Investigating Jesus—On Forgiveness & Prayer Requests
- Stephen Phelan
- Apr 11, 2010
- Series: Investigating Jesus
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Investigating Jesus—On Forgiveness & Prayer Requests
Lk. 5: 17-26--Mid-City Apr. 11 2010
We’re beginning a new series today where we will be investigating Jesus out of the gospel of Luke. If you are going to become a Christian, then it all hinges on the person of Jesus. In fact, according to the Bible, becoming a Christian means that actually get married to Jesus. So these messages in the next few months will be like going on a date with Jesus to see if he is a guy that you would like to marry. For those of you who have already gotten married to Jesus by faith, then we’ll talk about ways you can strengthen and grow your intimacy.
This morning we have a story and we’re going to read through it slowly and stop and I’ll draw things out verse-by-verse. V17, “One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law.” Didn’t get very far did we. Well, if you want to understand Jesus, you really need to understand the Pharisees because these guys will keep popping up in the gospels and they are always opposing Jesus.
See how it says Pharisees and teachers of the law. Notice you will see these two paired together often—pharisees and teachers of the law. The Pharisees were typically middle class and had no formal education. The scribes were the professionally trained theologians. The Pharisees would gather under one scribe who was their resident, expert theologian and blog about how great he was, put him on their facebook page. They were like the originators of social media.
They were tweeting, 1st century style, the theological information developed by the scribes or teachers of the law. See, the teachers of the law developed a list of rules and explanations that made specific the general principles of the Bible and this was codified into the Torah The Pharisees were the enforcers of Torah. They were like the moral police or Torah police. They gained such power as a pressure group that they were able to coerce the state to kill people (ex: Jesus).
V17 “One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea & Jerusalem, were sitting there.” 2 things. This is taking place in Capernaum, that means that for Pharisees to come from all over Galilee and Judea & Jerusalem, it could have been a 2 or 2 & ½ day walk for some of them just to hear Jesus. Now that is dedication. You see how seriously they take their role as Torah police.
Now at the end of the verse, notice it says they were seated in the house listening to Jesus. Remember, to be seated was usually reserved for the one teaching or the one sitting in a place of authority or judgment.
Think about this. The biggest obstacle to the paralytic coming to receiving forgiveness and healing from Jesus is religious people who are their to pick a theological fight and to sit in judgment. For those of you who are followers of Jesus, let’s don’t live this way. May we not be known as ones who sit in judgment here at Harbor and actually block people from receiving the healing and forgiveness of Jesus. And for those of you who are not Christians, I realize that one of the things that has turned you off is judgmental religious people, many of whom claim to be Christians. Our story encourages you to keep 2 things in mind. First, to get anywhere spiritually, you are, unfortunately, going to need to cut your way through religious people and keep your heart fixed on Jesus, not people. But the other thing you need is some friends who aren’t religious but who know Jesus.
V17b “And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.” V18” Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.” Now when I first read this and heard tiles I immediately started thinking about Spanish-style roofs and what they did was just remove a few tiles. Wrong. See these were flat roofed houses that were made of a very had mud clay with thatch on top. You weren’t just removing a few tiles. No. This is why when Mark tells this story in his gospel he says they dug their way through the roof. Picture this: you go to a random man’s house that you don’t know and get out your shovel and dig your way through his roof. Not exactly the way to get yourself invited back.
But, nonetheless, you have to hand it to them for dedication. Nothing was going to stop them from taking their friend to Jesus. They are like Mission Impossible. You can almost hear the music. Bunch of religious people in the way taking up the best seats, crowds everywhere wanting to get healed—no problem, we’ll dig a hole in the roof and drop you down.
Now for those of you who are followers of Jesus, this should grab you in 2 ways. (1) We all need to be friends like this? To let nothing stop us in taking our friends to Jesus.
We are so easily deterred. “I shouldn’t invite them to church—they might think I am pushy. I would have taken my friend to Jesus, but my friend was busy on Friday from 5:00-5:15 and that is the only slot I had available in my busy week. We all need to be friends like this—that we will stop at nothing to get our friends to Jesus.
(2) We all need friends like this in our life—who will stop at nothing to get us to Jesus, who will fight through whatever obstacles in our lives that are keeping us from Jesus. Warning: friends like this will mess up your life. They will dig through your roof and you won’t like it, but you need it. We all do.
V20, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
First of all, can you imagine the paralytic’s reaction to Jesus’ statement: “Your sins are forgiven.” If I were sitting on that stretcher, I probably would have said something like, “Jesus, that is really cool, but not so much why I came here. See my problem is not so much a sin problem, but I can’t move my arms & legs.”
For those of you that are followers of Jesus, Jesus has done this to you before hasn’t he. You come to Jesus with one thing in mind and his answer leaves you scratching your head. For instance, Mclean Wilson, my good friend and fraternity brother just told me a great story about this. He and his wife have one child and they struggled to get pregnant again. So they start doing what Christians do, “Lord, give us a baby.”
Jesus’ answer: I will give you Christian community. See they couldn’t get pregnant, month after month. So they started sharing with their friends and family their struggle, their pain. And this uber-competent, highly successful couple suddenly seemed approachable. Their friends, many of whom had been intimidated by them but wouldn’t tell them so, began to think, “Man—they bleed too. They cry too. And lo and behold, friendships were forged in the fire of suffering.” They came to Jesus for a baby—he gave them Christian community.
But there is more to Jesus’ answer to them. They said, “Jesus, we want a baby—he said OK I’ll grow your marriage.” our marriage??—we want a baby. OK, I’ll grow your marriage. “In dealing with the trials of trying to get pregnant and through the anxiety/tension surrounding it, Libby and I had some very hard conversations about our marriage (in the realm of intimacy, communication, and love language) that enlightened us to how much more depth there is to each of us and how much deeper the Lord wanted us to go in knowing Him and knowing each other. “ They came to Jesus for a baby—he gave them intimacy in their marriage to him and one another.
All during this time they did testing and just a few months ago I got an email from him saying this, “Fellas, Found out this morning that we are no dice on the preggers front.” The doctors gave them astronomical odds for them to conceive again. So, they start looking into adoption and their hearts were gripped by Ethiopia. So the prayer shifted. It wasn’t just, “Jesus, give us a child, but it was Jesus give us an Ethiopian child.”
Then they noticed that she was a little late. They took a pregnancy test and, lo and behold, it was positive. They went for their first ultrasound and he said the doctor told him 3 words that forever changed his life, “You have 4.” 4—the woman who shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant with one is pregnant with 4.
My friends, we come to Jesus like little kids and we don’t have a clue what we actually need. Jesus, we need a baby. OK, I’ll give you Christian community (scratch?). Jesus, we need a baby. OK, I’ll give you intimacy in your marriage with each other and me (Huh?, but we asked for a baby). Jesus, we need an Ethiopian baby. OK, I’ll give you quadruplets.
See, here is the reality. Eph. 3:20 says “He is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.” He will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. The key is just coming to him. He will do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine. They asked for a baby—they got community, a sweetened marriage, and 4 out of the deal. Now I tell you this story to let you know that often times Jesus’ response will leave you scratching your head.
Now back to our story. The Pharisees hear Jesus’ strange response to this paralytic man being dumped in front of him and look at what they say about it. V21 “The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” The Pharisees aren’t at all happy with what Jesus wants to give him for 2 reasons. (1) this is blasphemy, only God can forgive sins they say in v21, and they were in no way, shape, or form convinced that Jesus was God.
(2) Forgiveness didn’t come by grace for them. You couldn’t give somebody this gift of forgiveness and speak it in a mere word. It must be earned.
Remember, the Pharisees whole lives were constructed around Torah. They were the torah police. And they had constructed a very elaborate, extra-Biblical system for forgiveness.
The Pharisees are offering run of the mill religion 101. Every other religion works this way. You earn your forgiveness by observing Torah. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism—they all say the say thing. Forgiveness comes by your religious effort. God, or the gods, offer forgiveness to those who follow the rules.
Jesus turns religion upside down and says I offer forgiveness. He forgiveness is a matter of grace, not morality. It is a matter of faith, not formal obedience. Notice v20. It says when Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” See, this means that to be a Christian requires one thing—faith in Jesus. To be forgiven requires one thing, faith in Jesus. This was totally opposite from what the Pharisees had been enforcing and they are ticked. If this message of grace gets out, then the nation of Israel is doomed. Our moral fabric will be destroyed.
V22 “Jesus knew what they were thinking.” V22, “Why are you thinking these things in your heart? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”
Now when I first read this sentence, it confused me. Jesus says, which is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” or “Get up and walk.” I thought, “Well, they both are pretty easy to say. No big words. 4 words in each sentence. Both are pretty easy. So what is Jesus getting at.
Here is the point. Jesus is effectively asking, “Which one is easier to do?” Forgiving sins or healing a paralytic. Let me ask you that question. Think with me. Which one do you think it easier. To forgive sins or to heal a paralyzed leg or arm.
What might not be as obvious for us in a Western world was perfectly obvious to them. See there were lots of healers and great prophets in Israel. But only God could forgive sins, that is much harder. Think about it--If Jesus did the thing you are asking him to do, “Say heal you or a friend of cancer, “ in the end you or your friend would still die at 85 or 90 or whatever. That miracle is great-I love healings, but they are only temporary.
Here, Jesus chooses to do both. He performed the lesser act of healing simply to validate that he could also do the greater and more difficult thing: forgive sins. V24 “He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
Now those of you who are skeptical about Christianity are probably saying, “Well, if I saw Jesus do that, then I would believe, but I didn’t.” See my friends who are not followers of Jesus tell me this all the time. It goes something like this, “I would become a Christian if God would cause something to happen in my life that is absolutely unexplainable by any other circumstances.” See what you are saying is that you want a miracle that defies coincidence.
I have 2 responses. (1) A relationship with God is built on faith, not sight. Think about the paralytic and his friends. They commit (faith first)—you dig through the roof and you are all in and after you have put your faith in Jesus, then they experience the miracle of forgiveness and healing. See receiving the Holy Spirit by faith changes everything else. But you must commit first, then experiencing God comes later.
Acts 2: 37-42—there is this amazing place in Acts 2 where there are a bunch of skeptics who here the gospel preached. V37 tells you what happens, 37When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 38Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. Faith first, then the miracles follow.
Well, let me give you another reason that it doesn’t work to say, “God, I will put my faith in you if do some miracle or give me some unexplainable experience.” (2) No miracle will be good enough for you. As humans, we have an infinite capacity for rationalization.
Think about-the Pharisees rationalized away this miracle. .It says in v26 “Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God.” That is, everyone but the Pharisees who had no faith. We know the Pharisees didn’t put their faith in Jesus because this same group continued to hound him and persecute him and eventually crucify him. The Pharisees found a way to rationalize this away and so will you if you are waiting on a miracle or some unexplainable event.
See the only way to experience the wonder of v26, the awe and the supernatural is to put your faith in Jesus,
Then gospel astonishment happens. Filled with awe. Why? B/c Forgiveness is possible. You realize that Jesus became the paralytic in our story. Only He wasn’t stretched out on a stretcher to be healed; he was stretched out on the cross to suffer redemptively so that you and I could taste the forgiveness that our hearts are longing for. Friends, once you see, by faith, that He became paralyzed with our sin so that we could hear God say, “Your sins are forgiven. Get up and walk.” And now you can walk and not be faint, you can run and not grow weary.
It all begins with faith in Jesus. Faith first, then the wonder and awe and miracles start to happen in your life.
