We're going to read from God's Word now, so please open your Bibles or unlock your devices.
Turn to Matthew chapter 9.
We're going to read from verse 18 through to verse 34.
Now while he was saying these things to them,
Then behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying,
My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.
And Jesus rose and followed him with the disciples.
And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years
came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment.
For she said to herself, If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.
Jesus turned and seeing her, he said,
Take heart, daughter.
Your faith has made you well.
And instantly the woman was made well.
And when Jesus came to the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,
he said, Go away, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.
And they laughed at him.
But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand.
And the girl arose.
And the report of this went through all that district.
And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud,
Have mercy on us, son of David.
When he entered the house, the blind men came to him.
And Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this?
And they said to him, Yes, Lord.
Then he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it done to you.
And their eyes were opened.
And Jesus sternly warned them, See that no one knows about it.
But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.
As they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man, who was mute, was brought to him.
And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke.
And the crowds marveled, saying, Never was anything like this seen in Israel.
But the Pharisee said, He casts out demons by the prince of demons.
Well, good morning, everyone.
Well, let's pray as we come to God's word.
Father, I pray that whatever blindness to Jesus remains in our hearts,
or whether there are people here this morning or watching on Zoom
who are still completely blind to who you are,
I pray that your miraculous power that you worked that day,
that we just read about, that you would work it today.
So breathe life into us and open our eyes to see your son even more,
that we might have life in him.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Well, when, you probably know this, but when entering a mosque,
there's a washing ritual you've got to do.
I think it's called hoodoo.
I don't know if I've said that right.
I probably haven't.
But before entering the holy place,
worshippers have to wash their hands and their feet.
They're stepping into sacred space.
It's not just in Islam that there's this external washing
as a requirement to enter the presence of the holy.
Anthropologists have found that in diverse cultures all over the world,
cultures where they don't seem to have any connection in history,
there's this distinction between unclean and sacred
in all these different cultures.
And it's the same in Jewish roots as well.
Have you ever tried to read the Bible from go to woe, from Genesis through?
Genesis is pretty interesting.
And then Exodus, the first half is just riveting with all those miracles.
And then the second half is you struggle a bit.
And then you get to Leviticus.
I mean, have you tried to read Leviticus?
It's just law after law after law of how to worship God.
People often stumble at that point.
And I think we can kind of have a canon of Scripture within the canon.
We kind of just put Leviticus to the side.
It's too difficult.
But if we leave Leviticus out,
we're going to miss a really big point about God and worshipping him.
The point of Leviticus, if I was going to summarise it,
is that God is completely holy.
You cannot approach him on your own terms.
He sets the terms.
He is completely clean.
You better be clean before entering his presence.
If you want the enjoyment of fellowship with God
and the blessings that flow from living with him,
that's the point of the temple,
you better be clean.
So let me just pick out a few verses from Leviticus
about those who are disqualified.
So in Leviticus 13,
the person with leprosy must wear torn clothing,
crying out,
unclean, unclean.
He shall live alone.
His dwelling shall be outside the camp.
He's outside the people of God.
Leviticus 20 says to Israel,
you shall be holy to me for I, the Lord, am holy
and have separated you from the nations that you shall be mine.
They've got to be different.
They've got to be distinct.
In chapter 21, God says to the priest,
no one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people
by touching them, in other words,
except in the case of a close relative.
In chapter 22,
the unclean are cut off from worshipping and eating
in God's temple, in God's house.
If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations
approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord,
while he has an uncleanness,
that person shall be cut off from my presence.
I am the Lord.
Do you get the picture?
It's, you must be clean.
If you were to enjoy God and his blessings,
you must be clean if you want to be part of God's people.
I think a non-religious Australian at this point
will be thinking that's the problem with Christianity.
That's the problem with religion.
It sets up these arbitrary rules
and those who believe in them will exclude and mistreat
anyone who doesn't fit with their view of the world.
It's exclusive.
It's oppressive.
So what's our current culture's alternative?
What's going to make for a society where everyone belongs
and can thrive?
A prosperous society.
I think we say this.
Our culture is trying to do this.
We let every individual person be their own ultimate standard of their life.
You have your standard.
I have my standard.
There is no great standard that we have to all meet.
You have your own.
As long as yours doesn't harm anyone else.
Does that sound about right?
In other words, I think our culture is trying to go,
everything is clean.
Every opinion, every lifestyle, every action, every choice is clean.
We're all clean.
We all belong.
Just don't harm anyone else.
It kind of sounds good.
But removing the ultimate standard creates a big, big problem.
Who decides what harms someone else?
Who makes that decision?
How do we decide where to draw the line between an individual exercising their freedom
and what's doing harm to others?
I'm going to suggest we have no idea.
There is no reference point.
We're groping around in the dark.
It sounds good, but it's making us blind.
Now, I'm not...
I didn't come up with this.
It's like listening to a podcast with Jonathan Haight.
Jonathan Haight, a social psychologist.
He's an atheist.
Just, I want to put that out there.
This is not a Christian.
This is an atheist social psychologist,
and he's done heaps of research into morality in cultures around the world.
This is his conclusion of our current time.
So he's saying that after social media came in,
and not social media...
Anyway, we won't get into that,
but after social media came in,
it creates this echo chambers where we just listen to people like us,
and it's fracturing us, he's saying.
We're not actually in community across the entire community.
We create our little subset of community.
So after social media have done that,
and journalism, instead of all this great journalism going on,
we need instant news.
So he says that for the New York Times,
he had a friend who worked in the New York Times,
and they sent out a memo saying,
every story has to have something to do with race.
That's not news.
They had to spin it to do with race,
because people will listen to that.
So he's saying before these happen,
social media, how we're using it at least,
and journalism,
here's what he says.
There was this period before that that grounded us to truth,
or rather gave us a process by which we could make progress towards truth
and weed out terrible ideas.
I see it fading away.
What controls our morals in our culture is an equality debate,
but intimidation.
So Jonathan goes on to say this.
The dynamics of social media allows a small group
to weaponise their moralism
and to intimidate others into silence.
We don't need a change of generation.
He's not blaming the generation.
We need to change the dynamics
so that bad ideas don't dominate and intimidate.
So I think Jonathan agrees.
The way we're doing things,
we just don't know how to work out what's good and bad.
We just try and intimidate each other.
So religious rules, that doesn't work.
It excludes.
You're in if you disobey, you're out.
But then everything is clean.
It's not working either.
It's fracturing us.
We have no idea what's right and what harms others.
We can't work it out.
We need a better way,
and I think we see that better way.
We see a glimpse of it in Matthew chapters 8 through 10.
This is the better way.
These chapters describe what Jesus' mission to save the world is all about.
So after the Sermon on the Mount,
where he says that you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,
he doesn't lower the bar.
Do you notice something about all these people that encounter Jesus?
So in chapter 8,
who's the first person who is included in the kingdom?
It's a leper.
A cut off from community and temple worship.
It's the leper who's made clean.
And then we have a Roman,
not a Jew.
And Jesus says that many from all over the world will recline in the kingdom,
and many of the Jews are going to be outside.
Then we have a woman who could not enter the inner core of the temple.
Then we have demon-possessed men who are living outside in the tombs.
We have a paralytic who clearly was cursed by God for his sin.
And then he has dinner reclining with tax collectors and sinners,
disgusting, defiling in the eyes of the Pharisees.
And Jesus says,
I haven't come to call the righteous but sinners.
It's the unclean who are in the kingdom of God,
enjoying the blessings.
And this comes to a head in our passage today.
We get more uncleanness,
just receiving blessing.
So what happens if a person with COVID comes into contact with someone who is healthy?
Which direction does the transmission go?
Does the healthy person transmit their health to the COVID person and make them healthy?
Of course not.
That's why there's fear in the air at the moment.
It's the disease that transmits and contaminates the clean.
In Leviticus 15, a woman having an extended discharge of blood.
Every bed she lies on, everything she sits on is counted as unclean.
Whoever touches these objects, let alone touches her herself, will also be unclean.
And this miserable woman in her story has been bleeding for 12 years.
She's like the leper.
Cut off from people.
Cut off from community.
Cut off from worship in the temple.
The other Gospels talk about how she spent all she had.
The temple couldn't help her.
Doctors couldn't help her.
She's hopeless.
Hopeless.
Separate, you see.
Like the paralyzed man, she was probably tormented, not only by her condition, but fearing that she would be under the curse of God for her sin now and in the life to come.
Totally desperate, she does something according to the old law that I would call wrong.
If you're under the old law, what she does is wrong.
She comes up behind Jesus and touches his clothes.
She's just made him unclean.
Hasn't she?
Jesus turns and sees her.
And I wonder if that phrase, sees her, is just loaded with meaning.
He knows her.
He sees her pain, her anguish under the curse.
He sees her.
Take heart, daughter.
Your faith has made you well.
Instantly made whole.
She's clean.
Instantly made whole.
Instantly in the community of God.
Instantly able to worship God in his temple.
She's clean.
By the mercy of this man who touched her.
The curse of sin that the old covenant could just tell her, you are unclean.
By the touch of Jesus, the unclean is made holy.
It goes the other way around.
And then we've got a little girl who's just died.
If there's any sign of the curse of God on sin, it's death.
In Jewish culture then, they would hire professional mourners,
which is still the practice in some cultures today,
to just give expression to the depth of grief in the family.
Now, I think we try and hide death in our culture.
A lot of people try and call death natural.
It's just a part of life.
That doesn't comfort me much.
Death is horrible, the Bible says,
because we were made to enjoy life with the internal one.
It's the ultimate enemy to fellowship.
No longer any opportunity for connection.
Funerals are the greatest reminder of the curse on sin in this world.
We're faced with our own mortality,
that we will stand before God as judge one day.
I won't forget when I was a teenager in a night church service,
and the pastor makes an announcement that a 12-year-old girl in the church
had just been killed in a motorbike accident.
There was just silence in the room.
Some started to cry.
Most were just in shock.
Imagine someone standing up.
Go home.
The girl is just asleep.
I kind of don't understand why they laughed.
Why didn't someone punch him in the face?
That is such an inappropriate thing to say at a time like that.
The story, Don.
You might have the reputation of a great healer.
Only God could raise the dead.
And he took the lifeless girl by the hand,
and instead of death contaminating his holy hand,
his holy hand breathed life into her dead body,
getting her up.
As if a dad just waking his little girl up ready for school that day.
It was that simple.
I couldn't imagine the emotion of the parents.
It must be like,
I knew I wouldn't make it through today.
Cleo this week.
It must be,
you thought your daughter was dead.
It must be amazing.
This is an understatement,
but something new is here.
Someone new is here.
So what does this mean about who Jesus is
and what his mission is all about?
So far people have called him teacher.
Others have gone further and called him Lord,
but they probably don't recognise him as God,
but just master.
Jesus uses the phrase son of man,
the Daniel 7 figure,
but here we have two blind men
being the first to recognise him,
son of David,
the promised Messiah,
bringing all the kingdom blessings,
King and Saviour.
Now,
if you were to lose any of your five senses,
which is the last one you'd choose to lose?
For me,
it would be blind.
It would be sight.
If you want to cry,
then watch the Netflix show,
Notes on Blindness.
It's,
I do recommend it.
Just take some tissues with you.
But this professor,
it goes blind in his adulthood.
There was two moments that just struck me
that it's not just the difficulty
of getting through the day
that is so bad about blindness,
but actually it got in the road of relationships.
In a sense,
it cut him off from relationships.
So there's two things he talked about.
At Christmas time,
his kids were opening the presents,
but he,
dang it.
He had to walk out of the room.
He couldn't see the smiles on their faces.
It cut him off from his family.
There's another one.
I can't get it out.
But,
these two blind men
would have felt very much
under the curse of God.
Cut off.
Not just difficult life,
but cut off
from the relationship with God
and in community.
Unable to worship at the temple.
Leviticus 21.
No one who has a blemish
shall draw near
a man blind or lame.
They couldn't go in.
Cut off from relationship with God.
And in Jewish thinking,
they would have known,
this is curse on my sin.
And they cry out
to Jesus,
have mercy on us,
son of David.
And I just wonder,
are they saying more than
have mercy
as in take away our blindness?
Of course they want that.
But I wonder if they realise,
have mercy on me,
a sinner.
Again,
Jesus touched,
the curse is instantly
taken away.
What would they have known
in that moment?
One of the first things
their eyes would have seen
was Jesus' face.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
They knew in that moment
they were not under God's curse.
They knew in that moment
that the blessing they'd receive
was because of Jesus' mercy.
They knew in that moment
that calling him
the son of David,
the promised Messiah,
that they had been
seeing him correctly.
And I think that's why
Jesus tells them,
don't tell anyone.
He can't be saying,
don't tell anyone
that you can see again,
go around pretending
you're groping around.
They couldn't hide that.
I think he must be saying,
don't tell anyone
that you have seen me correctly,
that I am the Messiah.
But what do they do instead?
Having received such mercy,
they can't help themselves
but spread his fame.
So as God promised
in Isaiah 42,
where Israel,
the nation of Israel,
had failed to obey God's law,
the law was loudly crying out
to all Israel,
unclean,
unclean.
But God promised
a new servant,
a suffering servant.
Isaiah 42,
I will give you
as a covenant
for the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes
that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners
from the dungeon,
from the prison
those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord,
that is my name.
My glory I give
to no other,
nor my praise
to carved idols.
The unclean
are made holy,
mourning is turned
into joy,
the blind can see
God's face
at the touch of Jesus.
All the new wine
of the kingdom
is coming through
Jesus.
You won't find it
anywhere else.
So how do you belong
in God's house?
How do you thrive
in his presence
to receive all
his blessings?
It's not
our culture's way
of every person
for themselves.
Trying to convince
yourself that
everything you do
is clean and acceptable.
When you feel ashamed,
just accept who you are,
what you've done,
what you think.
That doesn't work.
But it's equally
not the religious way.
Trying to wash yourself
by obeying
an external set of rules
and then God owes you
blessing.
It's neither of those
two ways.
To belong in God's house
you must experience
Jesus' mercy
for yourself personally,
his touch in your life.
There's no bargaining
with Jesus,
there's only begging.
I think some here
this morning
are trying to downplay
the wrong things
you've done,
trying to accept yourself
on your own terms.
That's not the way to go.
Remember that
12-year-old girl.
There will be a funeral
for you one day.
The curse on sin
is unavoidable.
But
if you are connected
to Jesus,
he will take you
by the hand
and make you rise up.
You can't avoid
the curse on sin.
You can't pretend.
It will catch up with us.
You need the touch
of Jesus
to save you.
I think others here
are probably feeling
incredibly ashamed
of themselves,
feeling incredibly
unclean,
unworthy to look
God in the face.
But
like the woman
who's bleeding,
if all the hope
you can muster
is just touch
the edge
of his garment,
thinking he's going
to be so angry
with you.
It doesn't matter
how confident
you are.
That's not
the important point.
The important point
is,
is Jesus
trustworthy
to save you?
And we see
clearly
that he is.
He sees you.
Take heart,
daughter.
Your faith
has made you well
because your faith
was in me.
It doesn't matter
how much faith
you got.
It's the direction
of your hope
that matters.
Then there might
be others here
feeling like
their situation
in life
is just cursed.
Every step
you take,
everything just
seems to
not go well.
Is this passage
saying,
you just need
more faith
and then life
will be better?
I think the notion
in some Christian
circles is that
if you have
enough faith,
God will heal
you and
prosper you.
It's cruel.
It is cruel
teaching.
It says to
parents who
have lost
their child,
if only you
had more faith
your daughter
would live.
That is cruel.
It says to
those with
chronic illness,
God would
ease your pain
if only you
had confidence
he would.
He's not,
some take
that phrase,
according to
your faith
be it done
to you.
It's not
saying according
to the strength
of your faith,
if you
have 60%
faith,
I'll give
you 60%
blessing.
He's saying
because your
direction of
your hope
is in me,
your faith
is in me,
then all I
am is yours.
What actually
makes Jesus
look as great
as he really
is,
is those
times where
life is far
from blessed
on the outside.
but you
still know
that you
are fully
loved by
God and
will dwell
in his
house forever.
That kind
of hope,
that kind
of deep
joy that
can sustain
you through
just awfulness,
that makes
people around
you go,
Jesus must
be great.
Something
else is
your life.
That is
true sight,
seeing past
your circumstances
to see
Jesus.
So do
you see
him?
The blind
men,
simply by
what they've
heard about
Jesus,
were crying
out,
have mercy
on me,
have mercy
son of
David,
promised
Messiah.
And in
the face
of Jesus,
they saw
complete
acceptance
by God
and they
couldn't
help but
spread his
fame.
all of us
speak about
what we
love.
We can't
help it.
If you
talk to me
long enough,
I will
bring up
Liverpool,
soccer.
You can't
help but
talk about
the things
you love.
I think
Matthew
compares
the blind
men's
response to
the last
section of
the mute
man to
make us
think,
who else
should have
seen the
Messiah
clearly?
Who
should see
him
clearly?
First,
you've got
the Jewish
crowds.
They say
never was
anything like
this seen
in Israel.
They are
seeing the
signs clearly.
They know
their history.
Moses did
miracles,
Elijah even
raised the
dead,
but nothing,
nothing is
like this
man.
Nothing is
what we're
seeing here.
Something new
has arrived,
but they
don't take
the obvious
next step.
surely the
king had
come.
A bow
pointed this
out at
elders.
Why didn't
they say
never was
anyone like
this seen
in Israel?
They don't
take that
step from
seeing the
signs to
who is
this man.
The fact
that they
are blind
is confirmed
in the next
section,
which we'll
look at
next week,
that Jesus
has compassion
on the
crowds because
they're like
harassed and
helpless
sheep without
a shepherd.
They need
the gospel
still.
They need
mission.
They're still
blind.
But then
you've got the
experts of
the things
of God.
They do
come to a
solid conclusion.
He casts
out demons
by the
prince of
demons.
They should
have at
least been
scared of
him.
I think
they come
to this
conclusion
because Jesus
has already
shown himself
to be an
unclean
man.
He eats
with tax
collectors and
sinners.
He's got
to be
unclean.
And so
if he's
unacceptable
to God
and he's
doing all
these powerful
things,
he's deceiving
people.
He must be
evil.
To admit
he was the
Messiah would
be to admit
that he was
fulfilling the
law and to
admit that they
weren't fulfilling
the law,
that by his
mercy he was
fulfilling the
law and that
they needed
his mercy.
evil.
They weren't
willing to
admit that.
They are so
blind that
they call
good evil
because they
were unwilling
to admit that
they were
unclean and
needed him.
The experts
should have
known Isaiah
42 as the
Lord calls
out to his
people Israel,
hear you
deaf and
look you
blind that
you may
see.
I think
Matthew
connects these
verbal conclusions
with healing of
the mute man
to leave you
and I with a
challenge at
this point in
the gospel.
What will we
say about
Jesus?
What is our
conclusion at
this point?
Will we say
son of David
have mercy on
me, make me
clean?
If you can
see him, you
will praise
him.
If your
mouth doesn't
praise him, you
must still be
blind.
And
unfortunately we
can't sing.
evil
as
said,
you
don't
勝re
can't
Had they
tell me
��
might
because
they
hear you
want no
to
want no
equity
man
could
he
But
everyone
for
to
work