Luke The Orderly Account of Truth - Don't Skip Leg Day - Luke 5:17-26

We have been in a series going verse by verse through the Book of Luke,

and we called it Luke the Orderly Account of Truth. Luke wrote an

orderly account, or investigated and wrote an orderly account, so that Theophilos would

know the exact truth about who Jesus is and what he taught. And the

cool thing is is we get that same benefit. It's not just for Theophilos.

We can go back and read the Book of Luke and we get to

know the exact truth about who Jesus is and what he taught. And last

week Pastor Jordan talked about Jesus touching and healing a man with leprosy, which

touching someone with leprosy back then was a huge no. No, it made

you unclean, right, that's something you don't do. Yet Jesus did it.

And Jordan also read all of the grossest stuff you can find in the

Bible about skin diseases and rashes. It was awesome. I hope you hadn't

eaten right before because you had a hard time keeping your dinner down. No,

he got to talk about all the fun stuff. But that was actually

part of the priest's gig to say, if you had. If you were

one of the children of Israel and you had some weird skin rash, you

would go to the priest and say, hey, Priest, check out the

hair on this thing. Is it good? Bad? Am? I?

Okay? Like the priest actually had to look at these skin diseases and decide

what to do with them, which is mega gross if you ask me.

But do you remember what Pastor Jordan said about people who were unclean? If

you were here last week, do you remember he's looking, He's testing you.

God is pure holiness, right, He is pure holiness and nothing impure,

nothing unholy or unclean can be in His presence. The way I like

to think about this is light and darkness. Right. We just sang about

it a little bit ago. If you're in a room and it's dark,

you turn the lights on, what goes away darkness. Darkness cannot exist where

there's light. Right. When light shows up, darkness evaporates. That's the

way it is with God's holiness and his presence, that unholiness or things that

are unclean can't even exist in the same space. Right, So there's something

wrong with darkness that cannot make it exist in the space of light and so

those who were unclean, as Pastor Jordan's talk about last week, those who

are unclean could not be in. They were kicked out of the camp.

They were kicked out of where God dwelled for the sake of being because they

were unclean. And kind of a little sidebar, we should follow God's commands

just because he's God, right, and he commands us too. That's I

think. That's just a kind of a simple way to put it. But

I really think that, and I really believe that every single one of God's

commands that he gives to his people is actually for their good or for our

good. All sin has bad consequences, all of it, does. I

mean, the Bible tells us the wages of sin is death right, so

all sin has bad consequences. We often talk about the eternal consequences of our

sin, as we should, because it's kind of a big deal, right.

We focus in on that a lot. But sin also has natural,

earthly con sequences too. There's natural consequences to our sin, and God commands,

or a better way to say, is demands our obedience because he is

God. But we also benefit because the commands are for our good and it's

because that's how God designed the world to work, how He designed the way

the world to work. So think about all the skin disease stuff, right,

it's best for everyone in the camp. If the dude with the contagious

skin rash probably hangs outside of camp for a little while until it clears up,

goes and sees the priests, they say, oh, you're good to

go, Now come on back in the fellowship. Right, So there is

this benefit to spending some time outside of the camp. But that said,

I think the biggest takeaway though, still is that God is holy and nothing

unclean can be in his presence. And that's what makes what Jesus did so

incredible in this moment because he did something he's not supposed to do according to

the rules, which has touched something unclean. He reached out and touched what

was unclean, but instead of him becoming unclean, he made the unclean thing

clean. That's amazing. Any other person on the planet who reaches out and

touches that unclean thing, they are now unclean and got to spend some time

outside of camp waiting for the rash to clear up. But no, no,

Jesus touched the unclean thing and made the unclean thing clean. That's just

what Jesus does. He makes unclean things clean so that we can be in

the presence of a pure, holy and clean God. That's what Jesus does.

That was all last week. This week is a whole lot less disgusting.

I promise it's much less disgusting. We're actually going to be in Luke

chapter five, verses seventeen through twenty six. So if you guys have your

Bibles, you can start turning there now. If you don't have a Bible,

we have some bibles on the back. Go and steal one. It's

not stealing. We're giving it to you since your gift. We want you

to have the Bible. And while you're turning there, I have a story.

As I was reading the text for this week, I was reminded of

when we went to Guatemala one year because we would go and help in an

orphanage called Costa Angelina, and we were building or they on their campus were

building a church way up in the top corner, which is up on a

big hill, and our job the year that we went for this particular project

was put the roof on top. Years before they'd put the footings and the

foundation, and they build the walls, and then it was our job this

particular particular year to put the roof on the top. Now this it's up

on the top of the hill, but it's also next to a hill,

so they excavated out like a chunk of the hill to flatten the ground to

build the church up there. So we go up there. It's two stories

tall, or a little taller than two stories. I mean, if you

look at the roof in here, it was probably close to the as tall

as the roof is here, so a little bit more than a normal two

story house. Right, I don't know. I can't measure with my eyes.

You guys are probably better other than me. But it's up there.

And when they didn't have any plans for anything. Ever, when we go

to Guatemal, it's like, hey, we're gonna do this and let's just

figure out when we get there. Right, here's all the materials. They

might be, you know, on the road a little bit, and we

got to carry them all to the job site. Who knows. It's just

we call it the g factor, the Guatemala factor. But we have no

plan on how to get the roof slabs they're just sitting in the middle of

where the church building space is, where this place is being built. And

so what we did is we're like, okay, we're trying to creatively figure

out how we're going to get these big slabs. And when I'm talking like

these roof pieces are, they're about as long as the stage is and they're

all on the ground and we're looking up and we're like, well, how

are we going to get them up there? So these guys who are very

creative, more creative than me, also braver than me, they found these

four by four steel tube right these that they went to the top of the

hill that was excavated out, laid it on the hill across over to one

of the beams, and just tacked it down with a bolt. So there's

the beam going from cliff drop off to building and we're like, okay,

so they put four of those, so nice of them they put four of

them two but I mean a four by four is this wide? Right?

Then they're like, well, this isn't safe, and like, I agree,

this is not safe. So they're like, well, we found some

plywood, and so they went down the shed, pulled the plywood out,

which I'm convinced was from the thirteen hundreds because when they start picking it up,

it's crumbling as they're carrying it up there, so most of the sheets

broke, and then we lay them across there as we're walking, like starting

to take our steps across as cracking, and we're like, okay, well,

Jesus take the wheel. We're doing your work here, so hopefully we'll

keep us safe. So we put this super sketchy bridge up there. None

of this is OSHA approved, and we have to get these huge roof panels.

So we had a group of people carry them up the side up the

hill hand and they'd walk across this bridge and hand it to the roof crew,

which I was on the roof crew, so we had four guys on

the top. We would take these panels, walk them to their place,

and tack them down to put this roof on there. So none of this

is safe. This is all like just I don't know. I would say,

probably one of the scarier things I've ever done in the name of the

Lord's work. It was awesome, But as I'm reading, I'm telling you

this whole long story because when I was reading today's text, it popped into

my head because of this story. Is talking about some men who care their

paralyzed friend like a heavy piece of roof panel up onto the roof of a

building to get to Jesus. That's what we're talking about today. It took

strength, it took teamwork, it took creativity. It was hard, and

it cost them something to do this. Okay, I gave you guys forever

to get to Look five, you guys there, You guys had an uturgy.

Let's read through the text, Verses seventeenth through twenty six. One day

Jesus was teaching, and pharisees and teachers of a law were sitting there.

They'd come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, and the

power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. Some men came

carrying a paralyzed man 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 in the middle of the crowd, right in

front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, friend,

your sins are forgiven. The pharisees and teachers of a law began thinking to

himself, who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins?

But God alone. Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, 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 I want you

to know that the son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

So 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 laying 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, and this would be an

extremely incredibly remarkable thing to see right in front of your eyes, to see

that Jesus heal a paralyzed man. But if you pay attention to what Jesus

is saying, you'll see that he was making a bigger point than just healing

a man. And I think that Luke is pointing out that much bigger point

as well. Luke just got done explaining that Jesus has the power and the

authority over demons, over animals when they were catching fish, to over sickness

and over disease. And now Luke is saying it goes further than that.

That jesus power and jesus authority goes even further than those things. And as

we go through the text, we will also see that there's a part for

us to play in this as we start breaking this down. And that's why

I call today's message, don't skip leg day. We got a job to

do. Don't skip leg day. We cannot skip leg day. We have

some work to do. And if Jesus is who he said he is and

does what he said he will do, then we definitely have a job to

do too. Let's start breaking down the text. So the first verse,

verse seventeen, one day Jesus was teaching, and pharisees and teachers of the

law were sitting there. They come from every village of Galilee, and from

Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal

the sick. This is what Jesus did. He went everywhere and he taught.

That's just what he did, right, So Jesus here teaching, and

some of the people who are around them were pharisees and the teachers of the

law. And if you just picked up the Book of Luke and started reading

and haven't read anything else in the Bible, this is the first mention of

what a pharisee. So I figured we should probably talk about what is a

pharisee. And they were some of the most influential people among the Jews and

in all of Judaism of the time. They were the ones who knew God's

law and were meticulously zealous about keeping it. They were very very strict about

keeping. They were so strict that they would come up with their own laws

to make sure they weren't passing God's laws. So, for instance, if

breaking God's law was this line here, they would say, okay, well,

we're gonna set the law right here. Don't do this. It'd be

stuff as simple as as on the Sabbath, you're not supposed to do any

work, right, So they would say, you can't even drag your chair,

because if you drag your chair and it kicks up dust, then your

plow and you're working. Well, that's absurd. I understand the sentiment of

being like, I really don't want to mess with God's law, and I

don't want to break his law. So I'm going to set all these laws

back here so that if I break my own laws, at least I didn't

break God's laws. Right, So you can understand why they might do that.

But that's just absurd. That is way higher of a burden than God

ever put on humanity or his people. But this is the group that all

Jews would strive to imitate. They wanted to be like them. But the

Pharisees were also the same group of people that Jesus called out almost every single

time he came across him in scripture. He would call him out because they

were self righteous and they were self reliant when it came to God's law.

And Jesus goes in hard on the Pharisees in Matthew twenty three. I wanted

to read the whole chapter of twenty three because it's awesome, but we don't

have time for that, so we're just going to read two spots from it.

So verse one, then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples.

Teachers of a law in the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat. So you

must be careful to do everything they tell you, but do not do what

they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up

heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves

are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is

done for people to see. They make their filactories, which are the boxes

that scripture was put in. They put on their foreheads, in their hands

or their arms. They make their fhilactories wide, and their tassels on their

garments long, double up. They love the place of honor at banquets and

the most important seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with respect

in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by others. And then we're

going to fast forward a couple verses, just to keep moving, for those

who exalt themselves we humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Woe to you, teachers of law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut

the door of the Kingdom of Heaven. In people's faces. You yourself,

do not enter, nor will you let those enter who were trying to Woe

to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel

over land and see to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded,

you make them twice as much a child of Hell as you are.

That's in the Bible. That's Jesus talking to the Pharisees. He didn't pull

any punches when it came to it. While everyone else would look at the

external and they'd want to be like the Pharisees, Jesus would look at the

heart. He could see the heart, the motivation behind, and he would

point out their sin. They were full of wickedness and self service. They

didn't follow God because he was their God. No, they only cared about

themselves and looking good before others. And in the beginning of Mark seven,

Jesus said, it's not going to be on the screen, but Isaiah's right

when he prophesied about you hypocrites. As it is written, these people honor

me with their lips, but their hearts are far from They worship me in

vain. Their teachings are merely human rules. Don't drag the chair. They're

merely human rules. You have let go of the commandments of God and are

holding onto human tradition. They said the right things, and sometimes they did

the right things, but it was never for the right reasons. So that's

who was sitting and being taught by Jesus. That was who was among the

crowd the crowded house. So let's go back to our texts. In verse

seventeen. One day Jesus was teaching in the Pharisees. Now we know who

they are, and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come

from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of

the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. So the teachers of the

law were the lawyers. They were also known as the experts in the law,

the experts in the law of God. And these guys were right in

line with the Pharisees, and at oftentimes they were the scribes for the Pharisees.

So they're the ones writing everything down for them. But it says that

they came from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, which means

that jesus ministry and his miracles were gaining notoriety, like people were hearing about

this and they needed to come and see what was going on. And it

was happening so much so the Pharisees and the teachers of the law felt the

need to come and investigate and be like, what's going on here? Who

is this guy Jesus, and what's he all about? And the verse ends

with the note that Jesus and the power of the Lord was with Jesus to

heal the sick, that the divine power to heal that comes from the Lord

was with the god man Jesus. Guys ready to keep moving. Verse eighteen

and nineteen. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a map and tried

to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus, and they could

not find a way to do this because of the crowd. They went up

on the roof and lowered him on his map through the tiles into the middle

of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. So now we see our

paralyzed man enter the story or the scene, and he's on a mat and

he's being carried to the house and Mark two has another account of the same

story or the same event. It says some men came bringing him a paralyzed

man, carried by four of them. So it sounds like a group of

men showed up with a paralyzed guy, and four of that group carried him

on a mat. So there was four of them. And just like these

guys showing up and seeing no way to get to Jesus, we stood there

looking at this church twenty five to thirty feet tall, being like, how

the heck are we going to get these roof panels up there. We had

to get creative. They had to get creative to figure out how to solve

their problem. There was nothing that was going to stop them. Nothing was

going to stop them from accomplishing what they set out to do. If news

about jesus healing power was going all throughout the area, then these guys would

have heard about it. They're within walking distance or carrying distance to carry a

paralyzed man, so they would have heard about it, and they must have

come to the conclusion that the only hope for our friend is to bring him

to this guy who keeps healing at them. They had to come to that

conclusion based off of everything. They were hearing that this was the one shot

they had for their friend to be healed. So they were going to stop

at nothing to get their friend to Jesus, which brings me to the first

big point for today. Do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

Do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus. And this is stolen saying,

but do anything short of sinning to get people to Jesus. That's my

only qualifier for whatever. But this is what these guys are ready to do.

They were ready to do whatever it took to get this their friend to

Jesus. But before we get into how creative they got, I want to

point out something that's very very important, and that's back in verse eighteen.

So they carry him on the mat and try to take him into the house.

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. Right,

why couldn't they get to Jesus because of the crowd. That's what was

stopping them. The crowd was stopping The crowd was so big and all trying

to get inside to see Jesus, which I get is pretty dope, right,

you want to go see Jesus. That the paralyzed man was stuck outside.

He could not get in to see Jesus. And we talk about the

importance of Christian fellowship a lot, which we should because it's super duper important

to our walks with Jesus. We should never be walking this out alone.

But what happens when our life consists of only Christian fellowship? What happens when

that's the only thing we have? Now make sure you hear me correct.

We need Christian fellowship, and we need a lot of it, We just

need it. But what happens when that's all we have. We live in

this beautiful, safe bubble, in this sometimes dark and evil world, where

we have all the safety of our Christian fellowship, but at the same time,

we also forsake the mission that God put us on. We turn our

back on the mission that God put us on. If that's the only thing

we have in our life, it's very hard to go out and make disciples

of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded.

If we never leave the Holy Huddle. Football, it's the huddle.

Do they live in the huddle? No, They come up with a plan,

leave and go execute whatever the plan was, right, that's why they

huddle. That's why we huddle. We come together and we're just like,

all right, it's fourth and one. We're gonna go for it. For

all my sports fans, everyone who doesn't do like sports, yeah, we're

gonna go for it. We're gonna encourage each other, we're gonna challenge each

other, like, hey man, you need to like tighten up your lanes

or whatever. The whole point is, we don't live in the huddle.

I'm not gonna take this illustration any further than it already is. We don't

live in the huddle. We need to get out. And as much as

we love the fellowship Fellowship of the Believers, it was never meant to be

an exclusive thing. It wasn't to be a you're not included thing. That's

the opposite of what the Great Commission is. Right, we're proclaiming the command

to all of humanity. That's what we're doing, not excluding them. So

don't be like the crowd, don't turn your back on the lost, don't

box out the very people who desperately need to hear the good news of Jesus

Christ. Or, to put it more succinctly, because I just said a

lot of words to our next point, invite the lost into the Holy huddle,

don't box them out. We need to invite the lost into the Holy

huddle and not box them out. Well, how do you do that?

How do you invite them in? Does anybody know? It's not true question?

You tell them the good news. You tell them the good news of

Jesus, of what Jesus has done. You tell them the gospel. You

tell them that God created everything perfect, and he said a standard for man

to live by. That's what he did. All of us, every single

one of us, has fallen short of that standard by sin. That's what

we do. But God sent his one and only son to live the perfect

life and pay the price for our sin by dying on the cross. Three

days later, he rose from the dead and now sits on the throne in

heaven, waiting to come back to judge the world and to consummate new heaven

and new Earth. Amen. If we look to Jesus and believe in his

name, then we are forgiven of all of our sin and we get to

live for eternity in the presence of God. That was like forty five second

Gospel presentation. We need to get that locked in our hearts. That's how

we invite people into the Holy huddle. Those who are dying, who are

paralyzed, who are outside of the crowd, that's how we invite them into

the Holy huddle. We tell them the good news about what Jesus has done.

We need to invite them in. That's the job we were given.

So don't go through life with blinders on, because it's easy to do that.

We get distracted with the busyness of life or even the good things that

God tells us to do. So that's sometimes we don't always talk about.

We can get so focused on the awesome things that God has called us to

and forget the other things that He's called us to. Right, we get

so interested in I don't know, being just the example I already said,

which was the fellowship of the believers being the only thing. Right, Well,

if we do that, then we're forsaking getting the Gospel out to those

who need it. All Right, that was a little bit of a rabbit

trail, But I think it's super important for us. Remember, So let's

get back to our text, like, are you ever going to get out

of verse eighteen to nineteen. I promise we're going to get out of it.

Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on the mat and tried to take

him to the house and 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 the mat through the tiles into the middle of the

crowd, right in front of Jesus. They couldn't get to Jesus, so

they climbed up on the roof. And we need to talk about this for

a second, just so it makes kind of sense, like how do they

climb upon the roof while the house is back then oftentimes had a stairway that

just would go to the roof. It was just another living space, another

place to do living because the houses aren't that big, right, so it's

just another space for you to have meals or do other I just say do

your living. That's what I literally wrote in my notes, another space to

do your living. That said, have you ever tried to carry a body

upstairs? Don't you dare answer that. It makes me think of that meme

where it's like there's two stick figures and it says friends and they're carrying a

couch, and then the next frame says best friends and they're carrying a body

super morbid. But it's always just funny. It's not easy to carry anything

heavy upstairs, especially dead weight of a human body, a paralyzed person,

right, and only that there's four of them. Try to cram four people

all walking up the stairs carrying something at the same time. We've all helped

someone move or moved ourselves. It's not easy, right. They're getting creative

trying to figure out how to get to Jesus, and so they work their

way up the stairway on top of the roof. But I want to read

this event from Mark two like I was mentioning before, because he adds a

little bit more of detail, and that's in verse four. I call it

free skylight. Since they could not get to him, or since they could

not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in

the roof above Jesus by what digging through it, and then lowered the mat

The man was lying on. So this is just like, hey, move

some tiles and drop the man through a hole in the thing. They have

to dig through the roof of the which is made up of all kinds of

mud and clay and all kinds of things on there, so they're not just

moving like opening a skylight and dropping the guy through. They're actually digging through

the roof. And if you stop and picture that for a minute, it's

like we're all sitting there listening to Jesus, like did you hear that?

You hear something on the roof like what's going on? And some scratching,

and then you start seeing some dirt falling and some debris. At that point,

I'm checked out. I'm probably not listening to anything Jesus saying, so

I'm like, what is going on? I wanted to Jesus just like keep

powering through, you know, I don't know. You're sitting there and then

all of a sudden, a beam of light shoots through and you're like,

okay, everyone's at that point had to stop me like what is going on?

You see fingers just digging through a thing? How big of a hole

to lower? And a full grown man on a mat? How long did

that take. Did they just sit there and watch. I don't know.

I wasn't there, but I could imagine they all stopped and they're like,

what is going on? They're probably talking to the guys and trying to figure

out what's going on, and maybe even helping them, who knows. But

these guys dug a hole in the roof big enough for a full grown man

on a mat to be lowered down through. And I want you to I

want to remind you of what our first big point was for today. Do

whatever it takes to get people to Jesus. We're literally reading this and watching

this unfold right before our eyes. They are doing whatever it takes to get

this man, their paralyzed friend, to Jesus. That's why I say,

don't skip leg day. It's gonna be hard work. It's gonna be hard,

but that's what we do. We do whatever it takes to get people

to Jesus. And when Jesus saw what they did, what did he say?

Let's look at verse nineteen. They couldn't find their way in, so

he went up on the roof, lowering through the tiles in the middle of

the crowd, right in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith,

he said, friend, your sins are forgiven. These men truly believe that

Jesus could heal their friend, truly believe that he could do it. Why

else would they go through all this trouble? Why would they do that?

They had faith and that faith led them to action. And what does James

teach us the Book of James and the Bible, not just some random guy

James. He says that faith by itself is if it's not accompanied by action,

is dead. It's a dead faith. That true faith will always be

followed by action. If you actually believe something, you will act like it.

And I use this example all the time because it's really simple. You

were all sitting in a chair right now. You're only sitting in that chair

because you believe it to hold your weight, Because if you didn't believe it

would hold your weight, you would never sat in that chair. Right.

You will do things, You will walk and operate all of your actions in

alignment with what you believe, no matter what that's just a general truth.

You believe it, you will act like you believe it, Which is what

James's big point is, or a way to say the whole chair thing.

I say, you have faith that the chair will hold you just to bring

the word faith into this, you have faith that the chair will hold your

weight, because if you didn't have faith, you wouldn't sit in it.

And the faith of these men led them to action. She's a sather faith

and said, friend, your sins are forgiven. Wait, he didn't heal

the man. Wasn't that the whole point? Wasn't the whole point They brought

him to Jesus to heal, to be healed. I'm not gonna lieou.

I would probably hear that and be like I would be disappointed, Like I

don't. I don't get you're the healer guy, right, Like the whole

reason we came here we believe that you would heal the guy. I would

be disappointed. But what Jesus was doing was making a much greater point,

and he was making a much greater purpose that had a bigger meaning. What

he was doing is he was healing the man of what he actually was sick

with. And our greatest sickness is our own sin. Our greatest sickness is

our own sin. That's the thing that's killing us, That's what we're paralyzed

with. His sin. Our greatest sickness is our own sin. That's what

we need to be healed of. And there is only one cure for that

disease, faith in Jesus, believing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So

Jesus was getting right to the point. He's like, Ah, you guys

obviously are here on a mission, so I'm gonna cut right through all the

crap with you. You're forgiven. He's getting right to the point of the

most, the greatest need in this man's life. And then we get to

get into the other point that Jesus is making while he was teaching all the

people, which is probably why he kind of orchestrated this event the way he

did. So let's look in the next verse, verse twenty one, 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? And

what they were thinking is completely true. That is completely true. Who can

first give sins? But God alone? God alone is the one who can

forgive sins? Why because he is the one we've sinned against. He's the

one that we have sinned against the simple way to put it as this,

the only one who can forgive a debt is the one the debt is owed

to. The only one who can forgive a debt is the one that the

debt is owed to. And the easiest example I could think of is if

you steal my bike that I love my Huffy with the pegs on the front

and the back. Not trying to brag, but you know, so you

got one friend with a bike and a bunch of friends. Everyone's climbing on

that thing. You got to figure out how to get around town. If

you steal my bike, we're not good until you've given me my bike back.

I don't care if you give my bike to Duncan the debts with me.

You stole my bike, You broke my rules, which is what I

owe or I own, and you owe me my bike. So that's who

the debt's against. Our sind debt is against the one who made the rule?

Yes, well, who is the universe creator who made all the rules?

It's God. God is the one who set it all up. It's

God's rules that we broke. It's his standards that we fail to meet.

And King David understood this very well from Psalm fifty one, so I want

to read just the first four verses of it. Have mercy on me,

Oh God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion,

blot out my transgressions, Wash away all my iniquity flies getting on me.

Wash away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I

know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you,

you will only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.

So you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Should read

all of Psalm fifty one because it's incredible. But what did day David say?

He said against you, you only have I sinned. King David knew

exactly whose laws he broke, and he wrote this letter after the whole Bathsheba

incident where he goes and gets a married woman pregnant and then has that woman's

husband killed, and then still had to have the prophet Nathan come and call

him out on his sin before he did anything. Which there's an entire message

in that that we don't have time to preach today about accountability and being open

with communication with your brothers and sisters in Christ. But after all of that

happens, and Nathan's like, gosh, I want to preach it so bad.

He's like, you did wrong, brother, and he so what does

he do? He writes this. This is part of his repentance, his

Psalm fifty one. This is when he writes this psalm against you. You

only have I sinned. And that's why after Jesus said your sins are forgiven

the paralyzed man to the paralyzed man, the Pharisees were questioning Jesus in their

heart, who can forgive sins but God alone? What they're really asking is

who is this Jesus guy? Think he is God? And to call yourself

God or to make yourself equal with God was a sin punishable by death.

So it's a big deal that he would say that. They already tried to

stone Jesus, to throw him off a cliff because of the things he did

and said. So in this moment, the Pharisees and the teachers of the

law have been listening real close to everything he said to see if he truly

was making himself equal with God. So now we get to look at how

Jesus responded in verse twenty two, Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked,

why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to

say your sins are forgiven? Or to say get up and walk, which

is easier. Yes, Jesus can read minds. The Lord knows our thoughts

before we think them. That's what Psalm one, Pint thirty nine says.

He knows, he knows what we're thinking. And he asked, or he

knows what they were thinking, and he asked a very important question, which

is e what do you guys think? Is easier. It's definitely easier to

say your sins are forgiven because no one can verify that. I can say

that all day and you have no clue if it actually happened. It's immaterial

or it's invisible. It's way harder to say get up and walk because everyone's

gonna be like see if he actually does it right, So it's way harder

to say that. But Jesus continues to tell him the point he's really making

by what he just said. So which is easier to say your sins are

forgiven or to say get up and walk? But I want you to know

that the son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Okay,

So he asked a question, and then he told why he asked that question.

Jesus is saying that the son of man has the authority. And the

son of man is what Jesus called himself regularly. I think it was actually

the thing he called himself the most in all of the Bible. He called

himself the son of man. But what does that mean? Because there is

great significance in Jesus calling himself that. There's even greater implications, and it

actually comes from Daniel seven. So we're gonna go Old Testament here. Daniel

seven, thirteen and fourteen. In my vision at night, I looked,

and there before me was one like a son of Man, coming with the

clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days, capital a capital d

and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and

sovereign power. All nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion

is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one

that will never be destroyed. That sounds like deity. This is the vision

that the prophet Daniel was given about the son of Man, and that's exactly

who Jesus is claiming to be on many occasions. What Jesus wants the people

to know is that he is the son of Man and he has the authority

to forgive sins, the same already that belongs to God alone. So what

point is Jesus actually making. Jesus is God, That's what he's the point

he's actually making. He is me, I am him. Jesus is God.

He is God in the flesh. He is in Manuel, which means

God with us. He is the Word made flesh. From John, Jesus

is making this huge claim that he is God. But now that he said

it, can he back it up? That's the real question. Can he

back it up with what he does? So let's keep reading verse twenty three.

He already said, which is easier. But I want you to know

that the son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. So

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 laying 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. Jesus told the paralyzed man

to get up, and he immediately got up. He immediately got up.

The same man who was carried there on a mat because he was paralyzed.

They dug through the hole in the roof and lowered him down there. That

guy, that same guy got up, grabbed his mat and went home in

full strength. Mind you, he wasn't like baby deer legging it out of

there. That's a verb. He had full strength. It's not just a

miracle of healing, as a miracle of time recovery, instantly full strength.

And Jesus told the people, I want you to know that I can forgive

sins, indicating that he is God. And to prove that he can forgive

sins, to prove that what he was saying was true, he healed the

paralyzed man, which is often how Jesus did it. Jesus the miracles were

often just him validating what he was saying. He's like, I say the

truth. Boom, here's a sign to show you that I know what I'm

talking about. I'm speaking true. The same thing with the acts of the

Apostles, read all of acts. Those miracles were to validate the gospel message

or the truth that was being spoken, because nobody else could do those things.

Miracles were used to show that the message being preached was true. And

after that, the people sat there amazed at what they just saw. Because

there's nothing you can argue. There's no argument you can make after you just

see what just happened. The only real response is how the people actually responded.

Can I have the band come up, please, which is verse twenty

six. Everyone was amazed. They're amazed, and they gave praise to God.

They were filled with awe and said, we have seen remarkable things today.

They were full of awe And what did that lead them to giving praise

to God? They recognize of what they did just witness was a truly remarkable

thing, and they praise God because of it. This is how we should

respond to the work of Jesus in our lives, the fact that He has

the power to forgive us, to heal us of the one thing we truly

need to be healed of most to bring us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We should have nothing but praise and adoration for God. What does Romans

twelve, say twelve to one. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and

sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living

sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.

I think everybody should write this in the If you're okay writing in your

Bible, I write all over my Bibles. In the front of your Bible,

you should write Romans twelve to one and just peek at it every time

you open your Bible. Read it real quick before you jump into your Bible.

In view of the fact that God would extend his mercy to us,

that he would choose to hold back and not give us what we deserve for

our life full of sin, that's what mercy means. Mercy is you deserve

something, and you know what, I'm not going to give you what you

deserve. In the negative sense, he holds back and doesn't give us what

we deserve for our life full of sin. That's an incredible display of his

mercy on us. And in view of that mercy, we owe him everything

everything, We owe him our whole lives. We should offer the fullness of

ourselves to be used all unto his glory in view of his mercy. This

is what is right or this is what is proper uses the word proper,

but there's actually some other translations that say reasonable. And I like that translation

because it's a reasonable response to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice in view

of his mercy upon us. That's reasonable, It's not unreasonable. Does that

make sense? It's reasonable, that makes sense. Like, oh, of

course, his mercy on us makes perfect sense. I would offer my entire

body as a living sacrifice unto him. That is reasonable. So how should

we do that in light of our text today? And I want us to

remember a few things. And the first thing to remember is the main point

that Jesus is making and what I believe that Luke is trying to make super

clear for us. And that first point is Jesus is God and he has

the authority to forgive sins. That's the first big thing to remember. Jesus

is God and he has the authority to forgive sins. He is God in

the flesh, and because of that, he has all power and authority,

and he is the only one we can receive forgiveness through number two. Don't

box out the loss, don't box out the lost. Don't be like the

crowd, be so focused on the Holy huddle that you forget to invite in

the people who are literally perishing and paralyzed right behind you. You guys,

see that visual you're the perishing or the paralyzed, and they just turn their

back to you, and they just are so focused here you can't get anywhere

close to Jesus. Don't be like the crowd. There lost people around you

every single day. Every day. You just got to look around and see

them and pray that God gives you the eyes to see. Pray that God

gives you the eyes to see that because a lot of times, like I

said, we get so busy just doing life. There's a lot to do

that it's not even in the front of our mind. So ask God to

bring that to the front of your mind. Say, God, show me

those who are lost, Show me those who are perishing who need to know

the truth. There is so much that is not true out there in the

world. But how do you know it's true and what's false. You study

what is true so much that the false is obvious. You study the truth

of who God is. Invite the loss to meet Jesus. By telling them

the good News, telling them the gospel number three because proud of me actually

numbered some points for you, guys, I never do this. Do whatever

it takes to bring people to Jesus. We said this one hundred times today.

Do whatever it takes to bring people to Jesus. Be like the men

carrying their paralyzed friend on the mat. If you prayed for God to give

you the eyes to see, you will see the lost around you. He

will help you see them. We believe, or we have faith, that

Jesus is the only one who can save us from our sin. So let's

add action to that faith and do whatever it takes to bring people to Jesus.

Do anything short of sin. And the last point I want to make

is this number four. Christianity is playing offense, not defense. Christianity is

playing offense, not defense. It's about that action, boss. Everything about

being a Christian is about action. We're given the great commission to do what

what's the first word of the Great commission? After therefore go, therefore go

we are literally sent out. That's the job we were given to go.

That's why we aren't like the crowd who turns their back on the loss in

order to stay in their safe little Christian bubble. As awesome as it is

in that bubble. That's why the men literally pick up their paralyzed friend.

We pick up this spiritually dead and paralyzed and we bring them to Jesus so

he can bring them to life. Lifting up the spiritually dead. I call

it the ultimate deadlift for my weightlifting friends. Shake your head. It's a

bad joke, I know, but I like it. But we do the

hard work of lifting the loss and carrying them to Jesus. It's hard work.

This is what we're called to die to self, serve the Lord and

reach the loss man. That's what we do. We do the hard work,

and Christians don't skip leg day. Amen. Can you guys stand on

your feet please,