Scripture: Matthew 8:1-13
Today we’re starting a new sermon series called “Miracle Season”… the series will cover all of Matthew chapter 8, which is chock full of miracles of Jesus. But the thing is, the miracles of Jesus are never merely about supernatural displays of God’s power—they are signs pointing to some deeper truths about Jesus, about the gospel, about what it means to have true, saving faith.
So today’s sermon title is, “Jesus Rewards Bold Faith.” Because the two miracles in today’s scripture reveal this truth about bold faith…
One thing I’ve learned—in talking to parents and children in our church—is that swim team is a very big deal around Greenville, South Carolina. Good grief! So many swim meets!
When I was a child, I would never have joined a swim team. I was afraid of swimming in the deep end of the pool. Correction: not swimming in the deep end… drowning.
So imagine how I felt when I got accepted into Georgia Tech in the late 1980s and a friend from church told me, “Oh… You’ll have to take drown-proofing.”
“What’s drown-proofing?” I asked.
“It’s a pass/fail class all male students must take: For the final exam, they tie your arms and legs together and throw you in the deep end of the pool. If you don’t drown, you pass the class.”
My friend wasn’t entirely wrong. Drown-proofing started during World War II and was a requirement until 1986. Thankfully they phased it out right before I got there.
Whew… Because I was afraid of the water!
By contrast, many summers ago, our family vacationed at the beach with relatives. We arrived at the condo before check-in time, so while the adults sorted things out, the kids got into their bathing suits and went to the pool. I was in charge of supervising them.
My daughter Elisa was only three or four years old at the time. And moments after she jumped into the deep end, this thought crossed my mind:
“I didn’t know Elisa could swim… Wait… Elisa can’t swim!”
I had forgotten to put floaties on her arms!
So I jumped in after her—in my street clothes—to pull her out.
It probably lasted only a second or two, but it felt much longer than that.
Elisa was perfectly fine, of course. Today she’s like, “Dad, don’t worry about it—it’ll make a good story for my therapist some day.”
But think about it: when Elisa jumped into that pool, she acted with bold faith.
Her faith wasn’t in her floaties—because she wasn’t wearing them.
Her faith wasn’t in her ability to swim—because she couldn’t.
Her faith wasn’t in her ability to touch bottom—because she couldn’t.
Her confidence came from trusting that if Mom or Dad were nearby, she would be okay. We would take care of her.
And she wasn’t wrong.
Today’s scripture from Matthew 8 is about that kind of bold faith.
Consider first the man… with leprosy. I’m going to call him a “leper” because that’s what the Bible calls him—though what the Bible describes as leprosy could refer to a number of skin diseases, not necessarily Hansen’s disease as we know it today.
But practically speaking, it hardly mattered. If you had one of these diseases, you lived as an outcast. You were separated from everyone else. When people approached, you had to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” To touch a leper was to become ceremonially unclean yourself.
Can you imagine the loneliness?
No one wanted anything to do with you. And people often assumed your suffering was your own fault—that God was punishing you.
So imagine this man’s boldness. He ignores every social and religious convention and approaches Jesus anyway.
And what does he say? “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” In other words, “If you want to, you can make me clean.”
He may doubt whether Jesus wants to heal him, but notice what he does not doubt.
He does not doubt Jesus’ power to heal.
“If you want to, Lord, you can heal me.”
That kind of confidence is a sign of bold faith.
And Matthew gives us a clue about why this man has such confidence. The Greek word translated “knelt before him” is proskyneō—the same word often translated “worship.”
Jesus accepts this man’s worship because Matthew wants us to see something clearly: Jesus possesses the authority and power of God himself.
The centurion understands this too.
That’s why he says in verse 9: “I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes… and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes.”
The centurion recognizes authority when he sees it. He understands chains of command. And he believes Jesus has authority over sickness itself.
Jesus doesn’t even need to be physically present to heal. He can simply speak the word.
Neither man would be able to articulate what God’s Word reveals about the Trinity—that Jesus is God in the flesh. But they were beginning to grasp this truth.
Think about that: a Jewish leper and a Gentile soldier—two completely different people—both recognize the same thing:
Jesus has the power to do what no one else can do. Because Jesus is God…
Do we believe that?
Do we pray like we believe it?
Do we live with the confidence of a little child jumping into the deep end because her father is right there and will not let her go?
Of course, bold faith does not mean God always gives us exactly what we ask for.
Jesus himself prayed in Gethsemane, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Paul prayed three times for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed. Timothy apparently suffered frequent stomach illnesses despite having the apostle Paul praying for him.
So no… faith is not a formula for getting whatever we want.
But we pray believing that even God’s delays and denials are ultimately for our good.
You’ve heard it said that God answers prayer with “yes,” “no,” or “wait.” Maybe. But I prefer to think of it this way:
Sometimes God says “yes.”
Sometimes God says “wait.”
And sometimes God says, “I have something better.”
Notice: Jesus gives this leper something better than physical healing alone.
He touches him.
This man may not have been touched by another human being in years. Jesus could have healed him from a distance—as he later heals the centurion’s servant. But instead he reaches out and touches this lonely, isolated, love-starved man.
Because Jesus knows what this man truly needs.
And he knows what we truly need too.
That’s why Tim Keller said on many occasions:
“When we pray, God will either give us what we ask for, or give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything God knows.”
God has both the wisdom to know what we need and the power to provide it.
However… the following statement is not true: “When we pray, God will either give us what we pray for… or what we would have prayed for if we knew everything that God knows… or what we would have prayed for… you know… if we had bothered to pray at all.”
No… Jesus makes enormous promises about bold prayer. He makes no promises about prayerlessness.
So pray boldly.
Trust boldly.
Your Father knows what you need.
A retired pastor friend said on his podcast that when Christians gather in small groups and share prayer requests, whatever people share is probably only the fifth- or sixth-most important thing weighing on their hearts.
Because they’re afraid to tell anyone what hurts most.
They’re afraid to be that vulnerable…
Afraid of being judged…
Afraid people might discover how weak, how flawed, how guilty, how ashamed, how sinful they really are.
Years ago, on the podcast This American Life, a married couple described the shame they felt about their finances. They were freelance writers—terrible with money—and every year, as they approached April 15th, they stuffed receipts and bank statements into a shoebox and reluctantly handed it over to this one trusted old tax accountant, named Louie.
Louie would look through the box and say, “Oh, this is a disaster… this is really bad… but if you give me time, I think I can fix it.”
They suspected Louie was playing fast and loose with the tax law, but they never asked questions. And he never explained anything. And somehow they never got audited.
Then, finally, Louie died—days before April 15.
And suddenly they panicked.
The husband said they were terrified to show the shoebox to anyone else because Louie had become, in the husband’s words, “the guardian of our shame.”
“No one else can know the truth about who we are.”
But of course… that’s not only about taxes.
All of us have our own “shoeboxes of shame”: Things we hope no one ever sees. Things we hope no one ever knows. Things we desperately try to hide from others.
I have one pastor friend who often jokes, “Each of us is three days away from becoming a national tabloid headline. And most of us are on Day Two.”
And here’s what I want you to hear this morning:
Jesus already knows everything in your shoebox. You are hiding nothing from him. In fact, he knows more about it than you do.
But even more, you need to hear this: Jesus absolutely loves you. I mean, he thinks the world of you. He couldn’t love you more! Is that corny to say? It’s absolutely true! Hear me… Jesus couldn’t love you more even if that shoebox were empty.
So first of all, tell him all about it. Don’t hide. Second, I want you to believe in the power of Jesus to heal you of whatever it is you’re too afraid to tell others about. Because you need to know, Jesus wants to heal you. And he has all the power to do so. He may do it instantly… miraculously. He may do it slowly over time, as you trust and pray. But believe that he will do it.
Listen, it’s a cliche to say that church is a “hospital for sinners.” That’s true. Church is a hospital for sinners. But listen: Neither your pastor nor any member of this church has suddenly been promoted to “chief of staff” or “chief of surgery” or “doctor or nurse in charge.” None of us is on the staff of this hospital. Jesus alone is our Great Physician. And every one of is in need of his healing touch.
Amen?
And don’t you know that there are thousands of people within a few square miles of this property, carrying around their own “shoeboxes of shame”?
People who have no idea how much Jesus loves them and wants to help them and heal them!
With that in mind, let’s notice one more thing: the centurion came to Jesus on behalf of someone else—someone too weak to come on his own.
That’s our mission too.
And that’s one crucial reason God empowered us to buy this land in the first place: so that we—God’s people at Five Forks Methodist—could, for the sake of love, intercede on behalf of people who aren’t here yet… people who need to be healed by the miraculous touch of our Lord Jesus Christ. So let’s bring them to Jesus!