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How
Jesus heals people
Miracles Still Happen
Part 6
04-06-14 Sermon
Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man
9 Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own
town. 2 Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a
mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your
sins are forgiven.”
3 At this,
some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is
blaspheming!”
4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts
in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are
forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But I want you to
know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to
the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” 7 Then
the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they
were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to
man. Matthew 9:1-8 (NIV)
Jesus ________________________________________________
Matthew 9:2 “Some people brought to Jesus a man who was paralyzed and lying on a
mat. When Jesus saw the faith of
these people He said to the paralyzed man, ‘Be encouraged, son…’”
Hebrews 4:15, “Jesus is able to understand our
weaknesses. When He lived on earth
He was tempted in every way that we are but He didn’t sin.”
Psalm 139:1 “O Lord You know everything about me. You know my every thought. You know what I’m going to say even before I say it.”
1 Peter 5:7 “Let Christ have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking
about you. And He’s watching
everything that concerns you.”
He’ll gently confront _____________________________________________.
Luke 5:20 “Then Jesus said, ‘Friend, your sins are
forgiven.’”
Jesus didn’t minimize ___________________________________________.
How does Jesus forgive?
·
Jesus
forgives ______________________
·
Jesus
forgives ________________________
Colossians
2:13-14 “He has forgiven all your
sins. He has utterly wiped out the
evidence of broken commandments, which always hung over our heads. He has completely annulled it by
nailing it to the cross.”
· Jesus forgives __________________________
Romans 3:23 “God says He
will accept and acquit us, declare us not guilty if we trust Jesus Christ to
take away our sins no matter who we are or what we’ve been like.”
He will challenge ____________________________.
Matthew 9:8-9 “When Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Get
up. Take your mat, and go
home.’ And the man got up and went
home. When the crowd saw this they
were filled with awe and they praised God.”
Matthew 9:29 “According to your faith it will be done
unto you.”
“Your faith has healed you.” Mt 9:22; Mk 5:34; Mk 10:52; Lk
8:48; Lk 18:42
Areas of our lives where we may be
paralyzed:
·
W____________________.
·
L_____________________
·
D_____________________
·
E_____________________
·
A_____________________
· P_____________________.
How do you show faith?
1. Freely admit ________________________________________
2. Believe that Christ _____________________________________
3.
Do whatever __________________________________________.
How Jesus heals people
Miracles Still Happen
Part 6
04-06-14 Sermon
Today we’re going to wrap up
the series we’ve been in on the miracles of Jesus Christ. When you study the healing miracles of
Jesus you discover a certain pattern emerges. When people came to Jesus and they wanted to be healed He often
did the same three things. He
would say a word of encouragement to them. He would then diagnosis their real problem. Then He would ask them to do something
that would cause them to act in faith.
A great example of this is
the story about the healing of the paralyzed man. If you are praying in your own life for a miracle, you’re
praying for a healing, a relationship healing, a physical healing, a healing of
your emotions, a healing in your finances, you can expect Jesus to do these
same three things when you come to Him.
1. Jesus
calms my fears
That’s the first thing He’ll
do. He will calm my fears. Matthew 9:2 “Some people brought to Jesus a man who was paralyzed and lying on a
mat. When Jesus saw the faith of
these people He said to the paralyzed man, ‘Be encouraged, son…’” Circle “be encouraged” imagine this scene. Jesus is teaching in a home and it’s
packed out. It’s SRO – Standing
Room Only. There are four men who
think, “We’ve got this friend who’s
paralyzed. If we could just get
him to Jesus we know he’d be healed.”
When they get there they can’t even get in the door it’s so packed. So they’re creative. They’re a little unorthodox. They climb up on the roof of this
house. They dig through the roof
and they lower him down on his stretcher right in front of Jesus in this packed
house.
Imagine Jesus. He’s teaching all these people. Everybody hears this noise
overhead. They look up. All of a sudden this man’s coming down
through the ceiling, being let down on four ropes on a stretcher. Imagine if you were that person, the
paralyzed person. How do you think
you’d feel? Do you think you might
feel a little self conscious?
Maybe a little nervous, a little embarrassed? These guys are desperate. Notice how Jesus reacted. He didn’t blow him away. He didn’t say, “You’re
interrupting My teaching! What are
you doing?” He didn’t get mad
at the guy for interrupting him.
The very first thing Jesus does is encourage him. He says, “Be encouraged. Take
heart. Cheer up. Don’t give up. I can help you.” He says a word of encouragement.
Here’s the first point. I don’t have to be afraid when I come
to Jesus with a hurt. Why? Because He always responds in love, not
in fear. Because perfect love
casts out all fear. That’s the
first thing He does.
Hebrews says, “Jesus is able to understand our
weaknesses. When He lived on earth
He was tempted in every way that we are but He didn’t sin.” When you’re hurting, when you’re
going through a problem we have a tendency to think, Nobody understands what
I’m going through. Nobody
understands! But Jesus does. In fact, Jesus understands everything
you’re going through.
Everything. He is aware of
everything you think, say, do, feel even before you feel it. “O
Lord You know everything about me.
You know my every thought.
You know what I’m going to say even before I say it.”
So when this guy was being
let down through the roof by his friends Jesus already knows what the problem
was. He wasn’t uptight about
it. He said, Come on down. Be encouraged.
He knows about your problem too.
You can come to Jesus without any fear, without any reaction. Tell Him exactly how you feel because
it’s what He already knows.
“Let Christ have all your worries and cares, for He is
always thinking about you. [Circle
“always.” Did you know He’s
thinking about you right now? He’s
always thinking about you.] And He’s watching everything that concerns
you.”
Here’s the point: Jesus cares about how I feel. Not just your problems, He cares about
your feelings. He cares about your
feelings whether you’re grumpy, whether you’re depressed, if you’re worried, He
cares about that. If you’re lonely
He cares about that. If you’re
uptight, He cares about that. If
you’re apathetic He cares about that.
He cares about your feelings.
He says, “Be encouraged. Come on down. Be welcomed.
I’ve been waiting for you.
I know what your problem is already so come on in.”
If you come to Jesus with
your hurt and your shame and your fear you’re going to receive encouragement,
not condemnation. Even if the
problem is your own fault. Even if
the problem was something you brought on yourself you can still come to God and
say, “God I made a mess of this.” He’ll say, “I know. Be welcomed. Be encouraged.”
Why? Because God’s love for you is not based
on your performance. It’s
unconditional love. It’s not based
on who you are or what you’ve done or that your good works outweigh your bad
works. No. He just loves you. He takes you just as you are.
But He loves you too much to
let you stay that way. So He goes
on to the second step…
2. He’ll
gently confront my faults and failures.
In love He’ll do it. But He’s going to do it. He’s going to confront my faults and
failures. He goes beneath the
symptoms, beneath the surface issues to the real problem. One of the things I like about Jesus is
He never beats around the bush. He
never plays games with you. He
tells it like it is. He gets right
to the point. In this man’s
situation, since He already knew what the guy’s problem was, He gets right to
the issue.
Luke 5:20 “Then Jesus said, ‘Friend, your sins are
forgiven.’” Wait a
minute! This guy comes for healing
and Jesus says your sins are forgiven.
The guy hadn’t asked for forgiveness of sin. He came because of his paralysis. He was either a paraplegic or a quadriplegic. We don’t know. We do know that he couldn’t walk. He had to be carried wherever he
went. In those days they didn’t
have wheelchairs.
They lay him down in front of
Jesus and the first thing Jesus says, “Be
encouraged.” The second thing
He says is “Your sins are forgiven.” He didn’t say Be healed. He said Your sins are forgiven. Why? Because Jesus was going to the root of the problem. He was dealing with the cause not the
effect. We don’t know what
happened here but somehow guilt had bound up this guy and paralyzed his life.
I want you to understand
this. Hear this. This is very important. Not all suffering is caused by personal
sin. Sometimes we suffer as
individuals. Sometimes we
innocently suffer because of somebody else’s sin. When a baby is born an addict, it’s not that baby’s
fault. It’s the mother’s fault. So not all suffering is because of my
sin. But probably most of it
is. Most of our problems we bring
on ourselves.
A study said that nearly
fifty percent of all the people in hospitals today are there because of stress
related illnesses. The first cause
was guilt and the second cause was bitterness. Guilt being what I’ve done to others and bitterness being
what others have done to me. If
people could get rid of guilt and bitterness a lot of their physical symptoms
would be gone. Our bodies are not meant
to handle guilt. Guilt is not a
Christian emotion. It’s an emotion
that comes when you don’t live the way God wants you to live. You weren’t designed to handle
guilt. When you carry it and carry
it, it’s going to show up in your body somehow. Most of the world is waiting to hear – they’re dying to hear
these three words you are forgiven! Because they haven’t heard it they
look for it in a bottle or they look for it in pills or they look for it in
relationships or hobbies or sports or overwork so that when they come home at
night and crash in bed they don’t have to think about how they really
feel. They try everything and
anything to get rid of their guilt.
Part of the miracle here with
this guy is that Jesus perceived what his real problem was. I’m sure this guy had tried every
doctor there was. Jesus looks at
him and the first thing He says is your
sins are forgiven. Why? Because he was bound up by guilt and
nothing else is going to work.
It’s so typical. We try
everything else before we try God.
He’s kind of our last resort.
The real problem was he was paralyzed by the past. And when you’re paralyzed by the past,
you can’t get on with the future.
You can’t even enjoy today.
He had a guilty conscience.
Jesus said, “Friend, you sins are forgiven.” Circle
“friend.” Jesus called this
guy His friend. Did you know that
the Bible says the religious leaders who hated Jesus called Jesus “the friend of sinners.” They thought that was really a put
down. “Jesus? He’s the friend of
sinners. He hangs out with low
lifes. The immoral people. With really evil, wicked, mean, bad and
nasty people.” Jesus wore that
as a badge of honor. He said, “Yes, you’re right. I’m the friend of sinners. I’m the friend of people who really
know how they’ve blown it. ”
What that says is no matter
who you are, and no matter what you’ve done you’re valuable to God. He calls you friend if you come to Him with honest seeking saying, “God help me. Help me change.
Help me get rid of the hang-ups, the hurts, and the habits that mess up
my life.” Jesus Christ calls
you friend. No matter what you’ve done you’re valuable. You matter to God.
The second thing is Jesus did
not publicly announce what this guy’s sins were. He didn’t say, “Your
sins are forgiven, which, by the way, are…” and announced them to the whole
crowd. There’s a point here He
really wants you to get. Jesus
protects people’s dignity. He
didn’t embarrass this guy. A lot
of people think, “If I come to Christ I’m
going to be embarrassed to death.”
No, you won’t. You’re going
to be loved. Jesus always
protected the dignity of people who came to Him who were hurting and in need.
The third thing to notice…
3. Jesus
didn’t minimize this guy’s guilt.
He didn’t say it’s no big
deal. He didn’t minimize it. He eliminated
it. Only God can do that. You’re looking for forgiveness. You’re looking for a clear conscience. There’s only one place you can get
it. God. No psychologist,
no friend, no helper, no relative can give you that clear conscience. Only God has the power to completely
forgive all the things you’ve done wrong in your life.
You don’t have to live with
it. You don’t have to live with
your guilt. You can be
forgiven. You can be free. That’s what Jesus Christ died on the
cross for so you don’t have to be holding all that guilt in your life.”
How does Jesus forgive? The
Bible says He forgives three ways.
Very important.
1.
Jesus forgives instantly.
That’s not the way we usually
forgive. We like to make people
suffer a little bit. But God never
makes us wait. He doesn’t say, “I’ll think about it.” In fact, the moment you ask, the
instant you ask there is no delay.
You are instantly, completely forgiven.
Here’s the question. Should a Christian ever feel
guilt? The answer is yes for about
ten seconds. Because that’s about
as long as it takes to go, “God, I admit
it. I blew it. I sinned. Please for give me.
Help me change.” And
that’s it. And you should not have
to feel guilty after that.
2.
Jesus forgives completely.
He forgives completely so you
don’t have to carry around unnecessary guilt. Colossians 2:13-14 “He
has forgiven all your sins. He has
utterly wiped out the evidence of broken commandments, which always hung over
our heads. He has completely annulled
it by nailing it to the cross.” When
Jesus Christ died for your sins which ones did He include? All of them. Not only the ones you’ve already done but the ones you’re
going to do today. And the ones
you’re going to do next week and next year and the rest of your life. He died for all of them –
completely. Jesus Christ was
nailed to the cross so you can stop nailing yourself to the cross. He was hung up for our hang-ups.
Circle, “wiped out.” That’s a super spot
remover. They’re wiped out. Then circle “completely
annulled.” It’s like a bill
that’s been paid for. It’s been
paid for. Once you’ve paid for a
bill, do you have to worry about paying it again? No. How long do
you remember a paid bill? You pay
it off and the moment you pay it off you forget it.
The question is if God
forgets sin, shouldn’t you? If you
keep bringing it up again, over and over and over it means you don’t really
believe He forgave you in the first place. In fact, let me say this to you. If you feel guilty over something you’ve already confessed
and asked God to forgive, He did.
So where do you think that guilt’s coming from? Not from God. It’s coming from Satan. It’s coming from the devil.
That’s very interesting
because before you committed sin, Satan always minimizes it. “This
is no big deal. Everybody’s doing
it. Do it!” He minimizes it. But the moment you commit it he starts
going. “That’s the biggest sin of the whole world. You could never be right with God. You’re a jerk!
Forget it. You call
yourself a Christian? Who do you
think you are?” The Bible
calls him the accuser of Christians.
No. God forgives completely. And if He forgives and forgets you should too. He not only forgives instantly and
completely but…
3. Jesus
forgives freely.
Romans 3:23 is a beautiful
verse in the Living Bible. “God says He will accept and acquit us,
declare us not guilty if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins no matter
who we are or what we’ve been like.”
You will never be able to earn God’s forgiveness. You will never deserve God’s
forgiveness. You can’t work for
God’s forgiveness. You can’t buy
God’s forgiveness. You can’t
bargain for God’s forgiveness. You
just need to accept it because He gives it freely.
We’ve been looking at miracles
of Jesus for six weeks and we just covered a few of them. But let me tell you, the greatest
miracle Jesus ever does is forgiveness.
It’s your greatest need, it requires the greatest cost (Jesus died on
the cross to make it possible). It
produces the greatest benefits in your life and the best results. The greatest miracle you’ll ever have
in your life is when you come to Jesus Christ and say, “Jesus Christ be my savior.
Be my Lord and Savior.”
And He forgives all the wrong in your life. When you do that it makes all the difference in the
world.
Don’t be afraid to come to
Jesus. He will lovingly confront
the things that need changing in your life. He will set you free from the bad feelings that paralyze your
life. He’ll offer forgiveness complete,
instant and free. Then He’ll do
the third step. And that’s what He
did with this man.…
3. He
will challenge your faith.
If He’s going to heal you in
any area of your life that you’re going to see a miracle, He’s going to ask you
to do something that seems humanly impossible. That’s what makes it a miracle. He did it with this man. Notice Matthew 9:8-9 “Jesus
said to the paralytic, ‘Get up.
Take your mat, and go home.’
And the man got up and went home.
When the crowd saw this they were filled with awe and they praised
God.”
Here’s a guy who has had to
be carried everywhere. His leg
muscles would have withered. They
would have no strength in them. Do
you think there might be a little fear in his life? “What if I try to
stand up and I fall over and embarrass myself in front of this huge crowd
standing round me? What if it
doesn’t work?” There’s all
kinds of doubts and fears. Jesus
was asking this guy to do something that seemed humanly impossible because he’d
tried, I’m sure, many times. And
all those times in the past it hadn’t worked, so why should it work this
time. Because this time Jesus was
telling him to do it. He’s
challenging his faith.
Faith is something you do. It’s
more than thinking. It’s more than
believing. Faith is action. Faith
is doing something that God tells you to do even when you don’t understand
it. The Bible says, “According to your faith it will be done
unto you.” Seven times in
scripture Jesus said, “Your faith has
healed you.” Seven times. So this is the third thing. He challenges your faith. He’ll ask you to do something you’ve
never been able to do before.
He may say, I want you to change jobs. If you’ve got a relational problem
that needs to be healed He may say I want
you to go and ask forgiveness.
You go, “I can’t do that.” You may have a financial
problem. He may say, I want you to start tithing. You go, “I can’t do that.”
He may say I want you to go
talk to a friend about Jesus Christ.
You say, “I could never talk
to that guy about Christ.” He
puts it on you.
Here’s the good news. Whatever God asks you to do, wherever
He asks you to do something impossible, He always gives you the power to do
it. God will never ask you to do
something that He doesn’t give you the power to see it through.
But you must take the first
step. That’s where the miracle
happens. Once you’ve taken that
step of faith. In many ways every
one of us in this room are like this paralyzed man. We all have areas of
our lives that are paralyzed, where we’re handicapped.
Some
of us are paralyzed by worry. We just can’t get it out of our
mind.
Some
of us are paralyzed by loneliness. We just feel lonely all the time.
Some
of us are paralyzed by depression
and the world just seems so bleak and dark.
Some
of us are paralyzed by envy. We look around and we see other people
getting things and say, “Why can’t we get that? We can’t ever afford anything.”
Some
of us are paralyzed by anger. We have a temper that keeps getting us
in trouble over and over and over.
We get impatient. We spout
off at the mouth and then we regret what we say.
The
main thing that people get paralyzed by is the past. We let hurts and
regrets and memories dominate and trap us and paralyze us and we can’t enjoy
the present and we can’t get on into the future because we’re still caught in
the past.
Jesus wants to set you
free. That’s the good news. But you have to stop making
excuses. And you have to stop
saying, “One of these days I’m going to give it all to Jesus… one of these days
I’m going to totally sell out and give Him every area of my life. Not just a little bit. I’m going to give Him all.” You’ve got to stop making excuses.
It really doesn’t matter if
Jesus can calm your fears and heal your hurts and forgive all your sins if you
don’t do something in response to it.
You’ve got to respond in faith.
You’ve got to stop making excuses for all the reasons why you haven’t
given your life to the Lord and you need to just say, “Ok! Jesus Christ, here I
am.” You’ve got to show some
faith. How do you show faith?
Three things.
1. Freely admit that I need help
These are the very three
things that the paralyzed man did.
First, freely admit that I need help. He obviously did that.
He showed up in front of the crowd. He could have said, I think I’ll just stay home today. He could have said, “I’m embarrassed at my condition. I don’t want to be seen in public. I don’t want everybody to know I’m
paralyzed. I don’t want people to
know that I have to depend on other people.” But he didn’t.
He freely admit I need help.
2.
Believe that Christ can and will help me
He certainly did that. Otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted the
time of tearing apart a roof and opening it up and putting him down right there
in the middle. He obviously
believed, If I can get to Jesus us, He can help.
3.
Do whatever He tells me to do.
Jesus said, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” What if he hadn’t done that? He’d still be paralyzed. What if he hadn’t attempted to do what
he thought there was no way he could do?
What if he hadn’t done what I’m sure he was afraid to do? But he did. And God healed him.
Does God do miracles
today? Yes. Absolutely. But you’ve got to follow His plan. Does God do miracles?
Of course He does. He does
them all the time. But He always
requires a step of faith when He tells you what He wants you to do.
Prayer:
I
invite you to begin seeing the miraculous healing power of Jesus in your
heart. Say this, “Dear Jesus, I
don’t understand it all but I thank You that You love me. I thank You that You want to encourage
me not condemn me. So today, as
best as I know how, I honestly come to You. I admit the things I’ve done wrong in my life. I admit that I’ve been calling the
shots and not letting God be number one.
So Jesus, I ask You to forgive me instantly and completely and
freely. And more than that I ask
You to help me feel I’m forgiven.
I admit that I need help. I
believe, Jesus, that You can and You will help me. Help me with my doubts. And help me to do whatever You tell me to do. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
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