NEW HORIZON 2025 EVENING CELEBRATIONSATURDAY 2 AUGUST 2025 - GILBERT LENNOX
The culture outside your home is very different than the culture inside your home. Those of us older can so easily feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland when things don't work the way we think they ought to. The developments in science and technology and especially now with Ai are challenging enough but it is at the deeper level of attitudes and beliefs, about the basic aspects of our human lives that I think the bigger challenge lies. In the world that I grew up I could assume that most people hold common views of right and wrong, anchored firmly to Judeo-Christian roots. But no longer. The anchors have largely gone. What once seemed so obvious and settled is now unsettled and hotly contested. For example, the idea that biological sex and gender go together or that marriage should be between one man and one woman, once commonly shared, are, as we know, increasingly regarded as belonging only to a bigoted and dangerous lunatic fringe. Now I am old enough to remember the introduction of decimalisation in 1971 and I particularly remember a news interview with a gentleman who I think ran a petrol station in a rural area. And he was asked about how he was looking forward to and preparing for all the changes that were going to be involved. And he gave a rather dismissive smile and replied something to the effect 'Well I'm not worried about it. I don't think it will catch on round here now.' He had to learn what we have all to learn - that while we may not like the way the world is, it is where we live. What it mean to follow Jesus in this strange new world?
What does it mean to follow Jesus in this strange new world? That's the theme of our week together. All the talks including this evening are based on 4 chapters in Matthew's Gospel, the section that immediately follows what we call the Sermon on the Mount - chapters 8 to 11. Here is how this part of Matthew begins. "And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine. For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. When he was come down from the mountain great multitudes followed him." By focusing on the reaction of the crowd, Matthew highlights the 2 major themes that he wants to get across in these chapters - first of all Christ's authority. They were surprised because he taught with authority. And second, the theme of following Jesus. Their response was to follow him. And the 2 things of course go together because once a person truly recognises the authority of Christ, the logical response is to follow him. That's what's involved in being his disciple, in his authority he commands. We respond by following. And Matthew weaves these 2 themes together through these chapters. For example, his authority and the incident that we read involving the centurion's paralysed servant. The centurion tells Jesus "speak the word only and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority." And in chapter 9 Jesus heals a paralysed man to demonstrated the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. And in case we miss the point, Matthew unlike Mark and Luke who relate the same incident gives us the reaction of the crowd in these terms "they glorified God who had given such authority to men." And then at the start of chapter 10 we read that Jesus called his 12 disciples and gave them authority to do various things. Authority, authority, authority stressed on 5 occasions in these chapters. And then the emphasis on following Jesus. The big crowds followed Jesus down the mountain. Well that's a matter of geography but as the section goes on, it develops and we discover that it's more than geography not less than. We have to follow Jesus somewhere but it's more than geography. We read in chapter 8 for example of people volunteering to follow Jesus such as the theologian. He said "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goes." And in response Jesus had to reset the person's expectation of what following him would actually involve. This is more than ticking the button on Facebook, the person you want to follow or Instagram or TikTok or whatever. It is following Jesus because he's cool and you happen to like him at the minute and then we can unfollow later. Following is more than that. And it is also in this section that Matthew tells us about his own conversion and he tells it in these terms. Jesus said "follow me". He didn't say to Matthew, at least it is not recorded "Believe in me and receive eternal life." That's true of course, but what he said was "follow me." Conversion for Matthew and for us means a belief that follows, that allows Jesus in his authority to set the direction for our life. And then in verse 38 of chapter 10 we have the famous statement "And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." So with the basic definition to be Christ's disciple is to accept his authority and to follow him. Let's think a little bit more about the incidents that Matthew presents to us immediately after this big block of teaching that Jesus gave on the mountain.
What amazed the crowd about Jesus' teaching was the self-evident authority with which he taught. They'd never heard anything like it. Their rabbis would normally say things in the name of someone else. So they immediately noticed the different with Jesus and were amazed by it. "You have heard that it was said" Jesus would repeat and then followed it with, "but I tell you" speaking in his name, in his own authority for he is Messiah, Son of God, the authority, the final word on what is right or wrong on what is true spirituality and what is false. Leading up to the very famous final illustration at the very end of the sermon, that the only way to build a life that is able to stand when the storms come is to build it on Christ and his world. And the result was that many followed him. Not everybody but many, because in a confused and confusing world, there are many who seek for a voice that speaks with authority. So let's take encouragement from that, especially those of us involve din teaching and leading, that we continue to hold out the words of Jesus because they are the words that come with authority, the words and the authoritative voice that this world needs. But at the same time, authority is a very tricky concept in our world because there's so much corruption, so much abuse of authority. And that has helped fuel the suspicion about anyone or any institution that claims to have authority. So it raises the question, Ok, he taught with authority but what is the nature of that authority. What does it look like? Can it be trusted? Suppose we were to ask President Putin for example for a demonstration of his authority, what would that look like? Probably it would be some massive display of military might designed to strike fear into you and to impose his will on you through sheer brute force. How does Matthew present Christ's authority? Well he presents us with a leper. I mean out of all the people that he could have presented us with in response to this wonderful sermon, the academics, the theologians, whoever the great and the good, he presents a leper who comes and kneels before Jesus and says, "Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean." The issue for him was not so much as authority and power. It was his character, his willingness. How would this great teacher treat an unclean leper? Would he issue an order - "clean yourself up and then come and talk to me? You are not fit to be in my presence." Well of course not. Jesus reached out and touched the man, saying "I am willing, be clean" and immediately he was healed. There is a world of a difference between commanding clean yourself up and saying "I am willing to make it clean." In that culture whatever the precise skin disease the leper refers to, it was deemed by God's law to make the person unclean, not just physically unclean as a contagious disease and therefore they were separated from people but ceremonially unclean. And so we notice that when the leper was healed, Matthew is careful to tell us what Jesus then instructs him to do, to go and show himself to the priest and to offer the gift Moses commanded as a testimony to them, as a witness to them. Well why to the priest? Why not to the doctor? Well because it was the priest's responsibility to pronounce people either clean or unclean. The condition wasn't simply a physical problem, it was a ceremonial problem. The priest taught the people that God takes uncleanness seriously, uncleanness of all kinds, not just physical but moral and intellectual and spiritual. And so a disease like the skin disease, as well as other conditions such as blindness and so on became metaphors of a desperate level of the human condition. It wasn't an insult to the individual leper or to the individual blind person. It didn't mean that he or she was more sinful than anybody else. But it was a metaphor of what is wrong at that deeper level of humanity. But in what way then was this a testimony to the priests? Well it wasn't a criticism of the priest. It wasn't "go and show yourself to the priests and there you go." No. Jesus wasn't undercutting or criticizing the priest. The simple fact was that the priest couldn't cure anybody. They could only pronounce a person clean or unclean. They couldn't make a person clean. The testimony was here is a someone at last in this world who is able to do what all the priests in the world and all the religion in the world simply cannot do and that is to make a person clean. Just imagine the challenge that would have been to them. I mean, what could they say to such witness, such evidence? Very difficult to say on one hand that you stand for cleanliness and for holiness but at the same time continue to deny the claims of the only one who can make people clean. But tragically that is what many of them did because religion is often the enemy of salvation. But let's make this personal. Because when I listen to Jesus' words, when I read through the Sermon on the Mount, the effect is to expose my uncleanness. His words penetrate deep beneath my often proud veneer, expose what is really going on in my heart in the deepest secret areas of the real me, exposing my mixed motivation, how I really think, exposing my spiritual hypocrisy, exposing my love of self, of going my own way, whatever the cause to others, exposing my jealousy and selfish greed. I feel exposed, unworthy, unclean. So what will he say to me if I come to him, if I come clean about my uncleanness. The leper believed Jesus had the power to do it but was he willing? Well he need not have worried. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying "I will, be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. I want you to try to imagine what that felt like. Someone who hadn't felt the compassionate touch on his life, probably for years, in fear and trembling. No need to say that he was unclean, it was obvious. And coming to this Supreme Teacher with all authority, kneeling before him, wondering if when he looked up, the man would still be there and feeling the touch of his hand on his life. That's what conversion looks like isn't it? Discovering that he is willing and he cam make us clean. Some of us are so aware of how unclean we are, how exposed we are. What an encouragement. This is not religion that tells us try harder, do better, clean yourself up. Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves and makes us clean. And that's what attracted and still attracts millions of people across the world to him. They hear the voice, the authority of his teaching but they feel the touch of the heart of God in their life. A God who doesn't expose their sin in order to condemn them, but exposes it in order to touch them and make them hope.
And then Jesus presents us with another illustration of Christ's authority in this brilliant incident of the Roman centurion and his paralysed servant who came to Jesus asking for his help. And Jesus replied to the man saying "shall I come and heal him?" To which the centurion replies "I am not worthy, I don't deserve you to come under my roof. But speak only the word." Fantastic. He's an army man, trained in understanding the chain of command and now in charge of many soldiers, so used to exercising that authority simply with a word of command because it was linked into a whole system of authority. But now his authority was limited. He could say to the servant, "please get my uniform ready, please tidy the house, please go and look after the horses." The servant couldn't do anything. He's paralysed his authority in one sphere but not in another. But he recognised that Jesus operated at a different level. He recognises authority but vastly superior to his - "speak only the word". He reasoned it out because faith reasons. Jesus doesn't actually need to come down to where my servant is and into my house. I'm not worthy of him doing that. But he doesn't need to do it because he commands all authority. He speaks the word and that's all it takes for my servant to be healed. Because Christ's words are not simply words that bring with them the power to achieve. And Jesus remarked on the centurions faith for this man was a Gentile, not a Jew, not a son of the kingdom to use Jesus' term later on. And yet, says Jesus, look at his faith, so many sons of the kingdom are going to miss out completely. But not this man. Why did they miss out? Why did they not line up like the centurion did and submit to the authority of Christ? Perhaps some of us need to face the same question. Have we lined up to submit ourselves to the authority of Christ? Or do we just admire him from afar? Perhaps you are wondering how could I get that kind of faith? Well, listen to what Paul says about how faith comes. "Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of God." It's not something we work up. Some psychological trick, I believe, I believe, I believe we repeat into the mirror in the morning. It isn't about psychology. This is about listening to the words of Christ and allowing them to transform our lives. And that is why the central task of the disciple is to learn, because a disciple is a learner. We are commanded at the end of this gospel to go into all the world and make learners, those who will sit at the feet of Jesus, take the yoke of Christ' teaching and learn of him.
And that leads to the third story, a beautiful short snippet but wonderful what lies behind it. It involves Peter's mother-in-law. I wonder - did Peter warn his wife that he was bringing this preacher home for tea? You know people come in and the person who's supposed to be responsible maybe for making the dinner is sick and can't do anything. And there's chaos. And that's the kind of something imagine the chaos. And we can see from what eventually happened how gladly Peter's mother-in-law would have served Christ. But she was sick. She couldn't serve anyone. She herself needed to be served. And Jesus saw that. He didn't sit on the outside saying "this is ridiculous, where's my dinner? Do you know who I am? I mean this is ridiculous Peter. You invited the preacher for dinner and this is the way you treat me?" He perceived that the woman had a fever and he touched her serving hand. I think the details are exquisite. He touched her hand, that hand she had used all her life to bless her family, to serve her family, her neighbours, to serve her God was now unable to use it the way she wanted to because she had this fever and Jesus touched her hand. The fever left her. She got up and began to serve him. And as I said, it's a lovely story, but why include it? Why include it here? Because it follows logically on from the previous stories when the Lord has cleansed us and when he has released us from the paralysis of sin, of guilt, of fear, of bondage, of ungodly religion. The response is to serve. When we think of the mercies of God, don't we want to present our bodies, our minds and wills to him in service? It's a logical response. And yet sometimes in life and in our service, we catch fever. The temperature rises. We feel totally out of sorts, weak, stressed. It's hard to think straight when you have a fever, hard to do anything. You just want to lie down, feed a cold, starve a fever. the energy goes, we run out of steam and we need the quiet touch of the Lord Jesus on our lives. To rest in his authority, the authority of his word that never changes and allow him in that process to restore us so that we can serve again.
3 brilliant incidents, 3 different conditions - uncleanness, paralysis, fever. What does it the authority of Jesus look like? Who is this God who commands? He touches the leper who can touch your life the same tonight. He ends the uncleanness. He can touch your life if you come and ask him. So many of us are weighed down by the paralysis of guilt and fear, bondage, trying our best, never feeing good enough. Listen to his words. sit at his feet, take time with him and allow him to speak those words personally into your life. And if have a fever, are tired, exhausted, shattered by service, often unrecognised, unapplauded, find the touch of the Lord. Find rest for yourself.
