41 Preaching teaching/ Mark 2:1-12: Living on the Brink of Eternity

Mark 2:1-12

Living on the Brink of Eternity

Sermon Title: “Living on the Brink of Eternity”

Text: Mark 2:1-12

Subject: Evangelism

ETS- Forgiveness of sins was possible because of Jesus’ authority and mission.

ESS- We can live the same mission as Jesus.

OSS- Hearers will take a step to penetrate the lost world.

FCF-Because we struggle to view the lost like God we need to think like these friends so we can see God forgive and heal those around us.

Discipleship Practice-Evangelism

B. Formal Elements

Introduction

1. Video Introduction

2. White men can’t jump. I wanted so bad to be able to soar so high and slam the basketball over people and slam it down. Not only did I play basketball, I also played volleyball. Because I was lacking in these skills I decided to seek out the guru for jumping. One of my favorite movies growing up. It is true. White men can’t jump unless you play volleyball. Sean Carter and how he pursued me. Playing high school Volleyball. Ended up not playing the rest of my time there to focus on basketball. I got a scholarship to a small school because I was not the greatest athlete. So i remembered when I played volleyball and how high the guys jumped. When I went off to college I called him and asked if he could teach me how to jump as high as his volleyball players. He taught me all these drills, he had me jumping over chairs and everything else. Then he dropped a question on me. What do you think about Jesus Christ? I ran for my life. A month later God had brought me to a place where I heard the gospel. The first person I called was Sean Carter. That summer I went home and I got to be in a study and then we got to lead a study with younger students. I wanted to learn how to impact people like Sean so that I could live on the brink of eternity.

3. Why did Jesus come? Why don’t we live Jesus’ mission? We can live the same mission. Penn & Teller Quote.

Have you ever asked why did Jesus come to earth?

Jesus loves sinners. He wants to begin a relationship every sinner around the world.

He came to give us life.

For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost-Luke 19:10

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ…God became man for no other reason. C.S. Lewis

I am not trying to offend you guys but the pot lucks are important

Woman’s events are important my wife loves them

Easter egg hunts are important

Like Sean Carter we are to live life on purpose, he plays a lot of different roles, husband, father, engineer, guru of volleyball but his purpose is to live on mission with Jesus to share with the lost around him.

But so few Christians have a desire to live on the brink of eternity?

The world would have us believe that we need to keep our religion to ourselves and that we don’t need to tell the life-saving message of Jesus because we don’t want to offend anybody or make them uncomfortable. Now if you think that is what a lost world thinks let me share what a lost person says about Christians.

Penn Jillette from Penn and Teller said this:

“…I’ve always said, you know, that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward…How much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe it, and that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And {eternity}this is more important than that…”[1]

Just because we reach the lost does not mean we are making disciples. Reaching the lost is the first step in making disciples.

Today we are going to see that Jesus wants us to live on the brink of eternity.We are going to see Four random guys who we don’t even know there name teach this lesson about penetrating a lost world.

These four men lived their lives in such a way that displayed the glory of God in a remarkable way. They decided to take the battle to those who needed Jesus.

So if this is true if God has changed my life why do I not live on the brink of eternity and want to see others come to know Jesus?

Why do I know so many Christians who have been following Jesus for so long have never even attempted to share their faith?

Why have 95 percent of Christians never led anyone to Jesus.

Why are so many churches resistant to reaching outside their walls and reaching the lost for the Lord Jesus Christ?

Transition-God desires us to become more and more like him. For this to happen we must be willing to join Jesus and his mission and live on the brink of eternity.

Here is the first point about living on the brink: Because of Jesus mission:

1. We must be willing to do whatever it takes to bring the lost to him (1-5).

Explanation:

Summarize Mark so far:

John the Baptist shows up and says the final Messiah is here and Jesus announces his kingdom message that we have to repent and believe.

Mark 1:17-Come follow me Jesus said and I will make you fishers of men

Mark 1:38-He *said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”

Jesus has healed the sick he has driven out demons and now people want to be right by him.

People have started hearing about Jesus and now everyone wants to be around him.

Mark 2: 1-When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home.

2 And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them.

3 And they *came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men.

4 Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.

Can you picture being a jammed packed church and the roof opened up and your like wow. I guarantee if that kind of stuff was happening in more churches we would have less people falling asleep.

It was so packed because they were expecting God to show up. How many times do we not expect God to show up at Church, in our quiet times in our daily lives. They were expecting him to do great things.

While Palestinian homes would have been accessible to someone wanting to get on the roof, it was by no means a daily occurrence. The houses were low, usually with an outside stairway to reach the roof. The roofs were tiled and covered with thatch. The four men had to drag the cot up the stairs, tear up the tiles, and dig through the thatch. The hole would have to be large enough to get the cot through. Add to this the annoyance of the people below.[2]

These men could have given up and been like we tried but instead they were like we are going to do whatever it takes to get him to Jesus.

When is the last time you were willing to do whatever, it takes to impact a lost person and share the love of Jesus?

Illustration

Heather is willing to do whatever it takes to get to coffee. Have you heard of Holy Grounds? It’s literally her spiritual act of worship, drinking her cup of coffee. One night I come home for work and she said black Friday is giving away Keurig for 49 dollars for black Friday. So we go out at 3AM with a bunch of people from Arkansas, there were some people who literally came out of the woods for this black Friday deal.

If you know me, You know the following to be true, I enjoy my sleep, the earliest I will attempt to get up is at 445, secondly I don’t shop, three I don’t drink coffee. But we were there with them because my wife wanted a Keurig and I wanted a happy wife. We came home from black Friday with a Keurig. We were willing to do whatever it took to get the Keurig.

That is how bad these friends wanted to get their friend to Jesus. They did not stop when the line was long at the front door, they were willing to think outside the box, it would have been easy to say we gave it a shot, but they would not be stopped.

Guys when is the last time you wanted those around you to come to know Jesus?

Surgeon quote-

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and un-prayed for.” Charles Spurgeon

Eternity is so much more important than a cup of coffee. How easy it is to miss the every day opportunities to reach out to the lost around us.

5 And Jesus seeing their faith *said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Their faith became his faith. Do you have relationships with people who are not believers?

argumentation:

One of the reasons we don’t see any lost come to Jesus is because believers don’t have any real relationships with the lost. How can we bring those to Christ whom we have no contact. We have our Christian shirts, christian music.

A man did a survey on how people come to know Jesus Christ here was their finding:

“…most people experience the faith through relationships, that they encounter the gospel through a community of faith, and that becoming a Christian involves a process that takes time. In his later book Recovering the Past, Finney summarizes their chief finding in four words. For most people, “belonging comes before believing.””[3]

How does Jesus respond when you bring someone to Jesus?

Son, your sins are forgiven. In the Greek, the word here is literally “child.” Jesus claimed first a special relationship with the man—a relationship of love and care. The second thing Jesus claimed was the ability to forgive his sins.[4]

1. He brings them into his family

2. He forgives them

What can keep us from doing whatever it takes?

We don’t think forgiveness is urgent

Illustration Chris at the Barber shop read my “God ask” Book

Kids were like dad is he going to steal that from you

We get caught up in doing good things (bible Study)

We don’t see how Jesus sees.

Doing it like we have always done it.

Application

Church are we really willing to do whatever it takes?

Are we willing to take the ceiling off the building and make a mess to reach the lost.

Are we willing to build relationships with lost people?

These men did the unorthodox and the costly.

Transition-We have seen that these four men were willing to do what it took to get people to Jesus, But if we want to live on the brink of eternity: Because of Jesus Mission:

2. We must reject having a hard heart towards God (6-11).

Do you want to know the real reason we are not winning more people to Jesus in the USA, is because our hearts are hard to the things of God.

All sins are bad but I think the greatest sin is a hard heart towards God. The teachers of the Law knew exactly what Jesus was claiming.

We have just seen a group of people who had a heart of Gold towards God they saw a paralyzed man and said Jesus could be the solution to the problem.

The religious leaders were waiting for the messiah. In the Old testament Jesus was predicted about. The one to come and the Pharisees did not believe that Jesus was him. As a result we are going to see that there heart is hard.

Explanation:

6 But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts,

7 “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?”

The Old Testament penalty for blaspheming God’s name—reproaching rather than honoring it—was death (Lev 24:10–23). According to subsequent Jewish teaching, blasphemy involved pronouncing the divine name or inviting people to follow other gods.[5]

C.S Lewis said this…

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [6]

8 Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, *said to them, “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?

We see some of the divinity of Jesus-He knew what they were thinking.

9 “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’?

It is easy to say your sins are forgiven but only one can actually do this the one who is sinless. They were thinking to themselves anyone can say your sins are forgiven but if he is really the messiah he would be able to heal this man as well.

10 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He *said to the paralytic,

What are some things Jesus has authority over: Over Satan, over disease, over the wind and over the waters,

What exactly Jesus has authority over- Mark - study

healing-disease-forgiveness-sea-wind

11 “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.”

application:

How can we have a tender heart towards God?

Spend time with him

Want others to be with Jesus

Illustration-

These teachers of the law missed out on living on the brink of eternity because of a hard heart. Church I know this church desires to live on the brink of eternity. We have crusades, we preach the gospel. But God wants to do more with this church. I pray that our hearts will be like the four men who brought the paralytic to Jesus and not the hard hearted pharisees. God desires that we personally take responsibility for this discipleship practice.

When is the last time you have brought someone to Jesus?

Have you ever brought someone to Jesus?

I don’t want to miss this out. Sometimes living on the brink of eternity is uncomfortable. When I first came to Church here we opened up the gym. We saw students put there faith in Jesus Christ all the time. One of the students who made a profession of faith was rough. But remember he came to a Sunday night service. Now our Sunday night services are traditional. This young man comes in here with a wife beater. For those of you who don’t know what a wife beater is, it is a real tiny tank top. He then asks me for deodorant. I was actually going back and forth from Arkansas still so I had some in my car. Now having so many kids we share. But I am not used to sharing my deodorant with someone. So i was just like keep the deodorant.

What is crazy is in this story the minority had the right heart towards God. You had a group doing Bible study who missed the heart of God. Then you had a group of religious professionals who had a deliberate hard heart towards God.

Application-

Is your heart more like the pharisees heart or more like the four friends?

If you’re a believer where is your heart right now {towards God} what about towards others?

We have seen that Jesus Mission involves doing whatever it takes, and having a right heart towards God. However because of Jesus mission:

3. We must live in a way that displays the glory of God (12).

The glory of God was clearly seen in the Lord Jesus Christ. The way he loved, his perfection and much much more. As a result God wants to grow you in such a way if you are a Christian that you will look more and more like him, you will become like him in what you say and do.

Did you know that your life is the only Bible many will ever read. The glory of God was on display in the Life of Jesus Christ. When you saw Jesus you saw God. God has created us in his image and he wants to mold us into Jesus. We are to supposed to reveal his glory to the entire world.

12And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

Explanation -

How can we display the glory of God?

A. Excited (immediately)-jumped Bubba Hog Manu Ginobili what we are excited about others will.

Do you overflow with God like this.

B. Use our struggle as a testimony (grabbed) [authentic with his struggle]

Illustration-Cody had us go the whole day. Guy in Jamaica-Lost a leg and he was in the infirmary-this is a place where you go if you have no one to take care of you and I remember talking to him and he said if this would not have happened I would not be this close to God.

C. Lived his faith for the world to see

God can use our weaknesses our struggles for his glory

I saw this in Conway-Brad was in a sever wreck and he was the Walmart greater, he may not be whole mentally until heaven but every time you saw him he pointed to his cross and said Jesus loves you.

What struggle have you been through or are you going through?

God can take that struggle and use it for his glory.

Illustration:

Coca-Cola has fulfilled their own version of the Great Commission many times over. They have virtually put a bottle of Coke in everyone’s hand. If they can do it with a soft drink, we can certainly do it with the gospel.[7]

Better Illustration-Hacksaw ridge

Lord give me one more

He saved 75 soldiers

Invitation-

Recap beginning

Today God is calling us to be like these four men who said we are going to be on the offensive and bring those who are lost and hurting to the feet of Jesus.

We need to think like God

DDST- Hearers will penetrate lostness.

[1] Marshall, Colin and Tony Payne. The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything. Youngstown, OH: Matthias Medial, 2009, page 53.

[2] Cooper, R. L. (2000). Mark (Vol. 2, p. 32). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[3] The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Hunter George. Page 44.

[4] Cooper, R. L. (2000). Mark (Vol. 2, p. 32). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[5] Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament (Mk 2:5–7). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

[6] Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.

[7] Michael P. Green. (2000). 1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (p. 124). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.