He Came to Save Sinners (Mark 2:1-17)

Introduction

I’m so very thankful to have my mother and father-in-law with us this morning. It is a joy having them come and visit us. Although, I have to tell a story on my first trip up to where they live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, 11 miles from the upper Michigan peninsula.

Mark Recap

This morning will be our fourth week in the Gospel of Mark. Over the last three weeks, we have seen Jesus beginning his public ministry as the beloved Son of God. We have seen his authority over sickness, unclean spirits, and his authority in teaching. We have seen Jesus identifying with us in his baptism and temptations. The biggest part of Jesus and his public ministry has been his desire to go out and preach the gospel. And he was on a preaching tour and had been driven to the wilderness when we left off last week at the end of chapter 1. And this morning we are picking up with Jesus returning to where he started. Follow along with me as I read Mark 2:1-17.

Main Point

The Son of Man not only has the authority to forgive sins, but his very mission was to rescue sinners by calling us to life in him.

Points

Point #1: Who is this? (v.1-12)

Point #2: What is this? (v.13-17)

Point #1: Who is this? (v.1-12)

As we look at verses 1-12 in our first point this morning, we have three different groups of people that we need to spend time looking at, and then Jesus himself. We have the crowds, we have the scribes or religious zealots, and then we have the four men, along with the paralytic. Each of these represents a greater whole of how Jesus is seen today, and that is where we are going to spend the majority of our time this morning, by comparing these different groups.

The crowds

On hearing that Jesus had returned to Capernaum, where he began his public ministry, the crowds gathered, packing the house he was staying in to the point that there was no room in the house. It was so packed, even the door was crammed with people. Think about 50 or 60 people crammed outside here in the foyer, that might be more comfortable than what it was while Jesus was preaching. Jesus was preaching or speaking the word that the crowd came to hear.

However, with the crowd that was gathered, we must not mistake this large crowd for a flourishing discipleship. In fact, in the gospel accounts, especially that of Mark’s, the crowds are being referenced not for how many were coming to faith. These crowds present a hindrance to those of true faith who are trying to get to Jesus. Why do we think that the four had to carry the paralytic to the roof? It wasn’t because they couldn’t simply wait and were impatient. They were hindered from getting to Jesus by all of those who gathered to simply marvel at Jesus’s teachings, although they had no desire to repent of sins and follow him.

Crowds can be telling in some cases, but when it comes to the following Jesus, it is not the telling sign of faithful disciples following him. The crowds swarm to hear from Jesus, to seek things from Jesus, and to even be amazed at what they hear. However, it is also the crowds that arrested Jesus and shouted to Pilate for his crucifixion.

The crowds wanted to hear Jesus teach, they had their interest piqued in what he was going to say next. But the crowds overall in coming to him were not the ones who came to faith. They are those that are merely fascinated with Jesus’s teachings, but they do not submit to King Jesus.

These are those that talk about Jesus and his teachings and might even call out Christians for not following the teachings of Jesus, especially those that fail to show mercy and compassion. Darcy and I have a family member like this. Unfortunately when it comes to understanding what it means to follow Jesus, this family member doesn’t want to talk.

Others that fit into the crowd groups are those that come to Jesus for an emotional high fix or adrenaline rush and call it the work of the Holy Spirit. They create atmospheres and call it worship. Even now, you can probably think of a church or two that you think does this. This starts though when we wrongly set our eyes on the crowds and instead of Jesus. Churches can be so focused on growing numerically, they aim to do whatever they need to do to attract the crowds. But here in Mark 2, and throughout all of Mark, the crowds aren’t the focus of Jesus’s ministry. His focus is teaching the word and pouring into those that follow him. For it wasn’t the massive crowds that had gathered on the day of Pentecost after Jesus’s ascension. It was a group of about 120.

This is why we here at Central City Baptist Church need to continue to focus on growing upward towards God and in our relationships with one another. The outward growth will flow from this. There is the dangerous allure of us trying to become attractional and do all that we can to appeal to the crowds and draw them in. Thinking that if we just play a certain kind of music, people will come. If we have a particular ministry, that they will come.

Brothers and sisters, attracting the crowds isn’t the answer to church growth. Attracting the crowds actually hinders gospel growth. When our attention is focused on the crowds, we hinder others from coming to the feet of Jesus.

Maybe you are questioning this line of thought this morning. I want to call your attention again to the first 5 verses of Mark 2 (READ AGAIN).

The crowds flooded the doorways, but it was those of faith that had to climb the roof, dig through the roof, make a hole, and lower their friend in order to get to the feet of Jesus. The crowds hindered those of faith from coming to sit at the feet of Jesus. When we become focused on the wrong things, we can hinder those eager to grow in their Christian discipleship from coming to Jesus and flourishing.

Jesus certainly preached to the crowds, he healed among the crowds, he had compassion on the crowds. However, Jesus was about preaching the word when the crowds gathered. He wasn’t about quick growth models. He wasn’t about trying to please the crowds and draw them in. And neither should we.

Discipleship is a slow growing process. For us to be about making disciples and equipping the saints is to ensure that we are all growing in our walks with Christ and to make sure we are growing together. Discipleship takes us deeper into who God is and delighting in him. This is why when I think about new songs to try and introduce us to, I’m not thinking about the emotional feel good of a song. I’m thinking about songs that teach us more about our Triune God and how the song lyrics and the melody drive those truths deeper into our hearts. For it as those truths are driven into our hearts, we begin to grow as disciples.

The opposite is true though when the focus begins to be on the crowds and an attractional approach to worship is the goal. In attractional worship, you focus the songs on the unbelievers and in the end, you lose not only making disciples, but in the end you lose the gospel.

Brothers and sisters, it is not the crowds the church is to aim to please and reach in our worship gatherings. Yes, we want and aim to be clear with the gospel if unbelievers enter our worship gatherings. However, the gathering of the church is for well, the church. It is for those who are followers of Christ as we join together to worship and praise our God for what he has done for us in Christ. And therefore, our worship gatherings aren’t intended to be structured on the lost, but the redeemed.

It is therefore our goal as Central City Baptist Church to ensure that we focus on the right things as a church, namely the teaching and preaching of the word. And from that word, everything else to be built off of it. This is why most weeks you hear me say that we have come to sing the word, read the word, pray the word, and preach the word. For it is this word that Jesus was about proclaiming, it is this word that builds the church, and it is this word that teaches us what it means to follow Christ. And it is this word that will guide us and keep us focused on Christ our King!

The scribes (Religious Zealots)

Now, turning from the crowds, there is a second group that hinders faith. This group is the scribes or religious zealots. These the moment they hear Jesus tell the paralytic that his sins are forgiven begin questioning what Jesus said. They begin to ask who in the world is this? They ask why does he speak this way? And they accuse Jesus of blaspheming.

Blaspheming can be defined as taking the credit for what alone belongs to God. The scribes in hearing Jesus forgive sins, accuse him of taking credit for something only God could do. Now, the scribes are right in realizing only God can forgive sins. And yet, they miss who Jesus has been revealing and proving himself to be.

The scribes are looking to catch Jesus and derail him. And this will not be their only attempt. The scribes know the law, make no mistake about it. However, they are also the ones who have missed the purpose of the law and to the one that the law points too. The scribes, the pharisees, and the sadducees are the religious zealots of their day. They should have been the first to recognize who Jesus was and be pointing people to him. Instead, they sit there looking to catch and trip Jesus up and keep others from coming to him.

One commentator says, “The real paralytics were the Pharisees and scribes! In marked contrast to the four stretcher-bearers, they were just “sitting there”. As religious leaders, they should have been directing the traffic to Jesus and his free clinic. When the roof opened, they should have reached up to receive the poor cripple. But instead of love, there was indifference. Instead of faith, there was only criticism.”

The religious zealots missed it all in questioning who Jesus was in their hearts. And for the church, this is often the group that we are more tempted to become like. We are more tempted to see the details, but miss the glory of who Jesus is and what he came to do. We are too tempted to think we have the answers and become blind and deaf to what Christ is trying to teach us.

While I think we have some in our church that are tempted to be lured by missing a worship of Christ in being distracted by the crowds, I think we also have some that are tempted to fall into the category of the religious zealots. These are those who are more worried about holding onto certain traditions the church has had, but unwilling to think why do we do this? I myself would be one that is more tempted to fall into this camp.

But the danger of the traditions is that we can think if something isn’t done the way it has always been done we are going astray. We need to constantly be looking back to scripture and reforming according to God’s word on what worship is and how it is intended to look.

There too is another danger with us becoming like the religious zealots though. There is the danger of us missing mercy and grace. We can get so zeroed in on the law, that we miss showing mercy and grace to one another and the world around us. Christian, how many of us are quick to look at an individual and say in our hearts why waste time sharing the gospel with them? Or in how we talk about others that haven’t yet come to know Christ in pointing out their shortcomings? Or speaking down on them? How many of us look at others with a superiority complex towards others in the way they act or speak or how their families function?

For this is how the religious zealots looked down on others, they questioned and doubted them. And they missed for starters how bad their own sinful hearts were. But they also missed the power of the gospel and the grace and mercy of God given to us in Jesus. We must beware of becoming like these religious zealots in missing the point of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

To help us guard against this is why we have rotating in regularly a time of prayer of confession following our scripture reading. We need to continually be reminded that we too as a church body continue to struggle in sin. And it is in confessing this sin corporately and publicly that helps humble our hearts and helps to be a guard against thinking too highly of ourselves. It should drive us to marvel all the more in what Christ has done, causing our faith to grow in him.

The four men and the paralytic

And now, we come to our final group. And that is the group of four friends who carried the paralytic to get him to Jesus. The group of 5 who had faith in Jesus. Notice the length these 5 went to in verses 3-4 (READ). They carried a man on a stretcher to the roof, tore the roof open, and lowered him to Jesus to bring him into his presence.

Verse 5 then adds, “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” These five had faith. It wasn’t just the paralytic that was recognized in having faith, but even that of his friends who carried him. For it is said when Jesus saw their faith.

Their faith was acknowledged and commended by Jesus, for they believed that in coming to him, there was healing for their friend. But it was more than healing, his sins were forgiven because of his faith in Jesus.

Living in this sinful and broken world, we all face bodies that are decaying. We each fight colds, illnesses, diseases, and eventually death. These come at us in so many different ways. And while we all long to be relieved of those illnesses and diseases, the reality is at some point, apart from King Jesus returning beforehand, each of us are going to come to the point in which we no longer overcome the illness, disease, or old age. We will die and go the way of our fathers before us. Our greatest need is not healing from disease, but from our sins.

And it is this that Jesus addresses for the paralytic, his sins are forgiven, for his faith saved him. He believed in Jesus and was delivered from his sin. This is our greatest need, the forgiveness of sins. And that is possible in coming to faith in Jesus. For Jesus isn’t merely looking to heal the temporary, but heal us from sin itself. This giving us eternal life in him.

Who is this indeed?

So just who is this Jesus that these 5 believed in? In our text this morning, we see three defining things about who Jesus is. We see that Jesus can forgive sins, we see that Jesus knows our hearts, and we see that Jesus calls himself the Son of Man.

Look back again to verse 5 (READ). Upon seeing the faith of the paralytic, Jesus forgives his sins. This as already recognized by the scribes is something that comes only from God. And with Jesus forgiving sins, we come to see all the more the authority he has been given by the Father. Jesus is being revealed to be far more than a prophet, a priest, a king. Jesus is being revealed as God himself, the second person of the Trinity. Jesus not only makes the claim that the sins are forgiven, but then backs this claim up with performing a sign. Look again with me at verses 8-11 (READ).

To prove that he had authority to forgive sins, Jesus calls a paralytic, a man who was in other words paralyzed and unable to rise and walk on his own, to get up and walk. And the paralytic rises and takes up his bed. In healing the paralytic, Jesus shows the scribes and the crowds that he has all authority to do these things. Jesus is revealing to them just who he is as the Son of God, the son of Man.

The omniscient Son

And if this wasn’t enough proof, the moment that Jesus perceived the hearts and thoughts of the scribes should have been. For there in verse 6, it was in their hearts that the scribes were questioning these things. They didn’t say it in a whisper where Jesus overheard, Jesus perceived and recognized their hearts as they questioned. Jesus in this moment shows that he knows the depth of man’s hearts, even what his heart wrestles with.

For only God has been credited with knowing the thoughts and heart of man. For David says in Psalm 139:1-4 says:

O LORD, you have searched me and know me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

Then in Isaiah 66:18 it is added, “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory.”

The LORD our God knows the thoughts and hearts of all mankind. And here, in perceiving the thoughts of the scribes, Jesus is also revealing that he is God’s Son who shares the power and authority of God the Father. That he is omniscient as the Father is, in other words that he is all knowing.

The Son of Man

Yet, Jesus adds a description of himself here in Mark 2 to further reveal who he is. He says in verse 10, “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—.” The use of son of man is scattered in a variety of places throughout the Old Testament, especially in Ezekiel. However, it is being used here in Mark in referencing the use of the Son of Man from Daniel 7. This title and the fullness of its understanding will continue to be flushed out more throughout Jesus’s life and ministry. But with using this title for himself here, Jesus is saying that he is the one who is given all dominion. For Daniel 7:13-14 say:

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Jesus reveals who is, in that he is the Son of Man who is going to be given all dominion and last forever as king. Jesus is revealing that he is more than just a teacher with authority, that he is more than one who can simply heal the sick, cast out demons; he is the one who is the King of Kings who will last forever and rule over all things, including over sin and death. It is this who has forgiven the sins of the paralytic and who has declared the five men to be acting on faith.

It is this Jesus who has perceived the hearts of the scribes in their questioning of who he is. And it is this Jesus who has the authority to forgive sins and who called a paralytic to rise and walk, and he did.

Point #2: What is this?

After leaving home, Jesus again walks along the sea of Galilee and more crowds were coming to him, and again he was teaching them. Then again by the sea, he sees and calls another disciple to himself. But this time, instead of it being a fisherman, it is a tax-collector. With April 15th getting closer, we can share the same sentiments in our dislike of tax-collectors as all those in the days of Jesus did.

Despite his profession, as Jesus calls Levi to follow him, he obeys and rises and follows him. And as they reclined at the table that night for dinner, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. For middle easterners still even to this day, they stretch out on the floor to eat at a low table.

But, as the scribes of the Pharisees see this, they question it. They interrogate the disciples of Jesus in asking them why Jesus eats with these sinners and tax collectors. Again, this is the same group that questioned Jesus forgiving sins back in verse 7. And Jesus overhears this conversation this time. And note what is written in verse 17 (READ).

It is not the righteous that Jesus has come to call to himself, but sinners. Jesus is calling those who are broken and weary to himself. He is calling all who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God to himself. He is calling those who have much guilt and shame to himself. For Jesus is the great physician who comes to save those who are sick. And friends, all of us either are sick or were sick in this life. For there is a punch that is to come with the reality that Jesus didn’t come to call the righteous. Because the reality is, there is none who are righteous. Does not the Psalmist David say in Psalm 14, “The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”?

Jesus did not come to call the righteous, for none are righteous apart from him. Even the religious zealot scribes have fallen short of the glory of God. We have all broken the commandments of God’s law and the punishment we each deserve is death. And for the one who might be sitting here this morning thinking I’ve never been that bad of a person, surely I don’t deserve death. Friend, if you have ever told a lie, have ever had hatred in your heart towards another, have ever coveted (that is desire what is not yours) your neighbors things, then you have sinned and the punishment for that is death. For we have a holy God who can not look at sin or allow it into his presence.

And yet, it is these who have fallen short of the glory of God that Jesus has come to call to himself. It is us who are sinners that Jesus has come calling to himself. He is calling us, despite knowing all the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. He is calling us to himself, despite all our brokenness.

Jesus has come to be the great physician and heal us through his atoning death on the cross. He has come to heal us through the laying down of his own life. He exchanged himself to be made sick, so that we would be healed and made well.

This past week in my devotional reading I read the following from John Bunyan, “The gospel is the sovereign remedy provided for those that have made themselves objects of wrath by the breach of the law. Christ is set forth to save our souls, bearing our sin for us, suffering God’s wrath for us, and fulfilling the law for us. And that, that we might have peace, joy, heaven and glory, forever and ever.”

The gospel of Jesus proves the remedy for our illness in Christ himself. Oh what a remarkable and wonderful physician Jesus is!

Some in our day and time have argued that Jesus is a crutch and that they will not come to him. Dear friends, do we not go to the doctor when we are sick? Do we not take up a pair of crutches when we have a lame ankle or foot to help us get around? Last time I checked these are the protocols we take in the event of injury and illness. So why would we not rest so firmly on the crutch of Jesus. For apart from leaning on Jesus we shall never be able to get into heaven, even trying to attempt to hobble and limp through those pearly gates. It is only as we lean solely on the power of the cross, the power of Jesus name that salvation is won for us.

So Christian, remember this truth as Satan tries to tempt you to despair. Remember that you can wholly rest on Jesus' name for your salvation. Remember that your standing, your righteousness has never come from you, but it comes by your faith resting in Jesus who has called you to himself. May this strengthen our hearts dear Christian.

For you who are here this morning and don’t know Jesus, what are you waiting for? The invitation has already been sent, it is being sounded again even now. Come to Jesus! For he has come to call sinners to himself. Come as you are and place your faith in him, resting in him for salvation and not yourself.

What grace has been shown to us in this wonderful physician. Jesus has come and bids us as he did Levi to come and follow him. May we be so willing to drop everything, die to our old self and follow Jesus, the great physician and healer. For this is the call of Christian discipleship, to follow Jesus, the Son of Man, the King of glory!

Conclusion

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus sweetest name I know. He keeps me singing as I go! This is the the one who we have spent time looking at this morning. It is this Jesus who has the authority to forgive sins as the Son of Man, the Son of God. It is Jesus who even knows the depths of our hearts, and yet has come to call us to himself despite these things. What a wonderful savior we have. As we go out this week, let us treasure Christ more than ever, and may we stand on our rooftops declaring what a wonderful savior we have.

And even to further draw us near to this Jesus, we are introducing a new song this morning as we close, He Will Hold Me Fast….(Introduce)

Let’s pray...