Authority to Forgive

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you open up in your Bibles with me to the book of Mark, chapter 2, Matthew, Mark, second book of the New Testament. Matthew Mark you get to Luke or John just turned back you went a little bit too far mark chapter 2 And this morning we'll be looking at verses 1 through 17 I Have to apologize to Rosalie I'm I'm a moving target here lately, so if the sermon titles that are on your outline disagree with the sermon handout, it's most likely my fault, but the outline is the default. So Mark chapter 2, verses 1 through 17. Hear now God's perfect word.

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

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you. 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? But 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. But that you may know that the Son of Man 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, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this. Then he went out again by the sea, and all the multitude came to him, and he taught them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office. He said to him, Follow me. So he arose and followed him. Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples. For there were many, and they followed Him.

And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Prayer for Illumination

I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The grass withers and the flower fades, but brothers and sisters, the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray now desperately needing your Holy Spirit. that you would take this true story, these words recorded in history of what happened in the past, and that you would inscribe them on our hearts, that we might believe, repent, and walk before you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

I heard a story of a cancerous man one time. He was feeling pretty well. Not much going on in his life, but the doctor told him, you have cancer, and he said, I don't believe it. Walked out of the office, didn't think about it again, didn't go to treatment, didn't get radiation, didn't undergo chemo, and he quickly died.

There's another person I know, a woman who is young and healthy, was diagnosed with cancer. She heard the bad news from her doctor, she wept, Over this sad news, she said, what do I need to do? And they prescribed to her what would need to happen with surgery and with radiation to cure her of this disease. Which one of them acted wisely?

We come here to this passage today and we come face to face with the great physician. We come to this passage this morning and we come face to face with Jesus who heals not just our bodies but our souls. And so as we look at this passage today, I want you to come away from here knowing that you can come as sinners to the great physician who will attend to you, body and soul.

First Point

First, notice in this first story of the paralytic the desperate faith displayed. Look with me at verses one through four.

And again, he entered Capernaum, and after some days 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 them. Jesus got so crowded at the end of chapter 1 that he had to go out into the wilderness.

Apparently, he thinks things have calmed down a little bit. There's enough to actually get into Peter's house. He's there. But then people hear, Jesus is in the house. And so they start coming. They fill the house. They fill the courtyard. And they get even so far as the outer gates of the house. You can't even get near. It's so crowded.

People want to hear Jesus. I'm sure there's a mixed group. There's people there who just want to see another miracle. And there are other people who are thinking, what type of teaching is this? I want to go hear the teaching of the man with authority. And so they gather in as close as they can. It's standing room only. Then they came to him, verse 3, 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.

Right? You can imagine these guys, they've carried their friend from town all the way to go see this teacher, to hear of this man who is able to lift someone off their bed who has a fever. Who's able to heal people and they get to the door. How are we supposed to help our friend?

We can't even get into the house. And then somebody points out that there's a stairway on the outside of the house where you can get up to the roof. So they go up to the roof. What's the plan once you get to the roof? Well, you start taking off the thatched roof. You start removing the straw. You start removing the branches. You take off the tile that's in between the beams. You start digging through the mud that's supposed to repel the rain.

And as they are doing all this, could you imagine sitting in that house? You were one of the first people who heard about Jesus being there and you got in there and all of a sudden you start getting dirt in your hair? And you look up and dirt starts coming down from the roof and you see spotlights of sunlight coming in and you think, what in the world is going on here? And then Jesus is looking up and a silhouette, as the sun is coming in, a silhouette comes down between the beams.

They uncovered the roof where he was, so when they had broken through, they let him down on the bed in which the paralytic was lying. See, they had a desperate resolve. They'd be willing to get dirt underneath their fingernails, dig through a roof. Didn't matter if Peter got upset about his roof. I'll pay for it later. We need to get our friend in there. The only hope they had was in Jesus. Why would they do this? Because they knew that somehow this man was going to heal their friend. What hope do you have in your heart? Has the Holy Spirit worked in your heart in such a way that Jesus is your only hope? in this life, in both this life and in death. But notice Jesus' heart. Take note of Jesus' heart in verse 5.

When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you. Jesus beholds their faith. See, this is the point that James is getting at. This is faith in action. It's a faith that says, we believe in God so much that we heard that this one was filled with the Holy Spirit, that he was baptized by John, that he's a teacher with authority, and so we're gonna take our friend to him. And Jesus beholds the group's faith.

And then he goes from looking at the four guys that he could barely see through the sun, and he looks down at the man on the mat. Notice what he calls him. Son. Jesus has a heart towards him of paternalistic love. Child. This is what Jesus is getting at, right? This is a grown man. Why does he call him child? bring the children around him and he's going to say, unless you have faith like one of these, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is childlike faith put on display by grown men. And then Jesus does something remarkable, but unexpected. Don't get too familiar with the Bible, right? You know these stories, but we can't get too familiar with it. Nobody's expecting what's about to come out of Jesus's mouth after the word, Son. Your sins are forgiven you. What? What? What do you mean his sins are forgiven? They just brought him here to be healed.

Where did this whole sins part come in? There's a commentator on this named Schweitzer, and he writes, all suffering is rooted in man's separation from God. For this reason, Jesus must call attention to this man's deepest need. Otherwise, the testimony of his healing would remain nothing more than a story of a remarkable miracle.

Jesus didn't come just to heal us of the symptoms of our sickness, but Jesus comes to bring us the cure that our souls need. So Jesus heals this man, but there's kind of three theological questions that arise from this. The first question that I had when I came to this was, so if we believe in Jesus, are all sicknesses going to be healed? Well, no. No, Jesus doesn't heal every single person. But we also need to recognize the purpose of Jesus' miracles. The purpose of Jesus' miracles, and we're going to drill down into this in a minute, is to show the veracity of His person and His authority.

So no, the purpose of Jesus' miracles is not so He can go on a health, wealth, and prosperity tour. It's not a social gospel where he's going to cure everyone of all their problems in this life. No, that's not what the purposes of Jesus' healing miracles are. It's not even the purposes of the miracles that the apostles did in the early church.

In the early church, the apostles, when they would go out with power filled by the Holy Spirit and they were given these gifts of healings, they didn't heal every single person. but they healed at perfect times in which the Holy Spirit was going to prove the veracity of the message that they preached. The second question is, does God still heal people today?

Yes, He does. Yes, He does. This need not throw us into a charismatic tailspin, but we are not deists. We don't believe that Jesus rose into heaven and God stopped working. If that was the point, why do we pray almost every week for people who have sicknesses and diseases? No, we still believe in the great physician. We still believe that he knit us together in our mother's womb. We still believe that he is sovereign over all things. And so, yes, we still pray that God heals people.

So third question. from this are all sicknesses then because of sin? Ultimately, yes. Ultimately, sickness, death, entered the world because of sin. And so in one sense we can say that, but we need to be careful with this, right? Because the disciples go too far at one point. In John chapter 9, they see a blind man And they asked Jesus, his own disciples, they said, Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he is blind? And Jesus says, neither, but that you might know the power of God. And he heals the blind man.

So we need to be careful about taking things too far with this. Well, back to the story here, as we hear about Jesus doing this miraculous miracle, not everybody's happy. See, there are some scruples that the scribes have. Look with me at verse 6 and 7.

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 they're having this conversation in their hearts, with themselves. They're not speaking these words out loud, but in their hearts, they're wrestling with this, right? Have you ever seen someone get displeased with something someone said before?

And you can tell they got displeased, but it's not because of what they said, but you can imagine these scribes as their eyes started looking away from Jesus, as their brows furrowed, as they maybe shook their heads a little bit as they were wrestling in their hearts.

Who is this man who is now speaking against God, assuming the authority that only God has? Their hearts become darker and they mutter a word and their souls blaspheme. This is the charge that they will bring against Jesus in the Sanhedrin in chapter 14. This is the charge by which Jesus will be condemned to death. Jesus's proclamation of forgiveness was made knowing that these men would someday use this proclamation of this man's sins being forgiven to nail him to a cross. And he still loved him. still said, your sins are forgiven. Now let's face it, they're actually, they're theologically correct. Right, these grammarians, these scribes, they're actually right. Theologically, it's only God who can forgive sins.

I mean, I'm gonna give you a crass example, okay? If I went to the elevator, and I was drinking coffee with some of the farmers in there, and I punched Mark McElhaney in the face, Jay Hutchison can't stand up and say, it's okay Brian, I forgive you. Why? Because I didn't punch Jay.

Only the person who is wronged can forgive. Our sin, our transgressions, are against God alone. This is what David... there's theological knots. People will go over what David says in Psalm 51 when he says, "...against you and you alone have I sinned." The point is the ultimate guilt for every transgression of the law is against God Most High. Every sin that we commit, as R.C. Sproul was famous for saying, is cosmic treason. It's only the ruler of the universe can forgive sins.

So they're right. The scribes are right. but they don't understand how wrong they are. Because what they don't understand is the man standing before them is no mere man. But he is the word become flesh. He is the divine lawgiver. He is the one who the transgressions are against.

And Jesus explains this to them. Look with me, I want you to behold in verse 8 through 12, behold Jesus the Messiah. Verses 8 through 12. But immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves. I love that part. Jesus is omniscient. Not a word has come out of their mouths, and yet Jesus knows what's going on in their hearts. They haven't uttered a single syllable, but Jesus knows the argument they're having within themselves. 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? Which one's easier? What do you think? If this was chalk and talk, I'd say, let's take a poll. Raise your hand. Which one do you think is easier? The answer is, neither of them are easy. Right? Neither of these things can any human being possibly do on their own. But one of them is verifiable. One of them is not. One of them you can see and have evidence for. The other is something written in heaven.

So Jesus continues. But that you may know that the Son of Man 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. Jesus has told this man, your sins are forgiven, but he has to trust by faith that that's true. Here Jesus shows that every word he speaks is true. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't apply some salve to him. He doesn't put braces on his legs. He doesn't give him some crutches.

The words that came out of Jesus's mouth Your sins are forgiven you is an immediate declarative act. And for eternity things are changed. Then the words come out of his mouth. Arise, get up, go to your house. The same power that raised that man up from his bed is the same power that can forgive sins. And everybody sees it. Everybody in that crowded room, shoulder to shoulder, dusting off the dirt off their heads, jaws hit the ground.

Jesus displays His authority. Jesus commands the creation, this human being, and it responds. Jesus commands healing, and the man obeys. I'd like to talk to that guy in heaven and just ask him, when Jesus said that, how long had it been since you walked?

Was there a moment of hesitation at all? Like, well, Jesus, I just tried to walk this morning and I fell down on my face. What? I just wonder. I mean, this is all speculative right here. I don't know what was going through that man's mind. But Jesus tells him, arise. And he does it. He gets up. I wonder if he was one of the people amazed. How did this happen? They just had to let me down through the roof. And now I get to take my mat and go home. I want you to be amazed, the fifth point, I want you to be amazed at Jesus. Look with me at the second half of verse 12. Immediately he arose, took up the bed, went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.

I need to ask you, when you come to the Gospels, have you become so story-ized Christians that these remain nothing but good fables to tell your kids, or are you still amazed that this is actual history? Do you still behold your Savior? Are you still amazed by Him? That He has the power to heal? That He has the power to forgive sins?

Because it's when we're in awe of God that the response of knowing Jesus is glorifying God. That's what the second part of verse 12 said. And they glorified God. Do you know what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth? It means to be in awe of who God is, to know who we are as sinners, and to stand in absolute amazement, and to sing His praises, for He's not like anyone else we've ever met. They glorified God. They were amazed at Him.

And they confessed to one another. They were walking home saying, can you believe what just happened? That guy came in here on a mat and he walked out walking. I don't know how that happened. Can you believe that God would give such authority? I think this might be the Son of Man. I think this might be the one that Daniel prophesied. I think this might be the Messiah. I think the King has finally come.

And so as everybody's going home, Jesus gets up, and the second part of this is He walks out of the house, and He goes along with the sea. And He goes along with the sea, and He starts teaching, He's preaching, and people are listening, they're following along with Him. And as He gets to this juncture in the road, He comes to this place, it's a major intersection, enough that you have traffic, that you have a tax collector sitting at a booth.

I don't know about you, but I... I'm not a huge fan of taxmen. I know they have jobs to do, but they're not my favorite people. At least their job's not my favorite. But in the old test, or in this period of time, under Roman rule, they were despised. Number one, they were in cahoots with the Romans. Number two, they're extortioners. Do you know how you make sure that you get taxes in the old way? Well, You make sure you have some Roman guards with you. You make sure you have some enforcers along the side of you.

And as Jesus is walking along the road, he sees a man standing by a tax booth, Levi, his Hebrew name, Matthew, his given name. And he says to this man, follow me. You want to talk about a sinner. We don't know what the sins of the paralytic were. Matthew's a tax collector. He's a Benedict Arnold. He has no problem betraying the patriotism of his people if he could line his own pocket. And here he stands as a sinner. And Jesus calls to him, Jesus commands him, follow me. I have to think, when he called Simon, when he called Andrew, when he called Jacob, when he called these fishermen, they could go back to their boats. They go back to their livelihood. Not Levi.

You walk away from a tax collector job, You're not getting it back. You walk away from this lucrative career, there's no pleading to get rehired. Because now you've shown you're willing to turn your back on your own people, and you're willing to turn your back on the Roman authorities. You think the Romans want to hire you back? Not a chance.

Levi, at this moment, has faced with does he obey Jesus's command? Does he lose his reputation? Does he lose his lucrative career? Does he lose face with his co-workers while he follow Jesus? Remarkably, he obeys. The Holy Spirit does this work in his heart that for some reason, we don't know why, he would lose everything to follow Jesus. Let me ask you in your life, would you be willing to lose your job, your reputation, your finances, your family, your comfort, your ego, to go follow Christ? And then the great physician displays the riches of his grace.

Last section, 15 through 17. Now it happened, as he was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and his disciples. For they were many, and they followed Him. And when the scribes and the Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, how is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners? We have the scrupulous scribes again. Right, Jesus is there and He's eating with tax collectors and sinners.

The other Gospels tell us that Levi immediately starts repenting. He starts repaying everybody wrong that he's done. And instead of the scribes rejoicing, can you believe it? There's tax collectors repenting. There's sinners who are turning. The Messiah has really come. The scrupulous scribes have problems. Right? Sinners are resigning their jobs of immorality and turning towards God. Lawless people are being taught by the Messiah Himself. And the scribes have a problem. Irreligious people are coming into contact with a word made flesh. And the grammarians are grumbling. Why?

A party where Jesus is at and is most likely teaching them. Remember, Jesus, whenever he's around people, he's always teaching, he's always preaching. It's what we find him doing in verse 2 when he was preaching the word to them. And then in verse 13, he was teaching them. So it's most likely that Jesus is the guest of honor at this banquet. He's teaching them, he's caring for them, he's preaching to them, he's instructing them.

Now as Jesus sits in that seat of honor, they're speaking against Him. And Jesus hears it. They're speaking loud enough that Jesus actually hears them. The first part of our passage earlier was Jesus knew what was going on in their hearts. Now it's the imperfect tense. These scribes keep on saying to the disciples. It's like again and again and again.

Jesus brushes it off, it seems, the first couple times. But he hears them grumbling in the background, why is he eating with tax collectors and sinners? Simon, why is he eating with tax collectors and sinners? Andrew, why is he eating with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus says, hold on, buddies.

It's not the sick who need a physician. Or sorry, it's not those who are well who need a physician, but it's the sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus as the great physician is getting at the issue of the human soul. And he comes at this great physician who can do a heart transplant. There is no cardiac surgeon on this planet like Jesus Christ. For he takes out a heart of stone and he gives us a heart of flesh. And he's doing it at the banquet.

And the scribes are missing it out of their self-righteousness. So I need to ask you, whose righteousness do you need? Maybe some of you, maybe some of you have forgotten that the righteousness you have is a given righteousness. It's a righteousness that the great King has robed you in, and it's not your own. Maybe some of you have forgotten what the Westminster Confession says, that we ought to be people who are confessing specific sins, specifically.

Have you become dull to the grips that sin still has in your heart? honest exercise for you now. Ask yourself, in your prayer life, no one else knows this but you, in your prayer life, when is the last time you went to the Lord and told Him about your specific sins and pleaded with Him to cleanse you? This is the heart of the gospel. For if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. Are we like Isaiah, who when we come before the Holy One of God, do we say, woe are we, for we are people of unclean lips.

Closing Prayer

Did you go to the Great Physician, the one who cares for you body and soul? Are you amazed by Him? Do you worship Him? Sinner, come to the Great Physician who can heal you body and soul. Trust in Him alone. For He came for those who are sick and need a righteousness not our own. Let's pray. Father, thank you for sending your son. For we were once dead and you've made us alive. You have given us your spirit. You've washed us clean.

Father, I pray that your people might have, by the power of your Holy Spirit, clean consciences, hearts that are honest about their need for the great physician. and that you would do the internal work in our souls, that we might live with you forever, glorifying you, in Jesus's name.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.