Sermon Synopsis
This sermon traces three encounters in Mark 1–2 to show that the Lord Jesus, the perfect Servant, is also the Great Physician. In cleansing the leper, He shows that sin defiles us, yet His compassionate touch can make the unclean clean. In healing the paralysed man, He shows that sin disables us, and that the greater miracle is not bodily healing but the forgiveness of sins, which only God can give. In calling Levi the tax collector, He shows that sin leaves us destitute and disreputable, yet He graciously calls such sinners to follow Him and to repentance. The sermon calls believers to trust Christ’s cleansing power, to serve in God’s way with perseverance and compassion, and to treat even the “least respectable” with the mercy and grace that Christ Himself shows.
Please note: This transcript is provided as close to verbatim record of the sermon.
Our God and our Father, we do thank Thee today. As with every other Lord’s Day, we thank Thee that we serve a risen Saviour and that we remember our risen Saviour. With grateful hearts, we thank Thee that He has saved us, that He has washed us clean from our sin.
Now, even as we open Thy Word and read what He has to say to us and what He shows us by His example, we pray that Thou wilt teach us much from Thy Word.
We pray all these things in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Last week, if you remember, we looked at Mark chapter 1. If you like to “caption” that chapter, it was a chapter of activity. Much busyness. A lot is going on—sequence after sequence of events, one after another.
But we are not done with Mark’s Gospel. We still have five verses at the end of chapter 1, and today we move into chapter 2.
If I were to caption chapter 2, I would use this word: antagonism. Antagonism—because here we get the first glimpse of opposition to the Lord’s ministry. There was no real opposition in the first chapter, barring Satan and his demons. But now, in chapter 2, opposition comes in four waves.
Today we will only see the first two, and you will find them especially in verses 7 and 16 of chapter 2.
One of the things Mark does, especially now in chapter 2, is that he slows down. If you didn’t notice earlier, Mark 1 moves very fast. I think, if you recall, there were around ten episodes or so—event after event. But now suddenly, Mark takes a break and expands more in detail. He focuses on the story of the paralytic and then the tax collector.
We will continue with our theme of the Servant—the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect Servant.
From verses 13 to 17 we are going to learn that our Saviour is the perfect Physician. He is the One who cures us from our sin.
Our key verse, our watchword today, is Mark 2:17:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Today we are going to learn:
And through it all, we are going to see the Lord Jesus Christ in action again with these three examples.
This is the great miracle at the end of chapter 1. We have two key figures here:
Let’s look at what we can learn from both.
Chapter 1 verse 40: “Now a leper came to Him…”
People are always drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is like a magnet. He draws people to Himself. One of them is a leper. These are people from all different backgrounds and circumstances.
Mark especially emphasizes the Lord’s compassion. We read that Jesus was “moved with compassion.”
The service of the Lord is never mechanical. Sometimes when we are doing lots of things, we go into autopilot. We just do, do, do, without thinking very much. The Lord Jesus Christ was never like this.
In verse 34 (which we saw last week), He was healing loads and loads of people—people after people. The modern buzzword we might use is “burnt out.” You would think the Lord must have been burnt out, flat-out tired. Those of you in healthcare will understand that when you give of yourself to people, you tend to empty yourself.
But the Lord was not like this. He was truly touched by the needs of human beings. He was deeply moved by compassion. What a lesson for all of us.
Notice also that He touched the leper. There is contact. He “put forth His hand and touched him.” That is very striking, and Mark deliberately underlines it.
You don’t touch a leper. You become ceremonially unclean. But the Lord Jesus Christ deliberately touches the leper—yet He Himself remains untainted, undefiled.
It is a touch of kindness. As someone has said, this leper probably had not experienced human touch for most of his life. But now comes the Saviour, and He touches him.
The cure is instant: “Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.”
Horatius Bonar said something like this: “Holiness becomes God’s house. The Holy One drives away not the leper, but his disease.”
The Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t tell the leper to go away—He tells the leprosy to go away.
Then notice the charge that follows. Verses 43–45 are almost as long—or even longer—than the description of the miracle itself. The instruction is longer than the miracle.
The Lord gives strict instruction to the leper to keep the Mosaic law:
“Go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
He insists that the man obey what Moses wrote in Leviticus 14. Notice the Lord’s priority on Scripture, His priority on obedience to the Word of God.
And it is very practical. He says:
“It will be a testimony unto them.”
Who is “them”? The priesthood.
Had the man done this, the priests would have had a testimony:
“A leper has just been cleansed. Who is the Man who cleansed the leper?”
That testimony would point to the Saviour Himself.
Had the man gone through the sacrifices of Leviticus 14, he would have taken two pigeons or two small sparrows. One would be killed and its blood poured out. The other would be dipped in the blood and then let fly away.
If he had done that, what a wonderful testimony it would have given of the Lord’s death and resurrection. A picture of death and a picture of rising again—an Old Testament type pointing to Christ.
We see first that he is a man of faith. He came to Jesus (v. 40). He believed that the Saviour could do something for him. Very clear.
The word used: he implored Him. He begged Him—strong language. There is real earnestness.
He knelt down before the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew’s Gospel tells us he worshipped Him. He recognises who Jesus is.
The leper has a striking grasp of who Christ is. He says this wonderful statement in verse 40:
“If You are willing, You can make me clean.”
He has no doubt about the Lord’s power to make him clean. He only wonders about the Lord’s will. He doesn’t know if the Lord will cleanse him, but he says:
“If You will, You can make me clean.”
This is a beautiful balance—confidence in Christ’s power and submission to Christ’s will.
At the end of chapter 1, we read that he went out and proclaimed it freely. He spread the matter everywhere. What a testimony to what the Lord had done.
Surely it can’t be wrong to testify for the Lord Jesus Christ? And yet, in this case, the Lord had given a specific command:
“See that you say nothing to anyone; but go…”
The Lord was very explicit. The man disobeyed. We are not told why. Perhaps he was just enthusiastic.
But his disobedience had consequences. Verse 45 tells us that the effect was to curtail the Lord’s ministry. Because of all the excitement and buzz, the Lord could no longer openly enter the city. He had to stay outside in deserted places, and people had to come to Him.
There is an important lesson here:
Our ideas of how best to serve God are of no significance whatsoever if they are not according to His Word.
God’s work must be done God’s way, and God’s way is worthy of God Himself. We simply open up God’s Word and seek to do God’s work in God’s way.
Chapter 1 ends with this wonderful miracle: the Lord says, “Be clean.” One of the functions of that miracle is to show not only what He can do for one man, but that what He can do for one man He can do for the entire nation of Israel—and, by extension, for all of us.
He can cleanse us from all our defilement, from everything that is wrong with us.
The nation, sadly, did not want to follow this testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How about you? How about me?
As I reflected, I thought about how the Lord’s compassion has touched me and cleansed me from all my sins. We also learn that we must do God’s things in God’s way, and, as we saw last week, we must press on and keep going.
I put up that picture earlier—many years ago—of our assembly back then. You see people who have gone on. My Sunday School teacher, for example, is still here and still going on faithfully. That is what the Lord wants us to do: to keep going on.
Sir Winston Churchill once said:
“It is the courage to continue that counts.”
For us as Christians, it is the courage to keep going on for the Lord, to do things in His way, and to keep His compassion flowing through us to others—“Pass it on,” as we often sing.
We read that the Lord Jesus went again to Capernaum (2:1). If you read Matthew 9, you learn that Capernaum is called “His own city.” That suggests His family had moved from Nazareth to Capernaum. So He comes back to His own city.
Three quick observations:
Notice the little word “again” in verse 1, and again in verse 13:
“And again He entered Capernaum…”
“And He went forth again by the sea…”
It is suggestive of the persistence of the Lord Jesus Christ. The perfect Servant is zealous and diligent in His work.
There was a time when the Lord Jesus was popular. Verse 2 tells us there was no room to receive the people—not even near the door.
But we cannot trust popularity. It is transient. One of the saddest chapters in John’s Gospel is John 6. It begins with multitudes following the Saviour. But by the end of the chapter, multitudes have left Him, and only twelve are left.
So we cannot bank on popularity. What matters is a real work of grace in the heart.
With all these people gathered, what is the Lord doing? Verse 2:
“He preached the word to them.”
Mark does not use here the usual words for “preach” that emphasize authority or gospel proclamation. He simply uses a word that means “spoke”. The Lord spoke the Word to them.
It couldn’t be simpler. He spoke God’s Word. That was His priority.
The message takes precedence over the miracle. The miracles are like the supporting cast; the main actor is the message. The miracles testify to what God is doing in the person of His Son. His words are more important than the wonders.
That is still true today. The Word of God must be our priority—more important than all accompaniments.
In chapter 1, a leper is cured. Now, in chapter 2, a paralysed man is healed.
In the Authorized Version, this man is described as having palsy. If I may hazard a guess (and it is only a guess), he may have been suffering from something affecting his nervous system, like cerebral palsy. That strikes home for me because I see people like this daily. He was probably immobile, unable to move, perhaps even unable to speak.
Sin renders us so defiled and so disabled before God.
And although this is a literal miracle, as so often in the Saviour’s miracles, there is also a spiritual illustration. This man pictures our condition before God.
Romans 3:13–18 gives us a description of humanity under sin. This paralyzed man is like a living parable of our spiritual condition.
Now look at the people around him. The paralyzed man has four wonderful friends. They carry him on what we might call a stretcher.
But they can’t get in. The crowd blocks the way. What do they do? Do they go home? Do they say, “We’ll come back another day”?
No. They show real diligence. They go up to the roof. Mark literally says they “unroofed the roof.” They take off the tiles and lower him down.
How wonderful to have friends like this—friends so concerned and so determined to bring someone to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Not only is there effort and diligence, but there is also confidence in the Saviour. Verse 5 says:
“When Jesus saw their faith…”
Not just his faith, but their faith. The friends had confidence in the Saviour’s power to help.
The Lord then goes straight to the root of the matter. Personally, I think the first thing I might have done would be to treat the man’s physical condition. That might be my occupational hazard—I would assess him, examine him, see what I could do for his body.
But the Lord goes deeper. He addresses sin first:
“Son, your sins are forgiven you.” (v. 5)
Behind all the sickness in this world stands sin. Not necessarily a particular sin committed by that individual—no. The Lord deals with that in John 9. But the fact of sin in the human race means that all of us are affected—sickness, disability, disease, and, ultimately, death.
Romans 5:12 tells us that death entered through sin, and death spread to all. Included in that “death” are all the illnesses and weaknesses that lead up to it.
So the Lord, knowing that the root is sin, first addresses the man’s sin.
Of course, His words raise a problem. The scribes reason in their hearts:
“Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (v. 7)
And in one sense, their logic is exactly right. Only God can forgive sins.
Psalm 130:3–4 says:
“If You, LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.”
It is God who forgives. It is one of the prerogatives of deity. Only the Lawgiver can forgive the law-breaker.
So their question is accurate: “Who indeed can forgive sins but God alone?”
The Lord provides proof that He has the authority to forgive sins.
Verse 8: Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves. He reads their hearts.
1 Kings 8:39 reminds us that God alone knows the hearts of men. You and I cannot read hearts. Angels can’t. Satan, I don’t think, can read hearts. Only God can.
So when Jesus reads the hearts of the scribes, He is demonstrating His deity. That’s proof number one.
Then He does more. Proof number two: He raises the paralysed man.
He poses a question:
“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’?”
You cannot see whether sins are forgiven. There is no visible halo. But you can see whether a paralysed man stands up and walks.
So Jesus says, in effect:
“That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins…”
He then says to the paralysed man:
“I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
Here we see again the power of His word. If His spoken word can raise a paralysed man, then certainly His spoken word can forgive that man’s sins.
Psalm 103:3 beautifully sums this up:
“Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases…”
That is what the Lord does here—He forgives iniquities and heals disease.
The whole miracle is like a parable of salvation. It is a genuine historical miracle, but it also pictures what the Lord does in the spiritual realm.
Notice:
And remember, the man came through the roof in faith—“He saw their faith.”
No wonder this passage is often used in preaching the gospel. It also becomes a paradigm for understanding the purpose of miracles: they show us that bodily healing is secondary; the greater work is the forgiveness of sins.
In chapter 1, the Lord called fishermen to follow Him. From what we know, fishermen would have been fairly respectable people.
Here in chapter 2, He calls someone the religious people would have viewed as thoroughly disreputable—a tax collector.
We read of Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. In the other Gospels we recognise him as Matthew, the tax collector.
Capernaum was a trading town, a kind of customs checkpoint. So Matthew was likely a customs officer—think of our checkpoints at JB or the airport. He checks what people bring in and out. But his boss is the Roman government, so to the Jews he is a traitor.
He was considered thoroughly disreputable. Tax collectors (publicans) are frequently linked with “sinners”—those who were religiously lax, frowned upon by the strict Jews.
The Saviour’s call is very gracious. It reaches out to the worst, not only to respectable fishermen but to those everyone else looks down on.
His call is also authoritative:
“Follow Me.”
And immediately Matthew arose and followed Him. It is as if the Lord’s word carries its own energy—people are moved to obey.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
For Matthew, this was likely a costly call. The fishermen could perhaps return to their boats if things did not work out. But Matthew, once he left his tax office, probably could not return to that role.
Yet it was also a purposeful call. A man like Matthew would have been literate, systematic, meticulous—good at keeping accounts. Those very skills were later used as he became a Gospel writer.
There is a lesson here: God uses our natural abilities—the upbringing we have, the circumstances that shaped us—for His service. He gave us those abilities in the first place, and He can sanctify them for His glory.
What does Matthew do after being called? Verse 15 tells us that many tax collectors and sinners sat together with Jesus and His disciples in Matthew’s house.
You get the impression Matthew has invited his colleagues and friends to come and meet the Saviour. That is very intelligent evangelism—reaching out to those we are best placed to reach, the people we rub shoulders with daily.
The people God allows us to meet in everyday life are often the people we are most able to reach for Him.
But, as with all service for the Lord, criticism soon comes. Earlier, in verse 7, the scribes reasoned in their hearts. Now, in verse 16, they speak out:
“How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
They are religious snobs. They look down on others and look down on Jesus for mixing with the “offscouring” of society.
We must make a very important distinction here:
He came to save them out of their sins, not to participate in their sins.
Verse 17 is our key verse. When Jesus hears their criticism, He says:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
We get both:
This brings us back to Exodus 15:26, where God reveals Himself as:
“I am the LORD who heals you.”
The Lord Jesus is the Great Physician. He is the same Lord who heals.
He calls sinners to repentance—not the “righteous.” Of course, if we were to put people into boxes:
But the Pharisees considered themselves righteous. The Lord is exposing their self-righteousness. They were not right with God at all.
I’d like to end this doctrinal section with a poem by John Dickie, a 19th-century Scotsman. He was an invalid, a paralysed man most of his life, yet he wrote wonderful letters and poems. This is taken from his book Words of Faith, Hope and Love. The title of the poem is:
“Only the sinner finds the Saviour”
Captioned with our verse: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
I won’t read the whole poem here, but let me share a few verses.
Life was once to me like summer
With its glitter and its smile,
I as thoughtless as the insect
Frolicked through the little while.
All was buoyant life within me,
All was jubilant all around,
Need of Jesus then I felt not,
So I sought Him not, nor found.
Then later he writes:
Well I knew ’twas through Jesus
That the sinner comes to God,
But with what we come to Jesus,
Ah! ’twas here I missed the road.
I was bringing Him obedience
When I should have brought but sin;
So my knocking, though how frantic,
No admittance thus could win.
Then I studied to know better
What I already knew;
The good things that I practiced
Better still I sought to do.
Yet the deeper grew the darkness,
And the silence grew more dread;
So I owned my case was hopeless,
And my soul among the dead.
Then I cast myself, despairing,
On the Saviour’s boundless grace;
Not a hope had I of blessing
If He had not met such case.
And I felt that need so urgent
Scarce on earth could ever be;
So I begged for one so ruined
Mercy instant, mercy free.
And the last verse:
Art is ruinous to cover
Filthy sores with rags more foul;
Let us strip them bare before Him
That His grace may make us whole.
He delights in showing mercy
To a soul that owns its sin;
But the soul that thinks of earning
Not a smile shall ever win.
Only the sinner—only the one who owns his sin—finds the Saviour.
Let me briefly summarise what we have seen over last week and this week.
Two questions for us to think about:
Recently, there was that widely-discussed case in our news. I read an article in which the lawyer representing the person said this:
“Hurt people hurt people.”
That does not justify the crime. But it reminds us that behind many sins and crimes there are layers of hurt and brokenness. And I wonder: How would the Lord Jesus Christ have approached such a person?
I think that is food for thought—how we can learn from the Lord’s example in dealing with those we might instinctively look down on.
Just a brief word, if I may, about feedback for speakers. There is a feedback form, and if you have feedback, please do share it. But may I gently ask that we try to make our feedback objective and helpful?
I have received quite a lot of feedback. I will be honest: I felt I may have offended a few people. If you feel I have offended you, please come and speak to me. I would genuinely appreciate that. Please do not think I do not want to hear from you—I would love to hear from you.
For the other speakers as well, please try to give feedback in a way that helps them improve objectively, in love.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee that today we have learned how our Lord Jesus Christ is the Great Healer, the One who can heal all of us. And more importantly than our bodily needs and practical needs, we thank Thee that He is the One who heals us from our deepest spiritual depravity.
We thank Thee that today we remember our Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the grave. Because He has risen, we have every hope in Him to cure us from all our sins and iniquities.
We thank Thee for such a Saviour—One who helps us in our greatest need. Now, as we depart from here and go our separate ways to our various ministries, we pray that Thou wilt continue to bless us and guide us in the days ahead.
We pray all this in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Messages: 28
