" The Contagious Jesus " Fiery Sermon from Dr. Joel C. Gregory

0:15 the contagious Jesus. Would you open the word of God with me to Luke chapter 5. Here is a diagnosis by Dr. Luke. In Luke chapter 5, I'm going to read this brief, well-known gospel story under the title, The Contagious Jesus. Please hear the Holy Gospel, Luke 5, verse 12. and it happened when he was in a certain city that behold a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus and fell on his face and implored him saying Lord if you are willing you can make me clean Thank you.

1:19 Then he put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And 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 so he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed a story about the contagious Jesus would you be seated I really can't remember whether I still have them or whether I gave them away.

2:27 Reason being, it's so long ago that I don't know if the last time I kept them or gave them to somebody else. Oh, in case you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the cooties. Anybody remember the cooties? Takes you back a ways, doesn't it? They're on the playground Sneak up, you've got the cooties One of the best places to do it was in the classroom With somebody in front of you When they couldn't give them back So you've got the cooties In the cafeteria line You remember the cooties They were this invisible infection And I can't remember Whether I last had them Or gave them away You know we think a great deal really about info You think about how much time we spend dealing with contagion Remember back in 2008 when the predicted swine flu epidemic was supposed to come We were all washing our hands As long as it took to sing happy birthday Or twinkle twinkle little star I'm a very literal person.

3:43 I was singing that out loud. A lot of people were looking at me while I was doing it. Worried about contagion. A friend of mine's wife had to have serious surgery, and they worried about whether to have it in an old downtown famous teaching hospital or in a new suburban hospital because they thought in the new hospital there might not be as many of the cooties. Americans spend a billion dollars a year on hand sanitizer To try to stay away from the cooties There's some good reasons for that That restaurant menu you're holding If somebody sneezes only The cooties stay there for 18 hours And don't even think about that lemon wedge In your iced tea The Journal for Environmental Health says 70% of those have the cooties on him.

4:39 I think I'll take mine without lemon. And I was getting concerned all this, and my lovely wife Joanne told me she read that one of the most contagious places there is is somewhere I put stuff every week, and that's the seat back pocket on airplanes. I usually put my half-eaten sandwich in there, and get it out later, but I'm not going to do that anymore. Contagion.

5:15 We're in Luke and we made a man we find in Matthew, Mark and Luke. He's introduced to us by Dr. Luke with a word that Matthew and Mark do not use probably because Luke by the Holy Spirit and a doctor said he was not just a leper, he was a man full of leprosy. Leprosy was not at its incipient stages. He was not on the front porch or the preface or the prologue or the prelude. He was far into it. He was full of leprosy. Leprosy was condemned to be such a vital contagion that in the Old Testament, only two persons in all of the Old Testament were ever healed from leprosy. And Luke tells us here was a man full of it. Very interesting, though this man doesn't get a name. He's an incognito, nameless, unidentified person.

6:12 The only thing they know about him is there's that man full of leprosy. If you read Luke's gospel up to this point, 25 people appear in the gospel. All 24 of them up to this time have had a name until you come to this man. And he doesn't get a name. He's labeled by what everybody thinks is wrong with him You remember in high school being made to read that American classic by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter There's Heather Prim in that little New England village She's entered into a liaison that she got caught and they made her wear a scarlet what? A and she lost her identity because she was simply the lady with the scarlet A.

7:08 This man may well have had to wear a scarlet L. He didn't even get a name. He was defined by the weakest and worst moment in his life. There goes that man full of leprosy. We do that to people. don't we? We take the weakest, worst, the least, the hardest thing about them, and we hang it around their neck and we label them with it. We take the worst moment of their life and we define them by it. That's a cruel thing. Do we do it? We do it. Yes, we do. We say, oh, there goes that addict, as if the only thing about that person was addict. There goes that ex-con if it's the only thing about that person was that they'd been locked up there goes that divorce but if the only thing about them was they'd been divorced and we you know how this man got in the new testament he didn't get in the new testament because they were able to define him he got in there because jesus was able to redefine him the good news of the gospel is that this man no longer is known as the man full of leprosy he got here because he's the man Jesus cleansed one day he went into the Galilee driver's license bureau and he took in his license it had on it L it didn't mean learner it meant leper and they stamped it and they gave him another one that said C cleanse and the good news of the gospel is when people have tried to categorize you define you stereotype you belittle you defame you present you in false life by making your identity the weakest and the worst moment of your life jesus comes and he touches you and you're the person jesus made whole the way wait a minute that happens that happens to folks who get desperate

9:19 enough to want it. You see this man? He was a crowd. He wasn't even supposed to be around the crowd. He had a legal quarantine. If you were a leper, you had to stand upwind from people. If you were a leper, you couldn't even go to the synagogue. You had to sit behind a screen in the synagogue. If you went into a leper's house, you had to go to the public health officials, and you had to be pronounced clean. and yet he runs and Luke says he falls on his face at a place where he wasn't even supposed to be sometimes I wonder if some of us do not get what we need from Jesus because we've never been that desperate about it he doesn't seem to respond to people who are merely casual this man came out of the crowd and fell down at his face while others I'm sure say stay away there's the left half he He said, I don't.

10:12 You know, isn't it funny what we human beings get desperate about? I was with a friend the other day. And I thought I knew this person, but that friend wanted to get a famous person's autograph. Man, they crawled over all of us and everybody else. Desperate. Just to get some ink on paper. Desperate. You know, here's somebody. Oh, here's a big concert coming to town. Man, people camp out all night to get a ticket. desperate won't they and my lord the Friday after Thanksgiving knocking the doors off of Best Buy got to get in desperate did you hear about that man in the capital area near D.C. had a heart attack died died that Friday people didn't even care walking over him got to get it desperate Man, we get desperate about a lot of things, don't we?

11:19 Somebody out in Vegas lost all their money. He put all the rest of it on their birthday number. Bet they're talking to Jesus now, aren't they? Desperate. hadn't even got enough money to get home. Isn't it interesting, seriously, church, what we get desperate about. And yet when it comes to getting what Jesus needs to do for us, all of a sudden we get casual. And we say, let's not get that intense about it. This man got what he needed because he came and fell on his face. And notice when you're desperate about it, you really see him. Do you notice in verse 12 it says he saw Jesus? That may seem strange. Jesus was the most looked at person in the country. Everybody was looking at him.

12:12 I could make the argument that in his time, Jesus was the most looked at person in the world. Huge crowds looking at him. In fact, let me go past that. I say Jesus is the most looked at person in all of history. Stained glass windows, statues in Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox churches, pictures in Protestant churches, in your Bible, on the classroom. Jesus is the most looked at person in history. But he is not the most seen person. because not everybody looking at him is really seeing him. This man who was known for what was wrong with him had such desperation he fell at his face and while others were looking he really saw. Let me just wait a minute.

13:06 There's a difference in looking and seeing Jesus. Nicodemus came to look at him. He said, Rabbi, we know you're a man sent from God. Nobody can do what you're doing. And you know what he said to Nick? He said, unless you're born from above, you can't even see what I'm about. Now, we know the difference all the time. The preacher mentioned I teach at Baylor University. We've suddenly, for some reason, had heaven open and pour out athletic success on us for the first time in the history of the school. Heisman Trophy winner, number one women's basketball team Number six men until we got beat the other day by Kansas And I was there But you know, I was looking at it But when I got home, I saw the analysts on ESPN Analyze why we lost to them And I really saw it My dog can sit down while I'm studying in my chair dog has a biblical name Phoebe Phoebe looks but Phoebe's not sitting there saying now Joel's working on a sermon he doing exegesis no looking but not seeing I wish I could sit down at your kitchen table with you right now I really wish I could I wish I knew you well enough to sit over a cup of coffee and say have you been looking at Jesus or have you ever really seen him?

14:43 David Cortland, the novelist, was walking down the mall in Washington, D.C. when he saw a big group of people coming toward him and the closer they got, he saw that they all had the distinctive white cane of the blind. And when they got right up to him, one of the blind with a cane handed him a camera and said, will you take our picture?

15:10 And he said, it surprised him for a minute. He said, here's a group of blind people and they want me to take their picture, but he was nice. He took it. And he said it bothered him, Pastor Charles, the rest of the day. And he said, finally, if I went to sleep that night, it hit him that even though they could not see, they still believed in sight. Now somebody here today, you came into God's house on this cold day. And you say, you know, I really can't see. I know he's there. If you'll just come to him desperately needing what he can do. He can give you sight, but you've got to do what it takes this morning to get his attention. Look at this.

16:02 It said he fell on his face. And look at this verb, he implored him. The word in the New Testament language means he kept on begging him. It's one of Luke's favorite words. It's used in Luke's account of the Gadarene demoniac, the man full of a thousand devils. When those devils came out of Jesus, Luke uses this word, they kept on begging Jesus, don't send us back to hell. Don't you think a devil means business when he says that? It's the same word used of that father at the foot of the mountain in transfiguration when he kept on begging Jesus to heal his boy who threw himself into the water and the fire. It's a word of intensity. I just want to say this today. I preach coast to coast, border to border. I'm an itinerant preacher. I'm a hit and run preacher somewhere every week. And you know, when I preach, I look out at people and I wonder how many of them do not get their deliverance because they're so afraid of their dignity.

17:05 This man was intense about it. And I'll tell you when Jesus will come through for you when you say, why doesn't Jesus do for me what he did in biblical times and other times. Have you ever been intense about it? I remember years ago, years ago, years ago I'd received a call from the pastor of the most famous, biggest Baptist church in America. At that time, I was just an instructor at another seminary in another city. I couldn't even believe he called me. Couldn't even believe it was him. And he said, would you come preach for me on Sunday? Oh, yes. Man, I studied myself. Silly.

17:53 And I remember on Thursday of that week, my son, eight years old, was riding a bicycle in the Wedgwood section of Fort Worth. It was a borrowed bicycle. He didn't know how to use the hand brakes, and a car smashed him, and his little head, like an egg, smashed against a curb. He got worse that night, took him to the children's hospital. They said, watch him Friday, worse still. Took him back Saturday, much worse. We knew something was wrong. Nobody knew what. Sunday afternoon, a pediatric neurosurgeon says he has an epidural hematoma, and if we don't do surgery right now, and I said wait a minute I want a second opinion he said no no no you don't understand he said we got to do it now or he's going to die you know what all of a sudden I forgot all about preaching for that famous preacher that night I called him and said catch you later Dr. Chris bye bye and I fell on my knees in the hallway of that hospital I didn't care if there were doctors or nurses or attendants I didn't care if there were PhDs or THDs or DDs or DDTs or anybody else.

19:01 I wanted what Jesus could do. I'm going to tell you somebody here this morning if you would feel that way about it you could get what he did. But how many times do we come to a beautiful sanctuary and sing the hymns and sit back kind of smugly as if to say everybody else needs what that preacher is talking about. Well when you get intense about it you've got to believe that he's as good as he is. Now everything is right up to this point, but then this man's got something half wrong. You know he can be half right about Jesus. He was half right. He said, Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. Half right.

19:55 He can make you clean. But the good news is, he's also willing. You know, I wonder, Pastor, if Jesus wouldn't have felt better about this if the man had said it the other way. Lord, I know you're willing. At least you're good. I hope you have the power. But in his half right, he said, I know you have the power. But I don't know if you're good enough to do it. Let me tell you, out of the hundreds of you here this morning, somebody sitting here feels like that. You know there's power in Jesus Christ. You just don't know if he's willing to do it for you You see sometimes we come on Sunday And we treat the gospel as if we're having a memorial service For what Jesus used to do Let's come down here to Shiloh We meet on Sunday And let's have a memorial service For the wonderful stuff he used to do But we never connect the dots That he can do that for me or we think he does it for some kind of super saints well he'll do this kind of stuff for Mother Teresa or you know Bishop Tutu or somebody but no not me or we even think he used to do that for my I remember when mama used to hang around the kitchen and sing hymns just like Jesus was right there he used to do it for her he did it for auntie but me let me tell you when Jesus comes to work in your life when you stop holding memorial services for what he used to do and when you stop saying he did it for everybody else you know 100 years ago right now C. Austin Miles wrote a beautiful hymn he walks with me he talks with me he tells me I am his own listen when Jonah Jonah Jonah was at the bottom of the bottom

22:02 in that whale's belly he didn't say I sure thank you you used to do it for Moses he said I cried out and you heard me in my distress I want to ask you if somebody here this morning needs the gospel for me. This man said, no, Jesus said, I am not only able, I am willing. Would you just say this with me? He is willing and he is able. not just able but willing to do it for yes thank you but you you know to do that you've also got to believe he's approachable you know this man dared to approach Jesus he didn't think he couldn't approach him you know Jesus' disciples sometimes got full of themselves sometimes they almost hugged themselves to death it's a bad way to go self-hugulation You remember when those little children came and wanted to see Jesus?

23:16 They, shh, shh, get away from him. Can't you tell he's Jesus? And he said, let him come to me. I'm so tired of people being so busy, they can't be approached. You know, I've never seen people, everybody busy. You ever know everybody's so busy? I walked into a little boutique, a little store. They had money in my hand. Nobody else in there looked like they needed my money Three people back in the back of the Nobody could be approached I walked out a sad man Because I couldn't even approach anybody in there Years ago Famous young evangelist coming to the city to hold a revival I'd worked my fingers off to get everything ready for him I was driving him to one of the commitments And I said could you just take five minutes and tell me the secret of your ministry.

24:10 He said, can't you see I'm busy? Stings to me this day. I want to give you a good word today. There is a Lord who is not too busy. Hebrews 4. Hebrews chapter 4 says, our great high priest has passed through the heavens. And it says he is not able not to be sympathetic with you. Isn't that good news? In fact, when Mark tells this story, Mark uses a word Luke didn't use. He uses the word he was moved with compassion. That word in the Greek New Testament means he felt it in his viscera. Have you ever seen anything and you said, that just turned my stomach? Have you ever said my heart was in my throat?

25:07 When Jesus looked at this man, it was not with disgust. And you know he's the same Jesus today. At the right hand of the throne of the Father, it says you can find grace to help in time of need. Now let me tell you something. This is a very, very mature observation. Listen, you ready? Do you know when you need help? You need it when you need it.

25:41 Really. You don't need help yesterday. You don't need help tomorrow. You need it now. And I thank God that he's the same Jesus today. They're at the right hand. And you know, I run out of compassion. I've got to admit something to you. The Huffington Post said the other day that those of us who read and listen and watch in the United States, we're subject to 100,000 appeals every day that pull on us. bus bench backs bumper boards tweets email CNN MSNBC all that stuff newspapers news magazine hundred thousand times a day something tries to pull at us you wake up in the morning here's an earthquake tsunami genocide that's just worldwide that doesn't even mean your own problems man sometime by 10 o'clock in the morning pastor Charles I'm just flat out of compassion That's the human condition.

26:39 But thank God, at the center of this universe, this is what the gospel means, church. At the center of this universe is not some cybernetic computer spewing out impersonal fate. At the center of this universe is the Lord Jesus Christ who says come once, come ten times, come a hundred times, come a thousand times. He's never out of compassion. You bring him a thimble full, he's the Pacific Ocean. You bring him a molehill, he's Mount Everest.

27:14 I wish somebody here today would believe he's that good. And you'd get your breakthrough. If you'd believe he's the same Jesus today, thank you, but I've got to go on. I've got to sit down. Here's where we're trying to get. Here's where we're trying to get. It's an audible gasp moment. Jesus touches him and there's an audible gasp if you'll listen to Luke you listen you can hear it you weren't supposed to you know what an audible gasp is here you are at the circus you're watching the high wire you know tightrope walker now there's a net down there but you know they lose their balance and everybody goes audible gasp You can see it on YouTube Little girl visiting the zoo Leans over the moat In front of the lion's cage Falls in Everybody goes Friday night lights Little running back Out in a little town somewhere Hit by a big linebacker Crumples like Kleenex Everybody goes Audible gas Now that's what happened when Jesus touched that leper.

28:38 You didn't do that. You know why they gasp? Here's this wonderful young healer and teacher and now he's gone and given himself leprosy. No. Said he's been talking like nobody ever talked and now he gonna get leprosy. They thought that the leper was more contagious than Jesus. I wanted to come by this morning to tell you that Jesus is more contagious than anything anybody's got. Somebody come in here today And maybe you're just greedy I know some people they're just greedy They want more and more of what they've already got enough of I mean they squeeze every dime Until Franklin Roosevelt chokes Do you think if you bring that attitude to Jesus That you're going to make him the greedy Jesus?

29:47 No Let me tell you the strangest thing. You get close to him. You're not going to make him the greedy Jesus. He does the strangest thing. He relaxes the hand. Agree? You're addicted to something. People are addicted to all kind of stuff. They're addicted to what they drink, addicted to pills, addicted to pornography. Some people are just addicted to themselves. I mean, they just, you know, you think you're going to touch him and all of a sudden you'll make him the addicted Jesus? No, no. He's more contagious than you are. if you'll bring whatever has you in its grip to him and just let him give you a case of what he has, he's more contagious than anything you've got. You know most people I preach to on Sunday morning, they didn't break all Ten Commandments the night before.

30:46 Do you know what most people have got? They've got a real bad case of just indifference. If you touch him with that, you're not going to make him the indifferent Jesus. He's going to give you back purpose and passion. You know, Dante Alighieri wrote the Inferno. He was Italian, wrote this poem where he took a tour of hell. You know, all nine levels, way down at the bottom, real hot. It got cooler every level until he got up at the top. and up at the top there were some souls flying around in the hot air. They weren't in hell, they were just in the hot air on top of it and he asked his guide, the Roman Virgil, who are those? And Virgil says, they are those who are just indifferent.

31:41 Hell doesn't want them and heaven won't have them. They just don't care. Let me tell you, somebody here, please, please, I really do wish I could sit down at your kitchen table. Somebody here says, preacher, you just named me. I just don't feel anything anymore. I used to care. I used to have passion for God and the things of God. I'm not against him. I'm not for him. I just don't care. Lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. You know what? If you will come to him, touch him, you're not going to make him the indifferent Jesus. He'll give you a reason and a purpose and a passion to live again because he is more contagious than anything you have. Now what are you going to do about it?

32:45 If you've heard anything I've said this morning by the Holy Ghost, somebody here ought to have a little sense of urgency about this by the Holy Ghost somebody ought to say isn't this nice and I appreciate this guy coming by let's get to lunch let's take just a moment may the Holy Spirit give somebody here somebody a sense of urgency today enough to get out of your seat on your feet and say I'm going to do what it takes to get this to Jesus.

33:20 You know, we preachers, we preachers, we sometimes use big language. We do. We say, you know, we say you need to come be saved. Some people don't even understand that. Need to be regenerated. Need to be born again. Need to be justified. Need to be redeemed. And those are all good words. They're bigger than any of us understand. But you know what Jesus did? he used words simpler than that he walked up to people and said only two words follow me I want to ask somebody here today sometimes our language can even get in our way we think well I'm Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal Luther, Presbyterian I've been sprinkled I've been this look look just put that aside a minute put that aside a minute Thank you. I want to ask you right now, now, not what label you wear.

34:20 Those are all going to fall off. One heartbeat away. I want to ask you this right now. Are you following him? That's a question you can answer. this day are you following him or do you need to get a case of what he has he's the contagious Jesus would you bow your head please quietly all over this hall heads bowed eyes closed just a moment I didn't come by here because I had to deliver a sermon I came by here because I had a message for somebody in this balcony on either side up these beautiful stairwells so arranged that you could be right down here in front of me in just a minute all over this floor somebody needs to get intense about this you may be the only one but that doesn't make any difference that's what this is about you're going to get intense about it and I wonder if there's somebody here nobody's going to come to you nobody's going to embarrass you nobody's going to single you out Nobody's going to tap you on the shoulder.

35:34 I just wonder because I want to know. I've prayed about it. If you'd say, preacher, Lord knows today I need him to touch me. The contagious Jesus. I need what he can do. You don't know the mess. My life is a puzzle inside of a riddle inside of an enigma, and somebody's thrown away the key. I need him. I need what he can do. Would you slip your hand up? Just slip your hand up wherever you are. Let me just see anybody in this place. Yes, somebody, yes. Where else? Yes, I need what he can do.

36:16 I pray, Lord, that you would speak right now. in the power and the freedom of your spirit may somebody say not then but now not there but here and may they be intense enough and desperate enough to see you and in doing that to let you touch them and give them what you have Holy Spirit please speak speak now in power for we ask it in Jesus strong and saving name Pastor Charles would you come in your own way open the doors of God's house and will somebody be ready to hear those words follow me put one foot in front of the other