Forgiving Sins or Healing Flesh
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We have been in Matthew for what feels like forever. I started preaching, so Diana has decided she's leaving now.
You just didn't want to be in the front row, right? It's kind of like a Gallagher thing. Smashing the watermelon. I got no watermelon. I mean, I might spit, but not intentionally, you know, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Diana. So it is good to see you, Diana, since I am pointing out the fact that you are here today, even though you're slowly but surely making your way out the back door, and I haven't even started preaching. That's okay. We don't come to service because I have anything great to say. We come to service to encounter a holy God, and thankfully, his power is far greater than mine.
And so, on those promises, we stand. We've been in the book of Matthew for a long time, and we're not even close to being over yet. And so as we continue on, we've gone through the Sermon on the Mount and through Matthew chapter five, six, seven. We've gone through Matthew chapter eight. Cam picked up towards the end of Matthew chapter eight.
Last week, we talked about how important it was for us to understand what the calling is for all believers. It doesn't matter what portion of Christianity you grew up in, where you're at now, your theology, your doctrine, the. The moment you ask Jesus to leave, Jesus leaves. We see that at the end of Matthew chapter 8, when Jesus had cast out the demons into the herd of pigs, the individuals who owned the pigs were more upset with the fact that the pigs had been killed than they were with the fact that Jesus had set free two individuals who had been living a life that was not awesome. They were entrapped.
They were enslaved. And. And so this week, we're gonna move into Matthew chapter nine. We're only gonna get through Matthew chapter nine, verses one through eight today. But just like what we've seen in the rest of Matthew, a lot happens in a few short verses.
So, you know, it's not one of those things where it's like, oh, hey, I can put it on two times, and I can just kind of gloss over it. What we see is we see that God works in relationship. Many want God to work without the relationship. And sometimes we'll say, oh, well, you need to have more than a relationship with God. You're right.
You need to study his word. You need to do the elements of having a relationship. I can say that Brent and I are friends. If I never call Brent, we're not friends. I can say that Brent and I hang out all the time, but if we never actually go do anything, then that's a lot.
Having a relationship with somebody means that you not only care about them, but you actually do life with them. And this is what we see the first century believers wrestling with. They should have known Jesus better than anyone. They should have known the Mashiach, the Sent one, the Anointed One, better than anyone. And yet they didn't understand the relationship of God and the flesh with them.
And so they asked him to leave. And he did. He quietly left, justly left. He gave them exactly what they asked for, a life without his presence. We also talk about how Jesus didn't come to just engage and address the physical chaos of this world, but he came to help not only model the physical, but to help us understand that we need to escape the spiritual bonds that cause sins.
He didn't just come to heal your bodies, he came to heal your hearts and to reconcile people to the Father. And yet here in Matthew chapter nine, we see a new scene and a new lesson. Matthew chapter nine, we see Jesus stepping back into a familiar setting. He was with the Gadarenes before the Gadarenes had asked him to leave. He gets an abode and he says, let's go to the other side.
He passes over the water and he comes to Capernaum. And Capernaum was his stomping ground, kind of like Norman's my stomping ground. He came to Capernaum, which was his home base during much of his ministry. But he didn't return there so that they could have a cookout or a barbecue or all of these times. He returned there not with the comforts and the celebration.
He came to bring the kingdom mission, the kingdom authority, and the kingdom power to continue the work of the Father. What did Jesus say he was doing? Not abolishing the Torah and the prophets. He was here to fulfill. And so we know that a part of the mission of Jesus on this earth was to continue to fulfill everything that was written in the Torah and in the prophets and to once again demonstrate that the kingdom of God was not some far off place.
It was a kingdom that was here and a kingdom that was now up. In Matthew chapter 9, verses 1 through 2, Jesus stepped into a boat and he crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralyzed man laying on a mat. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven.
All of us can think to the individuals who. We have relationships in our life and we can, we can do what we do. We rank things. You know, that's kind of our culture. We can think of, well, this guy's my best friend.
He's my bestest friend. You know, if you're younger, they're my bestest, bestest, best friend. But we all know who that friend is, that person that we call. And then we all know the people who is like, well, you know, they're my friend, or we're a step above, you know, kind of, we have that long distance relationship and we weigh what our friendships are. Here we see men who were true friends.
They were true friends. They weren't some men who, when his buddy called and said, hey, look, I'm paralyzed, I need some help. They're like, okay, well, I'm busy the next two weeks, so let's get something on the calendar 45 days from now. These were true friends. They were friends who, regardless of what was happening in their life, regardless of whatever chaos or turmoil, or maybe they were married.
Maybe, like whatever was happening, they put this paralyzed friend first. They came together and they carried this man to Jesus. They weren't just casual acquaintances. They were men of faith who are willing to do the hard work of bringing someone who was broken into the presence of the only one who could do the healing. We all need friends like that.
We all need friends like that. And at the same point, for all of us who want friends like that, we also need to be friends like that. You know, the ones who don't immediately click off when your buddy calls. It's like, oh, I'll get to them later. The ones who feel bad when they missed a phone call, the ones who have each other's back.
This is the faith of the friends of the paralyzed men. Notice that it wasn't just the paralyzed man's faith that Jesus was mentioning in this passage. It was the collective faith of the whole entire group that was there. You know, I used to get all up in arms when I was younger, and my mom would say, well, you're guilty by the associations you keep. I'm like, oh, no, no.
Until they go and do something wrong and then you gotta call a lawyer, right, Michael? I didn't do it. We had that conversation with my sister. I won't air all my sister's dirty laundry. But we had that conversation when we were back with, with my family.
And, you know, as being one of the olders in the family, it's always nice to talk about how you're so much holier and more righteous than the rest of your siblings, especially since you're a pastor. And it was funny because as we were talking about the errant mistakes of the collective group of our friends, you know, we would. My sister and I would talk about, like, well, we weren't really doing anything wrong. We. In fact, if anything, we were the.
We were the. We were the ones keeping them out of trouble. And yet both of us were the ones who ended up in court at some point in time. Thank God for American politics. Be transparent with you.
My mom worked on the judge's reelection campaign. And so at the age of 16 or 17, you know, privilege, I walked into court and everybody recused themselves, so they had to dismiss the charges. So, you know, full transparency. It wasn't like I did the crime, did the time. No.
God was very gracious to me. And. And it helps that my mom worked on all their campaigns. So none of you do that today, though. Do as I say, not as I do.
Okay. That's not how that works. But the collective group of faith of these men to love their brother enough to bring him to Jesus. And what did Jesus say? Not like before.
Jesus doesn't say, brent, get up and walk, or in the King James walketh thou, my sonneth. He didn't say, be healed like he had done before. Remember Matthew, chapter 8? There was times where he just reached out and he touched and the guy was healed. There was times where he spoke and said, be healed.
No, he says not get up and walk, not be healed. He says, take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven.
Everybody in that room knew that man was paralyzed. Yet Yeshua didn't go for the immediate physical healing. He went to the root of the issue. Yes, the man was physically paralyzed. I.
Not only did Jesus understand that, I'm guessing every other person in the room would understand that all of us sitting in comfortable chairs here, if there was somebody who was brought in and he was laid down on a beach towel or a yoga mat, any type of mat for those who are against yoga, on a mat made of plastic or rubber microplastics and sat here and he couldn't get up, all of us would be able to see that. All of us would know something is not right. And so we understand the context of this healing, that everybody in the room could clearly see that this man had a physical ailment. They weren't debating that, but Jesus could see not only the physical ailment, but. But the need for deeper issues.
Let me ask you a question. When you know, somebody has a physical ailment. For example, last year when my family came back from sabbatical, this entire church knew that Brent had slipped a disc in his back and that he was down for almost two months. And we were all praying. Some of us were fasting.
I was yelling at the Lord in my car, like, you haven't answered my prayer. What's going on here? You know, I have the faith, and we're dealing with the physical, right? We all know he's got a back issue, but how many of us, in those times where we were praying through the back and for the physical healing, how many of us had this thought? And it dawned on me one day when I was driving into the city that I keep praying for Brent's physical back, for him to not have pain, for him to not have to use a walk or whatever it is.
But had I thought about the fact of how potentially depressing it could be to not be able to get out of a chair? Had I thought about how hard it might be in that moment to wrestle with the Lord because of the physical pain you have, even if you're not moving, we're praying that the disc will line up at that point in time and that he'll be able to walk normal. He won't need to have that. But what about all the other things that we don't see or that we're not praying for? Gene, Same thing with your car accident.
We know the physical pain that we've been praying for in the prayer requests, but what about the moments when you're alone in your house and it's not the physical, it is the spiritual, emotional, mental weight that's there. And we're talking about car accidents. We're talking about slipped disc. But let's be transparent with each other. It happens in all areas of our life.
If you are struggling in your marriage or struggling to get along with your spouse, you. You have those thoughts, too. Oh, is our marriage done? Is this person ever gonna love me? Is this.
We have those things that don't manifest as a broken back or a broken arm or as whatever. Sometimes stress and anxiety from the inside out will cause you pimples. They will cause you different manifestations in the physical, but they didn't start in the physical. They started in the inside. It's become very popular today for us to talk about mental health, anxiety, and all of these things.
And I understand they exist, but at the same point in time, those things start to manifest in the physical, but they didn't start in the Physical, they were on the internal and they started to work their way out. And this is why people will talk about eating, balanced nutrition, so that you have the right vitamins. They'll talk about the atmosphere, they'll talk about all these other things that are there, all these things you can do. Self help and self care is through the roof. Through the roof.
I work so hard, so I just needed a mani patty spa day. No, you didn't need it, you wanted it. There is countless other ways by which you could find peace. Oh man, I've been working really hard. I needed to go to the golf range.
No. And stop making an excuse. You have the right to go to the golf range and enjoy life. Jesus didn't come down and say, from now on, nobody have fun in life. If anything, it was the Pharisees who were like, you want to play golf?
Well, you can on Tuesdays, but you can only do them on Thursday nights at 11:05pm at this one golf course. That's the difference. Jesus wasn't taking that away. A spiritual condition is what Jesus first identifies with. A glaring physical condition that's there.
So when we look at our current culture, we need to do what? Because we believe in Jesus, look at the Word as the guide. When we have those inward issues or physical issues, we need to be self reflective enough and talking to the Lord enough to ask him to reveal the spiritual side of things. Why am I angry? What's going on in here?
Why is, is my leg swelling up? What's going on in here? There. There's connections to the physical and the spiritual at all times.
Jesus looks at sin, sickness and the root of healing. Let's say, for example, somebody is a daredevil. They like to race cars, ATVs, motorcycles, dirt tracks, gravel tracks, whatever, and they crash. Sorry Jacob, this has nothing to do with you. But let's say they crash and Jesus were to come in and see that they had a broken leg and he were to heal their broken leg again.
He had the power to do that. He's already done that in the testimony of Matthew. And yet he didn't go to the root issue of why they felt like they needed to put themselves in a position to constantly hurt themselves. A higher risk of being hurt. What is likely to happen?
The Savior of the world, God in the flesh, just healed you. And you got right back on a dirt bike and you went right over the same hill that you broke your leg on.
I, I have done that. Not on a dirt bike. Too tall. It's a long way down when I fall. But there have been areas in my life where I know that I've lived outside of what is healthy for me, and yet I've done it anyways.
Jesus is teaching us and Matthew is recording that the physical healing has to have some spiritual inward connection root that we address. So that what we don't spit on the mission of Jesus and we don't spit on the miracles of Jesus and we don't stomp on them. We understand. God, heal me.
And you go back and you eat nothing but ice cream and potato chips. God, please don't let this be a heart attack. And yet you do go right back into doing everything that caused a heart attack. There are two connections here, and I'm not beating you up, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But we have to take responsibility post Jesus's death, burial and resurrection for what the Word says about the connection, for the manifestation in the physical and the spiritual.
We often want healing without transformation. We want relief from symptoms. But Jesus starts with the source, not the symptoms. When we get together and we talk, whether it's at our camping trip for tabernacles or in church hangouts, and people are like, oh man, I had a really, really rough week. And we start asking like, oh, what's going on?
And they're like, oh, well, you know, work was this way and was this way. And then you find out that they also stayed up till 10, 11, 12 o' clock every night. Had to be to work. You realize that the symptoms have a source. You help cause the source.
But. But you want the symptoms to go away or you want Jesus to take the symptoms away. That's like being an alcoholic and saying, jesus, I want you to heal from my alcohol addiction and continuing to go to the same bar and drink the same things. That's not how Jesus works. Jesus is not a genie.
He is king. You just need to understand that there is no true healing without transformation.
Think of this. The paralyzed man gets healed by Jesus and then he just goes right back and lays back down on the mat. He got the healing. He can walk, but he's. There's no transformation.
I'm just gonna lay here. No. Jesus says, pick up your mat and go.
The healing and the transformation. And while we don't have a recording of the rest of this individual's life, I can promise you he probably wasn't crawling to the same place and laying there every day. He wasn't laying outside of the temple every single day like, please, can you help Me, Please, can you help me? No. There was a healing and there was a transformation.
Kind of like repentance.
We all know all the parents in this room, you don't have to raise your hand. Cause your kids are here. It's not youth class week. I'm sorry. You don't believe they're sorry until there's actually behavioral change, there's a transformation of behavior, then we know it's a true repentance.
Well, it's the same thing. A healing has transformation. There's a life altering moment that happens in your life. Sin is not always the direct cause of physical illness. You know, too far on one pendulum and then you swing too far to the other pendulum and then both aren't right.
It's like, well, at least I'm not here anymore. And it's like, well, guess what? Both guardrails cause you to crash. A road has two guardrails. So leaving one guardrail to the other guardrail, it's basically the same thing.
Neither one is bringing order to your life. You still crashed.
Sin is not the root of every physical illness.
I've been there, been to some conferences, been to some churches where, oh well, you have sin in your life for everything. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You eating ice cream and pizza at 11 o' clock every night for the last three weeks, that is the reason why you don't physically feel well. It's not sin. Now you could say, maybe it's borderline gluttony, but I'm not your judge.
But what you do in the physical does also have consequences. Even though God's grace and his mercy absolve you through repentance. But sin is the root cause of the world's brokenness. The brokenness that we see in this world is sin. That is the root cause.
We know that from the story in Genesis. Sin is the root cause of the world's brokenness. And when Jesus says, your sins are forgiven, he wasn't ignoring the physical reality that was in front of him. He was prioritizing the eternal one. How often are we more concerned with the physical reality than the eternal?
Jesus was far more concerned with the eternal than the physical. Remember, one has a shelf life, one does not. This physical life has a shelf life. It will expire as always. Those people, as they get older, like, I'm getting older, I'm getting closer to dying.
What was your expectation that you were going to be the one person who lived forever? Again, not my fault that you had unrealistic expectations, not to be blunt, but I'm telling you the truth. In love, like you're gonna die unless God does something different, you're gonna die. And even if Jesus comes back, the physical will pass away for the eternal. Why?
Because the eternal kingdom is outside of the physical kingdom.
He brought forgiveness first because the healing of the body means little if your soul still remains sick.
God, heal my marriage. Okay, so we don't fight anymore. But every night when I go to bed, I think ill of my wife or I'm unhappy with my wife or whatever. Okay? You can absolutely abstain from things in the physical while still clenching and holding on and going to bed every night with it, bringing it to church, whatever.
With the things in the. In the mental, emotional and spiritual realm. God heals both.
Both. One is temporal, but one is eternal. You don't have to take him out. Crying babies means we're doing something right. I'm sorry if I offended you with my teaching, Flynn.
I will bribe you with some sort of food at table fellowship later on. Jesus was always about the eternal transforming the temporal.
A lot of times we want to do the temporal to transform the eternal, but Jesus was always about the eternal transforming the temporal. This is why it says, when you believe in Jesus and you profess that Jesus is your king and your salvation, you go into the water. You're doing a physical thing that has a eternal spiritual representation. You're not going into the water because just because I jumped into Lake Thunderbird somehow, now I'm free. No, it is signifying being washed by the blood and being washed clean by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And just like we see in Mark's gospel, when Jesus Yeshua goes into the water, he comes out of the water, which is a physical sign. I don't think God was up there and it's like, oh, now Jesus is holy. Jesus lived a perfect spotless life beforehand and afterwards. But Jesus comes out of that water, it says that the Spirit fell upon him, that same Spirit from Genesis, that Ruach Hakodesh and the Father audibly said, this is my Son, of whom I'm well pleased. We want the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because if you don't have the power of the Holy Spirit from the eternal to fix the temporal, this is as good as it gets. Guys, when you're looking around and you're saying, man, I want to be a better husband, I want to be a better father, I don't know how to do this or whatever, you need help from the eternal to fix the temporal. This is why Jesus says in the prophecy, say that Jesus will give you a new heart and a new mind. He will renew you, he will put his spirit in you. Because your spirit was never supposed to be enough on its own.
And I know this combats the culture of Western narcissism, but you were never supposed to do it on your own.
And yet we find in Matthew chapter nine the same thing that we find a lot in religious circles today. We find a religious resistance to mercy.
And trust me, I'm still trying to figure out where the line is. There's been some atrocious things that I have heard people do and I believe God forgives them, I believe the word is true. But me being merciful to them, that's a horrible. Another work in progress. But there is a religious resistance to mercy in Matthew verses 3 through 6, chapter 9.
Picking up at some, at this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, this fellow is blasphemy.
Blasphemy is speaking against the character and the nature of God. The irony of this situation is Matthew has gone to extensive detail all the way up through Matthew chapter nine using one of Brandt's terms, juxtaposition, if then opposites, so to speak. The juxtaposition here is the religious teachers of the Torah, the Torah, observant Jews of those days, the pastors, so to speak, the rabbis, they called Jesus a blasphemer.
And they were the ones who should have known better to have the character and the nature of God.
This is why our church is the way it is. 20 something years for me and way over 20 something years for Brent. In the Messianic Hebrew roots, conservative, Christian, whatever it's called, Torah pursuant Torah, observant, Torah loving, Hebrew, passionate elementop.
The ones who should know the best are the ones who often find themselves missing and not reflecting the character and nature of God, which is blaspheming God. And yet Jesus knowing their thoughts, said, why do you entertain evil thoughts in your heart? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk. But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. There's that terminology again that we saw earlier on.
The Son of Man comes from the prophecy in Daniel. The prophecy in Daniel tells us that one will come who will be called the Son of Man, who will have all authority, will have all honor and all rights on this earth.
First century Jews on the timeline, they knew Daniel's prophecy, they knew the terminology son of man they knew the terminology Son of God. They knew what that meant. It was a part of their culture. And he continues to go back. The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
The religious leaders were outraged.
They were outraged because Jesus was breaking their system. They were so locked in, into what they thought righteousness looked like, what they thought mercy and healing and grace and obedience look like, that they were locked in so tight that when God in the flesh, the Son of Man comes.
They were outraged.
Saying that he was blaspheming God is. Is not a small charge. That's not like saying Brent is wearing. Wearing the wrong shirt today. That's like saying Brent is evil.
It is. It is a high charge, a verbal high charge at that time. I mean, not how many of you are like, going to walk around a table fellowship and you're going to be like, blaspheming like, no, it's not what we do in culture today, trying to make it a little bit relevant for us. But Jesus broke their system. Why?
He wasn't in the temple. All religious leaders were to lead from the temple. Jesus isn't in the temple at this time. He was. He wasn't operating as a priest.
There was no sacrifice. He wasn't there slaying a lamb. He wasn't there bringing a turtle dove. He wasn't there bringing grain. Yes, there was all kinds of different offerings, not just animal sacrifices.
There was no ceremony said, your sins are forgiven.
No grandiose forgiveness was happening outside of their framework. And the crowds could see now that God was never and would never be held under the control and in the box of any man.
So they accused him of blasphemy to speak falsely in God's name and character and image. Yeah. What do narcissists do? They tell you exactly what they're doing. Did you know so and so is over there doing this?
Did you know so and so is. Is gossiping in the chur. Well, I've not heard anybody's gossiping in the church. A narcissist tells you what they're doing by accusing somebody else. See, it wasn't Jesus.
It wasn't Yeshua who was blaspheming the character and the nature of God. The character and nature of the Father Yahweh in the heavenly realm was manifesting in their midst through the power of Yeshua. It was the religious leadership who was blaspheming the character and the nature of God. There was extra taxes. There was extra ways.
You had to come. You couldn't even Go into the Sabbath without a laundry list of things, all of these things that they had built and don't Trust me. I'm not trying to say every Pharisee was bad, and I'm not trying to say every learned person is bad. That's not what I'm saying. But humans have a tendency of going too far.
We have a tendency of creating systems. And God was here to destroy the systems that they said God had to operate in.
I want to remind you that in Matthew chapter four, the devil testified that Jesus was the Son of God before he ever got to the Sermon on the Mount immediately following his baptism, being drove into the wilderness. When Hasatan interacts with Yeshua, he calls him the Son of God. A couple weeks ago, we testified from the scripture of Matthew that demons also testified that Jesus was God and the Father testified that Jesus from the heavens as outlined in Mark chapter one. Yet these individuals either knew he was the Son of God and the Son of Man and chose to keep quiet in this situation, that's a possibility, or they completely missed it.
God does not fit in your box, just like he did not fit in theirs. They had taken the Torah and the prophets and they had created a version of God that didn't reflect who God was at all.
And we have a tendency to still do that today. We elevate men, movements, ministries. We fall in love with preachers and worship leaders whose lives are openly blaspheming God even while their platforms expand. We cheer on teachers even when the Bible tells us that we are to look for fruit. We enable them to blasphemy God and we become willing participants in in their sin by creating a system that is the very one that Jesus was now breaking.
Jesus never did and never will need your approval, your titles, your systems, or your accolades.
He is king. He has always been king, and he will always be king in the future, no matter what you say or what we do.
It is an invitation to a new way of life. That was the original intention of the calling of God on Israel, the Hebrew people. Jesus has all authority to heal, forgive, restore and redeem. And Matthew is going to great lengths to record these historical facts. The Son of Man, the Son of God, the lamb of Revelation 5, who was slain before the foundations of the earth, has all authority and is all authority.
Jesus confirms his identity by saying which is easier, to forgive sins or to heal the body to the human eye, Jesus forgiving the sins, the forgiveness of sins is almost. It's invisible.
How many of us have said, I forgive you When Brent is rude to me and I say, brent, you are forgiven, I can say to you because you're not going to call me afterwards and you know, we have a good relationship. Otherwise I'm going to get text message, like, are we really good? Like, I can look Brent in the eyes and I can say, brent, I forgive you for wronging me. And I can be lying to him. And on the inside of, I can be harboring bitterness and evil towards Brent.
I can be plotting, I can be conniving, I can be patient. I can wait.
Saying one thing and doing something is not the same. And so Jesus offering this man forgiveness. There's no tangible evidence by Jesus saying that. For all we know, Jesus is making a claim by which there. There is no actual fruit.
Many of us have experienced that. We've had jobs where our bosses or co workers or friends or whatever have said something and they don't deliver. This is why I always try so hard if I say yes to do something or no to do something to honor my word, because it's that simple sometimes. But for the naked eye, forgiveness is invisible. But healing a paralyzed man, somewhat undeniable.
So Jesus gives them proof.
I'm the blasphemer. I'm the wrong one. Get up and take your mat and go home, worship team. You can come back.
There's no fanfare. There's no smoke machines and fireworks. The dude gets up and takes his mat and go home. Right there, right in front of them, with all the authority of the son of man and the Son of God, the one who was prophesied in Daniel. And yet verse 8 tells us that the crowd was filled with awe and praised God for giving such authority to man.
But just like we saw at the end of Matthew chapter eight, there was a group of men who were set free by the demons who rejoiced. New life. New life. Born again. New life.
And the pig farmers, they were mad.
They were having a Jonah moment. Can you leave our town? Because Jesus healed them. We see the same thing. The crowds were filled with awe and they praised God.
But what about the religious leaders? Did they praise God? They were silent, they were bitter, and they were resentful. And they would continue that root of bitterness. You know, that same thing that they were like, oh, you can't forgive him, which is easier.
Heal him, whatever. That root of bitterness was growing into the heart. And we know that towards the end of Matthew chapter, towards the book of Matthew, that they ultimately let that root of bitterness grow so heavily in their heart that they shall crucify him.
Jesus can and will heal and forgive anyone who comes to him. The addict, the one on meth, the one on cocaine, the one doing prescription pills. You know, a lot of times we're like, I grew up in the dare, dare to keep your kids off drugs era, you know, back in the good old days.
But prescription drugs, people abuse those. The attic. Jesus can forgive them. The broken. Jesus can forgive them and heal them.
The homeless, he owns everything. He can restore and give anything. The overlooked, the marginalized, and even the people who don't think they're worthy of the love of Christ.
Jesus can heal them all. And last but not least, the people you don't like.
I'm looking forward to Sakota. I'm looking forward to going camping with everybody, hanging out, smoking a cigar, having a fire, hopefully talking about the Lord, talking about all those things. I'm looking forward to it. But the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Sukkot is a preparation for the wedding feast. So it's very easy for me.
Philip and I are friends. It's easy for me to look forward to hanging out with Philip. But how would I feel if my arch enemy shows up to sit down and smoke a cigar and hang around the. The campfire with me? Oh, yeah, because Jesus died for them, too.
That's hard. I wrestle with it too. But Jesus is showing that who you think is religious, what you think is religious, isn't always religious. It isn't always of him. It is the Son of Man who has the authority to forgive sins.
Healing doesn't come without forgiveness. You might have a physical healing, but there's still an inward, spiritual healing. Forgiveness doesn't come without faith. And faith means trusting that Jesus will deal with both the root and the result. That's the true freedom.
The true freedom is not to prove a point, not just to fulfill a prophecy, but to reveal the kingdom of God.
We have to stay on mission. The religious leaders wanted and tried to get Jesus into debates, tried to pit him in corners. They tried to beat him in their twisted game of who's smarter, who's better, who's more righteous. And Jesus did not engage. He continued with the mission.
He let them debate, fight, argue, set traps. He continued on mission. The critics were loud, yet just as loud as the critics were. Jesus was effective. Think of that.
We can be the loudest person going to social media.
2030 is the return of Christ. Easter's pagan. Everything is pagan. You can be loud or you can be effective. Jesus was effective.
The religious Leaders were loud.
Are you joining with the prayer, praise the crowd who saw who Jesus was? Or are you perpetuating the debate?
Are you rejoicing in the redemption of others? Or are you resentful because it didn't come through you in the way you wanted?
Pride is an evil thing. Arrogance is an evil thing.
Don't let the doubters derail you. Don't let the religious expectations distract you. And don't miss the kingdom at work because it's not wrapped up in the box that you want.
So who are you in this story? Are you the friends who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus?
Are you the forgiven man who feels paralyzed in your life, but who now maybe walks in new life? Are you this skeptic standing by, missing the miracle?
At some point in time in my life, I think I've been one of all three of those people. Been times when I've been paralyzed, there's been times when I've been trying to fight to bring brothers and sisters to the faith of Christ. And there's times where I've stood on the sideline and I've been mad because the way God wanted to move in something's not the way I wanted him to.
Matthew goes to great lengths to show us what type of behavior is of Christ and what behavior is not of Christ. We want to be a church that is on mission for Christ, that lives and gives with the righteousness of Christ, that sees miracles and signs and wonders if we're praying for miracles and signs and wonders. And then we get mad because he does it in his time and in his will. We don't deserve the miracles. The beauty is we never really deserved anything anyways.
And he still loved us so much that he sent his son. I didn't deserve the healing. I didn't deserve the overcoming. The righteousness of God was enough and always will be enough. So let's be a church and let's be a people who celebrate redemption, who rejoice in healing and spend every moment that we can trying to welcome the kingdom of God into our midst.
Because whether we know it or not, somebody around you in this room, somebody around you at your job, somebody around you in all these other places, they're the paralyzed person. And they're looking for some friends who have enough faith in Jesus to bring them to the source of life and healing. They're looking for enough friends who aren't gonna sit there in condemnation and say, you idiot, you screwed up again. Once again, thank you for stating the obvious. Duh.
Let's get towards the life source and Jesus for the healing, for the adjustment. The most Torah observant you can be is to sit at the feet of the Law giver, the Torah Giver. Love him, let him teach you and let him fill you with His Spirit so that you can manifest that. And that was that is and that always will be. Jesus, if you will, will you stand with me and let's respond.
