[0:00] Alright, and please take out your copy of God's Word. Turn to the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 2. I am thankful that I read the lyrics of the song, In the Beloved.
[0:12] I actually had forgotten I had done that.! And when He returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that He was at home.
[0:36] And many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And He was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him.
[0:50] When they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, Why does this man speak like that?
[1:04] He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in His Spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, Why do you question these things in your hearts?
[1:17] Which is easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven? Or to say, Rise, take up your bed, and walk. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
[1:28] He said to the paralytic, I say to you, Rise, pick up your bed, and go home. And He rose and immediately picked up His bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.
[1:43] Join me in prayer. Father, certainly this day we can praise You for Your mercy to us. We were once dead, imprisoned by sin.
[1:57] But because of Your loving kindness, You bestowed such a great mercy that we might have the redemption of our souls in Christ. And now You have given to us abounding grace.
[2:11] We have been set adrift and float effortlessly on a sea of grace. You have given us this church. And I praise You for every precious soul in this room coming together to encourage and build up one another in love.
[2:27] You have given us Your word that we might look at, behold, the One, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior.
[2:39] And You have granted to us part of Yourself, Your Trinitarian Self, the Spirit that abides within us, that we might understand and apply these truths to our hearts.
[2:53] I pray, Father, You will accomplish much with us this day. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So we come to a rather well-known story here at the beginning of chapter 2.
[3:07] Before we get to that, I want to, by way of reminder, kind of bring us where we've been so far. We come to this pretty intense place.
[3:17] And in the next chapter, we're going to see Jesus actually confront the religious culture in a number of ways. The next five stories specifically are aimed right at that. He's flying in the face of religious culture in His day.
[3:32] Up to this point, though, He's been working on establishing His authority. That's what His ministry has been about. And that is the way in which Mark has recorded this for us. That we can see that He has authority over Satan.
[3:44] That we see that He has authority over demons and over sicknesses. Right? That He teaches as one with authority. But this is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that Christ proclaims His own deity.
[3:59] That Christ says, I am God. I and the Father are one. Now to be sure, Mark has already said that. He started the book out that way.
[4:10] He wanted us to be very sure that we understood that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Son of God. We see that right there at the very beginning.
[4:21] Right? But here we see Jesus for the very first time doing this. Proclaiming His deity. And we find Him back in the city of Capernaum.
[4:32] Right? Verse 1, chapter 2 says, And when He returned to Capernaum after some days. Now Capernaum was a city located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.
[4:44] Recall in verse 16 of chapter 1, He was passing alongside the Sea of Galilee where He calls Simon, which most of us know as Peter, as well as His brother Andrew.
[4:57] And following that, verse 21, and they went into Capernaum. So they were fishing along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And they went into the city located there on the coastline called Capernaum.
[5:09] Here He heals a demon-possessed man. Then in verse 29, He immediately, Mark's favorite word, leaves the synagogue and enters the house of Simon, Peter, and Andrew there in Capernaum where He heals all who were sick and oppressed that were brought to Him.
[5:26] That's what happens there in verse 29. In verse 38 and 39, He says to them, the disciples, Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.
[5:39] So they leave Capernaum to go to other towns, verse 39, And He went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. We don't know where He goes exactly from there, but He goes and He travels around Galilee.
[5:55] Luke chapter 5, verse 12, speaking of this activity of Jesus cleansing the leper, which we studied last week in verses 40 through 45, Luke chapter 5, verse 12 says, while He was in one of the cities.
[6:09] So we're not really sure which city He was in, but while He was in one of the cities. We talked about last week how He healed a leper. And in so doing, traded places with that leper.
[6:20] The leper was welcomed once again back into the community of faith, could dwell amongst people. And as a result, Jesus had to go out to desolate places and minister. But when we get to chapter 2, verse 1, it's been some time, after some days, which in Greek just means some time.
[6:38] We don't know exactly how long. But it would seem that maybe the hubbub has died down. That the fervency, these people were following Him around because He was doing healing, has died down a bit.
[6:49] And He could enter back into a city. And so He's back in Capernaum. Now, you'll note that He is in a home. And it's said He was at home.
[7:03] But Jesus wasn't from Capernaum, was He? Jesus was from Nazareth. We know that's where He came out of. He came out of Nazareth, of Galilee, to begin His ministry.
[7:14] So it's believed that when He said He's at home, that He's at His home base in the area. When He's in Capernaum, He stayed at, more than likely, Peter and Andrew's house.
[7:25] This is the proposition I put before you, that when He's at home, this means He's at His home in Capernaum, which would have been with Simon Peter and with Andrew.
[7:35] And we see, once again, a great crowd gathering around Him. A crowd so large, they're packing into the house and filling the doorway so that this paralytic cannot be brought in.
[7:46] And they try. They try to get Him in, but it's such a packed audience that cannot be brought in. But what is Jesus doing? Let's look once again. What is it that He's doing? And He was preaching the Word to them.
[8:02] There it is, at the end of verse 2. And He was preaching the Word to them. And remember last week, we talked about Jesus' activity as a healer, as a miracle worker. And that this was simply meant to validate His message.
[8:17] Jesus' primary purpose, His major goal as He traveled around during this time, was to preach the truth. We see it recorded in chapter 1, verse 15.
[8:29] He says, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. He came to preach the coming of the kingdom. We get to delve into so many wonderful parables in the Gospel of Mark.
[8:45] I was flipping through them this week and just getting really excited about the coming chapters. I can't wait to get to chapter 4. We'll take our time to get there. But I'm going to be really excited when we get to chapter 4. We get to start talking about the parables of the kingdom.
[8:57] This is the language that Jesus Christ used all the time. And so I think it's important that we just pause for a moment to think about what is the kingdom of God. A contemporary Old Testament scholar by the name of Graham Goldsworthy, which I would commend to you.
[9:12] He wrote a wonderful book called According to Plan. Said, The kingdom of God is God's people in God's place under God's rule. God's people in God's place under God's rule.
[9:26] And I think that's a beautifully simple picture of what the kingdom of God is. And this was what Jesus Christ came to preach. The coming of the kingdom of God.
[9:38] There's this massive crowd that's gathered around and he's preaching to them. But a side note that I think is important to mention about crowds. Numbers are not necessarily the measure of a successful ministry.
[9:53] Numbers are not necessarily the measure of a successful ministry. In fact, I would argue the largest church in America right now is led by a heretic.
[10:06] Numbers are not necessarily the measure of a successful ministry. In fact, in Acts chapter 1, after Christ has been crucified, we see together gathered 120 disciples.
[10:19] 120 disciples gathered together after the crucifixion of Christ. This was the fruit in the flesh, in those days, measurable fruit of the work of Christ.
[10:35] Not the 5,000 and the 4,000 that he fed. Not the crowds that followed him everywhere, even into desolate places. These are the folks that were disciples of Christ.
[10:47] That had committed their lives to him. Look around this room. There are over 120 people in this room. I'm going to take just a stab at 150. I don't really know that.
[10:58] I know there are more than 120 people because I counted. I got to 120 and stopped. Right? This was the measure of his physical ministry.
[11:09] Now we know that the ministry of Christ has expanded far beyond that. That the ministry of Christ supersedes, stands over any ministry of any man. Everything belongs to him.
[11:19] Right? His ministry is infinite in measure. Right? But the measurable impact of this. We must not look at these crowds and assume that they were all followers of Christ.
[11:33] The more proper thing to assume, and we're going to see it over and over and over again, is that they just wanted what Christ could give them. And that was healing. Right? They just wanted to become and be made better.
[11:45] They wanted to behold something miraculous. Look at what he did. That was incredible. Right? We would do the same thing. Would we not? Anybody like illusions? Pretty fun. Right? We know it's fake.
[11:56] He was doing amazing things for real. And people were gathering to see what he was going to do. So this is the crowd that surrounds him. Right? Chapter 4, verses 10 through 12 says, And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
[12:14] And he said to them, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything is in parables. And he quotes from Isaiah chapter 6, verses 9 through 10, So that they may indeed see, but not perceive.
[12:29] And may indeed hear, but not understand. Lest they should turn and be forgiven. The very reason that Jesus Christ spoke in parables, So that these amassed crowds wouldn't understand what was being taught, Unless it was revealed to them by the Spirit.
[12:47] The very reason he used such complex languages, And spoke in stories so often, Was this, by his own account. You can hate that all you want to, But these are the words of Christ.
[12:59] This is why he spoke in these ways, To filter the crowds. For those who had the working regeneration of the Spirit in their lives. And so this is the scene that we see painted.
[13:11] He's sitting in, more than likely, Simon Peter and Andrew's home, With a great crowd. And he's preaching the gospel. The coming of the kingdom of God. And verse 3 says, That some men, four men, Brought a paralytic to him.
[13:25] We don't know exactly what degree this man was paralyzed, But certainly paralyzed enough, That he could not walk under his own strength. Right? He could have been a quadriplegic.
[13:35] He could have been paralyzed for the neck down. We do not know. But they carried him in on a pallet, And they could not make headway. Verse 4 says, When they could not get near him because of the crowd, They removed the roof above him.
[13:48] When they made an opening, Let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. Now it's really important to understand, That in this day, There was a great association of illness with sin.
[14:01] A great association between the two. This culture, This religious culture of this day, Saw people who were infirmed, And assumed that it was a punishment from God. And God has certainly used illness to judge the world.
[14:15] That is one of the effects of our fallenness. Fallenness. Right? But it does not necessarily follow, That because of sin, We suffer. Great example of this.
[14:27] John chapter 9, Verses 1 through 3, Says, Of Jesus, As he passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, So here's the religious assumption.
[14:38] His disciples asked him, Rabbi, Who sinned, This man or his parents, That he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not this man who sinned, Or his parents, But that the works of God might be displayed in him.
[14:52] So you have to catch clearly, That the two are not mutually exclusive. Right? That they don't coexist together, But the culture thought they did. Right? So even this paralyzed man Would have believed that to be true of himself.
[15:05] Right? Anyone who was ill, Knew they were sinners. Right? A great benefit of your illnesses, Your suffering, As you get uncomfortable in your chairs, Even today, Could be to remember the fallen state of this world, And that you are a sinner.
[15:22] Right? This is evidence of that. I share with you some of the pain I experienced last week in depth. Right? A great reminder to me That this world is fallen. Right? That I am being redeemed out of it.
[15:33] And one day I will have a new glorious body That will feel no pain. Right? Good thing to work into your mind As you think about illness. So this is this man, And this is what people would have thought of him As he was carried by his four friends.
[15:47] And when they couldn't get in, They went up onto the roof. Now, The typical house construction of this day Would have been single story. Would have been a very rare thing That a home would ever have been More than one story. But, The second story Was a flat top patio.
[16:01] Right? A roof top place That they could spend time. Flat roofs, And they spent time up on the roof Would have had an external staircase. So these men Hiked him up the stairs And got on the roof.
[16:12] And the roofs, The houses were built Out of straw and mud. And the roof would have been beamed. Beams running across To give strong structure. With sticks running the other way. And then thatch layered with mud.
[16:24] That's the way this would have all taken place. There would have been enough Wooden structure to hold mud in place. And then it would have been tiled On top of that. So they could have gone up on the roof And visited, Ate their meals, Etc.
[16:36] Up there on the roof. Right? And this was the structure That they dug through. Right? That they destroyed the roof Of Simon Peter and Andrew's house, Presumably, To get this man Into this room.
[16:52] And as I was just musing about this Because we see that Jesus is Preaching. He is sitting in the room And he is preaching a message And this is what's going on Above him.
[17:03] This could not have been a quiet thing. Right? It wasn't like they were picking away Quietly at straw And then suddenly there was a hole. Right? Stuff must have been raining down From the mud ceiling That would have been in this place.
[17:15] Right? I can't even, I just don't even, I wish I had the details. Like Mark and his punctuality Just moves us right through the process. They dug a hole And then they lowered him down. Right? But can you imagine A bunch of years ago A young girl Who's not a member of our church Any longer.
[17:30] She's moved. Brought her mother Who's just a little odd. And her cell phone went off In the middle of preaching One day. And it was hilarious.
[17:41] I can't remember. I wish I could remember what it was now. But it was like a hilarious Like classic rock and roll guitar riff. And so it went off the one time And you're kind of like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Poor person. Oh gosh. They forgot to silence their phone. I think everybody's looking At their phones right now.
[17:52] Right? But then it went off again. And then it went off again. She was clueless. Oblivious to the fact That it was her phone. I don't know where her head was.
[18:03] If she could even hear. I'm not sure Really what was going on. But it went to voicemail. Like it rang All the way through to voicemail. And then the voicemail alert Went off too. Were any of you here for that?
[18:13] It was so It was not really funny at the time. But after the fact It was really, really funny. But I just like I had to like really focus. Like I was I was like at the edge of going Really? Come on. Really? Like it's in this area.
[18:25] Silence the phone. I don't know how Jesus did it. I guess he was perfect. And he pressed on through In his preaching.
[18:37] Don't come through our roof. I'll have to stop. I'll have to stop. This is this incredible scene. Right? And the boldness of these men As they found a way. We have a friend Who is infirmed.
[18:49] We desperately want him healed. And they dug a hole In the roof In order to let him through That roof. And in verse 5 Jesus sees their faith. Their faith.
[18:59] The faith of these men. And then he says To the paralytic Son, your sins are forgiven. That's a really important thing For us to fix our attention on. It's a fascinating verse.
[19:10] And when Jesus saw Their faith He said to the paralytic Son, your sins are forgiven. He goes from this Broad sense of faith To a very narrow Forgiveness of sin.
[19:22] Right? What is meant here? And here's what I believe To be the case. That he perceives He can observe Their faith. Right? They dug a hole in the ceiling To let this man down.
[19:35] But what he's referring to here Is a natural faith. Right? A natural faith. They had seen Jesus. They had heard the telling Of him healing people. And therefore they believed That he could also Heal their friend.
[19:47] Right? The paralytic believed That he could be healed. Right? Just like we trust The structure of this floor. We trust the structure Of this floor. If you've been here For a while You've seen the Cattle trough baptismal We've been bringing in.
[20:03] Right? I didn't have faith In the floor On that day. I want you to know That as your pastor I jumped up and down On the stage Really really hard Just to see if maybe It would go through The floor So I would spare you all From falling A story If the floor gave way.
[20:19] Right? But generally We trust. Right? We have faith. Like we've been in plenty Of two story buildings With floors That hold up That pass code And they therefore Will hold us up. We trust the structure Of this ceiling Don't we?
[20:32] We've got all kinds Of things in here That would get horribly ruined If they got really wet. Right? We trust That the guys Who put the ceiling In place Put the metal roofing on Did it right And we're not going to get Sopping wet In here.
[20:46] We trust those things Naturally. Right? It's an easy thing To do. Right? If you're going to go out To eat this afternoon You trust That the people Who prepare your food Are going to do so Appropriately. Like none of you At least I don't think Will go and visit the kitchen And inspect its cleanliness Yourself.
[21:01] Right? You might If you're a little OCD Look at the rating On the wall Before you eat Most of us don't do that I usually notice the rating When I'm paying For the food I already ate But you and I go Oh, 88.
[21:13] Right? So we trust That our food That's natural faith We can do That kind of thing Easily And naturally But that is not The kind of faith That saves.
[21:25] So he narrows his focus From this general faith He sees their faith And then he says To the paralytic He sees something else In the paralytic And he says to him Son, your sins Are forgiven He sees in him A saving faith A supernatural faith Right?
[21:39] A faith that cannot be His on his own But that must be Birthed in him By the movement Of the Spirit Right? Draw your mind To John 6, 44a No one can come to me Unless the Father Who sent me Draws him Right?
[21:55] This is the work Of the Spirit The great ministry To us in our lives Is to draw us To the Father To work in us Saving faith To regenerate our hearts So that we can Believe Right?
[22:07] This is altogether A biblical case This is the way That God works In our lives And this is what Was happening In this man's life And he says to him Son, your sins Are forgiven It's by faith We're saved But it's faith That's worked In us Throughout time This has been the case Think about the fact That what faith Would be birthed In this man What is it That he was Believing in If Christ himself Is before him Christ is before him Has yet to die Has yet to bear The wrath Of God's punishment For his sin What is it That he believed?
[22:47] Right? What was it That he had faith in? He had faith In the promise Turn to Romans Chapter 4 We're going to look At the life Of Abraham How was it That Abraham Was justified Was found In right standing Before God Right?
[23:14] I hope you're with me On this Abraham In the presence Of God right now Right? He's not in hell He's in heaven He's with the father Now Romans 4 1-3 What then shall we say Was gained by Abraham Our forefather According to the flesh For if Abraham Was justified by works He has something To boast about But not before God For what does the scripture say?
[23:35] Abraham believed God And it was counted to him As righteousness Right? Believed in the promise Right? He didn't even know How it was going to work out Exactly But believed What God had said To him Hebrews chapter 11 I invite you to turn there Beginning in verse 8 You guys might have to Tab your Bibles Hebrews chapter 11 Beginning in verse 8 By faith Abraham obeyed When he was called To go out To a place That he was To receive As an inheritance And he went out Not knowing Where he was going So here's the Action of his faith By faith He went to live In the land of promise As in a foreign land Living in tents With Isaac and Jacob Heirs with him Of the same promise For he was looking forward To the city That has foundations Whose designer And builder Is God Not talking about Jerusalem in this case An eternal city The new Jerusalem This is what
[24:35] The writer of Hebrews Says Abraham Was looking forward to Skip down to verse 13 Of chapter 11 These all died Speaking of all these Saints That chapter 11 Is referred to In faith Not having received The things promised But having seen them And greeted them From afar And having acknowledged That they were strangers And exiles on the earth For people who speak thus Make it clear That they are seeking A homeland If they had been thinking Of that land From which they had gone out They would have had Opportunity to return But as it is They desire a better country That is a heavenly one Therefore God is not ashamed To be called their God For he has prepared For them a city Right They saw the promise From afar off Right Didn't even know How it would be fulfilled In Christ But knew that God Would accomplish The things he said He would accomplish In the Abrahamic covenant Right By their faith They were saved A faith that was worked In them By the spirit Of God Right So Jesus Sees this work
[25:37] And says to him Son Your sins Are forgiven Right And in this action This is one of two ways He declares His deity Right Because only God Can forgive The offenses Committed against him Right It would be really silly If you offended me Personally You came up to me And you told me That you did not like My shirt today And I was offended by that And then later on My wife said It's okay That you don't like Nathan's shirt It would make no sense Would it Right I must forgive the offense That's been given to me Right Only God Can forgive the offense Of the sin That's committed against him Right Our sin All of it Is primarily Vertical In nature Sins have horizontal effect Absolutely You tell me You don't like my shirt Right It's going to hurt my feelings This is not a sin By the way You can not like my shirt It's okay Right But sin Is primarily It's firstly Vertical
[26:37] It's an offense Against God Right Let's take a look at The story Of David And Bathsheba Remember the story Of David and Bathsheba He beholds A woman bathing On a roof A roof A tiled roof Is the way They would have done this Right He sees her And he wants her She's married To a man named Uriah Right And what does he do He sends off Uriah To the front To be killed And he has Bathsheba Prior to her husband Being killed Right This great offense Did he sin against Bathsheba He certainly did Did he sin against Uriah He certainly did Right But listen to what he says In Psalm 51 Verse 4 Against you Speaking to God Against you You only Have I sinned And done what is evil In your sight Isn't that phenomenal We should reflect upon that Great offenses Right I mean I hope I hope that We don't have any Adultering murderers In the room today Maybe Maybe
[27:38] I hope I hope not Right But this is a great weight This is a great thing That he did And he says Against you You only Have I sinned Right Is he saying That he didn't Offend them at all Absolutely not But in comparison The vertical nature Of his sin Vastly outweighs The horizontal nature Of his sin Charles Spurgeon In speaking of Psalm 51 Said The virus of sin Lies in its opposition To God The psalmist's sense Of sin towards others Rather tended to increase The force of his feeling Of sin Against God All his wrongdoing Centered Culminated And came to a climax At the foot Of the divine throne He put it in proper Perspective He saw how really Weighty it was How infinite it was As he sinned Against An infinite God He got some Clue of this As the prophet Nathan was sent to him 2 Samuel 12 Verse 9 Listen to what
[28:39] The prophet Nathan Said to David His friend Why have you Despised the word Of the Lord This is in response To the same activity Why have you Despised The word of the Lord To do what is evil In his sight You have struck down Uriah the Hittite With a sword And have taken his wife To be your wife And have killed him With the sword Of the Ammonites Why have you Despised the word Of the Lord To do what is evil In his sight Why have you Offended God In this action It's important That we get this Properly That we get this Right Jesus declares Himself God As he says Son Your sins Are forgiven Hebrews 9 Verse 22 Reads Indeed Under the law Almost everything Is purified With blood Some things Were purified By water Almost everything Is purified With blood And without The shedding Of blood There is no Forgiveness Of sins You have to see too
[29:39] And you have to Really understand Right That it's not that That God Forgives sin The way we would Forgive an offense Against us Where we just Kind of pass it over We just kind of Say it's fine Right I'll deal It's okay But because God Is all of who he is At all times It's actually a doctrine Called the simplicity Of God Right That he is always Who he is He's not bipolar He's not wrath One moment And mercy another But he's always All of these things Right Because God Is a just God He must judge sin And therefore Punish it Appropriately This is the picture Of our God He must Do this And without blood There is No forgiveness Of sins He didn't say to you When you placed your faith In Christ Yours is good Right What he said Is I've already Punished your sin In Christ Christ's blood Covered Your sin
[30:40] Right Christ's blood Covered the sins Of Abraham Right This work That he completed So many years Later Was the accomplishment Of the promises Given to Abraham That he might have This eternal life This is why we believe In Jesus Christ He is the lamb That was slain On our behalf Who bore our wrath Who took our punishment Gave us His righteousness The chorus Of that song In the beloved In the beloved God's marvelous grace Calls me to dwell In this wonderful place God sees my savior And then he sees me In the beloved Accepted And free And I just imagine This paralytic Right Let's assume He's a quadriplegic That he can't move at all And he's laying on a pallet He's been lowered Through the roof And Luke it says Right in front of Jesus too Again the distraction Right here Right He comes down
[31:40] And he's laying on the floor Right And Jesus forgives His sins Right That he would want to sing Such a song Still paralyzed Right Receiving the joy That is granted to him Because of the gospel Of Jesus Christ Right What a picture What a picture Then in verse 6 We see the scoffers Sprinkled amongst the crowd Right The scribes They were sitting there And they were Questioning in their hearts Why does this man Speak like that He is blaspheming Or saying he is God Who can forgive sins But God alone And immediately Jesus perceiving in his spirit That they thus questioned Within themselves Said to them Why do you question These things in your hearts Which is easier To say to the paralytic Your sins are forgiven Or to say Rise Take up your bed And walk But that you may know That the son of man Has authority on earth To forgive sins He said to the paralytic I say to you Rise Pick up your bed And go home So we see scribes
[32:41] And we need to ask the question Who were these scribes In verse 16 of chapter 2 We see it recorded The scribes of the Pharisees That's a way it was recorded So we see a number of sects That exist S-E-C-T-S Sects that exist In Judaism at this time And Phariseeism Was one of these things Do you know There were probably Only about 6,000 Pharisees In existence In Jesus' time But boy Do they run rampant Around Jerusalem And the neighboring area About 6,000 of them And their sect Actually Arose during the time Of Ezra Remember we studied Nehemiah together Previously At the Babylonian return When the sect Arose about 400 years Earlier John MacArthur Said this of them These are the guardians Of the populist form Of apostate Judaism Right Love that sentence These are the guardians Of the populist form The popular form Of apostate Judaism
[33:41] They're the fundamentalists Legalists Architects And promoters of salvation By works Salvation By self-righteousness That's who these Pharisees were They constructed laws To protect people From committing laws They were called hedge laws So much so That people had lost The very point Of the law To begin with Jesus spends his time In the Sermon on the Mount Re-establishing What he was trying to teach To begin with In the giving Of the law Right These Pharisees Were tearing down Faith Any of you know People like that?
[34:17] Any of you been People like that? And here we have Scribes Now the scribes Would have been Like the theologians Of the day Right They were learned men They were often called Rabbis Which means teacher Not all scribes Were Pharisees And certainly not all Pharisees Were scribes Right But you get There's an intermingling Here of this Self-righteous Form of teaching And these are the men That we often see Confronting Jesus Hijacking The conversation And here we see him Boldly Confront them Even as they haven't Said anything Out loud They've simply Thought in their hearts This is blasphemy Right How is it that This man Can forgive sin Only God Can forgive sin And they're right In that Right Aren't they?
[35:07] But they just Didn't understand That Jesus himself Was in fact God That he Was Deity Leviticus Chapter 24 Verse 16 Says whoever Blasphemes The name of the Lord Shall surely Be put to death All the congregation Shall stone him This was a well Understood Jewish tradition You did not Call yourself God We will kill you If you do This is the very Accusation that's Brought to Jesus That has him Hung on a cross And his response To this Is just Phenomenal Right He says Which is easier To say This was puzzling To me For a while Because it seems That he's actually Saying that it's Easier to say Your sins are forgiven Doesn't it read That way To you Which is easier To say to the Paralytic Your sins are forgiven Or to say Rise take up Your bed and walk And then he proves it By telling him to Rise take up His bed and walk It seems that he's Saying it's harder To heal
[36:08] The body Than to heal The soul Who would disagree Agree with that Would we not I hope we would I do Interestingly though When you look At the original language If you look at The word in Greek For say It could also mean To affirm And I think That would be A much better Translation here Of the text Which is easier To affirm Your sins are forgiven Or easier to affirm Rise take up your bed And walk Right They could visually see I say to this man Rise take up your bed Go home And he does it It has been affirmed Or to say Your sins are forgiven Can you affirm that With the seeing With the senses You certainly cannot Right So he does something For them That they can That they can Visually see Right He not only heals The soul of this man But then he heals This body Right To display His power Right He's affirming His deity In this way He forgives sin To affirm it
[37:08] Right Secondly He affirms his deity By searching The hearts Of men It's a shame That these scribes Miss this As they Think these thoughts Within themselves And Jesus calls them out On the very thing Why are you thinking These things 1 Chronicles 28 Verse 9 It says The Lord searches All hearts And understands Every plan And thought Jeremiah 17 10 I the Lord Search the heart And test the mind Ezekiel 11 5 For I know The things That come into Your mind Jesus put on His deity In great display As he draws Out of them The very things That they were thinking And he does this Over and over And over Again Throughout the gospel Of Mark And the other accounts Of Jesus' life Proclaims his deity To this people Right And then we see The response Of the paralytic He rises Immediately There's Mark's word Again And immediately He picks up his bed
[38:08] He goes out Before them all So that they were All amazed And glorified God Saying we never Saw anything Like this So the result of it Seems to be An amazing turning To Christ Does it not?
[38:24] What a neat account At the end They were all amazed And they glorified God Saying we never Saw anything Like this But the account In Matthew Chapter 9 Verse 8 Of the same story Says When the crowd Saw it They were afraid And they glorified God Who had given Such authority To men You catch the difference there?
[38:47] The crowd glorified God But they missed The fact That Jesus Himself Was God Right They were afraid They glorified God For giving such authority To a man But they missed That he himself Was God Philippians Chapter 2 Verse 9 States that God Has exalted Jesus Christ It's not enough For us just to believe In God But we must believe In the Son Of God The One The Person Jesus Christ Has accomplished Work on our behalf Another text Exalting Christ Revelation Chapter 5 Turn there Verse 11 John's account Of his vision Beginning in verse 11 Then I looked And I heard around the throne The living creatures And the elders The voice of many angels Numbering myriads And myriads
[39:48] And thousands Of thousands Saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain To receive power And wealth And wisdom And might And honor And glory And blessing And I heard Every creature In heaven On earth And under the earth And the sea And all that is in them Saying to him Who sits on the throne And to the Lamb Be blessing And honor And glory And might Forever and ever And the four living creatures Said amen And the elders Fell down And worship The Lamb You can see Is the one Who is exalted In heaven Ephesians chapter 1 Beginning in verse 19 You can try to get there I'm going to keep reading though Paul prays the Ephesians Will know The immeasurable greatness Of Jesus' power Toward us who believe According to the working Of his great might That he worked in Christ When he raised him From the dead And seated him At his right hand In the heavenly places Far above all rule And authority And power And dominion And above every name That is named Not only in this age But also in the one to come And he put all things Under his feet
[40:48] And gave him as head Over all things To the church Which is his body The fullness of him Who fills all in all We see this picture That's repeated Throughout the scriptures Of Jesus now seated At the right hand of the Father Which is the place Of honor The Father Exalts Christ These people Exalted God They missed That Christ himself Was part of the Trinity Was God In flesh Not us We exalt Jesus Christ This is our faith The one who has power To forgive Sins The one who by grace Freely bestows Forgiveness Of sins We don't work This is unique For the world religions Right We don't work Our salvation out We cannot We are incapable Of accomplishing this On our own Praise God
[41:48] That he works it in us That he gives us This gift Of faith Fall on your knees And praise him For that You have no Thing good To boast in yourself Paul said Far be it for me To boast in anything But the cross Of Christ Right That's what we have To boast in His work On our behalf As a church We exist To exalt Christ I don't know if Yeah It's up there Christ's only church Exists To glorify God Right To lift him up By experiencing Proclaiming And displaying The supremacy Of Jesus Christ In all things To all people I don't have time This morning To break that All down for you Right Do you see that We as genuine Believers Right I hope that if We were standing In this crowd Right We would have Seen Jesus As the son of God Right We would have Experienced His supremacy Right
[42:49] Then we would have Spent the rest Of our lives Proclaiming And displaying That very truth In all things To all Peoples That's what we Have been called To To exalt him Amongst The nations Jesus Christ The son of God Who is himself God Establishes here His deity His authority Over sin I hope this morning That you can Revel in that With me You can rejoice In the fact That your sins Have been forgiven In Christ That you can say With confidence That when he Hung on that Cross And bore The wrath Of God That he Was bearing The wrath For your Sin That you Know That it Was Stricken From the Record Because Of his Work That you Know That your Name Was written In the Lamb's Book of Life Before the Foundation Of the World Because Of this Work That Christ Would Accomplish One Day That you Can say That with Confidence That the
[43:49] Spirit of God Has worked In you A new Heart So that You can Believe And you Have Believed And many People get Perplexed At that Point But what If I Don't Know Don't Overcomplicate It Just believe Repent And believe It's a Simple Gospel Call If you Don't Live your Life In light Of that Truth The Same Is for You Repent And believe Turn From your Sin And turn To God Let's Pray Together