OPEN: It was the first day of basketball practice at Wingate High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Coach handed a ball to each player.
"Boys," he said, "I want you to practice shooting from the spots you might expect to be in during the game."
One of the boys (who was pretty much there as a substitute for the star players - in fact he was substitute #12) immediately sat down on the bench and began shoot the ball toward the basket from there.
APPLY: You might say that boy didn’t expect to get to play much.
And I suppose he was just trying to get a laugh out of his team mates.
But, there are some people who sit the bench, because that’s where they’ve gotten used to being. They never strive to much more than that - because they don’t believe in themselves enough to put in the extra effort and practice to change their status. And because of that: they’re always going to sit the bench
I. There are people who live their Christian lives like that.
As far as their faith goes - they are proverbial bench sitters. They are the type of people who don’t expect much out of God and that’s what they get.
God tells us in Hebrews 11:6 "..without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
In other words: God is looking for people who aren’t satisfied being bench sitters. He’s looking for people who not only believe that He exists but who believe that He will REWARD those who earnestly seek Him.
God is looking for people with an EXTREME Faith. A faith that won’t accept the idea that they can "just get by" as Christians. A faith that rejects the idea that God is somewhere out there and somehow doesn’t care. A faith that exerts itself because this person BELIEVES God will hear their petition. God is looking for an EXTREME FAITH
* God looking for people who will say: "I can do everything thru him who gives me strength." (Phil. 4:13)
* He’s looking for people who like Abraham are "fully persuaded that God has power to do what he has promised" Ro 4:21
* He’s looking for people who like Paul believe God "is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine..." Eph 3:20
He’s looking for people with Extreme faith. He’s looking for people - like some of the men in our story today.
II. I want you to picture the scene in your minds:
This is the 1st year of Jesus’ ministry. Ever since the Sermon on the Mount, He’s been out preaching, teaching, healing and casting out demons. And it seems that every time people know He’s in the area, they surround. They literally mob Him.
It’s hard for Him to get a moment’s rest. Time to be alone and pray. Jesus has sought to escape the crowds and it would seem that He has returned to Capernaum seeking rest. But even here He can’t escape. He can’t get away from the crowds.
His one consolation is that at least here the people have only come to hear Him preach. Nobody seems to be clamoring to have Him heal them. That’s important - Luke 8 tells the story of a woman who had an illness, but who feared to approach Jesus face to face. She touched His garment and Jesus "felt power go out from Him."
Every time Jesus healed someone, it took some of His strength, some of His energy. It tapped into His power and took from His reserves. This might have been part of what made Him tired all the time.
So, while He still can’t seem to escape the crowd, at least no one seems to be bringing their sick and demon possessed for Him to touch and heal.
(pause)
You know, perhaps, the paralytic had tried to get to Jesus before. Perhaps, he had just missed Jesus days before when Christ had gotten on a boat and crossed over to the other side of sea of Galilee. But now, Jesus has come back. They know where He’s at and they’ve rushed to the place where they’ve been told He’ll be.
From the way this man and his friends behave, you can feel sense urgency, you can almost sense the desperation. They’ve got to SEE Jesus. They CAN’T risk Jesus getting away again before their friend has had a chance to be touched by Jesus and healed. And here they’ve finally caught up with Jesus and they can’t get thru because of the press of the crowd. There’s no room in the house. They can’t even get close to the door.
So they sit down together and they begin to talk. There’s no room in the house. People are crowding the door and they are blocking windows. "HOW ELSE ARE WE GOING TO GET IN???" they wonder.
(pause) Then one of them says "well, there’s nobody up on the roof!!! (Pause) I wonder... if we could dig a hole in the roof, then, we could let him down in front of Jesus."
Another friend scoffs "... but we can’t just drop him thru the hole! How are we going to lower him safely to the floor."
Still a third says "If we had ropes... maybe we could lower him down through the roof. Yeah, ropes would do it!" And off they go in search of ropes to use for their friend.
III. Now you have to realize - this is a bold move on their part.
* NOT ONLY are they about to destroy roof of someone else’s home.
* NOT ONLY are they about to disrupt a session being taught by Jesus.
* BUT they are about to barge into a meeting of some very important people.
Turn to Luke 5:17. Luke tells us there are religious leaders here from all over Galilee and from as far off as Judea and Jerusalem (some may have traveled as long as a couple of days to get there).
Why are these religious leaders there?
They want to know what this new teacher has to say. They want to know what His message is.
This is a serious meeting with some serious people.
And the paralytic and his friends are about to barge in...
But you know, the paralytic’s friends don’t care.
They don’t care if they ruin the roof.
They don’t care if they upset the meeting.
And they don’t care who’s there in house with Jesus.
All they care is that they have a friend who’s sick - and Jesus can heal him. Nothing else matters.
IV. So, they get up on the roof.
Scholars tell us that homes of that day had a unique flat roof. made of wooden beams that rested on the walls of the building. These beams were placed about 3 to 4 feet apart and were covered with thick branches, brush, reeds, mud, grass and clay. The resulting layers on top of the beams would measure from 4 to 6 inches thick. The impression that you get from this text is that on this house there may have been tiles on top of this roof that helped in diverting the water from the rains.
(pause)
Those inside the house must have heard the racket up on the roof as the 4 men tore away the covering tiles and pulled and tugged at the underlying branches & plaster to make a hole big enough for their friend to fit down through.
And you can see the crowd - as the debris from the roof begins to rain down on them. You can see them clamor to their feet and struggle to get out of the way. And there... on the floor in front of Jesus... is opened up a space easily large enough for a sick man on a pallet. (pause)
The room is quiet now... the crowd is silent - waiting to see what will happen next. Sunlight streams down from the hole in the roof. You can see particles of dust hanging in air. The room is filled with a haze.
And then - the stream of light is blocked as the friends swing the pallet over the hole and they begin to lower their friend into the room.
AND THERE’S JESUS.
Standing.
Watching quietly until the palsied man lays on ground in front of Him.
Jesus looks up to see the anxious faces peering down through the hole in the ceiling. He looks down on the hopeful and now perhaps somewhat embarrassed man on the pallet.
The whole room waits expectantly... what will He say? What will He do? Will He heal this man? OR will Jesus become angry and order the man from the room? What will He do?
AND then, Jesus does the most bizarre thing: He says to the man: "Your sins are forgiven."
You can sense the mood of the room begin to change. This is not what the palsied man and friends had hoped for. He’d come to be healed - not forgiven. Not that forgiveness isn’t a good thing, it’s just this wasn’t why he’d come.
And then, the crowd... the crowd is thinking something else. These are the religious leaders of the day. These are the theologians. They’re not thinking about the sick man and his disappointment. They’re not thinking about why Jesus didn’t heal this poor man’s broken body.
These are theologians - they’re thinking... theology. (see Luke 5:21) Now, they were right in their theology. Only God could forgive sins. They were just mistaken in who they thought Jesus is.
V. Jesus waits for only a couple of minutes, and then He addresses these theologians.
"Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ’Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up and walk"? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins....’ He said to the paralyzed man, ’I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’" (Luke 5:22-24)
Immediately, the man feels a warmth that starts from the center of his being works its way down his limbs. And he realizes - I am healed! He leaps to his feet and excitedly begins jumping around. He lets out whoops and shouts out praises to God. And everybody in the room gets caught up in the man’s excitement and they begin to jump around and hug and praise God.
And for the moment, the theologians forget their anger with Jesus.
VI. Now, a question: Why did Jesus say "your sins are forgiven" Why not "your body is healed?"
You know, Jesus always gives us what we need. Not always what we want, nor what we want to hear. Part of the reason Jesus said what He said is that this is what the theologians had come to hear. They wanted to know what his message was.
Consider: this is the only time in ALL of the gospels that a sick man is ever told his sins are forgiven. Jesus chooses this setting, this audience, to make this announcement: He had come to bring forgiveness to mankind.
As John 3:16-17 tells us "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever would believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life - for God did not send His Son into the world the condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."
Jesus’ purpose in coming to earth was to bring forgiveness.
But why say this to the paralyzed man on the pallet before Him? Why tell this man that his sins were forgiven? Did some sinfulness on his part cause His illness? It’s possible.
In I Corinthians 11:28-30 we’re told: "A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That’s why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep."
The sin in Corinth had caused God not only to plague some with sickness... but to cause some of them to even die.
ILLUS: Science has discovered that each and every one of us have 100’s of bacteria and viruses living within us. Certain of these viruses are called "opportunistic virus." When a person’s body is weakened by things like emotional difficulties and depression, or guilt and bitterness, these opportunistic viruses can then invade our muscles, our organs and our bones and cause illnesses and disease. Some experts believe that as many as 90% of all illnesses are caused by these "opportunistic viruses."
This paralytic’s disease may have been directly or indirectly related to some form of guilt or bitterness that he was unable to let go of. So he needed healing of heart even more than healing of his body. As one man commented: "What good would it be to have a healthy body on earth and spend eternity in hell?"
VII. One last thought - God doesn’t always heal
Several times in scripture we find people who weren’t physically healed, and it had nothing to do with whether or not they were righteous. For example, we’re told that Paul was afflicted by something (we’re not told what) and he prayed 3 times that God would remove his "thorn." Yet, he was never healed. Yes, God gave Paul the explanation of why that hadn’t been done, but the point is, God didn’t always heal everyone of illness. BUT that should never stop us from praying for healing. We need to realize that God heals us when that is what is ultimately best for us.
CLOSE: As I was meeting at a local restaurant with several other preachers to prepare this sermon, the proprietor overheard our conversation about God and healing. He lumbered over and sat down right across from and said, "Boys, let me tell you a story. My uncle was a real hard case. A rough man with bad attitude. He had no place in his life for God - said he didn’t believe in Him. Then one day, he took sick and had to be taken to the hospital.
"Laying in that hospital bed, hooked up to monitors, he finally realized that this could be one of his final days on earth. He was so bad off that even the Doctors were worried.
"It was then that he looked up to the ceiling and said ’God, I’ve always said I don’t believe in You. But I’ll make You a deal: If You’ll heal me - I’ll believe in You!’ Almost immediately, a warmth began in his chest and spread throughout his entire body. He called for the nurses and told them to call in the Doctor. ’I think God’s just healed me.’
"He walked out of that hospital by the end of the week. He started going to church, began tithing, talked to anyone who would listen about what God had done for him. Now, his wife wasn’t too sure he wasn’t crazy to begin with, but eventually even she began to realize that he was for real. God had healed this man and had changed his life."
God is looking for people with extreme faith - willing to be touched by His hand. Are you one of them?
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
Are you a Son of Thunder? - Luke 9:51-9:56
Extreme Faith - Mark 2:1-2:12
Dealing With Personal Demons - Mark 5:1-5:20
The Wee Little Man - Luke 19:1-19:10
Jesus & The Party Crasher - Luke 7:36-7:50
