Jesus Heals the Paralyzed Man | Week 15

We’ve been in a sermon series where we’ve been looking at some of the encounters that Jesus had with people that I would guess kind of turned their lives upside down. And I hope that what you’ve discovered is that what Jesus did in those moments for those his people is supposed to be what he does for each of us. Jesus’s words and his thoughts for those people 2000 years ago, in many ways are his thoughts, encouragement and words for all of us as he speaks into our experiences. I believe just as God did for them, Jesus hopes to reshape our existence, turn our lives upside down as we read and engage in these amazing encounters. Really what Jesus does in each of these stories is he gives us a choice. He says, hey, look, I can either embrace uncomfortable truths, truths that will make me think differently and live differently, truths that will ultimately reprioritize our values. I can either kind of embrace the truth that Jesus teaches and I can live in the newness of his truth, or I can just sort of disregard them and live in the way I’ve always lived.

And that’s really the question that we have every single time we approach a scripture, God is trying to reshape us, and we have a choice whether we’ll embrace that or whether we’ll disregard it. And so I hope today, as we study out this encounter, that you embrace it, that you hold on to the teachings of Jesus. Again, as we continue our study on the Ministry of Jesus, we’re going to look at one such encounter, and it’s a really familiar story. In fact, I’ve preached on this text several times. It’s the Jesus’s encounter with the paralyzed man again in Mark chapter two. It’s a story where there is an uncomfortable truth, and I want to give you the uncomfortable truth right up front. And then we’ll unpack the passage. Are you with me? All right, here we go. This is the uncomfortable truth. Oftentimes, often, our felt need is not our deepest need, and also our pressing need is not our primary need. And oftentimes the thing we want most is not the thing that we need most. This is what this text is going to present to us today. We’re going to look at it, we’re going to be faced with this, and then we’re going to have to make some decisions.

Last week, we saw in the story of the Ministry of Jesus, Jesus was healing a leper. Joe did such a fantastic job unpacking that verse for us. In the last few weeks, we have been seeing Jesus just heal people. And in fact, it’s been such an explosion of healing that in Mark chapter one, verse 32, the Bible tells us that that evening after sunset, the people brought Jesus. All the sick and demon possessed. Everybody in the town that was sick or demon possessed was brought to Jesus. The whole town gathered at the door. And Jesus healed many with various diseases. Jesus is in his hometown or the base of his Ministry in Capernaum or Capernea. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago right here. We’ve been here for a couple of weeks. We’re going to be here for a couple more weeks. And Jesus has gone from place to place in this little area, kind of preaching the gospel. And now he’s made his way back to Capernaum or Capernum. And everyone, when they hear that Jesus is back in town, as it was when we left him a couple of weeks ago, it happens again and everybody floods to the house of Jesus, of Peter’s mother in law and of Peter. And that’s where we are in the story we’re going to read in Mark, chapter two. We’re going to start in verse one. It says this “A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.” Remember, he had left for a couple of days. He’s preaching in the nearby villages, and he comes home, and this is what it says. “They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door. And he preached the word to them.” Verse three. This is where the plot thickens. “Some men came bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four of them. Now, we don’t know a lot about this paralyzed man, but we can make some assumptions. This man has some able bodied friends. Obviously, they’re the people that brought this man to Jesus. And because of that, we can assume that this man was probably recently paralyzed, that he didn’t grow up paralyzed. And the reason we can make that assumption is because if he was disabled from birth, he would have been seen as a cultural outcast.

He’s not seen as a cultural outcast. It would have been typical for that moment if you were a cultural outcast, to not have any friends who would be interested in carrying you anywhere. So it’s probable that he, by some accident or by some disease, has become paralyzed somewhat recently. He’s injured or who knows? But what we do know about this man and we can make some assumptions. But what we absolutely know, beyond any shadow of a doubt is that this guy is trying to get his life back. That’s what we know. He wants his life back. He longs for some bit of normalcy. He wants to walk again, as you would. He wants to work again, as you would. He wants to live like he used to live. He wants to be normal. By the way, many of the people who come to Church who come to Jesus are looking for the same thing, aren’t they? Just to get their life back. Hey, my marriage is a disaster. My kids are off the rail. My life is a mess. I had things going for me, and now it just feels like they’re slipping out of my hands.

I’m trying to get my life back. I had a sense of faith, but then I grew up and I kind of abandoned the faith. And now I’m trying to get back to it and reclaim the love I had at first. And look, I don’t blame him. This is sort of the way we live, right? Most of us, if we think about our prayer life, if we think about the ways we engage with Jesus, we think about the idea that really what are we thinking about? Mostly we want health, we pray for finances. We want our relationships to be better, and we want some comfort. And none of this stuff is bad, but this is what we look for, right? Like, if you calculated the number of prayers that you prayed this week and you thought about the percentage that had to do with this, I bet you’d be in, like, the 99%. Lord, I bumped my knee. Help me, please. God, there’s someone in my family that’s sick. I would love to see them restored. Lord, there’s some bills here that I just can’t even come close to paying. There is no money. There’s no money to pay for all the things I have to pay for.

I have this job that’s coming up that I would love to have. Relationships. My marriage is struggling. My kids are struggling. Comfort. Lord, just bring me some semblance, some semblance of peace, because I’ve been filled with anxiety and frustration and disappointment, right? So we don’t want to blame this guy because he’s just coming to Jesus for a healing. That’s really why most of us come to Jesus. We go on verse four. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowds, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was laying on. Just imagine this. They’re all these people, thousands of people. The whole village is outside. The whole town has gathered to hear Jesus. And so here are these four guys, and they hear, oh, man, that miracle worker. Oh, yeah, he was here a couple of weeks ago, and apparently he healed everyone’s diseases. I got to go find my friend. My friend is begging on the street because he’s paralyzed now. So these four guys get up, they run over to their friend, and they go, hey, can you be loaded onto this little stretcher thing that we’ve made?

You need to come to this guy named Jesus. He can heal you. Just listen to me. Jesus is in town. He’s a miracle worker. If you get to him, you can get your life back. You won’t have to lay on this mat for the rest of your life. Maybe they had to convince the guy, and that’s why they show up really late. Who knows? But there is this major issue, because when they do show up, there is no room for this guy. There’s no room. Do you ever do Black Friday shopping? Once or twice in my life I’ve tried this. I don’t know why anyone does this, but you show up, right? And you’re like, I’m going to come at a reasonable time. This is like after dinner, after I’ve hung out with my family and talked about all the things I was grateful for. Then I’m going to go buy some new things. So you show up in Black Friday shopping and what you find is that no matter what time you get there, there’s already a line around the building. And you show up and you go, I thought if I got here at 730 at a normal human being time that I would be able to get inside and get the television for $49.95. But that’s never the case, right?

There’s always a line that snakes outside the door. People have been camping out there since 02:00 the day before. And you’re late and you’re really late. Basically, that’s what this guy is dealing with. He shows up and there is nowhere for him to go. Where is he going to go? So his friends have an idea. Here’s the idea. Let’s go on the roof. That’s the idea. Now, we talked about Peter’s house a couple of weeks ago, but let me just tell you about the house one more time. It’s a one story house. There’s a large courtyard in the center or somewhat large courtyard in the center. And there would have been separate rooms. And Jesus is in one of the rooms there and he’s teaching. And you would imagine that everyone is inside the courtyard, outside the doors. They’re just flooding everywhere. It’s a one story house. There would have been stairs on the exterior and they would have had a flat roof. So the friends are going to use the external staircase. They’re going to go on top of the roof. And on the roof they would have found some beams. And in between the beams they would have found little pieces of tar, essentially. Wood, something called thatch, like a mud mixture, straw.

And it would have been packed down. That’s why the Bible says they had to dig through the roof. They’re digging with their hands through the roof. It’s crazy. They start digging and so they’re on the roof. They’re bringing their friends up there or bringing their friend up there. It’s probably really difficult to even get on the roof. They figure out here’s the place Jesus is probably. And they begin to dig and imagine you’re in the house and suddenly you hear a scratching noise. You think, maybe this house has mice. But the lesson continues and Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God. And then the scratching becomes pounding and then they can hear there’s sort of a construction site above their heads as they hear the voices. And everyone is just looking up at this point and the lesson is probably over because there’s a light breaking through the ceiling, and that hole becomes larger and larger. And you would imagine some things just like falling from the rooftop and getting in people’s hair and people picking things out of their hair, like, what is going on? And all of a sudden some faces are peering down through the little hole.

I would imagine Jesus is looking there and going, what is going on? People again, pulling things out of their hair. Again, it’s Peter’s mom’s house probably and probably she’s outside yelling, what are you doing to my house? The hole gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s a sunroof now. And then all of a sudden something starts covering the sun, and there’s a tarp of sorts, and it’s lowering this man on a mat. In the account in Matthew, it says that he was lowered right in front of Jesus. At this point, the Bible doesn’t tell us what happens, but I would imagine that Jesus just smiles at the dude. He looks at this guy and everyone’s wondering, what is Jesus going to say? The roof has been ruined. His four friends are probably peering down, giving them a big thumbs up, like, we got you here. And the guy can’t move. There’s nowhere for him to go. All he wants is his life back. If I could just get in front of this guy, I could get my life back. If I could just get in front of him. In my imagination, the lip on this dude is fluttering.

He’s terrified. He’s looking up at Jesus face, and everyone in the room and everyone outside the room knows exactly why this guy has come. Why is he there? He’s not there to listen to the sermon. He’s not there because he loves Jesus as a teacher. He’s there for one reason. He wants a healing. This is his last hope. And in that moment, in that moment where the tension is thick and everyone in the house and everyone outside the house knows exactly why the guy is there and the need is obvious and the answer is evident and the next step is clear, Jesus uses this opportunity to shine a penetrating light on the truth. And the truth is that in this moment, his greatest need is not what he thinks it is. What Jesus does is he rearranges this guy’s desire to get his life back and to fix the temporary. And he stretches us at the same time to make us think a little bit about what we think is most important. This is the next verse. When Jesus saw their faith, when Jesus saw that they were willing to go to such great lengths to get in front of him, when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, he takes a deep breath.

The silence, I would imagine, is deafening. People are leaning in. What is Jesus going to say? He says, Son. It’s a tender word in the Greek. It literally means, my little child. My little child, my son. You’ve done all this to get to me, son. And then Jesus says this, your sins are forgiven. Now if you’re on the guy on the mat, what are you thinking? Thanks, I guess. Wait. My sins are forgiven? Not really why I came here, buddy. My sins are forgiven. I came for healing, right? I came to get my life back. I came so that I could walk, so that I would have my life restored to the way it was before. I came because you’re a healer. What do you mean my sins are forgiven? Do you feel that? You feel that tension? Imagine just being the dude sitting there. Cool. There’s the tension of the story. And I’m going to let you sit in that tension just for a little bit longer, because in Luke’s account of the story, the Bible adds a really interesting detail. In Luke chapter five, verse 17, it says the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were also sitting there.

The Pharisees are religious legalistic people, and the teachers of the law sort of have the same role. And they’re sort of the leaders of the Jewish faith at the time of Jesus. And so Jesus makes this comment towards them. This is verse six. Now, some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, why does this fellow, this fellow is Jesus, talk like that? He’s blaspheming who can forgive sins but God alone. Okay, so these guys who are sitting there are thinking this isn’t the way that sins are forgiven. They know the law. They understand how sins are forgiven. You can’t, as a normal human being, just announced to another person, Your sins are forgiven and your sins are forgiven. The religious leaders knew that the normal way to forgive sins was complicated and also it was quite costly. It was expensive. If you wanted to have your sins forgiven, first of all, you have to buy an animal, a spotless, lamb, a Dove if you didn’t have enough money, and then you would have to make your way to the temple. So if you were to Capernaum, you’d have to travel about 100 miles to get back to Jerusalem and you would make your way into the temple.

And that would only work if you were an able bodied man. But this guy can’t even walk. So how would he get there? You don’t have to have his four guys lift up on his mat and bring them all the way there. So you pack your bags and you make the journey to the temple and it’s a long way to get there. And by the way, there’s only a handful of experts who can actually forgive sins. And so you get to the temple and you wait because there’s thousands of people wanting to have their sins forgiven. And you’re just one of the thousands. And so you wait.

And you wait and you wait and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait.

And eventually it’s your turn. And finally you get to the top. And you give the priest your animal. And the priest whose robe started white that day, his robe is now Crimson, stained with blood. And he takes your animal in a brutal display of the impact of sin. And he slits its throat, and he fills the blood of the animal in a bowl. And he takes his fingers and he puts it in the bowl, and he spreads it on the altar. And you stand there and you watch as death is the consequence for your sin. It’s gross, it’s bloody. And then he turns to you, and maybe he says to you, Son, your sins are forgiven. I forgot to say, it’s only temporary, because when you sin again, you have to go back, buy yourself another animal, and go through that whole thing again. So the teachers of the law who are standing there are thinking, who does this guy think he is? He can’t just bypass the whole religious system and say to a man, Your sins are forgiven. You can’t just say that. You can’t announce to a random stranger that you don’t know anything about, that your sins are forgiven.

And so you have this tension right? On the mat in front of Jesus is a man who wants his life back. And in the crowd are some Pharisees who know that forgiveness doesn’t happen the way that Jesus just said it happened. They want to keep the status quo. And Jesus, the brilliant Jesus, is in the middle of all of this. By the way, he kind of set up this whole encounter. He has everyone’s undivided attention, and there is so much drama. Verse eight. “Immediately, Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking.” Don’t ever think in front of Jesus if you don’t want him to know what you’re thinking in their hearts. “And he said to them, Why are you thinking these things? He looks right at them and he goes, I know what you’re thinking. And why are you thinking these things?” Verse nine, “which is easier to say to the paralyzed man, Your sins are forgiven? Or to say, Get up, take your mat and walk?” He mentions for the first time that he knows why the paralyzed man has come. By the way, Jesus is not out of touch with this man’s physical needs, just like he’s not out of touch with your physical needs.

He’s not out of touch. He knows exactly why this guy has come. He knows why they went through these great lengths to get in front of Jesus. He knows this man’s pain. He’s felt it. He understands it. He knows what’s urgent to this guy. He knows what’s pressing to this guy. He knows his felt needs. Right? But here’s what’s interesting to me. Jesus looks at this man and doesn’t meet any of his felt needs. Instead just says, Your sins are forgiven. And in that moment, nobody celebrated. Nobody said, amen. In fact, your sins are forgiven made everyone disappointed. So Jesus says, hey, which is easier for me to say? And what is he doing? Again, he’s reminding us of this principle that I told you from the beginning, that his pressing need is not his primary need, that his urgent need is not really what’s most important, that his felt need is not his deepest need. And what he really wants is not really what he needs. Healing is great, but it’s temporary. Now, I’m in the same boat as these people, right? And I think you’re probably in the same place.

When you pray for something and God doesn’t meet your need, oftentimes I can be disappointed. Man, I really thought I needed that. I really thought I wanted that. I thought God would provide. And why has he been absent? I understand that. These are again, are the prayers, right? These are our prayers. Health, finances, relationships, comfort, health, finances, relationship comfort. You know, very rarely if we’re honest with ourselves, if I’m honest with myself, you know what I don’t pray about? Forgiveness. How often do you just go, well, you know what? I want more people in this world to have forgiveness. My guess is that that’s not on the forefront of your mind. What’s on the forefront of your mind are those other things. This is not urgent to us. This is not a felt need. This is not considered even a primary need. And I think this is Jesus’s whole point in this story. He has everybody’s attention. This guy just wants some healing. He wants to get back to work so he can get some wealth. Maybe if he’s healed, he can have some health and he’s healed. He can get a new relationship, have a dog and a kid, all the human comforts.

He just wants to get back to normal. And Jesus point is, hey, if you lose the whole world, what really matters is forgiveness. What really matters is your spiritual needs, Salvation. Hey, brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you to put first things first, because what really matters, what really matters is that you are right before God. It doesn’t matter if you can’t walk, if you can’t see if you can’t talk. It doesn’t matter if you’re poor, if you’re living on the street. What really matters is your relationship with God. Of course, God cares about your physical needs, but man, what’s primary is your relationship with God? Forgiveness should be the miracle you seek. Forgiveness. What’s most important is Salvation. Justification. Being a part of being accepted by a God not based on what you’ve done, but based on who he is. Connection to your father, that’s really what matters. If you think about it, you start unpacking this idea that every felt need in my life. Every felt need in my life is temporary. How long do I have health? For a moment in time. How long do I have beauty? For a moment in time.

How long do I have wealth? For a moment in time. Everything is like a mist. It’s here today and it’s gone tomorrow. And one accident, one car ride, one appointment with your boss who says you’re fired, one engagement with your child who says, I’m gone. Everything can be taken from us. Everything can be taken from us. But you know what can never be taken from you? If you have forgiveness, if you lean and you live in forgiveness and in Salvation. But until we see as God sees, no matter if you’re a Christian or not, Salvation won’t even make it on the list of top 50 things because it doesn’t feel urgent. In the moments of highest need, this doesn’t seem like all that important. When you lose your job, you never get in your knees and you go, thank you, Lord, that I’m saved. When someone is sick in your house, you never think, you know what? Thank you, God, that I’m going to heaven. It doesn’t seem all that important. All those other needs, all those other disfunctions, all those other wants are left on you. And I think the other thing that’s important to know is that the temporary pains, I think, are there to ultimately drive you to seek for eternal comforts.

So forgiveness is what you should really be looking for. This is another way to think about it, right? God allows you to go through temporary struggles so that you will find or have temporary needs that you will then long for something that’s bigger than this and greater than this. Anyway, Jesus has everyone’s attention. He’s stooped down. He’s talked to this guy. He really knows the hearts of his dudes. And then he says this, “but I want you to know that the son of man has authority on Earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” I want you to know that I have authority to remove sins. And so I’m going to show you that I have the authority to remove the consequence of sin. The consequence of sin is death. The earthly consequence of sin is sickness and poverty and injustice and all that sort of stuff. So to show you that I have the authority to deal with the eternal consequences, I’m going to remove the physical consequences of sin. And I’m going to do it with simply a word, I forgive you.

I forgive you.

See, the Bible tells us that sin enters the world and death and disease and all that stuff are brought with it, and they’re brought with it. And someone would say, well, if someone would say, I can forgive your sins, they have to have the authority to demonstrate that they can actually deal with the consequence of sin, right? This is important and this is kind of a biblical principle that you should know. But the reason Jesus healed people physically was to demonstrate that he had the authority to heal them spiritually. So it’s important to know that. That’s why Jesus performed miracles. By the way, every single person that Jesus healed eventually died. Every single person, even Lazarus, who he raised from the dead also died. Every person. So the point of the temporary healing was not the temporary healing, it was to prove that Jesus could heal eternally and spiritually. Jesus doesn’t heal people so they could be well, he heals them to show that he can make them ultimately well, it was temporary evidence of his authority. “So he got up the man, took his mat and walked out in full view of all of them.

This amazed everyone” Man, what a judgment on mankind, right? Forgiveness doesn’t amaze anybody. Healings amazed “and they praised God saying we have never seen anything like this.” The temporary amazed by the temporary passive towards the eternal. I just want to encourage us today. I think this is a rebuke of mankind in many ways. But I want to encourage you and this is just kind of a challenge for you to think about. But put spiritual things first. When you’re thinking about the order of things you pray about, why don’t you put the spiritual stuff first? The stuff that you really need, instead of praying for healing of people? I mean you can pray for that too, but pray for Salvation. Instead of complaining about the government, why don’t you pray that God would save our political leaders? Instead of praying about trying to meet your next financial obligation, why don’t you pray about the Salvation of your boss and your coworkers and your kids and your family and your enemies and government officials? Salvation is what matters. Finding rest in Christ is what matters. Getting to the place of eternal life is what matters. Getting home and fully and finally being with our God is what matters.

What matters is not this world. All this stuff is temporary and it goes away. It will be burned by fire. But you know what will last forever is a relationship with Jesus that lasts forever. And the defining moment, the AHA moment for you will come when you have a perspective that goes what my pressing need is not wealth. My pressing need is not companionship. My most pressing need is Salvation. Jesus has the power. If you kneel down before him, right? If you have the faith to get in front of him, Jesus has the power to look at you and go, hey, you’re forgiven. You’re forgiven. You can be saved from this world. You can get a better life. Your children. The promise is for you and your children, for all who are far off, for all who our Lord our God will call. It’s for your parents. The hope is not in this world. The hope is in a life to come. So instead of embracing and celebrating the temporary miracles, instead of embracing and celebrating temporary moments of justice, instead of embracing the temporary moments when you find a job, instead of making those your greatest celebration, when the doctor says you’re going to be okay, you go home and you celebrate those things.

That’s fine. You celebrate them. But what should be the greatest celebration is that every single day, if you’re a disciple of Jesus, you can get on your knees and go, God, thank you that my name is written in the book of life. Thank you, God, that in the moments of my chaos and my disfunction, you reached your arm out and you gave me a chance to find you. Lord, that is good news. That is good news. My most urgent need was settled when you looked at me and you said, you are forgiven.

Don’t be confused. In this life, you will have the health issues and financial issues and companionship issues, and you will deal with the heaviness of life. But in each of those single moments, you can always get on your knees and thank God that at the very top of the list, the most important thing is that he gave you Salvation. Your urgent Need, our urgent need will simply be a reminder of our ultimate need. In the moments when you’re poor, in the moments when your health is fading, in the moments when you lose a job, when the house is going into foreclosure, in the moments when your relationships are on the rocks, all those urgent needs will just simply be a reminder of the ultimate need that you had from the very beginning, which is, man, I just need to get off this planet and be with God in heaven. That’s it. You can always get down on your knees and thank God for the amazing things that he’s given you. Church Our main need is not the things we think it is, but it always has been and it always will be spiritual.

I love you. Let’s take a moment and let’s pray for our Communion. Father, we come before you and we’re really thankful that you had such a great example for this man where you showed him that his greatest need wasn’t the thing he thought it was. In that moment when he thought he just needed to walk, you helped him understand that really what he needed was heaven. Really what he needed was to be before his Father. I just thank you, God, that you still do that for us today, that you give us opportunities to turn our backs on the world and embrace a culture of Christ. I pray that we’ll have that in our lives. God, that will do that, Lord. I also pray that we’ll have the same heart as the people who came back after seeking and saving the lost and you sent them out and the 72 out you sent them out and they were saying people are submitting to you and Lord, you looked at them and you said, don’t rejoice in any of that rejoice that your name is written in the book of heaven. God and I just pray that that will be our feelings too, God that it doesn’t matter what we have on this Earth.

All this stuff is just temporary. But what really matters is being with you forever. Dad, I ask you today that you would bless us and you would help us to redefine our thinking. To help us think more spiritually. I also want to just acknowledge today that as we take Communion this small bit of juice that represents the blood that you poured on the cross and a bit of bread that represents your body broken. Lord, that as we take that the members here, the people who have committed to making you, Lord, will have a moment where they just can reflect on all the ways that you’ve sacrificed for us. We’ll just remember that you’re willing to give it all up so that we could have lived in pray that we will do the same for others. We thank you, dad. We praise you to Jesus name Amen.