Mark 2a (7-30-25)

Hey there everybody welcome back to our movie Bible study this is Pastor James

and glad you're joining us today we're going to start chapter 2 of the gospel

of Mark and this is a good bit of scripture so let's jump into it and get

started read with me verses 1 through 12 to begin with when Jesus returned to

Capernaum several days later the news spread quickly that he was back home

soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there

was no more room even outside the door while he was preaching God's word to

them four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat they couldn't bring him to

Jesus because of the crowd so they dug a hole through the roof above his head then

they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus seeing their

faith Jesus said to the paralyzed man my child your sins are forgiven but some

of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to

themselves what is he saying this is blasphemy only God can forgive sins

Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking so he asked them why do you

question this in your hearts is it easier to say to the paralyzed man your

sins are forgiven or stand up pick up your mat and walk so I will prove to

you that the Son of man has the authority on earth to forgive sins then

Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said stand up pick up your mat and go

home and the man jumped up grabbed his mat and walked out through the stun

onlookers they were all amazed and praise God exclaiming we've never seen

anything like this before all right this is probably one of the most

exciting and amazing passages of scripture that gives us an example of

Jesus miracle that just makes our hearts leap with joy so yeah as we begin

chapter 2 this is being portrayed as a Jesus is now being portrayed as a very

famous and respected and desired man alright so from the very beginning of

Mark his popularity has increased exponentially and his purpose was to

help and serve remember that's one of the things about Jesus that Mark

conveys constantly is that Jesus came to help and serve other people and this

is why we see this awesome story of this group of friends bringing their

paralyzed friend to Jesus they're bringing them to Jesus because Jesus is

there to help and they believe that Jesus can help and they even tear the

roof off of the house to gain access to him and Jesus welcomes them and their

effort he does not chastise them for tearing up someone's home but rather he

is perfectly okay with us and he admires their faith as a result and so as we

get started I just think it's really important that as people we make very

sure that we are surrounding ourselves with friends who would be willing to

tear the roof off of a house to get us to Jesus and that as we parent our

children that we only allow our kids to hang out with other people who are

willing to tear the roof off of a house to get them to Jesus that's vitally

important now I have many many good friends in my life and I love them all

very much I could probably count on one hand the number of friends that I have

who would be willing to tear the roof off of a house to get me to Jesus

that's why I don't hang out with a whole lot of people I give my time very

sparingly to certain people who I know and have the utmost faith and

confidence in their relationship and their desire for the Lord though there

are some deep theological things in this passage that we need to draw our

attention to and the first thing is is that Jesus looks at this paralyzed man

and refers to him as my child Jesus claims him he refers to him as his own

child he accepts responsibility and authority over this man who is

paralyzed and this is particularly unique because he was crippled and he

didn't offer much to anyone there was no benefit to call this man friend or to

claim him as a child in any way and it would have been unusual for anyone to

want to claim someone in this condition yet Jesus claims him immediately as his

own not just as a follower but because Jesus was God and this man was Jewish

and therefore he was a legitimate child of God now this is a big thing because

Jesus or I'm sorry it was very common during this day and time for many

people to believe that if you had something wrong with you if you were

born with an ailment or disability that you had done something sinful or your

parents had done something sinful or you were going to do something sinful

in your life to deserve the situation that you're in and I'm not sure what

gospel it's in but as Jesus is ministering in one of the other gospels

the disciples they come across this blind man and they ask Jesus Jesus why

was this man born blind was it because of his sins or his parents sins and

Jesus says neither he was born so that he could he was born this way so that

glory could be given to God and I think that's really important too that

you're dealing with some cultural issues that is kind of like coming to to

light as most people would not have claimed this man most people would have

been ashamed of this man and they would have believed that there was some type

of sin that brought this this state of being paralyzed on him and that's why he

was being punished with this so Jesus claims him as his own claims him as his

child another big theological thing is that Jesus is forgiving the paralyzed man

sins and now religious leaders are very upset about this statement and in a

sense they should be because it's a very bold claim it's a wonderful claim if

Jesus is the Messiah but is a disaster if he's not and the religious leaders

were very skeptical they were eyeing Jesus I mean they were watching him like

a hawk they were trying to figure out whether or not he was actually the

Messiah because he was doing all these great wonderful things they were jealous

of him at the same time but they were also trying to figure out is he

actually the Son of God so it's a very bold claim that Jesus is making the

only people who are questioning Jesus as the Messiah now are the religious

leaders they're still very skeptical everyone else is they're jumping on

the bandwagon okay they're they're very much all about Jesus healing their sick

raising dead doing all these wonderful things they're coming to listen to him

speak Jesus is the man of the hour and the people are very much willing to

accept him the religious leaders are the ones who are still holding out so

they're automatically questioning Jesus motives by making this statement who does

this man think he is only God can forgive sin so either Jesus is God or

Jesus is not God either he is the Messiah or he's not so the second layer

to deal with all this is the statement that Jesus forgives this man sins

before he goes to the cross and sheds his blood because there's I've actually

seen a couple videos of this here lately where people have been

questioning can Jesus forgive sins before his blood was shed on the cross

and the truth is is when you read scripture and you read this passage well

the truth is yes he can forgive sins because he is God and so I want to talk

about that really quick because most of scripture will imply that sins can

only be forgiven through the blood of Christ being shed on the cross which is

very true but what we find in this passage is that Jesus is forgiving this

man sins because he is God and he is able to forgive the sins based off of

the sacrifice that he would be making in the short future okay so Jesus knows

he's gonna pay the price for this man sins he's gonna sacrifice himself on the

cross for them for his sins and even though it hasn't happened only physical

world timeline it is the plan and the will of God for this to happen and Jesus

is very much willing to carry out the plan and the will of God so he's

forgiving this man sin based on his future sacrifice that shouldn't be a

foreign concept because when you look back at the Old Testament even going

all the way back to Abraham in the Old Testament Abraham was counted righteous

because of his faith he believed in God Abraham also believed that God was going

to keep his promise and that through his seed he was going to make a great

nation come from Abraham and eventually bring about the Messiah so even

Abraham believed in the coming Messiah and he was counted righteous because of

that faith and we're also counted righteous because we believe and have

faith in the Messiah so even though the sacrifice had not happened yet for

people of the Old Testament even they were able to be counted righteous

because of their faith and God's promises of bringing the Messiah through the

lineage of Abraham and all of the people of Israel were responsible for

following God's law for serving him so that God's will could be done and

brought through the lineage of Abraham now that's a little deep but hopefully

that can give you kind of an initial understanding of this small conundrum

we see in this passage where Jesus is forgiving sins before his actual

sacrifice but he is God Jesus knows what's going to happen he has the

ability to know in advance what's available and he can apply that when

he wants to apply that so God supersedes the timeline of this physical world and

the forgiveness of sin can be applied to this man because Jesus was willing to do

that because he knew he was also willing to pay the sacrifice for that sin in a

short time so when you look at verse 8 Jesus reveals his great authority to be

able to actually forgive this man's sin and all people sin and he knew what

the religious leaders were thinking and answering their thoughts even though

they didn't make them known out loud it is great proof I mean he's in this

moment Jesus is is displaying all kinds of amazing Jedi like powers I mean

he is teaching and preaching with great power and authority these men drop

their paralyzed friend in the middle of the room he forgives the man's sins

because he is God he is reading the religious leaders minds and he's

responding to their thoughts and questions that are in their heart out

loud for everyone to hear he is also in this moment proving that he does have

the authority to forgive sins which is a bold claim but he can make that claim

because he also has the authority to physically heal this paralyzed man and

make him get up and walk so he's giving physical proof that he has the

authority to do the spiritual things as well and that's a really cool thing to

see with your own eyes and then to read about even today you know Jesus asked

them which one's harder and they would everyone would always say well it's

definitely harder to heal someone and tell him to get up and walk but Jesus

did that and so because he was able to do that therefore we can also have faith

to know that Jesus can also forgive our sins and this is one the only times I can

think of in the Gospels where Jesus specifically makes an effort to really

prove to the people that he is Christ the Messiah so he heals the man to show

his power and authority his ability to do the impossible proves his authority to

make him to make this spiritual claim and verse 12 shows us that people were

amazed by Jesus and they were giving God praise as a result of what Jesus was

doing and that is the heart of Jesus life on earth his calling and desire was

to bring praise and honor and glory to the Father in heaven which is a

wonderful thing so so we're seeing this this consistency and mark where

there's physical healing and spiritual healing and physical healing and

spiritual healing and sometimes it's physical and spiritual in the moments but

mark is very much addressing the power of Jesus in the physical world but also

the power of Jesus in the spiritual world which is just as important if not

more important so let's read verses 13 through 17 and we'll finish up for

today as we do about half of this chapter then Jesus went out to the lake

shore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him as he walked along he

saw Levi son of alphaeus sitting at his tax collectors booth follow me and me by

be my disciple Jesus said to him so Levi got up and followed him later Levi

invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests along with many

tax collectors and other disrupt disreputable sinners there were many

people of this kind among Jesus followers but when the teachers of

religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other

sinners they asked his disciples why does he eat with such scum when Jesus

heard this he told them healthy people don't need a doctor sick people do I

have come to call not those who think they are righteous but those who

know they are sinners all right so we see that Jesus calls yet another person

to follow him to be his disciple Matthew is sitting at his booth he's

collecting taxes for the Roman government he would have been one of

the most hated people in all of Israel because of this and so far mark shows

Jesus calling his disciples to follow him while they were in the middle of

work and I think this is very important for us to see and understand Jesus is not

going up and calling people who are idle he's not going up and calling people

who have no responsibilities nothing going on they're just he's not going up

and calling people who are homeless he's not calling he's not calling the impaired

to follow him in some ways he's not calling the you know people who are young

and immature and lazy to call him no he's he's taking men who are in the

middle of doing a task who are at their jobs they're responsible they're they're

just living their everyday lives and they have responsibilities they have

families and he's calling them out of the middle of their lives and they are at

their busiest and most demanded time of life when Jesus comes along and says come

and follow me and they did that's the amazing thing about it and this speaks

powerfully into the expectation of our lives to follow Christ with intention

and with urgency because we need to be reminded that others have already set

the example in doing that the disciples were literally on the job doing what

they had to do to make ends meet to live life and have food and a shelter and

clothing and Jesus said come and follow me right in the middle of that great

responsibility and yet they did and so we see in verse 15 through 16 that Jesus

was attracting and spending time with people who are not reputable Matthew

invites Jesus and his disciples to his home he invites all of his friends to

come and meet him and in fact Matthew is friends with people who are doing the

same thing he was because good Jewish people would have despised him so the

only people he would have been able to hang out with were other tax collectors

and disreputable people but this is in fact the heart of Jesus this is the

heart of being a Christian he invites all of his friends to come meet Jesus

and he invites Jesus to come and be with all of his friends this is what

every Christian should do when we come to know Jesus our goal should be to

connect all of our friends with the Savior that we've come to know and we

experience the Spirit of God in our lives and the power of God and there

will be a natural desire for us to tell others about Jesus and invite the

people we know to come and meet Jesus as well and thankfully he is a Savior

that does not turn people away but rather he welcomes anyone who comes to

receive him in their hearts and this is a wonderful message of the gospel it

doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter what you've done it only matters

whether or not you are willing to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and

Savior and this is why verse 17 is so important to the entire world while the

religious leaders have spent their entire lives trying to be good people

they're very frustrated that Jesus is not making an effort to be with them

they're very frustrated that Jesus is going to spend time with sinners and

Jesus gives the great answer in verse 17 that he did not come to help people who

think that they're okay and don't need help he came to help people who know

that they need help and the truth is is that we all need help we all need saving

but there are some people who refuse to acknowledge how sick that they

really are the religious leaders what we see in the Gospels is that the

religious leaders refuse to acknowledge how sick and simple they really were

many people in this world will refuse to acknowledge how simple they really are

and as a result Jesus and his blood cannot save them if they do not humble

themselves and call on his name but for those who know that they're sick for

those who know that they are sinners Jesus is readily available to welcome

them into the family of God to call them his child to call them his own and to

rescue them from their simple ways so I don't know where you are today but I

really hope that you have come to Jesus Christ on hands and knees and

humbly asked him to be your Lord and Savior to forgive you of your sins and

give you eternal life and to help you follow him all the days of your life

because if you have he will but if you think that you're good enough and if you

think that you don't need saving there's nothing in this world for you that can

save you and bring you into eternal life so I hope and pray that you have come to

Jesus and if not that you'll do that right now let's pray Father thank you

so much for this day thank you for the opportunity to be together to be your

children to be able to call on the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin Lord

I pray that you would help us all to be humble remind us that we need you we

need your love we need your mercy and Lord we ask that you would just work and

move in our hearts help us to be willing to acknowledge how dirty and

wretched and sinful and sick we really are so that your blood and your love

and mercy can cleanse us completely and make us into the people you've called

us to be we love you and we ask all us in Jesus name Amen all right guys thanks

for tuning in for another weekend and we pray that you are doing well we hope to

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you we're praying for you hope you have a good week