Luke 5:12-16 Sermon for March 22, 2026

While he was in one of the towns, a man was there who had leprosy all over him. He saw Jesus, fell facedown, and begged him, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Reaching out his hand, Jesus touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be made clean,’ and immediately the leprosy left him. Then he ordered him to tell no one: ‘But go and show yourself to the priest, and offer what Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them.’ But the news about him spread even more, and large crowds would come together to hear him and to be healed of their sickness. Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed. So, this is a rather short passage we’re working with tonight compared to what we’ve been used to. And I intentionally focused on this short passage for a reason. There’s a lot of theological indepthness here and there’s some essential doctrine that’s saturated in this passage that is so important for us to grasp unto. Here’s the problem and I said it before: biblical illiteracy is at an all-time high right now and it’s causing people to read into a few select Bible passages something that’s not there. If you read this passage and walk away thinking that it’s mainly about Jesus healing people and then somehow thinking that this is one of those ‘name it and claim it’ passages, you’re twisting God’s Word at worst or you’re misunderstanding God’s Word at minimum. So, let me, before I go into the actual passage here, tell you something that you need to hear. We’ve gotten to a point in American History where we think knowing a few familiar Sunday School Bible passages and a few verses to ‘get us through life’ is the mark of a sincere believer and that it’s always been normal and that anyone that knows more than that is a theological nerd. No. No. No. Let me put it this way: you’re basic Bible understanding as a so-called mature believer in Jesus was standard for all people in the 50s and before, believer or not. Listen, I know I’m going to step on toes here but we really need to hammer at this. We need to because if we really are who we say we are, we should be in the Word of God EVERY SINGLE DAY and we should ne feasting on it. We should know the Word of God inside and out. We should be making this a priority in our lives over absolutely EVERYTHING. We’ve got people who say they love Jesus but know absolutely nothing about Him. And it’s steeping right into the American pulpit and we’re sitting back applauding it all. And here’s what’s happening: people don’t know how to understand this. They cherry pick what they want, twist what they’ve picked, and have become delusional into thinking they’ve got a relationship with a holy God. We’ve got people who say they are all about loving and knowing Jesus and throwing away doctrine. You know how I know that someone has a very surface level relationship with Jesus? They have no doctrine. And what’s even deeper than this is that we’ve got people preaching in American pulpits with absolutely no fear of God. In fact, they are parading in the pulpit what God has condemned and the church-goers are sitting back and saying nothing. We should be grieved. I want to say this loud and clear: there are so many people today in churches that say they believe the gospel but won’t talk about sin. You cannot preach a gospel and not mention sin. You cannot understand the gospel and be casual with sin. You cannot get to the good news of the gospel without having a deep awareness of how broken you are and how much of a wretch you are. We need to recover the supremacy of God’s Word. In the 50s, churches were filled. People knew their Bibles. Then the 60s and 70s happened thought brought a massive cultural shift with social change sexual revolution, and a mistrust in traditional churches. In 1963, you had the Abington School District v. Schempp which ruled that Bible reading in public schools were unconstitutional. By the 80s, normal churchgoers couldn’t even tell you the 10 Commandments or name the four gospels. Today? Well, I think we can all agree that we’ve got a massive issue. It’s almost like a new reformation needs to happen. People are being influenced by social media personalities that feed you a type of Christianity that oh so positive, devoid of sin, elevates the self, is dictated by your fickle emotions, and any other piece of garbage. Here is what we need: We need more churches to recover what it means to be led by men of God who will have the guts to preach the pure, unadulterated Word of God, led by the Holy Spirit, and who will push back against the culture of Marxism, wokeism, ‘the-Lord-told-me-ism’, and any other strain of virus that’s out there. And you might say, “Why you gotta talk about that? Why you gotta keep bringing that up?” Listen, it’s only getting started and I preach it with conviction. Listen, here’s the problem: the problem is that Goliath has infiltrated the churches today and y’all are saying, “Don’t confront Goliath. You’ll cause a scene. It’ll hurt the budget and numbers. Just pray for Goliath.” Meanwhile, the Bible has Goliath slayed and rightfully so. The Goliath is anything that comes into God’s church and says or does anything that is contrary to God’s Word. You slay it on the spot. Alright, let’s get to the text here. So, typically, there are a number of things I’ll draw from a passage that I want you to have highlighted in your mind. And I said all that I said earlier today about reading Scripture for what it is and not to read into Scripture what’s not there. Passages like the one today are passages in which many people just read what’s not intended. As I said last week, can Jesus heal? Yes he can, but reading a descriptive passage in a prescriptive way violates the Word of God and does a massive a mount of damage to God’s church. In this passage, you’ve got a man with leprosy who’s come to Jesus and says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He does so while falling facedown. Almost as if he is at the utter most mercy of the Lord. And what does Jesus do? Jesus touches him and says, “I am willing; be made clean.” Immediately, the leprosy leaves the man. Ok, we need to pause for a moment and understand something here: Leprosy was generally a death sentence. You were outcasted from the community. You had to yell out, “Leprosy. I have leprosy” if you entered a ‘clean’ community. No one dared touch you and associated with you. Your body was deteriorating. The man didn’t say, “Jesus, if you’re willing, heal me.” No, it was, “Jesus, if you’re willing, make me clean.” There is a deep theological truth here that we can easily miss when we don’t approach Scripture properly. Every single one of us is completely unclean prior to redemption. Sin separates us from a holy, righteous God. And the wages of sin is death. Prior to the imputed righteousness of Jesus on us, we all have spiritual leprosy and we have it really, really bad. And like leprosy, we’re outcasted from communion with God. Like leprosy, we are living a death sentence. Like leprosy, we are outside the covenant community of God. And we need to fall face down at the feet of Jesus begging for his mercy to make us clean. It can’t get any more clear than that. Apart from Jesus, you are unclean. And one the doctrines of demons being preached so eloquently today is this idea that you are enough, you are just perfect the way you are, that God winks at your mistakes, that God turns a blind eye to your sins, that your sins are not that bad. And we sit there on our phones platforming these types of teachings and they are not teachings that lead you to life. Here’s the brutal truth: you are not enough. You cannot do enough. You do not measure up. You need Jesus to cleanse you completely and fully. You need His righteousness to be imputed to you. All that fancy theological word means is this: you need the righteousness of Jesus credited to you. It’s a righteousness that is declared over you. Check this out: Romans 4:5 says, “But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.” When you’re redeemed, you have the righteousness of Jesus credited to your account once and for all. Now, let me teach something here. It’s the doctrine of total depravity. It’s 100% in the Bible. It’s the biblical teaching that says that sin affects every part of a person. That every human faculty, the mind, will, emotions, and body, is corrupted by sin. It means that you and I are spiritually, unable to save ourselves, or choose God without regenerating grace. It doesn’t mean that people are as evil as possible. But it does mean we are corrupted due to sin. Yes, we have free will and all that but, apart from God’s grace, we freely choose sin. This is why we need new birth. John 3:3 says, “Jesus replied, ‘Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And only God can make someone born again. God alone accomplishes it, just like he can make the leprous man clean again. God initiates salvation. God grants repentance. God must give faith. God must make us alive. And here’s why it matters: without total depravity, grace becomes optional, the cross becomes unnecessary, regeneration becomes a suggestion, and salvation becomes partly our work. With total depravity (just read Romans 3), grace becomes amazing, the cross becomes essential, regeneration becomes miraculous, and salvation becomes entirely God’s mercy. That’s what’s happening in this story: the leprous man approaches Jesus for mercy to clean him. He offers nothing for it. He only offers empty hands. If you look at the London Baptist Confession 1689 in 15:2, it says, “There is no one who does good and does not sin. Even the best may fall into great sins and offenses, through power and deceitfulness of the corruption in them, along with the strength of temptation. Therefore, God has mercifully provided in the covenant of grace that believers who sin and fall will be renewed through repentance to salvation.” Just look at Ecclesiastes 7:20, which says, “There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins.” It’s all in God’s Word. And so, where do we go from here? You go to the throne and yell out, “Sin! I am a sinner! I need you, Jesus, to make me clean!” And the Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation” (Romans 10:9-10). This is the good news! Call on the Lord! And our passage ends with many coming to him to be healed and yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed. I’ll end with a final comment on prayer. Our Lord Jesus withdrew often to pray and yet many of our churches today don’t pray at all. If you want to know where a church gets its power from, it’s where two or more are gathered for prayer.