Grace in Action: Jesus Christ’s Example

As you know, I have been given a series of sermons on the topic of grace, and I would like to continue with that today. Today I'll be covering the topic of grace in action, as exemplified by Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter was one of Jesus Christ's closest friends and followers, and near the end of his life in the last epistle that is preserved for us from the hand of Peter.

He wrote to Christians encouraging us to do something. In 2 Peter 3 and verse 18, he tells us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, what did Peter mean? If we are to grow in Jesus Christ's grace, what is it that—what does this mean? What is it that we are to grow in? What does it mean to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?

If I could sum it up, and can I tell you where we're going in the sermon today? This would be something of an SPS. What this means is to grow in your capacity and ability to show the same grace that Christ has shown to you and to others. To grow in your capacity and ability to show the same grace that Christ has shown to you and to others.

In other words, to sum that up, what kind of grace was it that Jesus Christ taught and that He lived by His personal example? That He expects us to show, to exhibit in our lives, to live by, and to be a part of our lives and to be evident in our lives to others. How was He a person who exemplified grace by His example?

The prologue to John's Gospel tells us something very interesting. Getting into John 1, the beginning, which begins, in the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, referring to the relationship of the one who would become Jesus Christ and God the Father there. It explains here who Jesus was, and this sets the stage for this discussion of grace as exemplified by Jesus Christ. So skipping down a bit in the prologue, about halfway through John 1, down to verse 14, John tells us, the Word became flesh, the Word that was with God in the beginning and was God, became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So notice how John characterizes the Word, Jesus Christ. He says He was full of grace and truth. The Word, the one through whom God created all things—we won't turn there, but it's in verse 10 of that same chapter—He's the one through whom God created all things, became a living human being.

So we see here that the grace and truth that characterizes God came to us in the form of a flesh and blood human being who lived among us as a human being. I'd like to turn over now to some more of John's writings, not in his gospel but in the first epistle of John. First John 1 and 1 through 3, and I'll read this from the New Living Translation. And here John elaborates some on the thought that he has expressed earlier back here in his gospel.

He says, Here we proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, referring back to what he'd written earlier in John 1.1, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life.

He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. So he's recapping what he'd written earlier in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard. So what John is telling us here is that he and the other disciples, the others of the twelve, beheld the very word of life. As he says here, we saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. In other words, they put their arms around him.

They hugged him. They ate meals with him. They slept with him as they traveled around. During that three and a half years, they were very much a part of his life. They saw it all. They saw how he lived, what he did, and different circumstances, which was a whole part of the rabbi and disciple process there. You follow. You live with your rabbi for a certain number of years because you want to become just like the rabbi. As I've said a number of times here, it's not just to know what the rabbi knows, but to become just like your rabbi. So you live with your rabbi.

You follow him everywhere he goes for a period of several years to see what he does in every circumstance of life. So they were there with him. It was a very profound experience to actually be with Jesus Christ during that period of time and to see how he lived. But as amazing as this is, we see something else that accompanied Jesus Christ when he was born as a helpless human baby there in the flesh.

And John, now we'll go back to the first chapter of the Gospel of John down in verses 15 and 16. And notice something else that accompanied Jesus Christ when he transferred, changed from being divine God with the Father to becoming a flesh and blood human being. Notice what accompanied him at that time. John 1 verses 15 and 16, picking it up from where we just read verse 14 earlier. John, referring to John the Baptizer, bore witness of him and cried out, saying, This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me is preferred before me.

For he was before me. In other words, John is saying he existed before me, which he did with God the Father back in the beginning, back before the creation of all things. But notice what John says next here, verse 16, and of his fullness we have all received and grace for grace. And grace for grace. Interesting thing to throw in here about Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. Of his fullness we have all received and grace for grace. Now that's kind of hard to follow or understand in English.

But the meaning here is simply that we have received through Jesus Christ an abundance of grace. An abundance of grace or favor. I'd like to read this from a few other versions, kind of help us get a better, deeper understanding of the meaning here. The New Living Translation translates, verse 16 here, is from his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

One gracious blessing after another. Or the way the New International Version translates this, from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. One blessing after another. Or Green's Literal Translation, and out of his fullness we all received and grace on top of grace. Grace on top of grace. So put all these together, and one way that we could put it would be to say that grace for grace means abundant grace. This is what the Apostle John saw in the life of Jesus Christ. Favor and blessing that was superior than anything that ever come before, under the previous covenants God had made with human individuals.

We're in a blessing that was better, superior than anything that had ever come before. As he puts it here, grace on grace. You might think of grace piled up. One gracious blessing after another. One gracious favor after another. God just heaping his blessings up until they're overflowing. And John says, this is what came through Jesus Christ, or with Jesus Christ when he came in the flesh. And now, John says, we have grace being extended to us personally by the Word.

The Word. The Word that was with God, and the Word that was God there in the beginning. And it's done in a most astonishing way. The Word who was with God, and was God, the one through whom God had created all things, including the human race, came down from heaven to become a flesh and blood human being himself. Which is mentioned in John 14 that we read earlier. Now this being was a human being himself, and he is giving, and he is showing, and he is exemplifying, and pouring forth God's grace at that time to other people in a way that was astounding.

In a way that nothing had ever been seen like this, to this magnitude, to this abundance before. So what did this grace that Jesus Christ came with, grace upon grace, what did it look like in real life? Well, the Gospels are full of many, many examples of which we'll cover a few of them today. Because the best way to understand grace, previously in the two previous mercigies on this, I've covered how there is no good one English word translation, or equivalent for the word grace, the Hebrew words khen, or the Greek word karis, there.

There's no good one-word translation to sum that up in English. So the reason I wanted to give this sermon is to show exactly what it looks like by example. Because I think the best way to understand grace is to see it in living action, as exemplified through the life of Jesus Christ. So what did he do? How did he exemplify grace?

How did he extend grace to others? How should we understand what he did in these acts of grace? And then we have to ask the all-important question for each of us, which is, what then do we do? How do we live in light of that example that he set? What does it mean for us? And the way we live and the way we interact with other people? So what does grace look like in the life of Jesus Christ? Let's look at several examples now. We'll look at the first one. I'll be projecting all of these on screen up here behind me.

We find the first example for us recorded in Mark 2 and verses 1 through 12. And some of these we've covered previously in our studies on the gospel. Some are new. So some of this may be a little bit of a recap, but then others of you have come in more since we've covered those in the earlier gospel studies. But this will be a good refresher. So pick up the story Mark 2 and verse 1.

And again, he, Jesus, entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house. Immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And he preached a word to them. So what this is saying is there's a house there in Capernaum. Some of you have been there before. You've seen the size of the houses. Most of them are probably roughly the size of the stage broken up into a number of rooms.

So there's this big crowd gathered around there. And people who can't get inside, can't squeeze inside, are gathered at the doors and the windows. They're listening and trying to hear Jesus. And there's such a crowd around there that people can't get any closer. They physically can't get any closer. And verse 3, then we come to the interesting part of the story, then they came to Jesus bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near him, because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, the roof of the house.

These houses in Capernaum have flat roofs, and it's covered. The walls are stone and brick and plaster. But the roofs are wooden beams covered with kind of a reed mat and then with layers of dirt on top of it, maybe about eight to ten inches thick, kind of like a rough equivalent of concrete today, although they're made out of dirt. So these men can't get to Jesus, so they go up the outside stairway, which was common on the houses of that time, and they go up on the roof. And then they uncovered the roof where he was. So when they had broken through the roof, they take sharp sticks or something and they literally punch a hole through this packed dirt and break through the roof.

And then they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. And we shouldn't think of a wooden frame bed, what it's referring to, the common thing that people slept on at that time, was what we would today call a pallet or a thick mat. So you can picture these four men, probably one on each corner, and they're lowering this paralyzed man down into the room where Jesus is there teaching. And you can kind of visualize this, the dirt and dust start falling from the ceiling as Jesus is teaching. And then suddenly a hole opens up and the light comes in and the guy gets lowered down on a blanket down in front of Jesus.

And then picking up the story in verse five, when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you. And Jesus here knows He's going to heal the man, but He gives the man an added bonus. Son, your sins are forgiven you.

And verse six, we'll get back and explain this a little bit more, but some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak blasphemies like this?

Who can forgive sins but God alone? And you know what? The scribes are exactly right because only one being can forgive sins, and that's God. God alone can forgive sins. What they fail to see is that God is there right there before them at that time. And He's just said to this man, Son, your sins are forgiven you. But immediately, verse eight, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reason that way within themselves, He said to them, Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? So Jesus catches them and says exactly what is going on in their hearts.

He says, Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Arise, take up your bed and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, He said to the paralytic, I say to you, Arise, take up your bed and go to your house.

And the scribes had to have been startled, first of all, to see Jesus telling them exactly what they are thinking, that nobody can forgive sins but God alone. But then He also says, take up your bed and go to your house. And then what happens immediately after He arose, immediately after He arose, took up the bed or the pallet and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.

So this is unheard of. A person's sins are forgiven by God right there before their eyes.

And now grace is coming through Jesus Christ's example and is being shown by the Word who was with God and who was God, the Word in the flesh who is now forgiving those sins on the spot.

And the people are rightly amazed at this miracle. This paralyzed man gets up, takes up his pallet and walks out of the room. And everybody sees it. Everybody sees it.

So grace is extended in two ways here, by the man's sins being forgiven and also by the healing that Jesus Christ extends to him, healing this paralyzed man.

Let's move on in the Gospel of Mark 2, chapter 7 now. We find another remarkable example of a healing.

Mark 7, verses 31 through 37. Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, Jesus came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. Then they brought to him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Jesus to put his hand on him.

So this man is deaf, and he also has an impediment in his speech, which, if you've been around deaf people, that's quite common. Because they can't hear their own voices, it's hard for them to properly pronounce words. I've known a number of deaf people over my lifetime, and this is mostly the case in dealing with the deaf. It's not a... nothing they can help. They just simply cannot hear, so it's hard for them to to pronounce words properly. This is probably what is going on with this man. So the man's friends begged Jesus to put his hand on him, to lay hands on him.

And Jesus took him aside from the multitude and put his fingers in his ears, and he spat and touched the man's tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, "'Ephphatha' that is, speaking Aramaic here, be opened.' And immediately the man's ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly." So he is now able to hear, and as it says here, the impediment of his tongue was loose. Now, does that mean there is something physically that is preventing him from talking correctly, or does it simply mean that he was mean? Again, with death, people who have never been able to hear, they don't know how to properly pronounce words. Does God miraculously, miraculously, or does, yeah, is the man's brain miraculously healed so that now he can speak plainly, which he's never been able to do before? I think that's probably the case, but the scripture doesn't say for sure. It just says that the impediment was loosed, and the man can now speak plainly, having never been able to either hear or speak plainly in his life. Then Jesus commanded them that they should tell no one.

And this is interesting. Probably the most disobeyed command of Jesus is what he tells people, don't tell anybody about the healing, and they go out and what do they do? They do it.

That's a very common pattern there, and it's understandable because they're celebrating. They've seen this miraculous wonder, and they want to tell everybody. I mean, if this happened to us, what would our first reaction be? It'd be to go out and tell everybody all this. But the more he commanded them, the more widely they told everybody about it.

And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. So here, as we see in the previous example we just talked about, Jesus extends grace to this man. He extends grace to this man. Grace was something he had to give, and he gives it. And the man's life is forever changed by that act of grace and of mercy and of compassion. Let's turn over now to the book of Luke, chapter 13. We find another amazing healing. Now, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.

Perhaps she has bone loss, scoliosis. We don't know. They wouldn't have known those medical terms at that time, but she has bent over for 18 years and can't straighten herself up.

But when Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, and this was a position in first century synagogues, the man who more or less ran the synagogue, kept everything on track and taken care of and so on.

The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath.

And he said to the crowd, There are six days on which men ought to work, therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. And as I've covered before, one of the Pharisees' rules was you could not heal on the Sabbath day. It was considered work. So you could only heal if it were a matter of life and death. Is this a matter of life and death? No, it's not, because the woman has had this infirmity for 18 years. So you could, so you were not allowed to heal. That's a rule. Among the Pharisees, it was pretty widely accepted at that time.

So this man repeats that rule. There are six days on which men ought to work, therefore come and be healed on any of those days, but not on the Sabbath day. And the Lord answered him and said, Hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath lose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? And that was perfectly acceptable on the Sabbath. Everyone could take their livestock and untie them, take them out of their stall, and lead them to water, and let them drink on the Sabbath day. Everybody knew that. That was perfectly understandable. So Jesus points out the double standard. You can do a good deed to ease the suffering of your animal, your goat, your sheep, your cow, your oxen, your donkey, whatever. And then he says, So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, think of it. For eighteen years that this woman has suffered, shouldn't she be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? And when he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.

So again, this obviously is not a matter of life and death. A woman suffered this way for eighteen years. And notice also something, though. You need to read these accounts carefully, because there's a lot to it that isn't said. Notice that the woman, did she ask Jesus to be healed?

No, she didn't. Jesus comes into the synagogue, and he sees her, and he calls her and says, come to me. He picks her out of the crowd there at the synagogue on that Sabbath, calls him over to him, and he heals her. Why does he do this? Because he's a man of grace.

Because he's a man of compassion and mercy.

And notice also that Jesus uses this as a teachable moment for people, a teachable moment to show the kind of compassion that we should have toward others. We're in circumstances that aren't all that good. Jesus saw this woman who is in need. She's been in this sad, tragic state for eighteen years, and he does what is within his power to alleviate that need. Now, we can't go out and perform miracles. Today, God hasn't given us that power. But he did what he could, and we, the lesson for us, is we should do what we can, what is within our power. And again, I know there are a lot of extenuating circumstances, and in some cases we're giving people things that actually doesn't help them to learn the lessons they need to learn or whatever. But we'll set aside that issue for now, but just to show the kind of attitude that we should have toward others.

Now, some of Jesus's healings become much more revealing and meaningful when we understand the historical and the cultural background of the events. And one of these that we find is in Mark 1, in verses 40 through 44, where Jesus healed a leper. And in those days, the way leprosy was viewed was that if you had leprosy, it was a curse from God because of your sins. We won't turn there, but you can write down in your notes Leviticus 13 verses 45 and 46, where God gives instructions because leprosy is a contagious disease. And being a contagious disease, people were quarantined to prevent the disease from spreading to other people. So people were forced to live outside the camp, as the Bible words it, meaning they could not live within the city or within the town, where they would be in close contact with other people. So they were quarantined, and a leper had to visually signify that he had the disease by wearing torn clothing, unkempt hair, and they also had to cover the lower part of their face. And they would have to cry out anytime people came near them, unclean, unclean, to signify that they did have leprosy to prevent it from spreading.

And leprosy was a horrible disease. If any of you studied that, you can go on the internet. I don't necessarily recommend it, but if you want to learn more, you can go on the internet and find photos of it. But it is a horrible disease. It's a disease of the nerves, and it starts at the extremities.

And a lot of the photos will show people where literally their fingers have fallen off, or their toes have fallen off. And it's progressive, and it infects the body. And as a result of that, lepers were, because it was such a horrible disease, lepers were viewed as having done something so evil that God cursed them with his disease as punishment for their sins.

Now, some diseases at that time were viewed as trials by which you could grow in character or closeness to God, but not leprosy. Leprosy was simply viewed as you were such an evil person that you were cursed by God, and an enemy of God. And because of this, lepers' religious leaders developed strict rules to avoid contact with lepers. No one was allowed to come within six feet of a leper, unless they become contaminated. If the wind was blowing from a leper toward you, you had to stay at least 100 cubits away from that person, approximately 150 feet away. These weren't God's rules, but these were the rules that they established to prevent the spread of disease. And lepers were so detested and so despised, being viewed as enemies of God, cursed by God, that it wasn't long before a leper came to detest himself or herself. So, they're not just physically tormented by this horrible disease. They are mentally tormented as well. Maybe they do view that God is cursing them, because that's what everybody else felt. And seeing this disease progress in your body would make you tend to think this, what have I done that God is cursing me in this way? Maybe I am cursed, and many people, many lepers, probably would have wanted to kill themselves, but they can't even do that, because that's violating the commandment against murder. So, they can't even escape their suffering that way.

And if you were a leper, again, you had to live away from society and from other people.

The only other people you could have contact with were other lepers. So, you have what are called leper colonies, and that's the way the disease has been dealt with over many, many centuries. There are still leper colonies that exist to this day. So, your skin, in addition to losing fingers and toes and so on, your skin would have these oozing, stinking sores on your body, and nobody could touch you. If you were married, your husband or your wife could not touch you. Your children could not touch you. Your friends, your parents, nobody could touch you. You were literally an untouchable. No one could ever hug you. Nobody could ever shake your hand. Nobody could ever pat you on the back. You were literally an untouchable person.

And aside, well, another way, this was so horrible, you're cut off from contact with any other human beings. So, because of that, what did that mean about your relationship with God?

Because, at that day, if you sinned, the only way to get right with God was to go to the temple and offer a sacrifice for your sins. But, if you can't be around other people, how do you do that?

You can't. If you sin, you can never go to the temple. If you have this disease where God is cursed, you can never go to the temple and offer God a sacrifice and say, please God, remove this curse from me. You can't do it. So, you're not only cut off from every single human being, you're cut off from God as well, with no way to ever get right with Him. No way to ever atone for your sin. So, you're basically one of the living dead. You're despised, you're rejected, you're cut off from humankind and also cut off from God. And you would be this way until you died. Abandoned, and faceless, nameless. Nobody cares about you. You have no hope.

And this is the desperate state of this leper who comes to God, comes to Jesus, rather.

With that background, we'll pick up the story, Mark 1 and verse 40. Now, the leper came to Jesus, imploring him, kneeling down to Him. He gets down on his knees, which is an act of devotion and worship and subservience to God, to Jesus. And he says to Him, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And notice the words here, if you are willing, you can make me clean. The man doesn't even ask Jesus for healing. Doesn't even come out and do that. He just simply says, if you are willing, I know you can do this. So he has a very humble attitude, probably motivated by his desperation at his desperate circumstances. And he also has complete faith, though, that Jesus can heal him. We won't turn there, but Luke is a physician. And in Luke's parallel account, he adds the detail that this man is full of leprosy, which probably means his whole body is covered with this oozing, stinking sores and fingers and toes falling off, and he's probably dying. Close to that. But regardless, the man's visual appearance has to be horrible as he comes to Jesus. And then Jesus does something that in that culture is absolutely unthinkable. Unthinkable. Verse 41, then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand, and touched him. Jesus does something that is unthinkable, that is against every rule. He touches the leper, which is against every rule. It's even against the commands from Leviticus.

He touched him and said to him, I am willing to heal you, be cleansed. So he ignores the rule that nobody's supposed to come within six feet of a leper or touch a leper, and he touches the man that others viewed as cursed. And this would have shocked everybody around because nobody does that, because of the danger of contracting leprosy and becoming cursed yourself.

But Jesus didn't contract the man's uncleanness. The man contracted Jesus' cleanliness.

The uncleanness wasn't transferred to Jesus. Jesus' cleanness is transferred to the man.

And right before their eyes, verse 42, as soon as Jesus had spoken immediately, the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. And it's obvious to everybody standing around because suddenly his flesh, instead of oozing and open sores, becomes pure and white and clean. Again, he is cleansed. And the man is obviously cleansed. So what happened to the leprosy?

Well, this went against everything that people would have considered or thought of as true about this man, that he's cursed by God. Now he's obviously been healed before their eyes.

But having healed the leper, Jesus then does something else.

He does something else that's also very important.

Verse 43, and Jesus strictly warned him and sent him away at once, and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone but go your way. Show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded. There's a testimony to them.

So the man is now healed, but why did Jesus then tell him to go to the priest and make the required offerings that are required in a case like this?

That's very, very interesting for those who think Jesus came to do away with the law, because here Jesus tells the man, go to the priest and perform the offerings that are required when you've been cleansed of leprosy. Of course, Jesus doesn't come to do away with the law.

He comes to confirm and uphold the law, as we see in this case. But why does he tell the man this? The man's obviously been cleansed, so what's the point in going to the priest and making the offerings at the temple? This means he's got to go to Jerusalem. He's got to go there and see the priest to be declared clean. Because the man needs something else other than just healing. He needs healing, but he also needs to be restored to the community and to his family.

And Jesus doesn't have the right to do that, because Jesus is not at this point a priest.

Now we know he's our high priest, but at this time he's not. So he tells the man to go to the priest, be certified as having been cleansed of your leprosy, and now you can rejoin the community.

You can rejoin your family. You can be joined again to your wife, your children, your parents, your town, your relatives, everybody. Now you can be touched.

You're no longer unclean. You're no longer an untouchable.

What the man needed, in addition to being healed, was being restored to the community.

And Jesus couldn't do that, not being a priest. So without being pronounced healed and cleansed by a priest, a man would remain an outcast. Cut off from his family and community is spelled out back there in Leviticus 13. So Jesus tells a man to go to the priest to do what was needed for him to be officially pronounced healed or cured. And then he could be restored as a member of the community, but not until then. So Jesus is here, has pronounced, has performed two acts of great grace to this man. He not only heals him of this horrible and disfiguring disease, but he also saw to it that the man is going to be restored to his family, to his friends, to his relatives, to society, and no longer viewed as an untouchable outcast. So Jesus very powerfully transforms this man's life. And this incident has a parallel or many parallels with another healing that's recorded over in Mark's Gospel, Mark 5 and verses 25 through 34. Let's take a look at this one.

We see a similar situation, very similar, a lot of parallels. Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for 12 years and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. Now as with the leper, it's easy to read over this and not really understand what is going on, what this means for that woman, what her life is like.

Because what did this mean in the culture of that time? Well, to have an unglowing flow of blood, it's some disorder, presumably of a reproductive system there. And we won't turn there, but you can write down Leviticus 15 and verse 25. Leviticus 15, 25 is a reference which describes the circumstance. And like a leper, a leper, some woman in this circumstance with an unstoppable, or anyone with an unstoppable flow of blood, is unclean, as a leper is. So what this means in this woman's situation is that if she is married, her husband can never touch her. Her children can't touch her.

If she's unmarried, her parents, her relatives, friends, nobody can touch her.

Like a leper, she is an untouchable outcast. And this has been going on for 18 years. Excuse me, 12 years. 12 years. She hadn't felt human touch for 12 years. From family, from spouse, from friends, anyone. She hadn't been hugged, hadn't been kissed, hadn't been held. Not by her husband, not by her children, not by her family, friends. She's an outcast, just like the leper is.

And to add insult to injury, she's not getting better. She spent all that she has on physicians, and they can't do anything for her.

So she's broke, and she's desperate. Desperate. And she's in a very dark and desperate place.

And she hears about this miracle working rabbi. And what does she do?

Verse 27, when she heard about Jesus, she violates the rules.

She came behind him in the crowd. She's not supposed to be touching anybody.

And she reaches out and she touches the hem of his garment.

For she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well.

And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. So this is astounding. She touches Jesus's garment, and immediately she feels that she's been healed. Maybe, you know, here in Colorado, maybe it's like, you know, in wintertime the air is so dry, and you feel this jolt of static electricity.

There, I think it's probably something like that. She feels this shock or jolt or something that goes through her, and she knows that she's been healed of this affliction she's had for 12 years. But she isn't the only one. Jesus feels it, too. As we read next, verse 30, And Jesus immediately, knowing in himself that power had gone out of him, turned around in the crowd, and said, Who touched my clothes?

But his disciples said to him, You see the multitudes wronging you, and you say, Who touched me?

So again, it's a large crowd of people around, and obviously this woman has touched people as she's worked her way through the crowd to come in behind him and touch his robe.

And he looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. She kneels down, bows down before him, and tells him what happened. And Jesus' response, he said to her daughter, Your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

So again, we see a remarkable story of God's grace and power at work and the life of Jesus Christ, even though in this case it wasn't even His direct doing.

But away God the Father honored this woman's faith by healing her.

So again, just a remarkable story, many parallels there with the story of the leper.

Another area where we see grace personified is in Jesus Christ's concern for children.

The Gospels refer many, many times how Jesus often concerned himself with the needs of other people. That's a constant theme throughout the Gospels. But in His day, children were viewed as a blessing from God, which they are. You can write down Psalm 127, 3-5, Psalm 127, 3-5. But they are also children, as today are often overlooked when it comes to adult matters, such as spiritual discussions. But Jesus, however, would have none of that, and He goes out of His way to show concern to even very young children. And we find this recorded over in Mark 10, verses 13-16. And this is a passage we cover every year when we have the, well, not every year, but those years when we do have children to be blessed, as we've done this last year. Verse 13 of Mark 10, then they brought little children to Him that He might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased. Now, we don't see many times in Scripture where Jesus is greatly displeased, but this is one of them. And what's He ticked at? He's ticked because parents are trying to bring their children to Jesus to be blessed, and the disciples, the twelve, are turning Him away and saying, Don't bother Him with this. You're not important enough for His time. And He's ticked. And He lets that be known. He's greatly displeased. And He says to the disciples, Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them. For if such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. So He uses this as a teachable moment for the disciples. Not only corrects them and says, Hey, listen up.

These children are a better attitude than you do. And He took them, the little children, up in His arms, put His hands on them and blessed them. So let's think about this for a minute. Jesus is involved in what? He is involved in the most important mission for any human being who has ever lived. The most important mission in all the history of humankind. But what does He do when parents bring their little children to Him to be blessed? He takes time out and makes time for that.

Takes time out of His busy schedule to not only to pay attention to them, but to bless them, to lay hands on them and bless them, to ask God for His blessing on those children, as we do in the ceremony that we do today. So to Jesus Christ, what we see here is that no one is too important, or too little, or too small for His time. Even the youngest and tiniest of human beings. That He would treat them just as He treated everyone else with grace, with concern, with mercy, with compassion. And while many of Jesus Christ's miracles are transitioning now to something else, while many of His miracles are one-on-one, in some cases the miracles that He performs affect thousands of people at a time. In this case, we'll read about next a miracle that Jesus performs twice. But I should mention here, too, for accuracy's sake, that Jesus does not Himself take credit for these miracles. He says, and you might want to write this down, John 5 and verse 19, The Son can do nothing of Himself. And John 5 verse 30, I can of Myself do nothing.

And John 8, 28, I do nothing of Myself. What our understanding is, based on these, we tend to use shorthand that Jesus performed this miracle or that miracle. And I've been using that kind of terminology through the sermon today. But I should clarify that Jesus does not take the credit for these. Jesus gives credit to God the Father. He says, I can of Myself. I'm not the one doing the miracles. My Father in heaven is the one doing the miracles. And even the gospel writers use kind of the shorthand, but Jesus makes it plain that the one who's actually performing the miracles is God the Father, as we saw with the healing of the woman who touches Jesus' hem of His garment. Jesus doesn't even know it, but the power goes out and heals the woman. Obviously God the Father is doing that. So I do want to make clear that Jesus does not take credit for this. He gives credit to God the Father. So that little inset, back to the miraculous feedings of the multitudes, Mark 6, verses 34 through 44, to give us a little bit of the background, Jesus is being followed by the crowds pretty much wherever He goes, in large part because of these miracles of healing. So He feels the pressure from the multitudes following Him. So He and the apostles, as it says before this, they depart to a deserted place. They hide out.

Some of us need time to get away from it all, some downtime, and Jesus is no different. He does that, too. So He goes away to a deserted place, as Mark tells us just before this. And then the story picks up in verse 34, where the crowds catch up with Him. And verse 34, and Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep, not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things. So notice here what motivates Jesus. Although He has slipped away into a deserted area for privacy when the crowds catch up, He is moved with compassion for them. So He is a naturally compassionate and empathetic person.

Verse 35, when the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages, and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat.

But Jesus answered and said to the disciples, You give them something to eat.

And they said to Him, Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give them something to eat? This two hundred denarii is approximately a year's wages. So this is a huge crowd, something that would have required the equivalent modern day of tens of thousands of dollars worth of food to feed this crowd. And besides, it's late in the day, and it would have taken time for the crowd to disperse out and find towns and villages to purchase bread to eat there, if that were even possible at this late of an hour in the day. Jesus said to them, How many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they found out, they said five and two fish. Then Jesus commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in ranks in hundreds and fifties. And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them.

And the two fish He divided among them all. So they all ate and were filled.

And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments, and of the fish. So not only feeds the crowd of thousands of people, but gathers up the leftovers because nothing's going to go to waste. And there's twelve baskets full of fragments of fish and bread. Now those who had eaten the loaves were about five thousand men. So about five thousand men, not counting women and children. So this crowd is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 people.

So what was Christ's motivation for doing this? Well, again, we read in verse 34, in Jesus when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion.

He was moved with compassion for them. In other words, He truly and deeply cares for other people.

And He's unwilling to even see people go away hungry for the night, even though they haven't planned ahead. They haven't brought enough food with Him.

But He has compassion, and He feeds the crowd. This is expressed even more deeply the next time over another two chapters, Mark 8. We see this miracle repeated, and we won't cover all of it, but just the introduction to it. Mark 8 in verses 1 through 3. In those days, the multitude being very great, very large, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat. So they've eaten up the food that they brought with them. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way, for some of them have come from afar. So again, He is motivated by what? By compassion. By compassion on the multitude because He truly cares about people. And He shows this care again and again by the healings we've talked about.

But also by, as we see here, He notices something else, that people are simply hungry. They've been following Him for three days, and they've run out of food. And it's too late in the day for them to walk back to their homes and get food. So He feeds them and multiplies again a few loaves and fishes to feed this crowd. This time about about 4,000 men, which including women and children, probably 10, 12, 15,000 people there. So again, we see God's care and God's grace in action and the way Jesus Christ exemplifies it as the Son of God. His compassion leads to other acts of grace as well, including, in multiple cases, raising people from the dead. Let's look at one of these, Luke 7, verses 11 through 17. Now it happened the day after that He went into a city called Nain, and many of His disciples went with Him in a large crowd. And when He came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a large crowd from the city was with her. Then the Lord saw her, when the Lord saw her, He had again compassion on her, and said to her, Do not weep, don't cry. Then He came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried the man stood still. And He said, Young man, I say to you, arise. So He who is dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented, and Jesus presented Him to His mother. Then fear came upon all, and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has risen up among us, and God has visited His people. And this report about Him went throughout all Judea and all the surrounding regions. So again, we have a miracle. But again, notice what is not included in this account. Does the woman ask Jesus to raise her son from the dead? No. Jesus is just out walking along the road with His disciples and encounters His funeral possession coming out of the town. He says, Whoa, wait a minute, don't bury the guy yet.

And He goes over and says to the dead man, rise up. And He does. So we see here, again, Jesus Christ's compassion. He stops the procession and raises the son to life on the spot without being asked. He does it because He's a compassionate and merciful and graceful man.

So He shows grace, God's grace, by unexpectedly giving life to the woman's son.

Now, another thing that's not said here is, but this is especially important to her in this culture, because being a widow, her only son would have done what? Her only son was her Social Security program. Being a widow, she doesn't have anybody else to support her in her old age. So that would have been the son's responsibility. But the son has died. So what does that mean for her? It means she's got a very long and ugly life ahead of her, with nobody to support her and take care of her, with her son dead. So Jesus extends two acts of mercy to the son by raising him to life again, but to the mother, because now she has a son who will take care of her in her old age. So he gives there a double blessing, you might say, blessing her at the moment by giving her back her son, but blessing her in the future, for years into the future, by restoring the son who is going to take care of her for the rest of her life.

Let's look at another example here, because a theme we see many times in the Gospels is that Jesus' enemies try to trap him and accuse him even when it comes to matters of grace and mercy and forgiveness. We find a striking example of this in John 8, verses 2-11. Familiar story, but let's look through this again. Early in the morning, Jesus came again into the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her down in the midst, they said to him, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say? And what is their motivation? This they said, verse 6, testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. And this, as I've covered before, is a rim-ez there. Don't have time to go through and explain that again. You can find that earlier in the sermon on rim-ez. So they continued asking him. They don't quit while they're ahead. They keep pressing the point. They continued asking him. He raised himself up and said to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And again he stoops down and writes on the ground. So Jesus traps them at their own game. They come trying to trap him and discredit him. And he turns the tables and causes him to be convicted by their own conscience. Verse 9, and those who heard it and seeing this rim-ez, being convicted by their conscience went out one by one, beginning with the oldest, even to the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, woman, where are your accusers?

Has no one condemned you? And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. So the woman escapes death by stoning by the slimmest of margins, and she knows it. She was caught in the act. She could have been stoned to death.

She's obviously guilty, and she deserves the penalty of death by stoning, as the law demanded.

But the only thing that saves her is God's saving grace, as exemplified by Jesus Christ.

And He not only arranges the circumstances, well, He does arrange the circumstances so that her life will be spared when she could have easily been put to death. That could have been her last day on earth, suffering death by stoning. What do we learn from this? What does that mean for you and me? Does it have anything to do with us? Well, it has a lot to do with us because her story is our story. Because each one of us was a sinner, condemned to death, and deserving that death penalty.

Caught dead to rights, and our guilt, and our sins. And we deserve the same death penalty that this woman deserves. And what happened to her? Grace, in the form of Jesus Christ.

And He steps in and says, by His words and actions, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

And that's the same instruction He could give to us. Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Change your life. Don't let me see you here in front of me again. Sin no more. So He gives His life for us so that we might be forgiven and have that death penalty removed.

I want to close now with a parable. I've given a lot of examples of God's grace, but Jesus, in His parables, also gives a perfect example of grace to teach us its depth and its magnitude.

As we've seen in these examples, Jesus exemplified God's grace again and again while on earth. And the Gospels are filled with many other examples we could talk about. But He also gives a parable that teaches us about God's grace. It's commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son. It's found over in Luke, chapter 15, verses 11 through 32. Then Jesus said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me that portion of goods that falls to me.

So the father divided to them the two sons his livelihood.

There's a lot that isn't said here, but it takes on a lot deeper meaning when we understand again the cultural background for this. That's one reason why I've recommended these cultural background study Bibles for us because it goes into a lot of things like this.

So in the culture of this day, what would that have meant? Well, it would have been extremely insulting for a son to come to his father and say, give me my share of the inheritance.

Because what is that telling the father? It's telling the father, I wish you were dead.

I wish you were out of my life. And you weren't around to tell me what to do and how to live my life. Any of us ever had that attitude toward our parents?

Probably all of us at some point or another. To ask for one's inheritance while the father is still alive means you've rejected the father. You're rejecting his authority over you.

And of course, that is a blatant violation of the Fifth Commandment of honoring your father and your mother. It's virtually unheard of in that culture for anybody to treat their parent that way.

And this illustration would have been shocking to Jesus's audience, so they would have really paid attention. Because nobody does this. And that's the point.

And not many days after, the younger son, verse 13, gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

Now, to Jesus's Galilean audience, this would have been very much brought to their mind the Gentile area that is just a few miles away from Galilee. This is where Jesus is giving his parable. And you could see into the Gentile area on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the hills rise up there into what's called the Golan Heights today. And literally from Galilee, you could look up and you could see the towns up there, the pagan Gentile towns with their temples and smoke rising from their sacrifices and this kind of thing. So this is where the sun goes.

This is where the sun goes to this pagan area where the Greeks have been, have founded these cities there. They're pagan cities wrapped up in idolatry and sexual sins of all kinds. And today, to use a comparison, we might say the young man drove away and blew his inheritance on wine, women, and song. He went to Vegas and blew thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling on prostitutes and drugs and wine and girls and all of this. That would be a modern day equivalent to it. But the story is very poignant because who's the father? Who's who in the story? When we read the parables, we need to ask ourselves who's who in the story? Who's the father? The father is God, the father.

Who's the prodigal son? That's you and me. We're the prodigal son who at some point has turned our back on God and said we don't want to be a part of our lives anymore. We want to get out from under his thumb and his rules and we want to do things our own way because after all we know so much better than our father does. So the father in the parable representing God is utterly heartbroken at his son's rejection, his foolish actions, that he's grieving over that.

But the father, as all parents know, you can't live your life for your children.

At some point they've got to make their own choices and live or die with those choices.

But back to the parable, verse 14, when the son had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent himself into his and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So this is how we know the son's gone to this pagan gentile area and he ends up feeding the pigs there, slopping the hogs because pigs were very common not just for eating in the pagan countries but also they were an animal who was commonly sacrificed to their pagan gods. So the son is hit rock bottom, his money is run out and when his inheritance runs out, his friends have run out. So his friends are gone and he's in desperate straits and there's a famine and he gets the only job he can, which is feeding the pigs. And he realizes that the party's over and reality is set in and he's hungry and that's the only job he can find is feeding the pigs. And he's so desperate that he would have gladly eaten what he is feeding the pigs. Verse 16, he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate and no one gave him anything. And then something remarkable happens. When he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare and I perish with hunger? So here's the key. He came to himself. He's lost and now he begins to come to his senses and he realizes that his own father's servants have it better than he does.

So he makes up his mind. Verse 18, I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven. I've sinned against God and before you and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Just make me like one of your servants and that'll be better than I have it now. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And what is the father's reaction here? Well, again, who's the father picture in the parable?

It pictures God the father. And what's the father been doing this whole time?

He sees the son from a long way off. What does that mean? It means the father has been looking and hoping that his son will come to his senses and come back. And finally, that day happens when the father looks down the road and he sees a familiar figure off in the distance coming.

And what is the father's reaction?

The father ran, sees him and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And the son said to him, verse 21, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father will have nothing of that.

The father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. A couple of things here. He's so poverty-circuit, he's barefoot. He doesn't even have sandals for his feet. And the robe and the ring are symbols of being accepted back as a member of the family. The ring would be like a family ring with a family crest or symbol on it. And the robe is a... he's not wearing the slave's garment anymore. He's wearing a robe as a member of the family. So he's now accepted... he was not being accepted back as a servant, which is the best he could have reasonably expected, but welcomed back as a full son again. And the father goes on to say, verse 23, And bring the fatted calf here, and kill it. And let us eat, and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. So the primary lesson of this parable is what? It's that our God, our Father in heaven, is a loving Father who never loses His love for His children. No matter if they even turned their back on Him and despise Him and wish He weren't there anymore. He never loses His love, even when we foolishly reject Him and turn our backs on Him.

He still loves us, and He desperately hopes we will come to ourselves and come back to Him.

But He won't force that to happen.

He won't force that to happen, since He's given us freedom of choice.

And sometimes we all have to learn from our mistakes so we can learn wisdom and judgment, and to learn to love God's ways more than anything, and to become more like Him.

And then when we do turn to God, what does He do? According to this parable, He figuratively runs to us, gives us a great pair hug, and says, Welcome back, my son, my daughter. I've missed you.

I love you. And you're back a part of the family. And it's a striking picture of God's love toward us, a striking picture of God's grace toward us, pure grace that we can never do enough to earn or deserve in any way. But there's another lesson here in this parable because there are two signs.

What is the reaction of the other son? The parable goes on to describe a very different reaction from the other son, who had been faithful and never left. Now, his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard his music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what these things mean. And the servant said to him, Your brother is coming, because he has received him safe and sound. Your father is killed, the fatted calf.

But the older son is angry and will not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him. And the son answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years I have been serving you. I never transgressed your commandment at any time, and yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with prostitutes, you kill the fatted calf for him. And notice here the other son doesn't even acknowledge his own brother. What does he refer to him as? This son of yours!

He doesn't even call him his own brother. He doesn't accept his brother back, but rejects and resents him and is angry at his father's compassion and mercy for his brother who has now come to his senses and come back. And the father gently responds to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make Mary and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found.

So this also is a powerful lesson to us. There are two lessons in this parable. One is of God's love to us, but another is, don't be like either brother. Don't be so stupid as to run off and abandon God. But don't be like the other brother either. Don't be ready to cast the first stone at somebody that we might view as a sinner, but instead love them as God loves them and rejoice when a person turns to God. God forgives each of us more than we could ever deserve, and we have to learn to be merciful and forgiving toward others as well, as Jesus Christ teaches again and again and again throughout the Gospels, because this is grace and action. This is what it looks like. So to conclude then, as we have seen, the Gospels are full of example after example of Jesus Christ exemplifying grace in his thoughts, in his action, and in his teaching. I encourage you to read through the Gospels regularly to learn more from his example.

And if we are to do what Peter instructs us to do at the beginning, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, if we were to sum up what we have seen in these passages today, we might say about what this tells us about grace is that grace is the very nature and character of God that he expects us to exemplify in our lives. It is the very nature and character of God that he expects us to exemplify in our lives. So Jesus Christ, as we have seen, is the perfect example of grace and action. And may we all follow that example in every way and the way we live our lives.