Sin
is fun--for a season. Right? But we need to get a control of sin.
Once
upon a time there was a young man. The
story is in Luke, chapter 5, and he devoted his life to having the high
life. He didn’t have much control over
his life and so he got involved in a lot of sin. Now the Bible does not say if it was drinking, or immorality or anything
else, but eventually this youth lost his vitality and he became paralyzed. Whatever he was doing, he ended up paralyzed
with no hope of recovery. His body was
wasting away, and it affected his mind.
His mind was not what it used to be.
He was languishing away, and he would lie on a mat, and this mat was
about 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. Not
quite the size of what they dig to bury a person in the ground, and he was
confined to that mat for the rest of his life.
He was in pain, as well.
Now
I want you to picture yourself this morning as that man. You are that man. At least a lot of us are.
Are you paralyzed by sin? Do bad
habits keep coming back into your life?
Do you really need some help here?
His
greatest desire was to have his sins forgiven.
That was the biggest thing in his life.
“Lord, I’ve really blown it. I’ve
messed my life up. And I need my sins
forgiven.” He had lived the life of
Riley and he was deeply sorry for it and then the good news came that Jesus was
in his very town. Jesus came right
there where he lived, but the bad news was that he was confined to his mat and
he couldn’t go to Jesus for healing, because he was totally handicapped. He needed a miracle, and he viewed his
spiritual paralysis as being greater than his physical paralysis. And that’s the way you always need to think
of things. Spiritually, that’s the
greatest thing. Don’t be concerned
about your blood pressure. Don’t be
concerned about your heart. Be
concerned about your spiritual heart and your spiritual connection with
Jesus. You know, it’s true that sin is
the greatest illness there is, but Jesus is the greatest healer there is, and
Jesus can take care of your sin problem.
The Creator of the world was in town, and Jesus came to Peter’s house,
and He came into the house with the disciples and with a huge delegation of the
Jewish leaders.
Verse
17 now, of Luke, chapter 5, says that one day He was teaching and the Pharisees
came, the teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee
and from Judea and Jerusalem. They were
sitting there, and the power of the Lord was present for Him to heal the
sick. The power was there, and it says
they came from every village in Galilee.
Every village. How many
villages would that be? This would be a
big crowd of dignitaries. Leaders of
the Jewish religion. They were all there,
and I think Jesus viewed this as His opportunity to convince the Jewish
leadership that honestly He was the Messiah that they were looking for. This was their great opportunity, but, alas
they had not come to hear Jesus. They
had come to hear mistakes. They hadn’t
come to get a blessing. Jesus’ leathery
audience had come to catch Jesus make some type of mistake so they could prove
that he wasn’t the Messiah. They were
critical. They were a bunch of
nitpickers, and they came to find fault with Jesus.
And
I think some people today come to church with that same purpose. They come to find fault with the
service. “Well, we don’t like this,” or
“We don’t like that,” or whatever.
Always come for a blessing and you will always receive a blessing. Right?
Luke,
chapter 5, the last part of verse 17 says the power of the Lord was there, was
present, for Jesus to heal the sick.
How many of those people got healed?
None. How many of them needed
some healing power in their life? They
all do. Do you? I do.
Nobody got healed. Why didn’t
they get healed? They were in the
power-house. Have you ever been in the
Chattanooga power house at the Chickamauga dam? I’ve been down there and seen those big dynamoes underneath the
dam. It’s awesome. They were right there in the
power-house. The power was there and
nobody was getting healed. Why
not? Because they didn’t ask. These synagogue PhD’s were above asking
Jesus to heal them. Is Jesus’ healing
power in your home? I think it is. It’s there.
Jesus has not gone out of the healing business, and so all you have to
do is ask Him. They didn’t ask. Jesus is in every Christian home. That’s my opinion. If you ask Him to come into your home, He’s there. He’s there to give you life. He’s there to give you victory over
defeat. You may say, “Well, I could
never overcome this thing that’s got me.”
Yes, you can through the power of Jesus. The power is there for you to live a victorious life through
Jesus Christ. You just simply have to
get connected to it. I read my Bible, I
study my Bible every day. I did it this
morning before I--I wouldn’t dare leave the house without doing that.
During
this theological summit, four neighborhood friends came to the impaired man’s
home, and he begged them, “Can you help me?
Jesus is in town and I need help,” and they agreed. They volunteered to provide transportation
for this man, and so they picked up his mat and went off, and their mission was
the same as our mission. The same as
our mission ought to be. Our mission is
to bring other people to Jesus. That’s
your mission as a midwife. That’s your
mission as an executive. That’s your
mission in life is to bring other people to Jesus. To get people connected with Jesus.
Peter’s
house had a door. I don’t think they
all came in through the roof every day, do you? It had a door. And the
door was open. Here in Collegedale how
many of you lock your doors at night?
Don’t not raise your hand, but we lock our doors at night, don’t
we? We do. Over there, they leave their doors open in the daytime,
even. In Palestine when the door is
open, there’s no doorbell in Palestine, so you just come in. The door is open, that’s an invitation for
visitors.
I
want to read to you now about the worst verse, one of the worst verses in the
entire Bible. It’s verse 19. Luke 5:19.
This is such a pity that this happened.
Verse 19 says that when they could not find a way to come into the house
because of the crowd. Because of
why? Why couldn’t they find a way to
bring this man to Jesus? Because of
what? Because of the crowd. Such a shame. The crowd stood between the man in need and Jesus. Don’t you ever stand between somebody that
needs Jesus and the person. Don’t do
that. Don’t block their way to
Jesus. Never stand between the needy
and the Saviour. Many in this crowd
were blocking the way. They were
actually a living barrier to Jesus. The
man could not get through because of this crowd. It was impossible for them to reach the Life-giver. Nobody was budging. In fact, they all had their backs turned to
the man that was in need. And we do
that as Christians. We turn our backs
on people that have needs. This is a
shame that this happened here in this verse.
And
it’s still the same today. In my 43
years as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, I have seen it over and over and over
and over again. Somebody comes into the
church, they’re happy, they’re here to worship, and somebody else says
something that cuts them to the heart.
Have you ever seen that? And
they walk out, and they never come back.
Such a shame. They get
hurt. They stop attending. They haven’t set foot in the church for
years. I’ve seen cliques. You know what a church clique is? I’ve seen a clique give the cold shoulder to
others. We need to avoid shunning. Avoid the holy huddle. Have you seen these holy huddles around the
church? You can’t get in there. Have you seen me go in the middle of those
huddles sometimes and just pop up there, and “I’m here. What are you guys talking about?” They don’t like that, but I do it, and I
don’t think they’re all holy huddles.
We need to be inclusive, don’t we?
Include everybody. We need an
open door policy. Give them your
seat. I had a person in one of my
churches, somebody came in and sat in their seat. Do you own that pew? Do you hold title to that pew? Can you take it down to the pawn shop, well
you don’t do that anyway. You don’t
have title to that pew. Nobody
does. You don’t own that pew. If somebody comes and their sitting in your
seat, they’re sitting in Jesus’ seat.
You can find another seat. I
wish that one requirement for membership in the McDonald Road church--Now I
could never pull this off, but I wish that one of the requisites of membership
in this church was that you must warmly greet at least 4 people every Sabbath,
other than your family. A visitor, a
member, somebody new, hopefully, each week.
4 every week, or you can’t be a member here. I wish that that would be.
I can’t enforce that. We should
do that. Greet people. Find out their name. Learn who they are. Don’t just be like a fireman. You come in here and then when it’s time you
go straight out that door, straight to your car. Linger. Get acquainted
with people. Be friends.
You
know, our world has millions of hurting people. They can’t pay their bills. Their kids go to jail. Shame on families like that. We would never be like that. Help them.
Keep the church doors open for them.
There are people in this church struggling with disease, struggling with
sickness. We need to help them. We need to be stretcher bearers. We need to be like those 4 friends.
Again
and again these stretcher carriers tried to push their way in to Jesus. They went to the windows. They went to the doors. The front door. The back door. The sick
man was on the stretcher. They were
trying to help him. His friends may
have thought, “You know, there’s no use.
We can’t get in. We’ll just come
back some other day.” I don’t know why
they just didn’t wait until Jesus was finished, and then when He came out after
the meeting, they could have, but they didn’t.
Maybe they thought, “Well, we’ll just go on home. We’ll try it the next time that Jesus comes into
town.” And then, Sister White says, the
man on the mat thought of the roof, himself.
He thought of the roof. And he
mentioned to his 4 friends, “You know, we could go up on the roof, and you
could take the tiles off of the roof and let me down and there I’d be, right in
front of Jesus, and He would heal me.”
And they agreed. They agreed,
and you know, that’s a desperate idea, but I think sometimes we need to get
desperate about our religion. The Bible
says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So often we’re half asleep during our
prayers. Get fervent about your
religion. Try extraordinary prayer.
All
the houses in Palestine, back in those days, had a--one section of their roof
was a patio-like roof up there, flat roof, made of strong timbers covered with
tiles and thatch maybe, or hardened clay, and people enjoyed the cool evening
air up there. They’d have parties up
there, and go up there to pray. This
invalid had faith. Faith in Jesus,
faith in his friends, faith in the ropes.
I mean, the 4 people are holding the ropes, and if the rope slips, “I’m
going to fall.”
One day I was in the attic over here at our house where we live,
doing something, and attics are dangerous.
In order to walk through the attic, you have to step on the ceiling
joists. You know what those are. The problem is you can’t see them because
they’re covered up with insulation, so you put your foot down, you feel, “Yep,
that’s one.” You step on it. Well, I was going along, trying to get
through there, and I missed, and my foot slipped off of the ceiling joist and
with my weight on it, it went down through the insulation and down through the
drywall and came out the ceiling of my wife’s kitchen. My wife was not very happy. There was insulation all over the place and
drywall, and guess who had to fix it, and so the next time you come to our
house, don’t look up at the kitchen ceiling.
You’ll know what kind of a drywaller I am.
But
the mat man may have thought, “What if the homeowner sues me for tearing up his
ceiling? What if Jesus leaves before we
get through with our vandalism?” But he
persisted. He had faith, and he got his
miracle. You’ve got to do that. You’ve got to persist.
You
know, his friends were willing to do whatever it would take. Faith takes work. It’s work to rip somebody’s roof apart with your bare hands. They didn’t have tools and skil saws. Faith persists. The crowds did not stop the people. Faith is innovative. They
created a skylight in that house. Faith
succeeds. Jesus rewarded their faith. You know, it can be dangerous to invite
Jesus into your house. Peter lost his
roof. It was a good thing that Jesus
was not in the basement or they would have bored a hole right down clear
through floor after floor til they got to Jesus. They were going to do whatever it took and lower this man in
front of Jesus. These 4 roofers moved
into action. The faithful 4 believed
that if they could bring this man into the presence of Jesus, Jesus would heal
him. They had that faith. In fact, the man was willing to be
lowered. Only then could he be raised
up. You have to be lowered before you
can be raised. James, chapter 4, verse
10. ”Humble
yourself and He shall lift you up.” The humble is first.
Now let’s go to verse 19.
It says, “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
I can just picture this happening.
Jesus is there trying to witness to the Pharisees. These religious scholars and representatives
and delegates from all of the synagogues in Galilee, and they hear this
commotion up on the roof. They hear
this zealous scuffling and tearing noises, and everybody thinks, “What is
this?”, and finally dust starts coming down, and plaster starts coming and
dried mud and boards and sawdust. I
don’t know what all they’re doing up there.
They’re tearing the roof apart, and people begin to move over and get
out of the way, and finally it disrupts the whole thing, and I can just see
Peter jumping up. “This is my
house. What’s happening?” And I can just picture Jesus saying, “Peter. Hang with Me here. I know what’s going on.
You’re going to see something great.
Just relax.” Pretty soon there’s
an emerging hole. You could see the
hands tearing away. Pretty soon the
sunlight is coming into the living room, maybe shining on Jesus’ face. All could see this hole gradually taking
place, 3 feet wide, 6 feet long.
Then
they see a stretcher being lowered into the house by the roofers, and I wonder
where they got these four ropes. You
know, it takes coordination to lower somebody on a mat. Have you ever done that? 4 people lowering a man on a mat. If one lowers faster than the others, you
could slip off that thing, and you
know, it takes team effort to save souls.
These 4 people were of one accord.
It takes innovation to save souls.
It takes work to win souls. It
takes risk. They risked being placed in
jail for their vandalism. These
volunteer roofers were crashing the party.
You have to think through the ceiling.
You have to think through the roof.
Are you willing to take a risk?
Are you willing to invite your next door neighbor to a corn roast to get
better acquainted, to establish a relationship with that neighbor and to maybe
lead that neighbor to Jesus. Our ideas
have got to go through the roof.
Luke,
chapter 5, verse 20.
“And when He saw their faith, He said unto him, Man, thy sins be
forgiven thee.” He knew the
man’s greatest desire was for forgiveness of sins. Not healing, and so He forgave his sins. Jesus saw his faith,
their faith. The faith of the
roofers. He saw their faith and He
healed the mat man. The man on the
mat. That’s interesting. He saw their faith. That sort of reminds me of intercessory
prayer. Sometimes we need to intercede
in the lives of people. Somebody may be
so deep into something they can’t help themselves, so they need a counselor. They need some medicine. The need some people praying for them, to intercede
for them.
The
man’s greatest problem was not his unmovable body but his load of
sin. And he desired forgiveness and
before he even spoke, Jesus forgave his sins.
And this shows Jesus’ omniscience, doesn’t it? Jesus was the eternal God.
Verse
21. “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’?"
Jesus
knew their thoughts. Verse 22. “Jesus knew what
they were thinking.”
Jesus
knows your thoughts, as well. He
does. He knows what you’re thinking
right now. And Jesus thinks about you
24 hours a day. Jesus is thinking about
you, with positive thoughts. Loving
you, all the time.
And
so Jesus asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?” Verse 23. “Which is easier to
say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? Which is it?
And
so the Pharisees and the Jewish Seminary professors tried to come up with an
answer to that Pilpul question. Pilpul
is a form of interrogation. The mat man
lay there on his bed. He knew his sins
were forgiven but he was still an invalid.
Still immobile. Still in pain.
All
of us experience the mat. Have you been
on the mat in your life? Have you been
flat out? Have you been disabled? Are you disabled because of sin, because of
disease, because of some defect in birth or whatever? You’re on the mat. You’re
helpless. You’re down and out. You need some friends to help you. To take you to Jesus. To take you to church. How did this man have so many friends? Have you met people that are sick all the
time and you ask them, “How are you doing?”
You don’t dare ask them “How are you doing” because they’ll give you an
hour or 2 or 10 hours of, “Well, this hurts, and this scar,” and on and on and
on they go. You don’t dare ask them too
many questions. You just say, “You’re
looking good today,” and then you lie to them.
But
this man, I think, smiled in his pain.
He was cheerful on his mat. He
was a happy man. He was friendly. He was upbeat, and people liked to be around
him, and if you’ve got to live on the mat, then be happy with what you
have. Be cheerful. What an example he was to all of us.
Jesus
had waited for an answer from His critics crowded around Him, but no answer
came, and so Jesus showed the proof of His Divinity by telling them what they
were thinking. And then He said, “To prove to you that I can forgive sins, I am going to say
to the paralyzed man, ‘Get up. Take up
your mat and go home,’” and verse 25,
”Immediately he” did
what?
“Immediately he stood up and in front of them, he took what he had been
lying on and went home” how? How did he go home? Went home doing what? “Praising God.” Everybody was amazed. Everybody gave praise to the Lord. They were
filled with awe and they said, "We have
seen a remarkable thing today.”
This
man jumped up like a Thompson Gazelle and went out and ran home, and maybe he
put that mat on the wall with the signatures of the mat-bearers and he was a
testimony to the miraculous power of Jesus the rest of his life. Or maybe he took that mat and went bounding
up that stairway with it to fix that hole in the roof, to help his friends,
because the mat exactly matched the size of the hole that it was, and the mat
had 4 ropes conveniently tied to it that he could fasten it into the roof
system and maybe that’s what they did.
I don’t really know.
For
the rest of his life he was living proof of Jesus’ love and Jesus’ divinity,
and he went out praising God. What an
example.
He
couldn’t be silent about Jesus. He told
his testimony all over town. “Jesus did
this to me. Remember, I’m the mat man,
and now look at me. Jesus healed
me.” And you know what, Jesus is going
to heal every one of us. You may say,
“Well, Jesus hasn’t healed me, yet.” He
will. If He doesn’t heal you in this
life, you know what? He will heal you
in the next. Amen? Your day is coming. Jesus was the focus of his life. He was doubly saved that day. Saved from sin and saved from the mat. Saved by his faith. By his faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is the victory. You know that. That’s how you get victory.
You’ll never have victory over your problems until you get everything
right with Jesus.
We’re
going to sing our closing hymn now.
Faith Is The Victory.
Hymn of Praise: #167 Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! Scripture: Mark 5:21-24 Hymn of Response: #608 Faith is the Victory
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McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 8/18/08