Your Sins Are Forgiven You

Luke 5:17-26

Please turn in your copy of the
scripture to the book of Luke. Our reading from Luke’s gospel
today is chapter five, verses 17 through 26. We’re picking up where we left
off two weeks ago. This was to be last week’s sermon. We’re in a little series with
Advent as we make our way through Luke, but also with a couple
Sundays leading up to Christmas. We want to explore how Jesus
life and ministry shows the great truth that we often sing about
in the hymn joy to the world. He comes to make his blessings
flow as far as the curse is found. So let us give our attention
to God’s Holy inspired and inerrant word beginning in the fifth chapter
of Luke’s gospel at verse 17. Remember that Jesus has been
ministering in the area of Capernaum along the Sea of Galilee. And
it says on one of those days as he was teaching, Pharisees
and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come
from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was
with him to heal. And behold, some of the men were
bringing on a bed, a man who was paralyzed. And they were
seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding
no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on
the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles and
into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith,
he said, man, your sins are forgiven you. And the scribes and the
Pharisees began to question, They were saying, who is this
who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? When Jesus perceived their thoughts,
he answered them. Why do you question in your hearts?
Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say rise
and walk? but that you may know that the
son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the
man who was paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed
and go home. And immediately he rose up before
them and he picked up what he had been lying on and he went
home glorifying God. And amazement sees them all.
And they glorify God and we’re filled with awe, saying, we have
seen extraordinary things today. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we come before your holy word this day. And as products of
our culture and society, we would sit in judgment of your word.
But Lord, your word sits in judgment of us. We remember that wonderful
passage from Hebrews chapter four, that the word of God is
like a double edged sword. It pierces, it cuts, it gets
down deep in us. It goes to the joints and to
the marrows and it exposes everything about us. Lord, nothing about
us is hidden before your all seeing eyes. We are laid bare
before you. We may think you do not see,
but you see all. And so we pray, dear Heavenly
Father, we pray, Jesus, our greater brother, be the great physician
in our lives this day. Let the word do its work. Let
it cut, let it expose, let it reveal, and let us see ourselves
and you rightly. And may we go from this place
today. knowing that we have been healed
by the power of the gospel of Jesus. And may we rejoice and
may we glorify God, knowing that we have not been left in our
sins and trespasses, but we have been made alive. We have been
revived, our dead bones raised and given flesh by Jesus, our
great savior. We thank you for this opportunity
and pray that we would make the most of it and ask it in his
gracious name. Amen. Many of you as children
probably thought, after watching a cartoon, if I could just get
hold of one of those genie bottles. One of those genie lamps, you
know where you rub it and the genie comes out and he says,
I will grant you three wishes. And you know, you listed the
three wishes. It was some toy. It was a trip
to Disney. It was a dream tree house in
the backyard, something of those natures. And as you grow older,
those three wishes change. And if you’re really smart and
technical, you say, first of all, wish for three more wishes.
And then you use up your other two. And then you got three more
to go. We get pretty smart about it. But you know, in our list
of wishes we would wish for from the magical genie lamp, if such
a thing were to exist. And by the way, I’m not promoting
such a thing. We all know that’s just the stuff of fairy tales.
But we would wish for temporal things. We would wish for stuff. We would wish for things that
would not last outside time and space and last into an eternity. That’s who we are, that’s how
we operate. Those are the things that we
desire and that’s what we would probably wish for. And so if
you could see Jesus, if you could visit Jesus, say you were living
in the time and Jesus’ earthly ministry at Capernaum was when
you were alive and you had something you needed and you could see
Jesus, what would you wish for? Well, you probably would not
wish for your ultimate need to be met. And that is salvation
through faith in Jesus and the forgiveness and pardon of sins.
Now, you would be like this paralytic who who wanted to see Jesus so
that he could walk again. You would want to see Jesus and
have your leprosy cured. You would want to see Jesus and
have your lifelong ailment taken away from you. And who could
blame you? Those of you who have been sick
or have been chronically ill, you know that if God would take
away that pain in your body, that thorn in your flesh, that
if he would just take it away, you could better serve him. And
that’s how we think. We limit ourselves. We do not
look for our ultimate needs, but friends, we must understand,
and this passage shows it to us this day, Jesus will do so
much more for us. than we can ask for or than we
can imagine. This is a passage of scripture,
a story of faith. This is a story that shows the
power of the son of man and that he has authority not only to
heal, but to forgive. And this is also a story about,
well, it’s about church people. I have that in quotes, church
people, you know what I mean by that. Yes, Jesus had them
too. And so one day as he’s sitting
in a house in Capernaum along the Sea of Galilee, in his crowd
are the Pharisees, the scribes and the teachers of the law.
Now, these Pharisees are the set apart ones. In our modern
day times, in the church, in the Christian circles, these
would be the people who do everything just right and look just right
so that you think they do everything right and are just right. And
it just may be that in the life of the Pharisees or a modern
day Pharisee, they know not Christ, nor do they rest in him alone
for their salvation. But outwardly, you could look
at them and their tie is straight. Their suit is well tailored.
Their shoes are shined. They’re sitting in their right
pew. They put their check in the plate and they do all the
right things. They check all the boxes for
Christianity. Well, the Pharisees were those
who desiring to be zealous in obedience for the law actually
created a new gospel. And so we see in the life and
teaching of Jesus, we will see in our study of Luke, Jesus seeks
to show them the error of their ways. And today is one of the
first days the Pharisees are in the midst of his teaching
in Luke’s gospel. So there’s the Pharisees. There’s
also the scribes or the teachers of the law. They are the ones
who hand wrote copies of God’s word so that we have them to
this day. In our Westminster Confession
of Faith, chapter one, when it speaks of the holy scriptures,
one of the things it says is God, when he inspired holy men
of old to write down the scriptures, he also gave us men throughout
history who would faithfully copy the word of God so that
when we hold our Bibles today in our own translations, we can
with great assurance feel comfortable And by the Holy Spirit of God,
realize that we are holding the word of God. What a blessing
it is for God to have done that. But these scribes, they were
not only copyist, they were also interpreters. If you wanted to
know what the Bible said, you would go to a scribe and say,
scribe, what do you say the law means? Or you could go to the
Pharisees or we’ll see another group, the Sadducees at another
time. You could ask them, how do you
interpret the law? Kind of sort of today, like we
have Baptist and Methodist and Presbyterians and whatever other
dogs and cats and assorted animals have made up the church today.
It’s a, it’s a wide bunch. And so in the crowd in this house
were Pharisees, they were scribes, they were teachers of the law.
And notice it says they’ve come from every village of Galilee
and Judea and even Jerusalem. They have come and they have
packed this house. Some of you in the next days
and weeks will have a packed house. You’ll get chairs from
the basement. You’ll add seats to the table. More people than
you invited will show up to your Christmas dinner or your Christmas
gathering and you will make room for them and it will be tight.
You may even have to rearrange the dining room or the way you
normally serve meals to get everybody in. That’s what’s going on here.
This is a packed house. Extra chairs have been brought
up from the basement. Actually, what’s going on here
is really about to be a fight. It’s about to be a showdown.
It’s about to be a clash, a rumble. This would be on the local TV
channel. You know, my Fox, whatever. Greensboro
Coliseum, smack down between the Pharisees and Jesus. That’s
what this would be. This is a rumble really between
the seed of Eve, Jesus, and the seed of Satan. Here it’s the
Pharisees and the teachers of the law. And this is about to
be a showdown. You see the Pharisees, the teachers
of the law, they’ve come from all over the world, as it were. They have taken the seats. They’ve
got their clipboards. They’ve sharpened their pencils.
They have had the pre-meeting before this meeting, and they
have decided, they have schemed, they are going to figure out
how can we catch this Jesus who is of such great fame? and how
can we put them on a cross? That’s what’s taking place here.
It’s just gonna take a number more chapters and a number more
days of Jesus’ ministry and a number more other opportunities that
they try but fail before they will get Jesus. But here it is,
a packed house, they’re loaded for bearing. Notice at the end
of verse 17, you think the Pharisees are gonna win with their clipboards
and their critiques. But it says at the end of verse
17, and the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal. And there were some friends who
had a paralyzed friend. He was a paralytic. He had not
walked. The verb in the language of the New Testament is a perfect
verb. He had been paralyzed. He had
been Unable to walk his entire life. This wasn’t a temporary
paralysis where you go over to Cronodal Clinic Physical Therapy
and they work on you for six or eight weeks and they work
miracles and you can walk again, your limp is gone. It’s not that,
it’s not recovery after knee surgery or recovery after hip
surgery. This man cannot walk. And his life is a life on a straw
mat. And somehow in God’s providence,
these four friends have the faith to get him and to seek Jesus
and his healing touch. And so they come. They’re not
there to criticize. They’re not there to critique.
They do not bring their clipboards or their judgments or their sharpened
pencils. They come simply to receive from Jesus and say, Jesus,
we you have what we need and we come simply for it. but they can’t get in. As persistent
as they are, it doesn’t matter if they go to the kitchen door,
the side door, the back door, the front door, the side window,
they can’t get in to see Jesus. And so in their persistence and
in their faith, they work hard and desperately and persistently
to draw near to God. Dear friends, before we even
get into the wondrous parts of the story, here’s a lesson for
us. How diligent are you to take advantage of the ministry of
Jesus when it is offered to you. We recounted during our town
hall this morning all the ways we serve in worship, in discipleship,
in community, in mercy and in stewardship. For a church our
size, we do an awful lot. And there is Really, dare I say
it, no excuse for a Christian within our congregation not to
be growing if they take advantage of the opportunities. And you
see in these four people or five or however many it took to carry
him, you see in this sick, young, paralytic, you see a desire,
whatever it takes, we will get to see Jesus. You know, we have
the option. Well, we really don’t. But we
take the option of whether we come to church or not. Another
week at the beach, another trip to the mountains, another sleep
in, another whatever. And we can, before we know it,
miss 15 or so Sundays a year. not so this man, I must see Jesus. I’m going to get in and I’m going
to get before his feet and whatever he’s offering that I will receive. And so up to the roof, they go
up the side stairs, they roll back the towels and they drop
him in, not drop him, but they, you know, you get the picture,
they ropes, whatever, they lower him in in front of Jesus, the
healer. And as a kid, this was rather, disturbing
to me. I wanted to be in construction
when I was a kid. I wanted to be a builder. I had hammers,
and I had saws, and screwdrivers, and nails, and actually still
most of those tools I still have. I was one of those kids who got
real ones for Christmas instead of the wooden ones. And yes,
I hammered a few things I shouldn’t hammer, and sawed a few things
I shouldn’t have sawed. But I still have them, and I can maintain
my house. It’s a good thing. But this really disturbed me
as a kid who wanted to be a builder. How can you roll back the roof
of someone else’s house and not get hollered at? and cause a
roof leak and disrupt their insulation and whatever else. You’re going
to have to patch up the sheet rock and all that. Well, in ancient
near Eastern times, they had these tiles and you could simply
pull the tiles back. Access was gained and they could
lower this fellow who was sick, who was paralyzed down to Jesus. This was a big deal. They couldn’t
get in the front, the side, the back, the kitchen. None of those
doors, too crowded, too many Pharisees, too many scribes,
too many others who wanted to see Jesus. And so they lowered
him through the roof. Now, can you imagine the emotional
noise that Jesus experienced with the Pharisees? Y’all probably
never heard this term before, but a minister goes through what
we call emotional noise. I can see a lot. I can see who
goes to the bathroom. I can see who’s listening. I
can see who’s in tears. I can see a lot. I know most
of you from during the week, what’s going on in your lives.
And so when a minister is preaching or teaching, he can see a lot
and there’s a lot of emotional energy, we call it. But then
there’s distractions. This door right here drives me
crazy. When it’s open, I think the Lord Jay gets up and shuts
it, but it’s, it’s disturbing when that door is open, you can’t
see. And so you have distractions. There are emotional ones and
there are physical ones. Well, what do you think Jesus,
what kind of day do you think he’s having when he’s shucking
corn as it were? And there’s a guy coming through
the roof on a bed. And then there’s the scribes
and the Pharisees with their clipboards. And he knows he’s
being criticized and critiqued. And he’s probably going to be
called a heretic, a blasphemer. And then here’s Johnny, the paralytic
coming through the roof. Can you imagine what is taking
place and what does Jesus do? He sees their faith. He sees
their persistence. He sees them with eyes of compassion. And he comes into this world
to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. And here on this day in Capernaum,
in this messed up little meeting with Pharisees and scribes and
teachers and other people who are there to hear him, he sees
a level of brokenness. He sees a level of sin and the
curses of this world placed upon this man. And he says, man, your
sins are forgiven. That’s not what that man came
looking for. He came hoping to walk. He came hoping to jump
and run and play and to kick the ball around with the neighborhood
kids. But friends, Jesus. Jesus responds
to us, he ministers to us in a way that we might not expect
or even request. Man, your sins are forgiven you. You are justified. I see you
as if you have never sinned. I see you as if you have always
obeyed. Your greatest problem has now
been solved in eternity past. You see, the father set his affections
upon a people, his church. And throughout the story of the
Bible, as we come to Jesus, we realize that God is a God of
love and forgiveness and grace. And it manifests itself most
especially in the person and in the work of Jesus. Jesus hasn’t
yet gone to the cross, but he is in his life and ministry.
He’s putting down payments on his ability to make all things
new. He’s putting a down payment on
what we will now look back on as Christians in the 21st century
and say, we knew this all along. It was it was in our Bibles.
They did not know this. Man, your sins are forgiven you.
You’re justified. Your greatest problem. Your greatest
problem solved. What would you do if this happened
in your midst? Let me ask you a question. Do you ever think
on Sundays? Because our theology says this,
that God saves sinners. especially through the reading
and preaching of the word. Do you ever think I’m going to do
whatever it takes on Sunday to get myself, my family, my friends,
my loved ones, and make it possible for there to be a preacher and
a pulpit and a sanctuary so that somebody might get saved? Do
you ever think that way? We ought to think that way. That’s
thinking biblically, that’s thinking theologically, that’s thinking
the way that Jesus does when he comes to make all His blessings
flow as far as the curse is found. But here we have the Pharisees.
And maybe we find ourselves like them. We’re there to debate.
We’re there to accuse Jesus of blasphemy. We’re there to say
only God can forgive sins. How dare you, Jesus? Equate yourself
with God. Well, notice what our passage
tells us. Jesus perceived their thoughts. Oh, isn’t that scary? I mean, any of you want Jesus
to scroll through your database? I sure don’t. But he perceives
our thoughts. He knows what’s going on in our
hearts and in our heads. And he does so with the Pharisees.
He knows their arrogance. He knows they’re judging Jesus.
And this is a good reminder, dear brothers and sisters, it
is Jesus who judges us. We may debate, we may declare,
we may dust up, but it is Jesus who judges us. And he says, why
do you question in your hearts? Why do you question in your hearts
what I’ve done? They’ve essentially said, who does he think he is?
And he’s saying, I’ll show you who I think or actually who I
know I am. I am the son of man. He exposes
their hearts, but he also teaches them. He’s gracious. He’s hard
on them, but he’s gracious. He teaches them after he exposes
their hearts. And so he puts a conundrum to
them, which is easier to forgive sins or to fix legs that do not
work. This man has already been forgiven.
He’s already been justified. He’s already been declared righteous.
And Jesus then says, I say to you, rise up, pick up that bed
you’ve been lying on and go home. I am God. I am the son of man.
I do have authority. How dare you call me a blasphemer?
That’s what he’s saying to these Pharisees. I do possess authority
to heal and to forgive and to cleanse. And these men had the
faith to come. and to bring their friend to
Jesus. And they didn’t come with clipboards and sharpened pencils
and critical spirits and critical eyes. No, they were persistent
in their pursuit of Christ. And this man, because of them,
and because of Jesus, the son of man, he is now saved and healed. And notice the response. Now,
I don’t know if it’s the response of everybody, including the scribes
and the Pharisees. My guess is the scribes and the
Pharisees grumped on out of there once they picked up their jaws
from the floor. They grumped on out of there with their clipboards
and they probably had a meeting at the ale house somewhere down
the street in Capernaum and they compared notes. Yes, he’s a blasphemer. Yes. How dare he do this? Yes. It was a work of the devil that
he did this. Yes. It was a magic occur. Maybe, you know, some
of you who are critical of Benny Hinn, you know how he did it. He just bopped him on the head.
This man really can’t walk. They probably did that down the
street. You know, that’s their job. That’s their role. But amazement. Amazement fell upon those who
had eyes to see. And they said, we have seen extraordinary
things. And not only did the man go away
glorifying God, those who had eyes to see that Jesus has the
power to forgive sins and to heal, did a marvelous thing in
their sight in our hymnal. Number 437, you’re welcome to
look there if you will. We have a wonderful hymn entitled,
How Marvelous, How Wise, How Great. And it was written in
1999 by James Montgomery Boyce, who was a Presbyterian minister
in Philadelphia. And he makes his way through these hymn stanzas
at a time in his life when he has terminal cancer diagnosis.
He’s about to die, but he’s thinking about his life. And he gets through
verses one through three about how wonderful it is how God saves
him. How God’s eternal plan, his eternal
decree, his eternal work of glory and salvation has taken place.
And if you’re looking, follow along verse four, but if not,
listen to what verse four. Verse four says this, what have
I now but to embrace the God who saved me from disgrace and
love him evermore? And with contentment run my race,
my eyes fixed ever on his face to praise him and adore. I think these words very well
reflect the attitude, the mindset and the heart of those that day
who had eyes to see that Jesus as the son of man has both the
power to forgive our sins and the power to heal our bodies. And so the challenge for us this
day is twofold. One is that we could sing verse
four with all our heart. But before that, we need to have
faith like the friends who couldn’t get in the front door, the side
door, the back door, the kitchen door, even the basement door.
And so they wanted to see Jesus so badly, they persisted in their
faith and they went through the roof. Amen, let us pray together. Our Lord and God, we come before
you this day as people who, when we read a story of the Bible,
we want to be the hero. We want to be David who slew
Goliath. We want to be the king who ruled Israel with faithfulness
and integrity and who lasted on the throne for years. But
Lord, we’re the beggars. We’re the broken ones. We’re
the disobedient ones. We’re the faithless ones. We’re
the unfaithful ones. We are the ones who hear your
word and still sometimes go our own way. May that not be the
case this day. May we have faith that is persistent,
that is relentless in pursuing the face of Jesus until we get
a blessing. May it be true of us as it was
true of our forefather Jacob. We will not let you go until
you bless us. Let that be true of us this day.
We ask and pray in the name of Jesus and in his holy name we
pray. Amen. Let us respond to God’s
good word together as we sing number 306 to us. A child of
hope is born.