Your Sins are Forgiven

Our scripture reading this morning is Mark Two, one to twelve.

Mark two, one to twelve.

When he entered Capernaum, again after some days, it was reported that he was at home.

So many people gathered together that there was no more room.

Not even in the doorway.

And he was speaking the word to them.

They came to him bringing a paralytic carried by four of them.

Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.

And after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.

But some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does he speak like this?

He's blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

And right away, verse 8, Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves, and said to them, Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

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

But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he told the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home.

And he immediately he got up, took the mat, and went out in front of everyone.

And as a result, they were all astounded, and they gave glory to God, saying, We've never seen anything like this.

This is the word of the Lord.

Your sins are forgiven.

Today we're gonna celebrate those amazing sweet words.

Your sins are forgiven.

We're also gonna celebrate those amazing words in communion later in the service as we celebrate the Lord's supper, the Lord's table.

Well, what's happening right now in this section of Scripture is we now make another shift that takes place in Mark's gospel out of the events of chapter one, which are, which are clumped together as one, into now another major section of Christ's ministry, which starts here in chapter two and runs right through to the end of chapter three.

Commentators note that the healing of the paralytic is the first in these five increasingly hostile encounters or these controversies in which Jesus is compelled to respond to precisely uh criticisms by the scribes and the Pharisees.

So even if you look through, glance through chapter two into chapter three, we see things like next week, he's gonna call Levi, who becomes Matthew, the tax collector.

He's gonna eat with sinners, and that's gonna be controversial.

And then we're gonna see this question about fasting and the Lord's Sabbath.

These things are going to be controversial.

It all starts here with the paralytic.

This hostile relationship has its beginnings in today with forgiveness and with healing of this man.

And so we're going to see this morning that Jesus has the authority to forgive sin because Jesus is revealed as God and he's also declared as king.

He's revealed as God and declared as king.

The first thing.

Verses 1 through 7.

You know, we notice in these opening verses, in these opening statements of chapter 2, that his presence no longer goes unnoticed.

Remember what had happened before?

Now, wherever Jesus goes, people know that he's arrived.

And that's exactly what happens here.

Jesus is in town.

And people crowded in the house and outside the house, trying to get a glimpse of Jesus and what he would do and what he was doing.

And Jesus begins as verse 2.

I love that it says this.

He says this, and it begins, and he was speaking the word to them.

They are crowded, trying to hear him preach the word.

Of course he's preaching, right?

I mean, we've been talking about this.

This is the whole point, the whole reason that Jesus had come was to preach the good news.

And so people are crowded.

They're in the room, they're in the doorway, they're in the house.

It's busting at the seams.

And verses three to four, what takes place?

Verse 3, starting verse 3.

They came to him bringing a paralytic, carried by four of them.

Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

We see Mark here get into this specific detail.

And what's interesting about this story is this story is also in the other synoptic gospels, so it's also in Matthew, it's also in Luke, but Mark gives us the most detail.

Matthew doesn't give us all this detail.

Even though Matthew is a book of 28 chapters, Mark is only a book of 16, we see this throughout the book of Mark, is that he tends to get into a little bit more detail in the stories that he tells than we do with Matthew.

And so we know the story, right?

Four people carrying this paralytic, this paralyzed man.

It doesn't say if he was a quadru uh a quadruplegic or just a paraplegic.

We just know that he had some type of paralysis.

Obviously, he couldn't move.

He's likely being carried by these men on what is said to be a mat, like a stretcher type type thing.

And so what do they do?

They get up on the roof and they dig through the roof.

Jesus inside, teaching the word of God, and all of a sudden, they're digging in the roof in order to get this man down.

And this would have been noisy and disruptive.

Just think about if this happened here, right?

We would probably hear it.

There would be things falling from the ceiling into the room.

And what's also interesting about how Mark presents these stories is that this is the third time that Jesus' preaching is interrupted.

Just think about that.

Jesus had come to preach.

That was his mission.

He declared it boldly, he declared it straight.

And three times he's interrupted.

Once with the demon-possessed man, chapter one, and then we saw leprosy as well.

And now with the paralytic.

And seeing their faith in verse five, he says, seeing their faith, Jesus took the paralytic.

He told, sorry, he told the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven.

Your sins are forgiven.

Just think about the scene, right?

They're lowering him down through the roof.

There would have been debris everywhere.

There would have been commotion.

What's going on?

Jesus stops teaching and preaching, watches them lower him down.

He's laying there, and Jesus looks at him and says, Son, your sins are forgiven.

This would have been a little shocking, maybe, to the crowd, right?

If any of us were in the place of Jesus and a man is lowered down through the roof, placed in front of us, wouldn't we have a few questions to ask?

Maybe uh uh how can I help you?

Or uh why?

Not Jesus.

He knew why this man had come, and he knew what this man needed the most, and out of the mouth of the Son of God came the sweetest, most important words any of us could ever hear.

Your sins are forgiven.

Sins?

What about the paralysis?

This man was lowered on a mat.

He can't walk, he can't move.

Shouldn't we first deal with the paralysis?

Mm-mm.

No, not our Jesus.

You see, we knew that the suspicion of the day was that these physical ailments were a result of sin.

So a lot of people believe that if you are paralyzed or you had leprosy or you had a fever, even like we talked about a few weeks ago.

Perhaps if he had been born this way, then it could have pointed to the sin of his parents.

He could have been caused this way as a paralyzed man because of the sin of his parents.

And this is this was kind of the popular cultural belief at the time.

And so, much like the leper, he would have been an outcast in society, but not to Jesus.

You see, Jesus and the message of the gospel restores even broken and evil oppression.

And this will continue to be this sticky point for the scribes, and we're going to talk about this more as the weeks go on.

But in answering the way that Jesus does, what he does, your sins are forgiven, by saying that, he's breaking this cultural mold.

But he's also doing something else that's really important.

Because he's dealing with the most important issue.

See, the reason why Jesus had come was to seek, to serve, and to save the lost for the forgiveness of their sins.

He now is not only just healing people.

So this is the first time we see this ministry, this side of Christ's ministry, he's not only just healing people, but he's declaring them forgiven.

And this this would be an interesting question for all of us, too in the room, or to or to think through.

But if if you were to write down, we were to write down the greatest needs we saw in our world or even in our own lives, what would we write?

If somebody said, I can give you a blank check to heal any disease, to remove any suffering, to give you any kind of money that you could need, what would we put down?

What would be our wishes?

Would it be hunger to go away around the world?

Would it be disease?

Would it be financial?

Would it be health?

Education?

Paralysis?

What do we see and perceive as our greatest need?

We see our greatest need above and far beyond all of those things is that our sins would be forgiven, as sin is the greatest problem.

The sin that resides in our hearts, the sin that separates us from our holy God.

And seeing the faith of this man, Jesus takes care of his greatest need.

He says, You're forgiven.

The priority of Jesus in life, in your life, in my life, is always to deal with your sin.

Even in our suffering, it's to deal with our sin.

We see those sobering words in Romans 5, 1 to 5 explain this.

James chapter 1 explains this.

James 1 · chapter mention

And the greatest healing of all is that we would hear from the Lord Jesus, your sin is forgiven.

And this is why he came, this is why he preached.

This is why he healed.

This is why he died.

This is why he would rise from the dead, take our sin on himself, so that he could look at you in the eye and say, You're forgiven.

So he could look at the liar and say forgiven.

So he could look at the gossiper and say forgiven.

So he could look at the angry and say, forgiven, the thief and say, forgiven, the addict and say forgiven.

The murderer, the adulterer, and say forgiven.

But you have to come to him.

Because here's what happens in verse 5.

He saw their faith.

Their faith.

They came to him.

He saw their faith.

You and I have to come to him because only he can say these words in this way and with this power.

And this is what triggers the scribes.

Look what happens in verses 6 and 7.

He says, Son, your sins are forgiven in verse 6 and 7.

But some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts.

So this is the first time we see the scribes themselves actually sitting under the teaching of Jesus.

First time that Mark explains the scribes being there.

And what do they say?

In verse 7 in their hearts, it says, Why does he speak like this?

He's blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

And this triggers them.

See what happens now in this scene is this promise that Jesus declares that triggers the scribes, and rightfully so, because they know that only Yahweh, only God, the God of Jacob, the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, only that God could and would promise to forgive sins.

We see this in Exodus 34, in the Pentateuch.

We see this also in Isaiah 44, verses 22 to 24.

Isaiah 44:22–24

These are promises that only Yahweh would make to his people.

And here you have Jesus arrive and make the promise.

And so they were right in the sense, the scribes are right, in the sense to attribute what Jesus was saying to what God the Father Yahweh had said.

Because this phrase also in the Greek, you see that phrase, who can forgive sins but God alone?

This phrase can also be translated as one God.

So who can forgive sins but one God?

So they knew that Jesus saying this was himself declaring his oneness with the Father, declaring his deity as one with God the Father.

He was saying, I am God.

I'm the God of the Old Testament.

And I've come to pull those promises together of the Old Testament.

The Exodus 34, 6-7 promise.

The Isaiah 44, 22 to 24 promise.

I have come to forgive sin.

And this explicit moment is important because what it does is it showcases that the lines around which Israel is organized are about to be challenged and they're about to change as Jesus had cleansed the leper, and his healing power and work was shown off to the priests of the temple.

So again, imagine being those priests in the temple when this leper comes to you and says, Look, I no longer have any leprosy.

Can you inspect me?

Jesus has healed me.

And so even in this cleansing of the leper, Jesus shows that he is the ultimate high priest.

Something that none of those priests could have done.

The ultimate high priest had come.

And now, with saying these words, your sins are forgiven in the midst of the scribes, he is challenging the theological, educated elite of the day.

Because that's what they were.

You see, the scribes were the only ones who could really debate forgiveness theologically.

Now they're confronted with God in the flesh, who's the only one able to forgive.

And so with this moment, it's beginning to showcase Jesus as emerging as the new center around which Israel is to exist, and the scribes don't like it.

Things were comfortable, things were predictable.

Now things are changing, and Jesus confronts them with these words.

And this takes us to our second, our final point.

So Jesus is revealed as God in these verses, and they get that.

They understand it.

He is declaring himself to be Yahweh.

And then here we see in the rest of the passage, we see that Jesus is declared as King in verses 8 through 12.

In these verses, we see that Jesus, we see that he knew what they were thinking.

So the scribes are thinking this.

Jesus knew what they were thinking.

And he also knew why they were thinking it.

I mean, of course he knew, right?

He was God.

I mean, anyone here ever have a mother or a grandmother or a spouse like that?

Where some of us, you know, even in this room, can be pretty good at understanding and knowing what our loved ones are thinking.

You ever have a mom or grandma that would just look at you and just see right through you?

And you'd be like, how does she do that?

I mean, especially if you know people well, you can feel and sense how they're feeling and what they're thinking without saying anything.

Apparently, we have some couples in here that have been married for a hundred years.

I know it's a hundred years between the two.

But we do have some couples that have been married for 70 or more.

And this is uh kind of what takes place when you're with somebody for so long, right?

Is that it becomes kind of second nature.

You can tell what your spouse is thinking and feeling.

But what Jesus does here is not with a spouse, not with somebody he knows on that level, in the sense of they know him on that level, and there's there's a relationship there.

What Jesus does here is is is uh is Something only God can do.

Only God can do this.

And verse 8, it says, Right away, Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves.

And he said to them, What are you thinking, these things?

Why are you thinking these things in your heart?

What a question.

Man.

Don't you think they would have been a little shocked on that question?

Him looking at them in the eyes and saying, Why are you thinking what you're thinking right now?

And this reminds us too of the theology that is built throughout scripture of who can really know the thoughts and the intents of anyone's heart?

And we know the answer is only God can.

Psalm 94 declares this.

Psalm 139 declares this.

Only God can do these things, 1 Corinthians 2.

So Jesus does something so supernatural here that this would have surely startled them even further.

They know Psalm 94.

They know Psalm 139.

Jesus was able to look at these guys and say, I know exactly what you're thinking and feeling inside your heart.

I am that God.

And this is the power of God on display.

Listen, church, listen.

Jesus knows the true intentions of our hearts.

He knows the true intentions of your feelings, of your conversations with others, what you and I think, what we perceive, what we believe, what we say, what we gossip about, what we create narratives about, or we feel about somebody else, Jesus knows where all of that comes from way better than you or I do.

He perceives it fully.

And we talk about building others up with our words.

But when it comes to how we talk about one another inside our hearts, inside our heads, how are we building others up with our thoughts?

And this is gonna be an uncomfortable thing that's gonna come out more in the gospel of Mark as we get there.

But what's in the heart always comes out.

It always comes out.

I wonder, if we started asking Jesus to change our own hearts toward those we were angry or bitter or frustrated with.

Instead of in our hearts explaining and finding justification for our anger, what if we ask Jesus to work on our hearts?

Lord, perceive what's inside of me.

Because what Jesus does here is he goes to work on the scribes' hearts.

Verses 9 and 11.

He says, What is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven?

Or to say, get up, take your mat and walk.

But so that you may know, so Jesus is speaking to the scribes, remember, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he told the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home.

This is an important phrase, son of man.

As Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, having authority on earth to forgive sins, this was another moment that was triggering, would be triggering for these scribes.

If you have your Bible, turn with me back.

Keep your finger in mark, but turn with me back to Daniel 7, 13 to 14.

This is where we see this phrase, son of man, mentioned.

And so Jesus calls himself this son of man.

These scribes, remember, they knew their Bibles better than we do.

They knew the Old Testament.

So when Jesus says this, this is exactly what he was saying, he was fulfilling, and they would have gotten it.

Daniel 7, starting in verse 13, Daniel says, I continued watching in the night visions, and suddenly one like a son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached the ancient of days.

The ancient of days is Lord God Yahweh, described earlier, a few verses earlier in Daniel, goes on to say, and was escorted before him, so before Lord God Yahweh.

And verse 14, he was given dominion, the Son of Man, given dominion and glory and a kingdom, so that those of every people, nation, and language would serve him, the Son of Man.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion and will not pass away, the Son of Man.

And his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.

This is who the Son of Man was.

He was gonna be king of the universe.

And so, as one commentator puts it, Jesus is saying this back to back to Mark 2.

Jesus is saying this.

He is making direct reference to Daniel, where it says these things, and Jesus is saying, I am the high priestly royal figure who arrives in the presence of the ancient of days of God.

On the day of atonement, the Leviticus 16, establishing a cosmic cleansing and inheriting the right to rule the universe.

And so by saying this, he's solidifying and establishing his relationship with the Father from eternity past into eternity future.

And why does he do this?

Well, he tells us why.

So that they may know that he is the rightful king of the universe, the Son of Man who has authority on earth to forgive sins.

And then what happens, verse 12?

Here's that word again, immediately.

Immediately, it was again at the beginning of verse 8.

We've talked about this word a few times throughout our series already.

Immediately, immediately, right away, immediately, immediately in verse 12, he got up, so he tells this man, take up your mat and go home.

So immediately this man gets up, he took the mat and he went out in front of everyone, and as a result, they were all astounded and gave glory to God, saying, We have never seen anything like this.

Immediately.

Now, I'm no doctor, I'm no nurse, I've been around a few doctors, have some friends that are, we have some in our midst.

You know better than I do.

But somebody who's been paralyzed for a significant amount of time, which we understand this guy was, there's deterioration that takes place, right?

Of all kinds of things in the body.

Muscle movements, muscles aren't strong, uh, limbs can even get smaller, bone density, tendons, all this stuff is greatly affected.

And so in order for Jesus to instantaneously heal this man, all of like this guy would have to pretty much quickly bulk up.

There would have been a physical uh, there would have been something that would have happened here, right?

Inside his body, muscles strengthen, bones denser, all the ailments that have been causing this paralysis.

Maybe he has something wrong with his spine, we don't know.

But immediately, immediately, and it's astounding.

And what do they do?

The result, they gave glory to God.

Here Jesus is making two of the boldest statements about himself.

Not only is he God, but he's also the one who rules the universe, and they see it on display.

They see it before their eyes, and they give glory to God.

Jesus has forgiven our sin, church.

And now as we take communion and we're welcomed to his table, we are giving glory to God and thankfulness to him for what he has done.

And this again is our Jesus.

The one who wants to, and the only one who can look at us and say your sins are forgiven.

The one who's the king of the universe, let's pray.

Father, we thank you for Jesus being the fulfillment of all of these things.

We thank you that he can perceive what's going on in our hearts.

Lord, we pray that he would do a work in our heart and in our life.

Change us from the inside out.

Strengthen us with your truth and your glory, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.