We’ve sung it since childhood: He’s got the whole world in his hands. Yet when the personal “you and me” gets stripped away, what’s left is a distant abstraction. In Matthew 8 a leper kneels and forces the real question—does the Lord who can hold everything actually will to hold him?

Study Questions

The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.

The leper says “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” expressing confidence in Jesus’s power while remaining uncertain about His willingness. How does holding both of these truths together—God’s ability and His willingness—shape the way you pray and trust Him in situations that feel impossible?
Jesus deliberately stretches out His hand and touches the leper rather than simply speaking a word of healing. What does this intentional physical contact reveal about how God restores not just physical conditions but dignity and relationship, and where do you most need that kind of personal touch from Him?
The sermon draws a contrast between seeing Jesus as merely a great teacher or moral philosopher versus recognizing Him as Lord of the universe. How has your own understanding of who Jesus is shaped the way you bring your needs and fears to Him?
Jesus instructs the healed leper to go to the temple and present himself to the priest before telling anyone about his healing. What does this reveal about Jesus’s relationship to God’s law, and how does it challenge the idea that grace and obedience are in tension?
The preacher describes the tension between serving a crowd and caring for individuals, noting that Jesus—because He is God—can attend to every person at once. How should this shape the way your church community balances collective ministry with personal care, and where do you see that tension most clearly in your own context?
The sermon uses the image of a person dangling from a rooftop, clinging on rather than trusting God to catch them. In what specific areas of your life are you still flailing rather than releasing control, and what would genuine trust look like in those areas?

Transcript

This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.

It is, and he’s got the whole world, it is, and he’s got the whole world. It is, and he’s got the whole world, it is, and he’s got you and me, brother, in his hands. He’s got you and me, sister, in his hands. He’s got you and me, brother, in his hands. He’s got the whole world, it is, and he’s got the whole world, it is, and he’s got you and me, brother, in his hands.

So interesting as we begin with that tonight, hearing everyone starting to sing along to it. We know that little spiritual, don’t we? He’s got the whole world and you. Going back even before that, actually, the first published copy of it was in 1927. But it did skyrocket in the 50s, and ever since, it’s become, if there’s a recording artist who wants to throw in some more spiritual-type song, it’s often a choice to go to, that you can work that in there and people will be able to sing along.

It’s something that so many of us know by heart, and it’s been passed down from generation to generation. In fact, in England, they have a songbook of worship songs that was created specifically to give to the schools so that they could sing in joint assemblies and so on. And this is one of the songs in it. Well, I was curious about that. I thought that’s interesting. I’m surprised today’s modern British government continues to post, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” So I went and decided to look it up and see what I could find.

They do have it, and it does indeed say, “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” but what was striking to me is it lost the personal aspect. “He’s got you and me, brother,” “You and me, sister” was gone. It was just, “He’s got everybody.” And if you follow how sometimes people will tweak songs and try to remove things, it may not be the most offensive change, nor were any of the others. It became much more environmentally focused rather than on the different things like watching out for little babies and so on that we see in the traditional spiritual. But that one change really struck me because I think part of the reason that song has remained near and dear is because it reminds us that God isn’t just the God who can hold the whole world, but as he holds the whole world, he has you and he has me in his hands. Not just a vague, abstract everybody, but you and me.

And as I read that modified version, it made me sad, not because it was untrue, but because it had lost the fact that the God who can hold the world holds you specifically, holds me specifically. We’re going to be in a new series on Matthew chapter eight, and that’s what He’s got the whole world in his hands is going to be about. As we go through that chapter of the gospel, we’ve been working our way slowly over time through parts of the gospel of Matthew.

What we see is God caring for individuals. And yes, he cares for individuals to communicate that he cares for everyone— you and me included— but specifically so we can say you and me, not merely people. I think it’s so precious and important because, for many of us, at least if you wrestle with and you come to the conclusion that God exists, right? And that’s not necessarily given in our world in general. Certainly, if you look at statistics in England, I guess I should be thankful they’re singing anything about God at all, because the percentage of people that say that religion is important to them, who then can go further and say that the God of the Bible is important to them, is ever shrinking. But when you look at it from the perspective of the Bible, it’s not shrinking.

But once you come to the conclusion there’s something out there or someone out there, it’s so important that you make the jump to the God who’s revealed himself in his word, who isn’t just the God out there, but the God who actually dwells in us and cares about us. Let’s pray tonight as we find ourselves in Matthew 8, that we hear just how much he cares specifically about you and about me. Let’s pray.

Father, we do pray that you would help us, that as we study your word, we wouldn’t merely hear about how you have the whole world abstractly in your hands. But as we see your care for individuals, you remind us that that care was not just for a moment, but you continue to care about individuals. You know me. You know each person in this church, each person in our online family that’s on the chat tonight or watching tonight, those who are traveling. You know everyone around us. You know this city. As we look out at this city, every single person is known to you, for you are the creator of each and every one. We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.

So just a little setting. It always helps to remember where we are. Over the first few years of Little Hills, we went through the Sermon on the Mount. As we did that, in fact, that’s where we started as a church in person. We started on the Sermon on the Mount. We see Jesus teaching about basic principles of what we should believe and how we should live. He gives a lot of really sound teaching.

And according to Matthew, what we see here in Matthew 8, if you want to turn there in your Bible with me, is that Jesus is now coming down the mountain. And the question is, when he’s coming down the mountain, when he comes, what is he going to do? Because he said a lot of things. But now he’s going to say, “My kingdom isn’t just a bunch of ideas, it’s a bunch of action as well.” If we turn there to Matthew 8, verse 1, here’s what we read: When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

So Jesus has been teaching all this stuff, but now the question is, what’s he going to do? And the crowd, much of the crowd that’s been starting to follow him, has probably heard about the healings he’s done, but some of them may not have seen them. Maybe some haven’t heard that at all. They’ve just heard about this charismatic teacher. And so I’m sure a lot of people, as this great crowd’s following him, are thinking two things, actually. The first thing they’re probably thinking is, “Wait a second, who let that guy in here, this leper?” Because the lepers were supposed to stay out of the city. They were supposed to stay away from the crowds. And if they saw anyone coming, they were supposed to shout, “Unclean, unclean,” so no one would get near them.

And accidentally pick up their skin disease. Now, if you read more about this, you’ll find all kinds of debate on whether the modern leprosy being discussed here is the same as what we call leprosy today or one of the other contagious skin diseases. In some sense, that doesn’t really matter. There’s a whole class of different diseases that get labeled in the ancient world as leprosy. The key thing is, this person is isolated, and by law, by Old Testament law, is isolated from the rest of the people. He’s supposed to stay away from the crowds. The crowd sees him coming. So, part one: rewind a few years to the beginning of the pandemic when we weren’t sure what was going on exactly, and just the fear. Imagine that, except that you know if you get it, you can’t even say, “Well, maybe I’ll survive it.” If you get it, you might live, but your life’s over because you can no longer participate in anything. You can’t hope that you’re one of the people who recovers. And of course, a few years ago, we didn’t know what was going to happen. And certainly, I think many of us here know people who didn’t survive. We carry that pain with us.

But imagine if you survived a disease, yet you visually now stand out. You visually now stand out, so everyone knows that you are unclean. They don’t say, “Wow, you survived, good job,” or anything like that. They say, “Stay away from me.” And not just because there are scars, but because you actually are still contagious. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t go away. What do you do in a case like that?

Well, the leper clearly knows what he wants to do. He’s heard about Jesus, about his teaching, about his authority—that he doesn’t teach like those other people, that they have something to say, and they sound kind of important. No, Jesus teaches as one who actually can do, that he is, in fact, Lord. You notice here in chapter eight, what does he say? He kneels down, and then he says, “Lord, if you will, to do this, you can heal me.” There’s a lot built into that little scene there.

Now, if a noble person—someone of great importance—came up, could you potentially find yourself kneeling before them, even if they’re not God? Yes, that would have been possible. Were there people who were not God, who were called Lord? Yes, there were. But the leper here, by what he continues to go on to say, seems to indicate he knows exactly whom he’s approaching. As he kneels down and says, “I don’t think he just means a great important person,” because “Lord” then is sort of like “Lord”—like a title, back to England. If you’re a lord or a lady, you have a title. It could be that. But it was also a term used to refer to the God of the Bible, used by the Jews so they didn’t say God’s name and accidentally blaspheme. And I think that’s exactly what this man intends when he uses it.

Because he knows that the greatest lords of the earth, the great rulers and powers, could do a lot of things, but they couldn’t heal leprosy. It was a life sentence, a cruel life sentence, where you continue to live—at least for a long time. Eventually, secondary infections and so on will catch up with you, but you live for a long time. So you get to watch yourself degrade, and do so all alone because no one wants to be around you.

He knew that. But he comes up to Jesus and he says, “If you will, you can heal me.” Now, could you heal me? Is it possible that maybe you are, I’ve heard you’re a great teacher and you do some healings, maybe you could heal me? No, he says, “You can heal me.” And I think in that, he’s showing something that’s so important for us to internalize when we think about God today.

When we’re talking about He has the whole world in his hands, the first thing we need to understand is that that’s not just a nice metaphor—that God really does have the whole world in his hands, that he has the power to do exactly what we need done. That indeed, every breath comes from him. And so I think when this man kneels down, he’s giving an early testimony. He’s saying, “I believe that you are actually the Lord. And because you’re the Lord, I know what you can do.” He puts it all together here.

Now, the challenge for us is that sometimes we say, “I’m not even sure the Lord can do this.” What this passage is challenging us to understand is that the things that feel impossible to us aren’t necessarily impossible. In fact, they’re not impossible. God can do as he wills. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s always going to—right? And that’s the key thing here that the leper also recognizes. God is the sovereign God of the universe. He can do as he wills. And so he says, “If you will, to do this, you can be clean.”

To the extent that he has any doubt at all, his doubt is, “Will Jesus want to do this for me? Or will he react like everyone else does and just get away from me? Because maybe he’s headed to the temple. He has a bunch of followers, and if he gets near me, he’s going to be unclean.” I imagine this man as he’s walking toward Jesus, and his heart’s probably racing because this is the first time he’s intentionally tried to encounter non-leprous people in who knows how long, maybe decades. And he feels his heart beating faster as he’s getting closer and closer to him, really wondering, “Is Jesus going to say, ‘Get away from me, you unclean man’?” But he kneels and he confesses, “He believes Jesus has power.” And in that, he gets something that we often get wrong in this world today.

He doesn’t believe that Jesus is just a great teacher. Well, exclusively. You may think that Jesus is a great teacher. In fact, Jesus is the ultimate teacher. But he isn’t just a great teacher. We should be cautious anytime someone says, “He was a great teacher.” There are a lot of great teachers in the world. They can’t cure leprosy. You know what else they can’t do? They can’t cure anything worse than leprosy, like eternal death. And, as C.S. Lewis once noted, “Who claims that he can isn’t actually a great teacher. He’s a madman.”

So this man comes up to Jesus and he says, “Teacher, you’re a great teacher. You’re a great rabbi.” And he says, “Lord, if you will, to do this, you can.” One of the great challenges of following Jesus is to believe that what’s right to happen in our lives—that—God will bring it about. Now, the challenge often is that we just don’t know if we’re actually doing the thing that God wills. But even once we become clear, this is where God wants me, this is what I’m supposed to be doing—it’s still a question: “God, are you going to let me fall? Am I going to kneel down and say, ‘Lord, if you will,’ and then hear, ‘Meh, I have other things to do’?”

I saw a little video of a cat at Hard Rock Stadium. You can see this cat dangling from the rooftop, and he clearly doesn’t want to fall because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He can see people want to catch him. But until they do, all he hears is enthusiasm. He probably doesn’t hear much else afterward either. I’m sure that cat was terrified. But what struck me is that we’re the cat. Because that cat’s dangling there, a couple of claws stuck in the rooftop, barely hanging on. We’re doing that over and over again in life. We’re dangling, and we look down and see God putting out a flag to catch us—the fans use a rally flag to catch the cat. And we think, “Well, I see that God has this rally flag here to catch people, but I don’t know if he wills to catch me. I don’t know if he’s going to have it in the right spot for me. I might land on the hard concrete right next to the flag.” And then, broken and bleeding, die.

Should I follow God’s calling? It’s important we understand how our God works—that he actually does will to protect us and has the ability to. Because I thought about myself at that stadium. I have terrible aim, as many of you know. If you ever want to get something to me quickly when you come in here and you just throw it to catch, I hope it’s not breakable because it’s probably going to fall. If I’d been there, I’d want to catch that cat. I wouldn’t want him to fall to his death. But I think I’d try to find people with better aim to catch the cat, because I’d be giving a death sentence trying to catch him from that distance, trying to get the flag just right, and make sure to catch him quickly enough, and so on.

The leper, as he sees Jesus coming, says, “I know you can get the flag under me if you want to.” I just need to know if you will. And the first thing we really need to hold onto as Christians is that God has the ability to put the flag under us. A lot of the people following Jesus that day didn’t understand that. They thought, “He can impart some wisdom on us. Maybe sometimes he can even heal us.” But the real question is, do they understand that it wasn’t just a maybe—he definitely can heal them.

Do we understand that? We need to understand who Jesus really is. We, like that leper, need to come to him and kneel down and say, “Lord,” not just as a dignified, important person, a great teacher, a fascinating philosopher, a really nice friend, but as the God of the universe who holds the whole world in his hands. Do we understand that? If we do, we realize he can.

Because the God of the whole universe, the one who could speak the world into existence, the idea that he can heal something—he can fix something—is not just a hope but a statement. But the man did have that big question. That big question: “Is he willing?” The cat, as he looked down, if he understood what those fans below him were trying to do, didn’t have a question of, “Are they willing?” It was more, “Will it work? Will they catch me?”

I think he’d just try to keep his claw up there and hope for the best. And that poor cat, you see him keep his claw on that rooftop as long as possible, flailing, probably hurting his paw. He didn’t know what was going to happen when he fell. And that’s often what we do when we’re unsure if we can trust God. We keep flailing instead of going for the flag.

It’s crucial we get there—trusting that God will catch us. But it doesn’t just stay there either. We go on to verse three, where we see that God isn’t just able—he also does. Look at this: Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately, his leprosy was cleansed. 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.”

The man says, “If you will,” and Jesus says, “I do will.” Jesus’s willingness equals action. And the man with leprosy understands that because he has already confessed his belief in Jesus’s power. But we need to understand these two together—these are two intertwined truths. Part of him having the whole world in his hands is that he can, and part of it is that he does. His will is decisive: when God says, “I want to do something,” he does it.

God’s never going to say, “I want to heal you. I want to empower you to do what I’ve called you to do. I just don’t have enough power.” No. There’s no task or challenge he might have for you or me that he can’t get us over the line on. For this man with leprosy, the most challenging line was being healed of leprosy—not just the disease being removed and no longer contagious, but the signs of the disease being gone so that he could go and be declared clean at the temple.

This means he wouldn’t look leprous any longer. They wouldn’t need to take a sample and send it to a lab. When they looked at him, they would see he was clean. Talk about impossible! Often scars don’t just go away. Many with leprosy lose sensation and parts of their body. It’s a gruesome situation. But this man, because of Jesus, could walk into the temple, be declared clean, and his brokenness would be healed—very personally.

This is where it all comes together. In verse three, Jesus not only says he will be clean but also stretches out his hand and touches him, saying, “I will; be clean.” Can you imagine being touched by Jesus? Anyone here? Wouldn’t you love to feel Jesus’ hand touch you? And to see his nail-pierced hand on your shoulder? Can you imagine? But now, imagine that all the healthy but ordinary people wouldn’t touch you, not just the important dignitaries, not just the king of the universe, or the king of Judah, or the local synagogue leader—that even your own family, your own friends, wouldn’t touch you either. They wouldn’t because you are unclean. They’d risk becoming unclean themselves.

They touch you, and they might become unclean too. Even if they don’t get it from the disease, they’d be temporarily unclean until they went through a ritual to cleanse themselves. But Jesus, who is actually holy, takes his hand and touches this man and heals him by touch. The very thing he’s been deprived of—the very thing that has been completely off-limits, the thing he probably actively tried to prevent—because if he cared about anyone, he would have told them not to touch him, knowing they would only hurt themselves.

It’s like some horrible, perverse version of the Midas touch that not only brings doom to those touched but does so in the most degrading and horrible way. But Jesus touches him. He doesn’t just bump into him accidentally. He’s not approaching and a little eager and accidentally touching him. No, Jesus stretches out to touch him. He’s saying decisively, “I am touching you.”

His fellowship is restored. And what is beautiful about Jesus is that he encounters the unclean and makes it clean. If any of us sinners touch someone ceremonially unclean, what would happen? We’d become unclean. Even if we didn’t catch the disease, we’d have to go through purification. And people did that repeatedly. But when they touch Jesus, they are touching one who is actually holy.

And it’s not just superficial. Jesus doesn’t just give him a quick fix. He restores him spiritually. Part of that restoration is immediately apparent because, in that time, if you became unclean, you couldn’t go to the temple anymore—the place where you encountered God, where you made yourself right with God through offerings. Can you imagine living in a time where the way you experienced forgiveness was through ritual sacrifices, and then you’re told you’re not worthy? How would you process that?

Even uncleanliness itself is not sin. The leper wasn’t sinful just because he was unclean. He was still a sinner like everyone else. But he couldn’t experience the picture of God’s forgiveness through the sacrifice. Here, Jesus is not just restoring him so he doesn’t have to shout “Unclean” anymore. The first thing I want you to do is go to the temple and be declared clean—actually experience being restored to God’s people.

That’s what verse four means. Jesus tells 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.” My point isn’t for him to go run around shouting about his healing. It’s not about a family reunion or mission trips. His command is for him to first experience being restored to the people of God. Go do the ritual, go do the sacrifice, and re-encounter God. And in this, Jesus shows great care for the law.

Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” So what do we see here? Jesus is fulfilling the law. He actually comes to someone unclean, and while the law could declare someone clean or unclean, Jesus, as the author of the law, can make someone clean. The law can only describe it; it cannot do it.

Quick note: I’ve heard some comments about the latest season of The Chosen. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but I know many are enjoying it. In it, Jesus says, “I am the law.” That’s not in scripture. And it’s not helpful in understanding Jesus. Jesus is not the law. Jesus is the author of the law. Jesus is not law himself. He is the fulfillment of the law. And it might seem like splitting hairs, but it’s actually very important. Whenever humans try to dramatize or present God and his word as just the law, they sometimes miss the full picture.

Jesus, as he encounters the law, does not say, “Well, I am the law,” implying he can change it, but rather he respects the law and fulfills it. He’s perfect, holy, good. God does not contradict himself. He doesn’t change the law but changes how we encounter it because now the one who can actually fulfill it is here. He respects the law.

That’s exactly what the leper is experiencing. Jesus can say, “The law couldn’t heal you,” but he can fulfill the law. He can physically heal you because he’s the one who authored the law. He created the world, created you, created the law—he can fulfill it. That’s what Jesus does.

That’s quite amazing, isn’t it? But there’s one more question—why doesn’t Jesus tell him, “Don’t tell anyone” until after he’s been to the temple? And I think it’s because it’s not his time yet. Because if everyone heard about his healing, it would create a mania—a crowd wanting him to heal them, wanting to see miraculous signs. We already see that happening at times in the gospels. And Jesus wants to encounter people and reveal who he is, just like this leper does.

If they’re all focused only on the healing, they won’t see Jesus, the Lord. They’ll see Jesus, the doctor, or even worse, the Messiah who might lead to them trying to overthrow the Roman government, instead of truly recognizing him as Savior. So Jesus is very intentional about when different things should be revealed. And we can be sure, we’ll talk more tomorrow night on Steadfast about this idea of coming to God with the wrong motives—because many people came to Jesus for the wrong reasons, not for his teaching or belief but just for healing.

If you’re leprous, paralyzed, blind, suffering any ailment, and you hear that you could just come to this teacher and be healed, wouldn’t you do it? I think I would. I wouldn’t spend much time questioning who he is or why he’s doing it.

But the point of the healings Jesus does isn’t to become the urgent care provider of first-century Palestine. He’s not just here to heal and then send you off. No, he heals to remind us that he has you and me in his hands—that he cares about each individual. He didn’t just care about the crowd; he cared about the individual.

There’s a constant tension in ministry: serving the crowd versus caring for individuals. If you serve around here, you’ll feel it—the needs of the large group and the needs of the person right in front of you. Maybe it’s at Faithtoberfest, and we’re all hands on deck, working on something, but then someone walks up with a bad day, and that person needs you. We can’t always do both equally well at the same time, and that’s hard.

Often, in ministry, we focus on the crowd over the individual. Not that we should, but it’s a tendency. Sometimes, right before service, when the choice is between coming together as a church or addressing individual needs, the decision affects many. Jesus, however, because he’s God, can pay attention to every individual at the same time.

We don’t have to wonder, “Is this my turn?” because he continually has us in his hands. And by taking the time for this one man, Jesus was showing that he cares about each person. Not all lepers were healed in first-century Israel, not all paralytics could walk, and not all blind received sight. But by caring for those he did heal, Jesus was showing something true for all who trust in him: he cares about each of us too.

Yes, as he walked this earth, he humbled himself—limited himself to a human body, and he didn’t go everywhere at once. He could have, but he didn’t. Yet, in the individual care he showed, he was revealing that he’s here for you.

He’s hinting at something bigger, something much bigger than this leper understood at the time. Still, he at least got a taste of it. As Jesus controlled the news, perhaps it’s because it’s not yet the time for that revelation. But to the man, he communicated, “I actually care about individual people—every single one.” And he ultimately will bring healing, for you, for me, and for all who call on his name and experience salvation.

Someday, we’ll stand before him and see the glory of truly restored fellowship. We’ll be invited into the temple—our God himself—and welcomed because we’ve been made clean by him. That’s what we mean when we say he has the whole world in his hands.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we come before you as those with broken and injured spots. We limp, we struggle. We wrestle to trust that you can and that you do. But your word makes it clear—over and over—that you both can and do. And even if we don’t see it immediately, all who call on your name will be made clean.

We are often tempted to see ourselves as unclean and wonder if you will reach out and touch us. But in truth, you do reach out. With your Spirit, you touch us, and you make us clean and presentable to you. As we come to the table soon, we are invited because we have been purified—your great and merciful care has taken away the leprosy upon us. Would you help us remember and cling to that truth today? We pray in Jesus’ name.