeman, as God just starts laughing. I think it's just a funny thing, right? But because we just say, no, no, you need to understand, I want control of this. I'm not gonna submit and follow your plans for my life, our time and our schedule, our family, our friends, conflict. But I want to determine how this situation with this interpersonal conflict is going. Ministry, success. Am I looking at numbers or programs and recognition instead of faithfulness to God's call, expectations from God are witnessing. I want this person, I want to be able to share the good news with them and I want them to believe it. Now, I don't want to wait till they're on their deathbed. Can you just save them now? Sin patterns. I can manage it. I want to manage my sin. I don't need to talk about it. I don't need to confess it. I don't need to expose that. I'll deal with it on my own time, my identity. I can control my self image and reputation instead of receiving and believing who I am really in Christ. And then obedience, I'll obey when it's convenient. What's wild is that I've probably preached at some point in the past year pretty explicitly in almost every single one of these topics. So if you're sitting there going, and you got the spiritual num nums, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me, right? When we do that and it's. That's the answer. The problem isn't. Well, I just need to preach on it. I just need to hear the good news on that topic, and then that would fix it. No, it's not. That's not. We know that's not the case. We need to constantly be reminded our sin is ever in front of us. But Jesus is good and he's faithful. Well, how do. So how do we do this? How do we remind us when we try to control God or our sin? We shrink the gospel. And this is something that I've showed a million times at Hope Lowertown that we minimize. We shrink the gospel. And this is from Bob Thune's book, Gospel Centered Life. And basically that you've got this timeline, just life. And then that point where that line splits and it goes up and down is my conversion when I start believing in Jesus. And in that moment, I grow in awareness of the holiness of God, right? He doesn't become more holy. I'm becoming more aware of his holiness. And then the bottom line that starts to angle down is growing awareness of my flesh and my sinfulness. I'm not becoming more sinful. Matter of fact, as I follow Christ, I should be less sinful. I'm becoming more aware of how depraved and wretched I really am. And when I. But then I. It's the. The cross then should grow. It should be getting bigger. The gospel and who Jesus is should grow and get bigger. But then I shrink it. I say, oh, no, no, no, God. God's not really in control. I am. I want to be in control of my life in this. In this point, in this aspect. So how do we get a bigger view of Jesus and his cross? We recognize our sin as sin. We recognize Christ or God as holy and our need for a Savior. And we have to continually remind ourselves of the gospel. So let's do that. Let's keep doing that, even in our time. This morning. So God nighttime, God of my dime. God on my time. Brother Mark 1, starting at verse 40, it says this. A leper came to him. A leper? Just someone with a skin disease. Leprosy is not as prevalent now as it used to be back then, but it was a disease that was contagious. And so when someone had a type of skin disease like that that would eventually kill them, they were outcasts. You were kicked out of the camp. You were in exile outside. So a leper comes to Jesus shouldn't have done that. There's plenty of laws. We're gonna read a few of them from Leviticus. When it came to a leper. This is how you should act when you need to go into a public place. You shout out, unclean, uncle, unclean. And people need to be 50ft away from you if you are unclean. And it's a big deal. So this leper comes to Jesus, imploring him and kneeling to him, and said, if you will, you can make me clean. This is not like Satan and the temptation of Jesus. If you are the Son of God. I think that he has the proper motivation and motives here that he's not tempting Jesus. Hey, I want you to prove that if you are the Son of God, prove to me that you really are and heal me. I don't think that's the case because Jesus, spoiler alert, is about to heal this guy. And so I don't think his motives are impure or else Jesus wouldn't have done it. But I think there is something very profound and genuinely authentic. That's a weird way to say that, but truly authentic of him asking this question. If you will, you can make me clean. Let's flip it around. He's saying, if we start with the back end of this question. I'm not doubting your ability. You can make me clean. I'm not doubting your ability. I'm doubting your willingness. You're God. You're all knowing, all powerful, all loving, all the things I know you can, but will you. He's doubting Jesus willingness to make him clean. I've been there. I'm sure all of us, if you've been a follower of Jesus for any amount of time, at some point in your life, has said, yeah, I believe that you're God. I believe you're in power and you're in control. So fix it. Why don't you heal it? Why don't you fix this problem that's going on? I know you're able. Why won't you will it? I think that's what he's asking here. It's a very real question. And I think we need to ask this question again because we still find ourselves attempting to control rather than to submit and to follow. And when we do this, we shrink the holiness of God, the willingness of God to cleanse us. We shrink and we doubt something. Sorry. We shrink it. Oh, shrink it down to something we really want. Sorry, I couldn't read my own handwriting there. We shrink it down to something I want. And we say, my will be done. My will be done. Not your will. My will now do it. God. We read this past summer in Second Kings five about Naaman, the general who had leprosy and the little servant girl, unnamed servant girl's like, you should go to Israel. There's a prophet there who can heal you. And so Naaman's like, all right, I'm gonna do that. But he doesn't go to the prophet. He sends a letter to the king. And the king reads the letter. It says, when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to make alive? This man sends word to me to cure a man of leprosy. Look, who do you think I am? You think I can cure leprosy? Do you think I'm God? Right? That's the level that you had to be at to be cleansed of leprosy. The leper here is saying, if you are God, which I believe you are, you are able. But are you willing? Going back to that able and willing category, I mentioned that when someone is able and willing, they become the superhero of the story. And one of them is Samwise Gamgee, right? When he is getting ready, they're getting ready to throw the ring into Mordor, into the fire. And Frodo can't do it. He can't go any further. And Sam has this iconic line, you can buy this on Pinterest. This was probably shouldn't have copied and pasted it on here, but I did it anyways. I can't carry you. I can't carry it. I can't carry the ring for you, but I can carry you. It's a powerful line. I am able physically to carry you, so I'm gonna do it. I'm able and willing. Jesus, though he doesn't just carry us, he actually does take it. He takes our sin that we can't carry for ourselves. And we see this then in verse 41, he says, 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. There's a willingness here to cleanse. I don't think it's by accident that one of the first things that we see Jesus interacting, an ailment. We saw him heal Peter's mother in law with a fever, but now we have leprosy that pops up here. Leprosy couldn't be healed, it had to be cleansed. And I think there's a nuance, there's a difference there. Leprosy couldn't Be healed. It had to be cleansed. And we see that. Four different references in just a few verses here, four mentions of cleansing. We go all the way Back to Psalm 51. This is written by King David after he is caught in murder and adultery. He writes Psalm 51, and he says this. There's no mention of healing. It's cleansing. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. So might be a little bit of semantics with language here, but let's just sit in this for a second. I think that we can argue maybe from this text from Mark, that healing here is saying, I want this to be done. It's my will. I want my will to be done. Whereas cleansing is God's will, the healing that we desire is physical. It's tangible. I want you to fix this relationship. I wanna be able to touch this. I wanna fix it. Whereas God is more concerned with the spiritual. He's not just interested in washing the outside of the cup. He wants to cleanse the inside as well. The healing so often is on my time. Fix it. Do it now. As cleansing is in God's time, in what ways do we doubt God's willingness to cleanse when we don't see healing? In our way, in our. In our time. Finally, here we have God in my sign. What used to happen to a leper? Let's go back all the way back to the book of Leviticus. It was written to the Levites, the priests of the time. It says the Lord spoke to Moses. This is in chapter 14, saying, this shall be the law of a leprous person. For the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought to a priest. And the priest shall go out of the camp and the priest shall look. And then if the case of a leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, the priest shall command them to take him. For who to be cleansed. Two live, clean birds. Right? You see what's happening here. He's physically healed of his ailment, but he still needs to be cleansed. There's something else that still needs to happen here. Two live, clean birds. And cedar wood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. I love. I love hyssop. I think I did a sermon on hyssop once. And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds and in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. And he shall take the live Bird with the cedar wood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood. And the bird that was killed over the fresh water, and he shall sprinkle it seven times. Him who's to be cleansed? Leprous disease. Okay, so the priest would take this hyssop branch and he would dip it in the blood of the sacrificial animal. And he would sprinkle it. And as he would sprinkle him seven times, he would say, you're clean, you're clean, you're clean. And he would say it seven times. And this person who was once an outcast, once was left for dead, is now brought willingly and accepted back into camp because of his cleanse. He's now cleansed by this priest. We see. Then, going back to our passage in Mark 1, verse 41, it says, moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and he touched him and said to him, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. Here we see Jesus touch this leper that should have, according to the law of Moses in Leviticus. You can read it for yourself in chapter 14 and 15, would have made someone who touches someone who's impure and unclean, it makes them now unclean. That's not how it works with Jesus. Jesus doesn't become unclean. He is so clean and so pure and so holy that when he touches something unclean, it becomes clean, it becomes pure. And that's exactly what happens. He doesn't inherit the uncleanliness of this leper. The leper inherits the cleanliness. Cleanliness of Christ. It's wild. That is exactly what happens to us. We see that the willingness to cleanse of the Savior is greater than the uncleanliness of. Of the sinner. This is true for us. This is true for everybody, anywhere. It's a phrase I've repeated many times, that no one anywhere at any point is beyond the reach of the Gospel. No one anywhere at any point is beyond the touch of the Savior. The cleansing, healing touch of the Savior. Moving on. Here it says this. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him on his way. This sternly charged, the same word that Mark uses just further, a little bit back about the demons. The demons. He just tells them. He tells them to shut their mouths. You be quiet. Don't say another word about who I am. He says the same language to this guy. I don't want people to know I'm the Messiah. Yet I know this was a big Deal to you. I know that I cleansed you, and I know that I'm now still clean because I'm God. And he says to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded. Okay? So he says, go back to Leviticus, and I want you to do exactly what it says in the Old Testament for your cleansing, for a proof of them. So what's the leper do? He went out and began to talk freely about it, okay? So he disobeys Jesus, the direct command of Jesus, and he starts telling everyone, you're not gonna believe what just happened to me. I've been cleansed. I've been healed. And he spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter. My, how the turntables, right? That was a joke. You're like, this guy's weird. I am weird. Here's the thing. What happens? Let's look at this great exchange, as Martin Luther calls him. You have someone who's unclean being made clean, and you have the one who is clean being cast out into exile, unable to enter the towns because of who they are. This exchange, this physical exchange of who they are, Jesus takes his place. Jesus is cast out into the desolate place, no longer allowed into town. Meanwhile, this now newly cleansed leper, he runs into the towns. This is a wild example of who Jesus is, of the gospel, of. Of what he does for us. So how do we grow the cross? This we recognize. We are the leper. We need cleansing and allow Christ to take our place. We look at the book of Hebrews. The author here in verse 10 says. Sorry. Chapter 10, verse 19 says, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, no longer is it the blood of some bird that was sacrificed. It's now the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, I don't need to go to some priest or some pastor to make sure declare me clean. I go directly to the high priest, to God. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts. Here's the language sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. And our bodies washed, cleansed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful by his blood. You are cleansed, you are clean. Jesus takes that hyssop branch and he dips it in his own blood. And he looks at you and he says, you're clean, you are clean. You're clean. You are clean. You are clean. You are clean, you are clean. That's what the Savior does. He trades places with us. He takes the cross we deserve, he takes the death we deserve. And when we recognize Jesus, not only his ability but also his willingness to cleanse on the cross, the gospel becomes all consuming. Going Back to Psalm 51, King David, after he's talking about this, wash me, cleanse me, remove my iniquities. He says this in verse 7. Here's this language again. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. King David didn't know Jesus. We do. We now know the whole story. King David knew enough and was a theologian enough to know there's something going on in Leviticus with the cleansing of, of hyssop and leprosy that I need to be cleansed of the leprosy of my soul. And he takes that and he says, yeah, this is what I need. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. So in gospel application, how can we increase? And I wish I would have changed that to magnify, because it goes back to that cross analogy of God doesn't become more holy. We don't become more sinful. We become. We become more aware of it. When you magnify something, the thing that you're magnifying doesn't become bigger. If I look at an ant through a magnifying glass, the ant isn't. Oh, it's a giant ant. No, that's not how that works. Science, right? The thing is, the way I view that thing is bigger. And how can we magnify? How can we increase how we view the gospel in our lives today? Jesus tells us all, I will be clean. He might not heal you of your physical ailments. He might not answer the prayers exactly the way that you pray them and how you want them to be answered. But he is able, and he is willing. He's willing to save your soul. We're going to have communion. We do this every week at Hope Lowertown. And we have again, the bread, the slow cracker that represents the body of Christ that was broken for us. We have the juice. And today, this Jew, we should be able to look at this and say, well, this is his blood. And he has stood over me with hyssop and declared me clean because of what he has done. And we get to take that juice and we get to drink it and remember the finished work of Christ in the cross. There's a gluten free option here on my left, your right. If that's a dietary restriction, you don't need to be a member of this church or any church. But if you're a follower of Jesus and you say, yeah, I have been declared clean by the King. He said I was clean and so therefore I am because of his declaration of my cleanliness, then it motivates me to live and to see him in a proper light. I don't obey. I don't live a life because I have to. I now get to. Just like this leper. He couldn't help himself but to go and tell everyone about his Savior who cleansed them. We too are that leper. We've been exchanged with Christ and now we get to remember that our worship team is going to sing two songs. And so again, if you're a follower of Jesus, you don't need to be a member here, a member anywhere. But if you are a follower of Jesus and you've been cleansed by the blood of Christ, I'd love for you to take place in these elements with us. Let me pray and the worship team will come up here. Heavenly Father, thank you again just for our time to gather together to look at your word, to look at who you are, to look at the Savior who cleanses, to look at someone who was from the region of Galilee that was known for its healing spas and its baths where the rich and the elite would go to to be cleansed and to be healed. It's no small thing that Jesus was from Galilee, a region known for cleansing. But he comes and he doesn't say, oh no, I'm only here for the elite. I'm only here for those who can pay. He goes out into desolate places and he reaches those who are unclean and tells them to be clean. He is willing, he is able pray that we would just see that now as we reflect on these elements, the bread, the body of Christ and the juice, the blood of Christ that has paid for our sins fully, completely, we are clean. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.