PowerPoint Free Download Here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mql1wl0bsj4oxhoa8bfxa/Matthew-8-Every-Life-Valued.pptx?rlkey=p01muir83avdwp5w8sv8791pu&st=wuk1uv10&dl=0
Teaching Manuscript Free Download Here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bpce9i9ksiyvnhhob6ccj/Every-Life-Valued-Matthew-8.docx?rlkey=lj142j9aqly6hs9ewf7opawb8&st=nmtaas1v&dl=0
Title: Every Life Valued
Theme: Jesus values every person.
Text: Matthew 8:1-4,14-17; 9:1-8
Memory Verse: Matthew 8:3, “And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”
Each person is an image bearer, and each life should be valued. God created and authored life, and every life from the unborn life in the womb, to the most helpless and vulnerable in our world, all life is to be given the same valuation that God gives it. We need God’s help from His Word to see others the way God does. How do people feel valued or unvalued?
In Matthew 8:1-9:8 we see Jesus healing, doing miracles, listening, loving, showing compassion, teaching abut the Kingdom and ascribing value to everyone he encounters.
Jesus heals a centurion’s servant and Peter’s sick Mother-in-law who immediately upon being healed wanted to serve Jesus and His disciples.
After coming down from the ,mountain Jesus is surrounded by needs and one of those individuals was a leper, thrown aside by everyone, but not Jesus. Headed across the Sea of Galilee a scribe asks to follow, but Jesus tells him there would be hardship and another wants to follow but couldn’t because he wanted to delay. He had other priorities that got in the way of immediately following Jesus, and Jesus can’t be someone we give second place to or sideline when it’s convenient; we have to make Him our all. Things did get harder when a storm arose, the disciples feared, Jesus calmed the storm in an instant, and admonished them for their lack of faith. Getting to the other side, Jesus casts out the demons from the two demoniacs when the demons were cast into some herdsmen’s pigs. Rather than rejoicing and celebrating the deliverance of the two former-demon-possessed men, they get to the city-dwellers first and Jesus and his disciples are begged to leave, essentially kicked out, rejected.
Jesus then heals the paralyzed man due to the faith of his friends and much to the consternation of the scribes.
Matthew presents Jesus as the prophesied, Messianic King, and each of these miracles corroborates and presents Him in this way, noting His authority over each broken, evil, and fallen situation he encountered.
- Leprosy (Matt. 8:1-4)
1 When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. 2 And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 3 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”
(v. 1) Jesus gave people personal attention.
(v. 2) As the leper approached Jesus, they most likely shouted at him and about him, “Unclean!” (Lev. 13:45). Despite not being allowed to leave the leper colony, the leper came out of isolation and loneliness and got to Jesus (Lev. 13:46; Num. 5:2-3). He acknowledged Jesus’s Lordship (again, Messianic King theme emphasized here), possibly acknowledging His need for salvation and acknowledgement that Jesus was God, and the only One who could save him.
(v. 3) Jesus could have spoken to him to heal him as He did in other instances (Matt. 8:5-13; 9:6), but here he touched him. Why? Jesus would have incurred his leprous identity and been relegated to the leper colony if he failed to heal him, but he did in fact heal Him. No one could argue with it.
Gospel: Christ had set him free of his leprosy and he was free indeed (John 8:36).
So Christ has done with the disease of sin for all who call on Him.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV)
(v. 4) Despite the unimaginable joy of the leper, Jesus told him to keep it to themselves and follow the procedure the law required that he present himself to a priest and be officially declared cleansed (Lev. 13-15). In this way the community in time would receive a verified testimony of cleansing.
Key Doctrine: Man
“The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.”
Genesis 1:26-30, “26 Then God said, “Let us make man[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.”
Psalm 8:3-6, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings[a]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,”
- Fever and Demon-Possession (Matt. 8:14-17)
14 And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
(v. 14) After healing the leper and a centurion’s servant (vv. 5-13), Jesus visited Peter’s house. Some scholars think Peter’s house may have become Jesus’s home after he left Nazareth. Jesus’s visit occurred shortly after He came to Capernaum with his new disciples (Mark 1:21).
(v. 15) In His touch Jesus showed both personal care and proximity between the healer, the ailment, and the soon-to-be-healed woman. No words, no big elocution or amazing speech, just a simple, compassionate healing touch. She immediately started serving them.
(v. 16) His fame spread and many more came for healing and no-doubt to be dispossessed of the demonic possession (Mark 1:21-28). It’s noteworthy that they came at night, possibly to avoid the stigmatization of others.
(v. 17) Matthew highlights here that Jesus’s public healing ministry was prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah 53:4, taking our illnesses and healing us. In this section of Isaiah it’s describing Jesus as the Suffering Servant, suffering to save us, not far off, removed, or uncaring. There was a purposeful, Messianic fulfilling of Scripture in Jesus’s ministry.
- Paralysis (Matt. 9:1-8)
1 And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. 2 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” 3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 7 And he rose and went home. 8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
(v. 1) After caring for individuals and large crowds alike, Jesus crosses over to the Gadarenes where He frees two demon-possessed men, and is run out of town for it. could be Jesus casting the demons into the pigs wasn’t well received. The livelihood of the herdsmen was jeopardized. Blinded by the loss of dollar signs they were too distracted to rejoice at what God in Human flesh was doing. Jesus simply makes His departure, not argumentation or further confrontation.
(v. 2) Several days go by most likely and then Jesus is teaching and heals the paralytic, commending the faith of his friends.
(vv. 3-7) The scribes wanted to critique Jesus and catch Him in the sin of blasphemy, a capital offense (Lev. 24:16). Jesus forgives sin, demonstrates His omniscience of their thoughts, heals the man, and demonstrates His teaching authority on top of all of this, all commending Him to them as the Messianic King; using His messianic title Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14), fully God and fully human (Matt. 24:27; 25:31). No one could argue with this man’s healing or with the Healer when the man got up and walked on his own two feet home.
(v. 8) Conclusion: The fear of the crowd gathered there shows their awe and wonder, as well as their hallowed reverence and worship. It’s important that we serve, care for, come alongside, and help the hurting, and most-of-all bring them to the feet of Jesus for eternal life and hope.
Caleb Walker 
Leave a comment