The Gospel Friendship

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He told me yesterday that he would be here, and uh he was medicated, so I wasn't sure if that was gonna be true or not.

But um he's still going to be, probably.

Uh but if you want to see something interesting, come take a look at this foot.

It's uh, but anyway, keep keep him in prayer over that recovery.

I want you to be in prayer, continue for the Polk family.

And the uh yesterday they had services for Lana and her passing, and then uh Nick Canfield lost his grandfather.

So be in prayer for Nick and the family there.

And um I know they'd appreciate those prayers.

But in Mark, today we're gonna talk about the gospel friendship.

And I want to take you back to chapter one, and my process through this, getting through the book of Mark by around uh the month of June, is we're gonna hit a lot of Mark.

We're not gonna hit everything that happens in Mark.

I have a pastor friend who took four years to do the book of Mark.

208, 16 Sundays or whatever that is, and so we could certainly spend a lot of time, but uh, we're gonna hit some bits and pieces and we will miss some, but I trust you'll go back and you'll study through that and have some good groups.

I'll give that commercial connect group start next Sunday.

And uh there are at least 10 groups almost every night of the week.

So please be looking for that information and how to sign up, and uh I know that it'll help you in growing deeper in the Word.

If you go back to chapter 1, verse 23 and 28 through 28, I want to read and I want to I want you to see where Jesus begins some miraculous works.

Uh this first one it says, Now there was a man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Let us alone.

What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?

Did you come to destroy us?

I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him.

And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.

Then, listen to this, they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this?

What new doctrine is this?

For with authority he commands even unclean spirits, and they obey him, and immediately his fame spread.

Circle that, because that's gonna be important for our text in chapter two.

His fame spread throughout all of Galilee.

So demons we see recognize Jesus' power, and the disciples are watching this miracle unfold, and they go, What kind of doctrine is this?

What were we missing?

And immediately after this happens, the fame of Jesus begins, there begins to be a buzz about who Jesus is.

In verse 3, won't go through all of it, but in verse 33, Jesus touches a leopard, a leper, and Jesus says, to be quiet about this, and the man cannot.

He goes and spreads it, and we get there, that gets us to chapter 2, where it says, And again he entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house.

Immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door, and he preached the word to him.

So I want you to see the scene, the buzz that was created, the news that was in Capernaum was that Jesus was in the house.

There was a rumor, and it was an excitement that this man is doing something that nobody has ever really seen.

And everybody was so moved by this that there was a house, and if you look through the scripture, it was probably the house of Peter, probably where he had been staying.

And he got there, and the crowd began to grow and grow and grow.

And Jesus is in this room and it was packed.

Like the great theologian Toby Mack said.

When love is in the house, the house is packed.

So much so I left the back door cracked.

When love is in the house, the house is packed.

Now that's not straight from scripture, but that's what Toby thought.

And love was in the house, and it was packed, and it was full.

Well, the first point I want you to see this morning, that was the situation, and verse 3 and 4, there's this faithful four.

Today's message title Again, I said The Gospel on the Ground, the Gospel Friendship.

Then they came to him bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.

And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was.

I want to ask you a question, then we'll pray.

Do you have friends that impact your spiritual walk?

Do you have four friends who make you a better Christian?

Well, these four friends saw the plight of their friend, and we're gonna unpack how that made a huge difference in his life.

Pray with me.

Father, we love you and we thank you for your word.

And God, the opportunity to share it, God, I am not worthy to be in this place, and I'm not worthy to preach your word.

But God, you have called for this.

And God, you are the audience.

This is for you.

And I pray that the people that are here, God, would move things out of the way that are in the way.

God, that for a few moments we would just answer your call and your voice.

And God, allow us the freedom here to hear from you.

And God, I pray that we would see how the impact of these friends made a difference in their friends' life.

Lord, open our hearts in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, do you have four friends?

Well, these four friends, letter A, faced danger.

Their friend was paralyzed, keeping him from having a better life.

Heather and I and our family got close to a man by the name of Frank Andrews.

Frank Andrews had ALS.

And as his friend, whenever I thought deeply about his situation in ALS, I hated ALS.

And I hated that Frank, who he was, how this impacted his life.

This was a brilliant man.

He was an engineer.

Frank continued on, even though that was his plight and it was a slow-moving illness.

He got to the point where he could just use his thumb.

And Frank was creating and engineering programs for people with just that thumb.

And then it got to where he lost the capability of his thumb and he figured out he still had some use in his eye, so he had a mouse connected to his eye, and he was working programs through his eye, and he was a phenomenal person.

We loved Frank, and it was really hard not to be mad at ALS.

Many of our of your companions may not be suffering from physical paralysis, but so many are suffering from spiritual paralysis, keeping them from living a better life.

By the way, you can be in a chair here today and you can be in spiritual paralysis.

You can be at church and be there.

Well, this friend was in this situation, and when I say that about your friends, that's anyone who's lost or maybe knows God, but they're stuck.

They can't figure out how to get out of where they're at, and they're just stuck.

They're paralyzed in spiritual apathy or unconfessed sin or hurt.

They've been hurt by somebody and they can't get past that.

And wherever they are, they're paralyzed.

Well, that was the physical plight of these friends' friend.

And the rumors were circulating that Jesus Christ was in this area and his works were being done.

And so for these four friends, they come up with this crazy proposal to their friend.

It was dangerous.

Think about it.

Dangerous for a paralytic.

It's bad enough that he had to live in this situation.

This was his lot in life.

But what if he did what they proposed?

What if he got there and it wasn't true?

What if he did this thing and Jesus couldn't help him?

What if everyone that was there mocked him?

What if, what if, what if?

How will he even get to Jesus?

And if he gets to Jesus, how will he know if Jesus will want to help him?

All of these apprehensions in stride, for friends, pick him up and carry him.

Have you ever carried a human being a long distance?

A person for a long distance?

It's been 10 years, thank God, that we went to Disney, and for 72 hours straight, I carried a child on my neck.

I don't know if you noticed this, but I before Disney I used to be six foot tall.

And I got this hunch, I know you can see, and I thought about calling Walt and seeing what we could work out.

It was 400 degrees, those 72 hours.

It was the hottest days of my life.

And Heather's talk about all the time, we should go back to Disney.

And I'm like, Yes, we should.

Someday.

But this man, if he just, we'll just say he was 180 pounds, we'll give him some average.

That's 45 pounds apiece for these four friends.

And it's not like they had the advantage where you could throw them on your back and carry them that way.

So, have have you ever tried to carry a 50-pound bag of cement?

Right?

And you pick it up and it's all and it works, all of these muscles that you don't have, and so you're all in the core, and it's all out here, and it's awkward and it's heavy, and it messes with my brain because I'm like, it's just 50 pounds.

I should be able to pick up 50 pounds, and I'm just and I and we have one for the basketball hoop to keep it down, and I'm like, every time something happens, that thing's moving, like, no, I don't want to pick this up.

So they're picking up this man, and it's not like it was an easy task.

Stretcher style.

It's dangerous.

What if they dropped him?

Right?

You think about that?

I don't know how long the carry was.

What if their paralyzed friend now has a news story of the day he got dropped on his face?

Do you want to be a part of that?

How are they going to do this?

Well, four friends look at the dangers and they're very optimistic about the dangers that were at hand.

A few weeks ago on Vision Sunday, I asked the church, how many of you want to be in 2025 gospel on the ground and have somebody in your life who needs prayed over, who needs to come to Jesus, who you would like to be a gospel seed to or through your ministry or some opportunity.

And over 200 people in the church responded to that.

We had little buckets here to pray over those.

And then last week I asked to be gospel on the ground.

John the Baptist painted this picture of clearing out paths to making room to confessing sin to make a way for Jesus.

And so if stage one is, yes, I want my friend to get to Jesus, stage two looked a lot like, well, I want them to get to Jesus, but I don't know if I want to carry them.

I want my family member to be closer to Jesus, but I didn't really know all that was required.

I want someone to meet with Jesus, but I don't know if I want to be laughed at.

And John 15, 13 says, No greater love is this than a man would lay down his life for a friend.

So to bring a friend to Jesus, it means you have to face some fears.

There's fears of rejection, of course.

The message that I'm bearing, the testimony that I have, if I offer it and they reject it, what then?

Fear of embarrassment, fear of being misunderstood, fear of me getting out of my comfort zone, fear of having to change the way that I'm living my life to then present the gospel, fear of what others think, fear of confessing my own sin, fear of inadequacy, not being able to say what I need to say.

But I want to tell you, church, that God's word says, God has not given us a spirit of fear.

Your friends and siblings and family members, people that you love are spiritually paralyzed.

And it may take a step of your faith.

Do you believe if you go that God can?

Do you believe that in your core?

If you go, if you speak, if you do, that God can?

So my question this morning is: will you step into faith?

Are you spiritually prepared to walk by faith to be gospel on the ground?

Well, letter B, we see these friends were determined.

They faced dangers, and they were determined.

I want you to look at verse 4 and 5.

When they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was.

So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you.

So the first thing that we see, they arrive on the scene and the crowd was too much.

The crowd was too much for them to get their friend to Jesus, and a detriment that you imagine getting there and you've done this work and you're sweating, and then there's immediately, have you ever felt like that?

You're ready, you've got the faith, you're stepping out, you're gonna do a good thing, and immediately there's an obstacle.

You ever been there?

Like you were gonna give your testimony or talk to your friend, you set everything up, and then you messed up, or something got messed up.

Obstacles that just get right in the way.

Well, they get there, and there's a big crowd.

By the way, many things draw a crowd today.

Sports draws a crowd.

Musicians can draw big crowds.

Many churches today can draw a big crowd.

And here's the question that matters to this circumstance: what do they do with the crowd when it's there?

That's what matters.

What do they do?

Wyatt and I went to uh Dude Perfect in Birmingham, and he'd been asking me about them coming, and um I looked up and got tickets.

I hadn't hardly watched much of what they did, and and uh, but I knew that him and my my son Weston were excited about them, liked them.

And uh we went to the uh show, and I hardly remember the stunts, the things that they were doing.

They were throwing some frisbees across 14,000 people.

They did some basketball dunking.

What I mainly remember was Wyatt being there and having a big smile from ear to ear and him, his excitement about it, and that that was plenty enough for me.

But with 14,000 people, I got to thinking in this moment.

There's 14,000 people, and I've got a video I want you to see.

This is what they did with that crowd.

Over the last 13 years for us, I know it has never been more clear to us at this point that there is nothing that this world has covered.

They can compare to the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as a personal.

We are permanent people, we are publicly imperfect, and I can promise you we are the purpose thing from them.

We will stand up on this state and adamantly admit that we are very flawed individuals, and we have a need for a savior.

I saw that.

And all of the other things that they had done, it didn't matter to me anymore.

I was a fan of Dude Perfect.

14,000 people.

This was not an advertised Christian event.

This was a winter jam.

This was drawing all kinds of people, and it was packed, and all these kids were excited.

And amidst that, at the end of their show, what they did with the crowd is what matters.

They called for a gospel.

Well, I want you to look back for a second in Mark chapter 1, verse 38.

Mark 1:38

Because Jesus, remember this buzz that's being created by him, and I want you to see what was on his heart.

Chapter 1, verse 38.

He said the guys are telling them, the disciples are telling them, everyone is looking for you at the end of verse 37.

But he said to them, Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also, because for this purpose, this purpose, I have come forth.

Jesus wanted to preach.

People were being miraculously healed, but Jesus wanted to preach.

He could have just made a spectacle of miracles.

It was within his power, like a magic show, come and see what I can do.

But when the crowd grew and the house was packed, Jesus wanted to preach.

Preaching was central to the ministry of Jesus.

And I have to tell you, today, the same has to be true of churches.

Man, I love good singing and testimonies and prayer time, but there ought to be something about the truth of the word of God being preached by a man of God, fellowshipping with the people of God.

Our primary business here is not to fill seats or build a great bank account or have great programming or have some kind of show.

Our primary business is reaching people through the Lord's message, through the Lord's book.

I'm so glad that I'm a part of a Bible-believing church who loves the preaching of the Word of God.

A crowd was drawn, and Jesus said, huh, this looks like a perfect opportunity to do what?

A great time to preach.

These men show up and the preaching is going forth, and there is a crowd, and they can't even get to Jesus because of the people there.

Can you imagine if people pulled up today and there was such a crowd here that people couldn't get in like a winner jam, like a fest down at the BGJCC?

People were waiting in line because of the preaching of the Word of God.

Well, they get there with their friend, and I want to tell you, they don't give up.

They don't give up.

God is teaching me for myself and others that people are at different stages of their journey.

And some people are in spiritual paralysis, but there's some people all over this map in their Christian life, and they may be somewhere totally different in 10 years.

And I may be totally different in 10 years.

Don't ever give up on people.

Don't give up spiritually.

These four friends could have arrived at the crowded house and said, Well, we tried.

I mean, we carried you all this way, but there's no room.

We got you to Jesus, and he's not healing, he's just preaching.

You might think the next opportunity is going to be the one, and I want to tell you today, if it's not, don't pack it up.

Don't give up.

Don't let an obstacle send you home.

Just reroute.

Some people here need to hear that.

Don't let an obstacle get in the way of what God wants to do.

Reroute.

Somebody today needs a reroute.

If it's not working, if there's tension in your heart, if it's not going the way it should be going, then reroute.

Four men carried a man.

And they get to this point.

And then there's one.

And I just imagine him to be like the little bit crazy one, right?

Everybody got a friend like this in your group?

He's the one that's gonna do something a little dumb.

He's the one that's gonna get you a ticket when you go out.

Like there's always one of these guys in every group.

He's the one that can't quite control his tongue, even though he's a Christian.

But he, you know, well, here's one.

Four men, they get there and they're looking, and one guy that's probably the crazy one says, I know.

Let's take him to the roof.

And if there's a sensible one, he might ask the question, well, what are we gonna do when we get to the roof?

But he says, It doesn't matter.

Let's just take him to the roof.

Let's raise the roof.

It's a party song.

I don't know.

Imagine the scene.

They believe from studies the house would have been consistent with others made of that time, a stone house, not a huge house, but big enough with some rooms and probably a roof made of earth and straw.

Jesus is preaching.

And man, what a distraction.

I don't know if you heard what's going on, if you ever had raccoons in your house or anything like this.

You hear stuff, and there's something there's some motion on the roof.

I have preached through some distractions that are pretty distracting.

If you've ever seen a fly come at a pastor, please come with a fly swatter and help the man.

Like it's like all this going on.

I preached with a fly.

One time I was doing a video for my master's degree, and I had to preach through it.

And when you're doing a video, you can't like go off in the video.

But I was teaching teenagers, and there sat one in the front row, and he had brought in a bag of Cheetos.

And I'm preaching, and I hear I'm trying not to yell at the video with my professor and all my classmates are going to review.

Please stop with the Cheetos! But one by one, he ate all of them.

Orange does.

I'm like Had babies.

You've heard that.

You've been in church.

And you've sat through that two weeks straight, and I'm giving the whole church permission on this from now on.

But two weeks straight, I got up one week, I think it was Mother's Day, and I look down at my wife and I think, Heather is ticked off at me.

And if you're preaching and you c catch a glance of your family and something looks off, I'm like, what is going on?

Her eyes like, like she's mad, and I'm like, oh, what did I do this morning?

You're trying to speak something, but at the same time, you're having thoughts over here that you're trying to like, you know, man, we're trying to fix stuff.

And I'm like, what did I do?

What did I say to say something about her?

And all this is going, and she's just looking, and and somebody over here is like going like this, and I'm like, what does that mean?

And I never figured it out.

Well, this thing was sitting on my beard, and so the whole service I'm speaking and is just crackle, crackle, crackle.

And Heather is just so, and I and I, it was so distracting for everyone.

The next week I had one of these water bottles, and I'm trying to be cool and I'm talking like the kids doing things.

I'm like my kids all the time saying, throw them water bottles in there and land, land it.

I'm so awesome, land.

I'm like, what else other option is there if the bottle doesn't land?

Like, really celebrate if it doesn't land, but it's always gonna land.

And so I go, land it.

The bottle cap was somewhat open, water shot back, sprayed all of my pants.

Some of y'all remember this?

Yes, okay.

Very distracting.

I distracted my own self.

Okay.

But this, Jesus is preaching, crowd is locked in, undoubtedly, at the authority of his message.

And they're watching, and all of a sudden, dirt falls from the roof and hits his holy air.

Jesus looks up, and all of a sudden, there's grass and straw falling down on his saintly sandals.

What's going on here?

And then it continues, and they're looking up, and rock and dust, and dirt falling on his righteous robe.

Crowd totally lost concentration.

And then all of that's happened.

Roof is full of.

I don't know if they had a code.

Pull, push, pull.

I don't know what's going on, but all he's preaching and a man.

And the whole crowd is there just watching this unfold.

If that happened today, y'all would be like, what is going on in here?

And this man is lowered.

And you know, you know, in church, you're not supposed to laugh when things are serious.

Jesus is preaching with power.

And there's some guys in the back, and they're like, Do you see what's going on in church?

And everybody, all of it, was lost.

And don't miss this.

Jesus wipes the dirt from his brow.

And with wonder in the heart of Jesus, which we'll get to in a moment, with wonder in his heart, he says, son, he says an interesting thing.

Son, your sins are forgiven.

Let's jump into that strange phrase at that particular moment in time.

Go to verses six through nine.

We're gonna look second point at the frustrating flock.

And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak blasphemies like this?

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, he said to them, Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?

Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, Arise, take up your bed and walk.

Letter A, we see this, the Jews had anger.

They had anger.

If you thought the roof was a spectacle, when Jesus forgave a man's sins, when he makes this statement, he lowers the boom on the scribes.

Nobody up to this point seems upset.

We see nothing in scripture up to this point where people are upset that Jesus is healing people, that he's uh doing these miraculous things, and nobody seems to be upset.

They're just absorbing the moment of his teaching, nobody's calling out his teaching.

And then Jesus said, Son, your sins are forgiven.

And it incites anger in the hearts of people, because who forgives sins?

You see, these Jewish people looked and longed for a Messiah, but what they wanted from a Messiah and what they were hearing in their hearts struck a different chord.

To the scribes, even the Messiah, the political messiah that they were looking for, the Messiah that was going to make their life better, even that Messiah couldn't forgive sin because only God can do that.

Bingo.

They're on to something here, they just don't know it.

And instead of inquiring to Jesus about what he said, they began and continued to begin transpiring and skepticizing against Jesus.

You've seen miracles, you've seen wonders, you've heard with authority, and he says, I forgive your sins.

And instead of all that going, this must be something, they go, I can't believe he would have the nerve to say something like this.

It's the antithesis of faith.

It's been used since the Garden of Eden.

It's called doubt.

And instead of considering a step of their faith in this moment, their knee-jerk in that was doubt.

This is, by the way, in Mark, the first accusation brought upon Jesus.

And the accusation is blasphemy.

Blasphemy is to speak off about something that is sacred.

So they're claiming that Jesus is speaking lies about something sacred.

This is the very same accusation.

The first in Mark is the very same accusation that would take Jesus to the cross.

He has this conversation with Pilate, and Pilate asks Jesus, Are you in fact the King of the Jews?

And Jesus says to Pilate, You have well said.

He confirms.

But it's this whole idea that he can forgive sin.

1 John 1 9 makes it pretty plain, church.

God is not in heaven holding a grudge against your sin.

He's not up there going, Oh, you messed up on this one, and I'm holding it forever.

That was too far, that was too much.

1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, that's first, if we confess, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And Jesus asked this pretty simple question: Is it harder for me to raise him up or to forgive sins?

But they're angry because Jesus' words imply authority.

That this man had authority.

And not everybody likes authority.

Jews had a certain way.

You could go to the temple and have your sin forgiven by a priest, but Jesus to them didn't qualify as a priest.

The only second option, letter B, was that he was God.

And as much as they liked healing, and as much as they liked his authoritative message, and there was a crowd for the preaching, could this man be God?

We suffer from the same problem, church.

It's called control.

In humanity, we love control.

And human control is a huge detriment to gospel on the ground.

We want to be in control of our situations.

And for someone else to be authority in our life, that hits us hard.

And Jesus said, follow me, lose your life, and the same for the gospel's sake shall find it.

By trying to keep God in our tidy little box wrapped up in a bow the way that we want God to be, we're repressing the work of the gospel on the ground.

God's not in a box.

But an infuriated Jews to be challenged, you have to maybe think differently than how you've been thinking.

And here's a question that nobody likes today.

I don't like.

Could you be wrong?

See, it's a control thing.

And the Jewish people didn't want to be faced with this idea that they could be wrong, and they may have to face that and deal with that and internalize that.

Well, letter B is this.

Jesus had answers for them.

They had anger, he had answers.

Look again at verse 6, and then we're going to look at the first part of verse 8.

And some of the scribes were sitting there reasoning in their hearts.

But immediately, when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned with himself, he said to them, Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?

The reasoning in their hearts.

This is interesting again.

Jesus perceived.

It doesn't say that they were speaking this out loud to others.

It said they were reasoning within their hearts, and in their hearts they were asking themselves, why does this man blaspheme?

Inside, inside voice, in their mind.

And Jesus turns around with outside voice, outside of his mind, and says, Why do you think this way?

It doesn't say they spoke up and called him out for blasphemy.

It says they were perceiving it.

Man, do you ever get in trouble because your wife knew what you were thinking?

You didn't even say it.

She just took a look at you, at your face, and you got in trouble.

I confess, my face has said too many things.

But imagine this.

Jesus, for all of us, sees the inner workings of our mind.

He knows what you're thinking right now.

That's tough.

So Jesus was redefining what the Jews knew of the idea of Messiah.

And I thought about this and mentioned this the other week.

In Shelby County, 75 or 70% of its people are unchurched.

And that's what I think we suffer from.

I think we suffer here from biblical southernism.

If you ask most people, they're Bible-believing, football-loving, America first, God bless America, and they believe in Jesus.

Hear me, they love Jesus.

If you ask them, they say, we love Jesus.

And 70%, 7 out of 10, won't worship in a church today.

I think the good people in Alabama believe Jesus is Southern.

He'd attend Iron Bowl, he'd drink sweet tea, and he'd maybe hunt on Sundays.

Jesus was teaching them about who the Messiah was, and still today, Jesus is not a catchphrase Messiah or a slogan Messiah or a Southern Messiah.

Jesus is a personal savior.

And he said, if you want to follow me, lose your life.

Take up your cross.

And when I think of 70% of our county unchurched, I can't imagine that that's the definition of taking up your cross.

I believe there's lots of Jesus fans.

Idelman wrote a book.

Fan, follower, and something else.

Fake.

I think there's a lot of Jesus fans, and they go, I want to get a some of Jesus.

I want to be around some people that know Jesus.

And I needed some Jesus on Sunday, and it's like a ball game.

I'm a fan of Jesus, but Jesus said, if you want to follow me, you've got to deny yourself.

Lose your life for the gospel on the ground's sake.

They wanted a Messiah who'd change their problems, who'd heal things, who'd touch a leper, who would make the lame to walk, who would make blind seed, but not a messiah who rooted around in their heart.

And I want to say today either Jesus is God or you are.

Either you are under him or you are over him.

And I can promise you, you're not over God.

The Bible says, you're either for me or you are against me.

There's not some other line.

And it's profound.

He says that the son of man, he uses this phrase, son of man.

And it's very revealing doctrinally to Christology.

For the first time, and we talked about it in Mark chapter 8, for the first time here, he uses the phrase of himself, the Son of Man.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

That's the word anthropos.

And the Son of Man means to be a human being while claiming it as prophetic.

Daniel 7, we talked about week one, 7, 13, and 14, the prophecy of the Son of Man was coming.

And that verse says Daniel 7, 13, and behold, one like the Son of Man is coming in the clouds, coming to the ancient days, to him will be dominion, glory, and a kingdom forever.

Tells of this beginning of who Jesus was.

He's telling the Jewish people of the identity of the Messiah in a different way than they understood him to be or wanted him to be.

They saw with John the Baptist a voice fell from heaven and said, This is my beloved Son.

Jesus the Messiah.

This is the Son of God.

And he calls himself the Son of Man, giving them an identity.

He says, I am the Messiah.

I'm no blasphemer.

I am God.

And he was.

Well, he gave them their answer.

And it continues.

Look at verse 10 through 12.

Let's find out about the man who had been lowered.

There it is in verse 10.

But that you may know that the Son of Man, that's that phrase, has power on earth to forgive sins.

He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house.

Immediately he arose, he took up his bed, and he went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.

The third point this morning is forgiven, fixed feet, and fanatical.

That's what happened with this man.

Letter A, we see a man who is changed.

First, it started with his sins, though.

And hear me, church, you may have a lot of things you brought in.

You may look at your life and see a lot of problems and tensions, and I want to tell you the first thing is your heart need.

And Jesus wants to heal your heart need.

And if you don't get your heart need fixed, it's real hard to have the right domino effect of the other needs in your life.

You have to start with this heart.

And Jesus saw a man who was paralyzed, never walked, and their friends saw his problem and thought, this is the greatest need he has.

And Jesus went straight to a different need.

Our greatest need has never been resources or time.

Our greatest need has never been money.

Our greatest need isn't even family members or friends.

If our greatest need had been those things, God would have sent something for us.

In fact, the man quoted this saying, if our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator.

If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.

If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent an economist.

If our greatest need was political, he would have sent a politician.

If our greatest need was health, he would have sent a doctor.

If our greatest need was mind, he would have sent a psychiatrist.

If our greatest need was pleasure, he would have sent an entertainer.

But our greatest need was forgiveness.

And so God sent a Savior to you and me.

Jesus Christ has been and always will be our greatest need.

Jesus Christ, Yahweh is salvation.

That's what the Jews are trying to understand.

The anointed one from God is the Son of God.

Jesus is God, He is salvation.

He is everyone here, without a shadow doubt, no care how much you have, how old you are, what your lot in life is, he is your greatest need.

So Jesus takes care of his greatest need.

And then he tells him, in part to that, why he connects with the next need.

Verse 10, he says, That you may know that the Son of Man, he uses that name, has power to forgive sins.

I'm fixing his other need so that you can confirm amongst these witnesses that I have the power.

You see this need, but it's going to confirm that I have the power to forgive sin.

Jesus Christ said, Arise and go to your house, Mark's word, immediately and everywhere he went for the rest of his life, this man was changed.

He was the lame man who could now walk.

It's like the scene on a little mermaid when she got her feet.

Can you imagine?

Of course, he never looked the same.

He was lame, he couldn't walk, and all of a sudden he walked around town and he was like, ha ha ha.

Whoo.

You like this?

These boots are made for walking.

And that's what they'll do.

And he was walking.

He had a story now everywhere he went.

And when people saw him, it said they had, it says this right here in the verse we never saw anything like this.

If God has changed your heart, your life should look as evident as a lame man who is now walking.

Your testimony should look as though someone who now walks.

Because the psalmist said this that I was in a pit and he took me up out of a pit and he set my feet upon a rock and he established my goings and he put a new song in my mouth.

If I've been changed by Jesus, I can't stay the same old way.

I can't stay in unconfessed sin.

I can't stay over.

He forgave his sin and then he fixed his legs.

When God, through grace, sent Jesus, he fixed your greatest need.

Let her be.

And lastly, it was a miracle of confirmation.

If you have a moment, if you'll turn over to Acts chapter 2, we're gonna look at verse 10 here.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

But Acts chapter 2, verse 22.

Acts 2:22

Verse 10, I've read it, but it says that, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.

He was trying to confirm and get in the heart of an audience what was really happening, why he was healing this man.

And further, I believe, by the confirmation of Acts 2.22, the whole reason.

See, Jesus liked to go and preach.

He did miracles for a reason.

Look at verse chapter 2, verse 22.

It says, Men of Israel hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst.

He says, it was an attesting, a testimony of God working through him.

It was for testimony's sake.

It was so that we would know that this man who came on earth had the power of God in him.

He healed his feet to meet his need, but further to confirm to Capernaum and all those watching that he was who he said he was.

The Son of Man.

His works, wonders, and miracles served to confirm this identity.

This is Jesus.

But I want to close with how we got here.

How we got here to begin with.

The confirmation of faith.

Because there's just this interesting part of verse five that you could just breeze right by, but I don't want to do that.

Verse 5, the very first part, it says, When Jesus saw their faith, when he saw their faith, whose faith?

Not the paralytics, not the disciples, not the crowd gathered in the house.

When he saw the faith of four friends, when he saw the heart of four friends who would stop at nothing to get their helpless friend to help, he immediately responded.

When he saw that they would do the work, when he saw that they would carry the load, when he saw that they would do whatever it took for their helpless friend, immediately he stopped and responded.

He could have said, I'm preaching here.

This is preaching time.

I love to preach.

And I believe today that if God saw a heart of faith like that in you and me, he'd bless the gospel on the ground.

And he might just open a door of opportunity.

If you said, God, I'll do whatever I have to do in this heart, in this life, I'll take whatever step of faith.

If I gotta carry someone, God just open the door and I'll begin walking in faith.

You see, in the New Testament, there's two times where the word marvel is mentioned in association with Jesus.

That word marvel means amazed, wowed.

Like when I take Heather on a date, she dresses up, wow, marvel.

She's marvelous.

Jesus was amazed, but think about that.

Just think about that phrase.

Jesus who could turn five loaves and two fishes into food for 15,000.

Jesus who turned water into wine.

Jesus who in John 1:1 was at the beginning of all things and saw the birth of creation.

John 1:1

This Jesus was amazed at something.

That's amazing.

Let me tell you what he was amazed at.

I'll tell you the negative and then the positive.

He went into a town and there was a lack of faith.

And Jesus said, I can't even serve in this town.

The miracles of God in this air, because of the lack of faith, it's suppressing the power of God.

Hear that, church.

A lack of faith in a place seemed to have a suppression on the acts of God.

You think your faith matters or doesn't matter?

It matters.

And then a second time, I think it's Mark 6, 6, Jesus is encountered by a man named Jarius, encountering him about his daughter who's dying.

And this man says, I know if you can just get to her, that she can be helped.

And Jesus said to him, it says, and he marveled at his faith.

And he said, Your daughter will be made well.

There's allusions to, we don't get to hear that word again, but Jesus, the woman with the blood issue, touched him, and Jesus said, Who touched me?

I felt power fall from me.

He was amazed by that act of faith.

Jesus is moved by faith.

Jesus loves an encounter with faith.

Jesus is balks at a lack of faith.

In Matthew 16, 4, he says, An evil generation seeks for a sign.

He wants them just to believe.

In John 20, 29, he says to Thomas, Because you've seen me, you believe.

Blessed are they who have not seen me and yet believe.

Well, Jesus saw the faith of four friends and it moved him.

What is this that we have to deal with today?

Hebrews 11:1 says, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

Faith is believing in what God can do enough that I'll take the step, not knowing what's going to happen.

That's faith in action.

Hebrews 11 6 says, but without faith, it is impossible to please God.

God expects for us to move by faith.

And it's the same substance that saved us.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, For by grace, that's Jesus Christ, for by grace are you saved through something, through faith.

For us, that means believing Jesus is who he says he is and did what he said he did.

That's what faith is.

The great news is God doesn't expect for you to make miracles happen or to move mountains.

He wants us to work in the unseen, not the seen.

He doesn't need you to do the miraculous.

And then another step of faith.

God wants you to move today in faith.

Can you bow your heads and close your eyes this morning?

A step, church.

Are you willing to take a step?

There's many people in your life, whether it be family member, teammate, somebody right next to you, and they're in some sort of paralysis.

They're going through lostness or stuckness.

And I believe the invitation today is this will you take a step?

Not asking for a leap.

Will you take a step to be the gospel on the ground?

Many say, Yes, I want my friend to know Jesus, my family member.

Will you take a step?

The gospel on the ground is going by faith.

How many today will say, not only do I want my family member and friend to meet Jesus, I'll carry them.

If God opens the door, I'll carry them.

I don't know if they know how to do it.

I don't know if they know how to walk.

I'll put my arm out.

I'll carry them.

I'm gonna pray, church.

I'm gonna ask you to stand to your feet.

And the invitation is this will you take a step of faith today?

I'm gonna ask you if that's you.

Maybe today you would come to the altar before God and say, God, I know that there's a step of faith I need to take it.

I'm willing to take it.

This step to this altar is part of that confirmation.

God, I've got people in my life that need Jesus.

I place them on this prayer altar.

Today, I want to take a step.

God, I'm trusting you to open the doors.

I'm trusting you to open my mouth.

But today, I'm willing to take a step of faith.

I tell you, there were four friends who did it.

I pray today that that would be you.

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