Born To Save Me
Matthew 1:21
Introduction:
Patrizia Durante was her name, and she was young, attractive, intelligent, a financial advisor by profession, and was six and a half months pregnant with her first child, when she was diagnosed with acute myloid leukemia.
Acute Myloid Leukemia is a fast acting cancer of the blood cells. Blood cells are formed in the bone marrow, and normally these blood cells would be produced in an orderly, controlled way, as the body needs them. This process helps keep us healthy. But when leukemia develops, the body produces large numbers of abnormal blood cells. In most types of leukemia, the abnormal cells are white blood cells, and they do not function properly.
Since leukemia cells are abnormal, they can’t do what normal blood cells do. They can’t help the body fight infections, so people with leukemia often get infections and have fevers. Also, people with leukemia often have less than enough red blood cells to carry oxygen through the body. In this anemic condition they may look pale, feel weak and tired, and may bleed and bruise easily.
Those diagnosed with leukemia are usually treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, treatment with arsenic trioxide, bone marrow transplants, and in some cases, surgery to remove the spleen may be part of the treatment plan.
As if the disease itself weren’t challenge enough, Patrizia Durante’s pregnancy further complicated and limited the treatment options available. Not wanting to injure her baby, her doctors began treating her with moderate doses of chemotherapy. But to no avail...Patrizia responded not at all. In an effort to become more aggressive with treatment, her doctors induced labour, and Patrizia’s baby was born two months premature...weighing only three and a half pounds. So the baby girl was placed in an incubator while her mother renewed her chemotherapy.
Patrizia was growing more and more ill, and doctors began searching for a possible bone marrow donor. But by March she was so sick that she couldn’t wait any longer for a bone marrow transplant. As a desperate last measure, her doctors infused her with blood taken from her newborn daughter’s umbilical cord. It was risky, because there was the chance that Patrizia’s immune system would reject this infusion. But there was also the possibility that the immune system in the infant’s healthy blood cells would attack the cancerous cells in Patrizia’s body.
That’s exactly what the baby’s blood did to her mother’s leukemia. But the stem cells from the infant’s blood also flooded her mother’s bloodstream, attached themselves to the bone marrow in Patrizia’s bones, and began actually rebuilding her blood system.
The doctor in charge said, “So what is circulating in her veins now is actually her baby’s blood. She has her baby’s blood system at the present time.”
Several years later mother and daughter are healthy and happy, and from a doctor’s point of view, the chances are that Patrizia Durante is cured of leukemia.
When Patrizia Durante told reporters her story, she had this to say about her baby girl...
“She was born to save me.”
I. The Impossibility
A. The Impossible Cure
In Luke 5:12-15, we read the story of a leper who came to Jesus. Leprosy is a disease of the blood, and diseases of the blood are difficult, and often impossible, to sure. The disease carrying cells are part of the blood’s life force, and are carried by the bloodstream to every region of the body...wherever the blood flows, there the disease will be. In the case of leprosy, the diseased cells begin to attack the nerve endings, cutting off feeling. The result is that the leper can inure themselves and not feel it, become infected and not know it, and actually lose extremities and not be distressed. Leprosy moves through the body spreading its tendrils anywhere that the blood flows.
This means that when someone has leprosy, it will be eventually be evident. It can’t be hidden. Cover it up one place, and it will show itself another place. Cover your feet...it will spring up on your hands. Hide your hands...it will spring up on your face. It’s there in your system, in the very blood that is supposed to nourish your body. Its part of you, and you can’t get away from it.
In Bible times, leprosy was a death sentence. It was impossible for someone to be cleansed of leprosy. It could be covered, but not cured. Doctors could address the symptoms, but not provide a solution. Why couldn’t anything be done about leprosy? Because it was a disease that affected the body at it’s most fundamental level, at the place where life sprang from.
B. The Impossible Change
Just as it was impossible to cure leprosy, it is impossible to change human nature. The prophet Jeremiah said, “A black man cannot change the color of his skin. A leopard cannot change his spots. In the same way...you cannot change and do good.” (Jeremiah 13:23)
You can’t change your race...you are born with it. A white person can tan...but it doesn’t change their race. A black person can bleach their skin, but it doesn’t change their race. Leopards can’t change their spots...they are born with them. These characteristics spring from the most basic part of a living creature...the blood.
There are things that you are unable to change about yourself because they are part of your nature...because they are part of you at the most basic level...because they are at the core of your being. You can’t change the fact that you are a sinner...sin is part of your nature...you were born with it. You can’t change the fact that you are going to die...death is inevitable. You can take vitamins and exercise, but you’ll eventually still die. And you can’t avoid the judgment that follows death. The writer of Hebrews said, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.
This can be very frustrating...this fact that you can’t change your nature...especially when you want to do good. Paul expressed his frustration with his human nature in Romans 7:15-20, when he said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I don’t do; but what I hate I do. But it’s no longer I myself who do it, I recognize that it’s sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Because I don’t do the good that I want to do; no, I keep on doing evil. It’s not me that does it, but it’s the sin living in me.
Just like the leper, you too have a parasite in your nature that you can do nothing about. It’s called sin. And just like leprosy, it will eventually destroy you.
You can’t stop being a sinner. It’s part of your nature. There is nothing humanly possible that can be done to change your nature. A murderer can be placed in prison and it stops them from killing, but it hasn’t taken away the nature of a killer. Alcoholics or a drug addicts can be locked in a room, and it stops them from drinking or taking drugs, but it doesn’t change the nature of an addict.
You see, it’s possible for you to be placed in an environment that stops the act of sin...but nothing is going to change the nature of sin. You can’t do anything about it. Psychiatrists can’t, educators can’t, and even religious leaders can’t take it away.
Nothing could be done about leprosy. Nobody could cure leprosy. Nothing can be done about your sin. Nobody can change your nature of sin, nobody can change your desires. But our text in Matthew said that there was Someone born to save the leper, who had the power to change the leper at the most fundamental level, and cleanse him of his leprosy. And this same Someone was born to save us from sin, and change us at the most fundamental level...that of our nature.
Are you having problems with your nature? Are you struggling with things about yourself that you know need to be different, but that you seem powerless to change? Let Jesus begin to work on the situation from the inside out! Let Jesus begin to pour Himself into you until His nature begins to overpower the nature of sin and make you different in the most basic way.
II. Getting An Answer
This man was in a hopeless situation. Nothing could be done for him. No one could help him...nobody but Jesus. So he came to Jesus. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But there’s a lot more to what this man did than you might think...you see, in order to have an answer for his impossible situation, in order to have changed what could not be changed
A. He had to come
Jesus provided the opportunity by making His presence known...the leper had to take advantage of the opportunity by coming to Jesus. Everyone around the leper would have tried to intimidate him, to keep him back. They would have called him names, cursed him, and even thrown rocks at him to keep him back. But he had to come to Jesus regardless of the opinions of others. No matter what anyone else thinks of you this morning, you’ve got to get to Jesus.
B. He came honest
He could make no attempt to hide his condition. He couldn’t pretend to be what he wasn’t. “Jesus, let’s say I had a friend who was a leper, would you heal him?” No, he had to be open with Jesus. “Lord, I’m a leper. I can’t do anything about it, no one can. I’m tired of covering it up. I’m placing it in Your hands.”
C. He came humble
He came and fell on his face. That was the ancient way of humbling yourself. He didn’t come with his head up, proud of what he was...he came humble. He didn’t come giving Jesus instructions about what he wanted Jesus to do for him. “Jesus, take away all the bad stuff, but leave the rest of me alone.” No. What he said was, “Jesus, if you want to, you can make me clean. You can make me pure. You can take away all blemish, all impurity, all filth, every stain. And Jesus, you can do it from the inside out.”
III. The Answer
A. Jesus touches you
Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the leper. This was a violation of law, custom. No one was supposed to reach out to the leper. When you feel all alone, and there’s no one that wants to trouble themselves with your need, that’s when Jesus touches you.
B. Jesus speaks to you
Jesus was God gift-wrapped in a human package. When Jesus spoke to the leper, it was the Voice of God coming through human vocal cords. And when God speaks, things happen. God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. Jesus spoke to the storm, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind and the waves obeyed him. When Jesus speaks, things happen. Jesus spoke to the leper. “I want to cleanse you. It is My will to cleanse you. Be clean.”
When Jesus speaks to you, something is going to happen. He had the power to speak to demons, and they had to flee. He had the power to speak to a dead man, and call him back to life. And He has the power to speak to your impossible situation, and bring change. “You don’t understand, pastor! I can’t change!” Let Jesus speak to you. Let Him tell you what He wants to do. Something is going to happen when Jesus speaks.
C. Jesus cleanses you
Remember...leprosy was in the blood. It came from the inside out. You couldn’t wash it off. No cream would cure it. It couldn’t be surgically removed. In order for leprosy to be cleansed, cleansing had to come from the inside out.
And that’s just what Jesus did. When the Bible says that immediately his leprosy departed from him, that means far more than just the symptoms being removed. That means the Jesus’ word got way down on the inside and dealt with the disease from the inside out.
And that’s what Jesus does for you. He doesn’t just address the symptoms...He doesn’t just change what you’re doing. No. When Jesus brings cleansing, He gets way down on the inside, and works from the inside out.
Closing:
Jesus told him, Now, go show yourself to those who said it couldn’t be done. Go show your new self to those who said you could never change. Show them what Jesus can do.
This morning, there was someone born to save you. He was born to save you from your sins, born to save you from death, and born to save you from hell. Struggling with yourself? You need a transfusion! You need to let the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse you from all sin...from the inside out.
