Dennis Tuuri

Sermon Scripture today comes from the Gospel of Luke 5, verses 12-16. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Luke 5, beginning in verse 12.

And it happened when he was in a certain city that behold a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus and he fell on his face and implored him saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Then he put out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing, be cleansed.” Immediately the leprosy left him.

And he charged him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing as a testimony to them, just as Moses commanded. However, the report went around concerning him all the more, and great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. He himself withdrew into the wilderness and pray.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the wonderful word you have given to us unlike any other book. We thank you for the gracious gift of your holy spirit based upon our savior’s work. We thank you for these gospels that are the good news of the ascension of the savior king to the throne of his advent and the miraculous effects upon our creation. Open our ears, Lord God, to hear the words of this particular gospel and this particular place in it that we may open our hands to do good for you. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. You raised your hands here a couple of minutes ago. You had uplifted hands to God. And by the end of the sermon today, I hope you see the significance of using your hand, reaching out with your hand to affect other people’s lives in the context of who we are called to be as Christians. I hope we see that it is our obligation if we are to honestly without hypocrisy lift our hands up to praise God that we extend our hand out to the needy and the poor in the context of where we live with a demonstration of the grace of Christ.

For the next three Lord’s days we are taking a special alms offering for a family that is in need. And I thought it’d be good to not simply address that particular situation but rather to talk about the mission of this church, the mission of the church universal in relationship to benevolences. And perhaps you see this as a strange scripture to turn to demonstrate this, but I think we’ll see that it is not.

I would begin by pointing out that in terms of the church calendar, which we sometimes make reference to, we are not a liturgical church driven by that calendar, but we do grow in our appreciation year by year for the calendar of the church. Most of us recognize that there is this season of Advent coming before Christmas. What you might not realize is that this is the beginning of the traditional church year or the cycle of the church year.

The church year begins with the incarnation, the advent, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in December. And the advent Sundays are the four Sundays immediately preceding Christmas Day, the previous four Sundays. That’s the beginning of the year from the perspective of the Christian calendar. And the year then traces the life and ministry of Christ. Christ as we move through Advent and then Epiphany, the demonstration to the nations of his kingship.

And then we move into the season of Lent and into Easter and then into Pentecost. And then we have these whole series of Sundays through most of the church year that are not differentiated. They’re just a series of seasons of Pentecost. And as we move toward Advent, many elements of the Christian church have decided to initiate a new holiday, a new feast day in the cycle of the church calendar on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent not as a beginning but as the culmination of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ that is portrayed through the church year and the church calendar. It is called the Feast of Christ the King in some churches, the Festival of Christ the King. This period near the end of the Pentecost season is known in some disciplines as Kingdom Tide. And another name for this Sunday is the Sunday of Fulfillment.

The point of this particular Sunday in churches that are liturgical and follow this calendar are to proclaim that the culmination of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is his reign over every area of the created order. The universal reign of the Lord Jesus Christ as king is seen whether it is Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist. In these various churches that have moved in terms of a church calendar, Lutheran included, the culmination of the advent is this proclamation of the universal reign of King Jesus over every aspect of creation.

And so this feast has been added to the calendar to put that in front of people so that the church cycle doesn’t just sort of go on with no relationship of the life of the resurrected savior and his ascension to the right hand of the father without any relationship of that to the earth. This particular feast was started in 1929 by a pope in the Catholic Church who was concerned over the growing secularization of culture that he saw and he saw the need to proclaim the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ now and that reign being extended throughout history.

Now some churches have taken this holiday and kind of made it more eschatological that eventually Jesus will reign. But the idea originally and the idea continues in most faith communities that this is the Sunday to proclaim the crown rights of King Jesus as we would say using the language of the Scottish Presbyterians. This is the Sunday to remember and to emphasize that while the world has become secularized around us in point of fact as we recited in Psalm 82, Jesus reigns over the gods, over the rulers of the earth.

We need to hear this today because today the rulers of the earth have determined that instead of this being a rest in the work of God and in his providence, a day of prayer for the direction of our nation, instead this becomes another work day. And the Supreme Court last week of Florida mandated a day of labor for the Secretary of State on this day to receive these returns, have them filled in, and that’s the determination of the election. They have turned the Lord’s day into the state’s day that man’s efforts would prove the determining factor in what happens here. They’ve turned it on its head. But we know that God reigns and this is a good day to proclaim it.

The lectionary readings that the liturgical churches use for this particular day, the day of the Feast of Christ the King, are scriptures that talk both about Jesus as king, but as a shepherd king, that he manifests his kingdom through his acts of shepherding and feeding his people.

So, it is not unusual to do what we’re going to do today, which is to take this day, this celebration of Christ the King, and apply it directly to the shepherding activities of our Savior and the need for his people to follow in his steps as rulers, gods, strong ones in the earth to extend benevolence and to reverse the effects and the manifestation of the fall. So that’s what we’re going to do today.

We’re going to talk about stewardship. Jeff Con thought that following up last week’s sermon on Thanksgiving, after Thanksgiving, I probably ought to talk about gluttony. Well, in a way, this can be seen in relationship to that because what we’ve rejoiced in Thursday and Friday is the providence of God and the good blessings he’s given to us. And no matter how small the morsels are, how big they might be, how tasty or untasty, we gave thanks to God for his providence.

And most of us ate very good food. And we should think now about using these good blessings, these physical blessings that God has given to us as proper stewards in the way Christ has commanded. And I think if we look at this particular passage of scripture, we’ll see what at least to me is a very exciting truth about this work that we have to do in terms of benevolences and what we do to celebrate the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ by demonstrating his rule over us as well.

I want to talk about this incident recorded in Luke 5 and I want it to be the basis for understanding of what it is in the big picture we do when we give money to help some poor or needy family. What are we doing? Well, okay, let’s look at the text first. Roman numeral one on your outline and the text go through a series of events here and I find it interesting that this particular story and it is a particular literary story, it’s clearly marked as a unit. It begins with Jesus in the city and it ends with Jesus alone and in prayer and Jesus in the context of the city he is besought by an individual, a single person, a leprous man. And as we move to the end of the incident what happens at the other bookend is Jesus is besought by multitudes coming around him wanting the same thing the leprous man had. So we have Jesus in the city moving to Jesus in isolation and prayer.

We have Jesus being besought by an individual and then besought by a multitude. And the individual makes a specific request for cleansing. If you’re willing, you can cleanse me. And Jesus on the other side of that bookend commands him to go and make the offering and show himself to the priest in accordance with Moses. Very important for us. First, we read that there’s this leprous man. And what does that mean, a leprous man?

And then secondly, when we read our savior correlating this leprous situation to the law of Moses and he’s referring specifically to the book of Leviticus here, I think it’s important for us to think through what’s happening. And that’s what we’re going to do today is look at that. And there at the very middle of this story is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in healing this man.

Okay. So the story starts. It happened when he was in a certain city. The assumption is he’s in cities doing the work of his father in heaven. And behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus and he fell on his face and implored him. Jesus is besought by an individual man. And what does he say? Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Doesn’t say you can make me healthy. You can make me feel better. You can make me clean of my leprosy.

Then he put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing. Be cleansed. Our savior moves in a deed. We lifted our hands. I’m calling you to use your hands today. Put money in the box, specifically the alms offering today. If you can, if God has enabled you, do it for the next couple of weeks and see that as a picture of you using your hand to reach those people that are leprous in some way. And I’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

But Jesus uses a deed here. And he along with that deed, he uses a word. It says in the text that he put on his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing be cleansed.” The word and deed of our savior are of unity here. And so they should be with us. Our deeds are directed by the word of God. And when we do benevolences, we speak the word of God as their savior speaks his word here. Our savior at the center of this story I believe is the actions in deed and word of this savior.

That’s the center of this structure. What happens immediately? The leprosy leaves him. Now remember this is a little if we’re thinking in terms of the Old Testament this is exceedingly significant. The leprous man had to be all by himself and he had to go around saying unclean because if you touched a leprous man, you became unclean. Now, in the Old Testament system, what was going on was death was flowing out of all the manifestations of the fall.

You go up to a guy manifesting the fall, this dead man, this leprous man, and you get dead, too. But our savior completely reverses that. He, you know, he doesn’t say, “Okay, go ahead and fail to touch him.” He reaches out and touches him. No, he doesn’t have to do that. We know he heals from a distance. Why is it recorded that way in the text? I think because it wants us to just say, “Praise God, we are in a different time now.

The world has changed. The whole thing has turned from 4,000 years of history and now if you touch an unclean guy, you’re not unclean.” And in fact, if you have life, if you’re the savior, the giver of life, not only do you not become unclean, but you transform his uncleanness to cleanness. Praise God. That’s what our savior does. He comes to reverse the effects of the fall. And as we’ll see here in a couple of minutes, those effects were certainly, you know, for sins were forgiven.

But the effects of the fall, there were mechanisms for cleansing a leper. Much more difficult. Didn’t involve this kind of easy movement of life from the savior to the dead. Had intricate things that pointed to the coming Jesus. The point is in the Old Testament, this wouldn’t have happened ever. The point is that the Old Testament pictured the coming of Jesus who would reverse the entire manifestation of the effects of the fall.

The savior touches him. The savior is approachable by this leper. Remember the lepers are supposed to go around signs. Don’t touch me. I’m unclean. Unclean. They were in isolation. But Jesus is approachable. He doesn’t run from the leper. He doesn’t say, “Oh no, don’t come around me.” He’s an approachable savior to those that are leprous. And as they approach him, he reaches out to them and by deed and word removes the manifestation of the effects of the fall and in fact produces life flowing from our savior instead of death.

Now the gospels I’ll be someday maybe January probably January starting up the Gospel of John and there is this prologue in the Gospel of John the first 18 verses clearly marked off as a separate section right at the middle of that central section the center of that prologue and we’ll see this in January I begin to preach on it is this verse that many of you know. But to as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those that believe on his name.

And the center of that little chiastic structure, as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even as many as believe in his name. But the center of that is the right to become children of God. The gospels and particularly John, but all the gospels show us what the church is supposed to be like imitating, emulating rather our savior. So it’s important that we note these details and what our Savior does in Luke 5.

Okay. So Jesus touches him and immediately the leprosy leaves him and he charged him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest. Make an offering for your cleansing. It’s a testimony to them just as Moses commanded. So as he wanted to be cleansed from leprosy now our savior says, “Okay, now go and follow the ritual that was demanded. Go and present yourself to the priest as Moses commanded.”

However, the report went around concerning him all the more, and great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmity. So he himself withdrew into the wilderness to pray. So the end result of Christ’s effect in a particular individual is that more people want to see that reversal of the effects of sin and death in their own life and they come to the savior. The end result of our works of benevolences individually or demonstrated known to the world will be more people about the recipients of the grace of Christ working through the members of the church.

So it’s this same process and then Jesus goes away and he doesn’t just go into isolation. He goes away to pray and continue his ministry.

So an overview of this I’ve given you a synopsis. I think maybe I didn’t on your outline. Yeah, I think I did. Now what we have here is the advent. This is the coming into the city of the approachable Christ. The savior king who is approachable advent to the city cleanses the leper by deed and word, drawing the multitudes.

Okay, so that’s what the text says. Now, how do we relate this to our day and age when we don’t have lepers or leprosy going on? Well, what we have to do is look a little bit now at the broader context of this particular story. And what we see in terms of the broader context first in the Gospel of Luke and we can’t take the time to look at it in depth, but understand that the brackets the bookends to this particular incident are the first half chapter 5 which speaks of evangelism and fish.

You know the story Jesus is preaching and teaching and then the multitude are being fed and are being heard by him and he sees these ships and the disciples are out there and they can’t catch fish. So he goes out and says cast it on this side and he makes them have this huge haul and he uses that as an illustration that he’s going to make them fishers of men. So we’ve got evangelism. The gentile nations represented by the seas will be brought into the kingdom through the work of the church pictured here by the apostles.

So evangelism is the immediate context. And at the other side of this in chapter 6, the first half of that, Jesus is teaching the word and then they bring this man with palsy to him. He heals him of the palsy. That produces a contention from the Pharisees and he says, “Well, what’s tougher to tell a man, you know, you’re healed to heal a guy physically or to forgive sins?” And so he says to the guy, “Your sins are forgiven.” So the immediate context of this is evangelism, forgiveness of sins. And I think it’s legitimate to say, well, if that’s the flow of this text, then that has a relationship to what this leprous man represents. It represents a degree of evangelism, the outworking of salvation, and the removal of the effects of sin.

Now, let’s talk about the Old Testament context of these particular this particular section. And you know, I don’t want you to get confused about this. I know this is a little bit of detail for you, but I think it’s so important to understand what our savior is doing when he deals with the leprous individual. He tells us specifically, he talks about cleansing, uses the term leprosy. He says, “Go and talk to the priests as Moses commanded.” There’s lots of pointers here in this text that assume we know or will look up what happened in the Old Testament back there in Leviticus to leprous people wants us to know that, I think, by the overt reference to Moses and this ritual.

We’re supposed to know it. Most of us don’t know it. So, let’s review it briefly. What we have in these laws on leprosy is a general section of Leviticus chapters 11-15 and they form a unit specific unit followed by the Day of Atonement which is going to roll back all uncleanness and Leviticus 11-15 are all these laws of uncleanness some of your children know this if you don’t yet those who were in Leviticus class last year and it’s real easy to remember what chapters 11-15 of Leviticus are about.

It’s real easy. All you got to do is remember what happened in Genesis after God made his judicial determination and issued sentences out in Genesis 3 and 4. What did he do? Do you remember? He begins the questioning with Adam, but he doesn’t start the punishment with Adam. He works his way from the bottom up to covenantal headship of Adam. He starts with the serpent says you’re going to crawl around on the dust going to be a dust eater.

Then he talks to the woman says you’re going to have pain and childbearing. And he talks to the man and Adam, you’re going to have sweat on your brow. You have to work hard now and your skin’s going to be affected. You’re going to have sweat up there. Then he then what happens after that is he clothes them, puts robes on them. Then he kicks them out of the garden. And in chapter 4, we read that Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceives and bears a son.

So there’s this movement, serpent, woman, Adam. God clothes them. God kicks him out of the garden and then they have relationships, conjugal relationships for the purpose of having children. Well, Leviticus tracks that one for one, right along the same path. The uncleannesses that are described in Leviticus 11-15 track that very same thing. Now, there are other things. I mean, when we get to the Gospel of John, we’ll see some purification stuff going on there, and they don’t go in the same order.

God isn’t always that easy on us, but he was easy on us in the book of Leviticus because it’s elementary stuff. It’s supposed to be the building blocks, the phonetics of understanding the scriptures. So when you go to Leviticus, things shouldn’t get unclear to us. They should get more clear. And here he makes it very clear what leprosy is. How? Well, as these things tracked with first the serpent, the laws of unclean that start in Leviticus 11 by talking about unclean animals that you can’t eat, those that are dirty, right?

This relationship to the serpent who’s a dust eater now. So we have unclean animals, creatures, which are the food laws that we think of. Then he says, “Well, when you have a baby, that baby creates a situation of uncleanness for the child and for the mother.” So, he goes from the serpent to talking about Eve. And as Eve had pain and difficulties in childbearing, her childbearing brings forth death, uncleanness in the context of the world.

And he says, “Here’s what you got to do to eat right. This is what you got to do after the wife, the mother, and the children are unclean. Here’s the procedures to affect the reversal of that curse or judgment rather on Eve. And then we expect him to go to the man and he does in Leviticus chapter 13. He starts talking about leprosy. And he does this for a couple of chapters. He begins with leprosy on the flesh, the skin.

Then he talks about leprosy in the clothes. And then he talks about leprosy in a house. You see? And it follows the same pattern. After he pronounces the curse on Adam, sweat on the forehead, on your skin’s going to show the effects of the fall. In Leviticus, he talks about your skin showing the effects of the fall with leprosy. And after that, he robes Adam in Genesis 3. So, he talks about your clothes becoming leprous.

And he kicks Adam out of his home in the garden, evicts him. And he talks about if you have a leprous house, when you get into the land and you have a leprous house and it won’t go away, they got to burn that house down and you need to find a new home. You’re going to go into captivity. It’s what kind of the reference is here. And then he talks about how these things can be cleansed, of course, in each of these ways.

There are clean food as opposed to the unclean food. The child can be made clean and so can the mother. The leprous man can be made clean. He can have those effects of the fall reversed. The leprous clothes can go through a process of becoming cleansed again or not. The leprous house can be cleansed or not, but provision is made for them rolling back the manifestation of the effects of the fall. And then finally, after these leprosy laws are talked about in Leviticus 15, we read about issues from the sexual organs of the body.

That’s what they’re talking about. That first term issue most commentators think refer to gonorrhea or some other STD, sexually transmitted disease. Chapter 15 is about the uncleanness that enters into the normal emission that happens in the context of a marital conjugal relationships because Adam knows Eve. But even that has become subject to the fall or manifest the effects of the curse. And God says that you know, in that uncleanness had happens in the context of sexual relationships, there’s a way to make it clean again.

So, Leviticus 11-15, which is where we find this stuff on leprosy that our savior tells us to look up, what it’s all about is reminding us that the fall had these various manifestations. When we have problems with our skin, when we have problems with our children, problems in sexual relationships between husband and wife, problems with our houses, problems with our clothes. All these things are manifestations.

They remind us of Genesis 3. They remind us that these problems are the manifestation of sin and its effects in the context of the world. But more than that, Leviticus 11-15 says there’s coming a day, the day of full atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ when all these uncleannesses will be rolled away. And this won’t be the case anymore. You won’t have to worry about touching a dead body because Christ will reverse the effects of that fall.

And you don’t got to worry. When the Savior comes, he’ll show you. He touches the needs of others and death doesn’t flow to him. Those who work in the power and spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ are those who go out of this place manifesting and affecting life. Our mission and calling as a church seen in this text, the mission and calling of the savior is to reverse the effects of the fall far as the curse is found.

So the gospel of Christ goes what? Supernaturally? No. Through his people with word and deed to affect reversal of the effects manifestation of the effects of the fall. So when our savior rolls back the uncleanness of leprosy, what he’s showing is a complete reversal and he’s giving us our mission as a church to roll back the effects, the manifestation of the effects of the fall. That’s what we’re called to do.

That’s a neat thing to keep in your mind because it’s true, boys and girls, as you grow up. This is what you’re doing. You’re lifegivers. Those streams of water are supposed to flow out of your bellies. You don’t go into the world, you know, your ultimate aim just to keep away from the world. You go into the world to interact with the culture and roll back the manifestations of the effects of the fall. You’re going to see leprous people this week.

Maybe not actual leprosy. This disease, this is not equivalent, this leprosy to our modern disease of leprosy. It’s something else totally different that doesn’t seem to be in the world anymore. I guess our savior just took it all away when he came. I don’t know. But it’s not the same thing as modern day leprosy. The point is it’s a picture. You’re going to see manifestations of the effects of the fall. You know, in where you go, in your home, in the world, in our church, wherever we go, we’re going to see manifestations of the effects of the fall.

Our job by word and deed is to roll back these manifestations of the effects of the fall. That’s what Leviticus tells us.

Now, I’ve got this chiastic outline on Roman numeral 3, and this is similar to the cleansing of a leprous man. It’s a little more complicated, the man, but this is the worst form of leprosy is a house. Now, the leprosy has gone from the man to the clothes to the house, and now the house has to be cleansed.

And this is the direct text from Leviticus 14. And I don’t want to get into a lot of confusion here with you, but it’s very simple really. If you just look at the middle of this section, it’s seven times. And look at the middle there. In the middle it says seven times. Look at either side. Sprinkle the house. He shall thus cleanse the house. Dip them in the blood of the slain bird as well as the running water.

With the blood of the bird and with the running water to see how those things match up one for one with the live bird with the live bird. You see there’s direct correlations in the center of this structure that clearly show us that God wants us to equate these two halves focused around this middle of seven times. But the value of these kind of literary structures once we’ve seen the commonality of terms to look at the difference of terms as another picture of what’s going on here.

And the difference of terms are found in let’s look at verse 50 at the top. He shall slaughter the one bird in an earthenware vessel over running water. And looking down at verse 53, however, he shall let the live bird go free outside the city into the open field and then just before that he shall take two birds cedar wood and scarlet string and hyssop and he shall make atonement for the house.

Now it’s really nothing new here but I want you to see the literary structure that God has given to us that if at the center of the worst form of leprosy house leprosy what’s going on is a sevenfold action of the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit are the seven spirits of God before the throne moving out to move us from dead bird to live bird to looking at what we have to put together and then to affect the atonement ultimately of course the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we read about leprosy in Luke chapter 5 we remember that leprosy is a very pointed picture for the movement from death to life through the use of these two birds. And this in the context of the lifegiving spirit of God who moves in a sevenfold fashion just as he moved in context of the seven days of creation. So what I’m pointing out here is that this is who we are. We are those who are to work in the power and spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ to affect the reversal, the manifestation of the fall.

Roman numeral 4. Then this is our mission. Our mission is life in a single word. We are the people of victory. We are the people of life. We are the people that are called to be presented and injected into the city to affect the reversal of the manifestations of the effects of the fall to roll those things back. We do it by word and deed. And we’ve set up two teams here at Reformation Covenant Church to make sure we’re on a track to teach the word to one another to supplement whatever is going on in our homes or our personal study of the word of God with church Bible studies, church Sabbath school, Sunday school, and other mechanisms to make sure that you’re growing in word.

And we have a team up to improve our worship because this is where we act. We do things here. We lift our hands. We sing. We interact. We come up with our bodies to improve our deeds in response to God’s word so that when we go into the world, we’ll be like our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who moved by deed and word to remove the effects of the fall. We dedicated our this is our mission as a church to promulgate life in our culture through word and deed.

And we’ve set up specific teams that we keep on course in improving in our understanding of the word and in our deeds beginning with our deeds in the context of worship. And then we set up teams, benevolence, outreach, missions to the end that the effects of the fall would be reversed. You see need, scarcity, poorness, this is a manifestation of the effects of the fall, right?

That’s what Adam’s judgment was. It’d be tough now to make a living. And some people have a harder time than others. And injustice happens in the world and our sin gets its into difficulties. And so whenever we see poverty, it’s a manifestation of the effects of the fallen one way or the other very directly the economic curses that God put on the world to bring about repentance on the part of his people.

When we act in concert with the benevolences that God has called us to do as a church, what we’re really doing is trying to take away the manifestation of the effects of the fall through the application of Christ’s work not in our own way of doing things. That’s what the state does. But we go about it using Christ’s words. Our deeds are dictated by his word. And the end result of that is the leprous becomes clean.

People with needs have those needs met by the church. And their needs are usually much more than economic. But economics is a very important part of it. So what I’m asking you to do today with uplifted hands to God in worship to stretch out those hands to touch a needy family in the context of this church and serve as a model for touching needy families in the context of our city here in Oregon City. What I’m asking you to do is to extend life to roll back in the context of this particular family and the others we’ll reach with benevolent actions this next year in this city and the neighborhoods in which you live to roll back the manifestations of the effects of the fall.

That’s what we’re doing in missions too, of course, is we’re preaching the gospel and ushering the nations in. The nations were developed and scattered as a result of the effect the fall. We’re gathering back together in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is our identity. Center of that structure in John chapter 1. He’s given you the right to become children of God. You are now walking. You are Christians.

You are the body of Christ dispersed into this world to affect the reversal, the manifestations of the fall. In general, when we want to beautify our worship environment, the scriptures say a lot about beauty. And I have a sermon on it here in the next month or two. We’re to worship God in the beauty of holiness. Beauty is throughout the scriptures. The fall brings dissymmetry, a movement away from symmetry.

The fall brings the manifestations of weeds and thistles, which are not as pretty, I don’t care what anybody says, as roses and a beautiful garden. Weeds are a picture, a manifestation of the effects of the fall. What we want to do in our homes, in our church, in our neighborhoods, is make things more beautiful. You see, there’s really no dissimilarity between the work of benevolences, the work of missions or outreach to our community, and the work of beautification.

It’s all to be done with word and deed. And it’s all to reverse the effects of the fall, the manifestation of those effects cuz Jesus has come and his grace, his life is going to flow. The words of Watts, as far as the curse is found. Okay. Well, what’s our particular method? Our method must be determined by our savior. And our savior gives us the model. And we talked about first here our savior was in a city.

He was an approachable savior. He identified needs in the context that the needs identified themselves to him. And then he went about meeting those needs. So what’s our job? Our job assumes Jesus assumes in this text that we’re going to be in the city as our savior was. We’re going to be going around. We’re going to be seeking the identification of needs in the context of where we dwell. Pray for me. I want to make contact this week with some government official in Oregon City so that we can more easily identify the particular needs that exist in the particular community where the Lord Jesus Christ has placed us.

We want to identify the needs of this particular city. Now, we assume that the city’s probably going about trying to meet those needs in an unbiblical fashion. We want to see if that’s the case. But the big thing we want to do at the city is help us to identify needs to pray for them and begin to reach out in the small ways that a congregation of this size can but significant ways. We need to reach out in individual cases acknowledging that as our savior reached out and touched and cleansed and reverse the effects of the fall of the leprous man and multitudes come if we do our job God the spirit is going to use that work to call the elect to him that other people want to see this kind of thing as well.

We want to be in the context of the city. We want to be identifying needs in the context of where we live. We want to do a city check here, so to speak, and know the needs where God has placed us.

In Job 31, we won’t look at it, but Job was an excellent model in Job 31 of men, a godly man doing deeds of benevolences. And he identified the he knew who the poor were in the context of his culture. He had the needy in to dine with him. He knew who they were. We have to know who they are before we can go to meet their particular needs. And secondly, as our savior was in the city, we need to be in the city. And secondly, as our savior was approachable, we need to be approachable. We need not to shrink back from leprous individuals, from people with real needs, with real and strong manifestations of the effects of the curse, the effects of the fallout of sin in people’s lives.

We can’t pull back from that. I made an interesting call this last week to a woman, a grandma. She became a Christian a year and a half ago in prison. She’s out now. And she lives in a part of town that probably is pretty rough. I wasn’t sure how to approach her, you know, but she was very approachable. Talked very freely what her needs were in her family. Asked me to pray for her. Ask our church to pray for her.

She’s got a fellow she likes in prison. He’s got a parole hearing coming up on December 12th. I’ve got it in your announcements for today. Can pray for that. We need to be able to interact with people like this in a far different socioeconomic environment than we are with far different cultural background than we are. This lady was a delight to me and a challenge in her willingness and transparency of speech, her knowing the date of her conversion.

She’s read her Bible, tried to every day since then. Having a real tough time with her teenage boys. Pray for her about that. But you know what she does every Saturday morning? She goes down to Burnside to feed the homeless and to feed people that don’t have enough to eat. Now, this woman’s dependent upon government, a government check, which isn’t a lot, to get by herself. But you see, she understands her need in Christ.

She was brought to a great understanding of her need in Christ a year and a half ago or so, became a Christian. She understands that she is where she’s at in relationship to God totally by his grace. And she wants to be a dispenser of the grace of Christ, the grace of Christ and the reaching out of that hand that praises God reaching out to roll back the manifestations of the effects of the curse. We need to do that.

You know, we need to take whatever resources God has given to us and in some use of them point out this approachability that we have not shrinking back but understand that the theological basis for our approachability in Christ is that we are the recipients of grace and where we are at is not the result of our works. Where we at is where we are at is the result of the grace of God. That’s why Timothy could command the rich in chapter 6 verse 17.

Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Why do you have these things to enjoy at Thanksgiving? Because the gracious God has given you these things to enjoy. Freely you’ve been given freely then free. What you’ve received, freely give them to others. And so Timothy commands the rich to use some of those riches to extend grace.

Job says in verse 18 of 31, “From my youth, I reared him as a father. From my mother’s womb, I guided the widow.” He says that he was brought up with a desire to be approachable, to have the right heart attitude to help the poor, to help the fatherless, and to help the widow. Our children should be brought up with a heart’s desire to manifest benevolences and to understand that what they’re doing is rolling back the effects of the curse in the world.

And you imagine, you know, 100,000 Christians in the state of Oregon manifesting this reversal, accomplishing these things with just little tiny individual items in their own world. What an effect that has to move the state of Oregon. We always want these great political battles that we can win and affect change that way. No. the kingdom of God comes with deeds of love and kindness primarily. This is what we’re called to do to acknowledge Christ as king and to reach out and to train up our children to show benevolences and mercies to others.

I was out shopping on Friday and my daughter wanted to put some money in the box of the Salvation Army fellow there with the bell. Why? Because I don’t know last year, the year before we’d see these guys with their bells and I’d explain to her, you know, this is a picture of God’s requiring us to be benevolent and help people. We’d put money in the box. Now, this year, I encouraged her, bring that money today and put it in the alms box here for particular offering that we’re focusing on the next couple three weeks as a church.

See, I’m trying to train her up. I’m not doing a good job. I’ll give myself as an example. It’s one of the very few things I’ve ever done to teach my kids the importance of benevolence and sharing with the poor. Sam Blumen years ago told me that when he was raised in a Jewish home that they had a little box on the door of the house, the main door in the house, and they would put a portion of their tithe, you know, the grace aspect, you know, we’re supposed to use a part of our tithe to help the poor.

They would put part of their tithe in that box all year round. It would gather up in there until they found a need in their community to go and help somebody with that money or until their church, their synagogue identified a need in the context of the synagogue that people would take all that money they’d collected. Their kids had seen them putting it in that box, you know, on a weekly or daily basis.

He’d put a little something in there, put it in there for the poor. And the kids were brought up from their youth then understanding that God’s been gracious to us. We should be gracious to others. And we should figure out ways to make it fair to our children to develop this theology of grace and a heart desire. We need to do a heart check. Do you want to help the poor today? Are you approachable? You know, Jesus tells us in his leadership capabilities here that he is an approachable leader.

I believe all the officers of our church should be approachable by the members of this church. And I believe that husbands need to think about how approachable they are to their family members. Can your members make a good appeal to you? Can your wife make a good appeal? Can your children approach you? Mothers, are you approachable? Are we approachable to our neighbors round about us who may seem pretty leprous to us?

That we have the ability to understand the nature of God’s grace and look at these opportunities of leprous people around us thinking that you know in the providence of God this may be one of his elect and we can reverse the manifestation of the effects of the fall right here we can reach out with our hand with money or help whatever it is and we can do what our savior did we can remove the manifestation of the effects of the fall in this case economic in the context of somebody’s life.

We should be brought up, you know, in Matthew 6, Jesus says, “When you do your alms, don’t do them as hypocrites.” The assumption is that we are regularly doing alms. It’s part of the Christian life. It’s a required part in terms of the use of a portion of your tithe. So the leadership that Christ presents to us is an approachable leadership and we’re to manifest that in the context of us being kings and priests under him.

We are the gods that Psalm 82 speaks of in a sense. And we are to go into the world and manifest that proper sense of an approachable leader.

The third thing we’re to do in terms of our particular method is regard Jesus worked in terms of deed and word. So we also must work in terms of deeds and words. And those deeds must be dictated by the word of God. Now I’ve listed four things here for you. Young children growing up, you may not have been taught these very well yet, but your parents, most of them who have been here at this church very long know these four things.

I remember it with the acronym GLAD. Gleanings, loans, alms, duty, or tithe to God. God says the primary way of helping the poor who manifest the effects of the fall in their economic state is through gleaning. You take a portion of what you have and you provide that resource to somebody else. Gleaning provides motivation to get a better job. It was hard work to go pick the corners of the field. Salvation Army and Goodwill, if you will, are modern-day equivalents of gleaning ministries.

They attempt to take things that we don’t really need but have value to somebody else and use those things to employ the poor at a fairly low rate of pay to encourage them to get better jobs in reselling these items at low prices. So Salvation Army and Goodwill started with an idea of implementing a modern-day city equivalent of gleaning. All of us have resources in our homes. Some of us pay our kids to do jobs around the house.

Some of you, I do. Well, you could pay somebody else to do a job around the house. Several years ago, we had a fellow was needed economic help and we had him out to trim our hedge. You don’t want to pay him a huge wage because he needs an incentive to get better work, but you want to give him a wage of sustenance to keep him going. Gleaning provides sustenance that a person can get by in life and it provides motivation to get his own field.

It’s the normal method. Poor loans are the second method that we’re to use and we’ve done that in this church on a number of occasions. Perfectly proper. God says you’re required if a neighbor is poor by you, if you’ve got excess funds under the certain circumstances, you’re required to loan that guy money at no interest. And then this is a way to get him over emergency needs. Poor loans, alms, gifts are a direct gift of goods to those around us.

Obviously, another example in Matthew 6, Job 31, other places of scripture like we’re going to do today in next two weeks, to give money to people on a short-term basis to get them out of financial difficulties to reverse debt, the effects of debt in one’s life or hunger. And then finally, the proper use of one’s tithe. An aspect of the tithe, a small portion of the tithe was to be given to the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger.

Those specific groups are to be the primary recipients of our benevolences in terms of our use of our poor tithe. Not men, fatherless, widows, and the strangers. Men that are strangers in the context of our culture. So, these are the methods that God says we’re to use in terms of benevolences. And we’ll be putting a lot more flesh on these bones.