Getting Paralisis Out of Our lives

Joni Erikson Tada

Joni was born into an active family. Her dad was an Olympic wrestler. With the example set by her parents, she led an active life growing up and enjoyed swimming, riding horses, hiking, and tennis.

O July 30, 1967, at the age of 17, Joni dove into Chesapeake Bay where she misjudged the depth of the water. She fractured her back between the 4th and 5th vertebrae and became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down.

During her two years of rehab, she had many emotions. anger, depression, suicidal thoughts, and religious doubts. But during occupational therapy, she discovered she could paint with a brush between her teeth, so she began painting and found she could sell her painting. She also learned to write that way, although now she uses voice recognition software to write and has written over 40 books.

Joni wrote about her experiences in a best selling autobiography titled, Joni. It was also made into a movie . Joni founded a ministry called Joni and Friends International Disability Center. she has ministered now all over the world.

God helped Joni past her paralysis.

Statistic that says 1/50 Americans are paralyzed. That’s over 5.6 million.

These are terrible statistics and stories, but how many people are paralyzed emotionally? It’s devastating to be paralyzed physically, but it’s pretty common to find people who are paralyzed emotionally.

Have you ever been emotionally paralyzed? or maybe around someone who is? You are emotionally paralyzed when you are overwhelmed with an emotion and you cannot decide what to do… you are frozen and can’t act.

We can be paralyzed by all sorts of things.

Fear

Worry

Grief

loneliness

hidden anger

lack of forgiveness

resentment

indecision

You can be paralyzed by all sorts of emotions. They can make you feel like your life is out of control and there is nothing you can do to change it. And you become hopeless, which is a dangerous place to be.

Maybe you have struggled with a stronghold or an addiction. You have tried and tried, but you just don’t seem to be able to beat it. The enemy will put the thought in your mind that you might as well give up because you will never change.

Maybe you are in a marriage where you are trying your best to change the other person, so you argue and argue. But the other person never changes and you feel like it will never get better… you feel stuck.

Maybe you are working at a job under a boss or a system that cares nothing for it’s people, and you feel hopeless. You need the job’s income, but you hate going to work every day.

It’s easy to become emotionally stuck in these and other situations where you feel like you will never be able to live the life you feel God wants you to live.

Well, tonight we want to look at how God helps us through that. There are basically 3 emotions in particular that paralyze your potential and prevent you from becoming the person God wants you to become.

Our fears of the future.

Our regrets about the past.

Our doubts about our abilities.

Tonight, we will learn how Jesus can help us resolve all three of these issues. The Christian life is about change… about transformation. If you have ever really had an experience with Jesus, you don’t really know what I am talking about. You may even see someone who has changed, and wondered what happened. You may be wondering if you accepted Jesus into your life, what would change in your life?

Tonight we will look at a story that three of the Gospel writers include in their Gospels.

Luke 5:17–20 NLT

17 One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, 19 but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”

This guy was literally paralyzed and had to be carried everywhere. But the three things that Jesus said to this man are the same three things Jesus says to you and me when we come to Him and say, I need help… change me. They are three things that will help us to break our emotional paralysis as well.

You may be thinking, I’ve tried to change so many time and it hasn’t worked out so I just don’t think I can change. Here is the good news for you tonight. Jesus is in the transformation business. He can and will do what he did for the man in this story if you go to him and ask.

What will happen if I ask Jesus for help?

1. When you ask Jesus for help, He will ease your fears.

Imagine this scene. Jesus is in a crowded house preaching. All of a sudden stuff starts falling from the ceiling above him. He looks up and pretty soon a hole in the roof appears and he sees 4 guys on the roof looking at him. Then they lower a guy on a stretcher through the hole. All of this is in the middle of Jesus sermon. What an interruption that was.

How would you feel if you were in the crowd? Aggravated? Frustrated that this guy broke in line? compassionate? filled with expectation as to what Jesus might do?

How would you feel if you were the paralyzed guy? Embarrassed? Nervous? Anxious? Hopeful? This act shows how desperate this guy was for change. He allowed friends to help him get the help he needed.

When Jesus looked at him, he didn’t go … “what are you doing? I’m in the middle of something… wait your turn.”

In Matthew it gives a more detailed version of Jesus response in Matt 9:2

Matthew 9:2 NLT

2 Some people brought to him a paralyzed man on a mat. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Be encouraged, my child! Your sins are forgiven.”

Look at that, the first thing Jesus said was, Be encouraged. Jesus cared about how he felt about his condition as well as his condition.

Jesus cares how you feel to. If you are discouraged, Jesus cares. If you are lonely, Jesus cares. If you are afraid, Jesus cares. Fearful of the future, Jesus cares. Jesus cares about all that.

Why was Jesus first response to remove our fears? Because fear is a universal problem.

There are over 360 times in the Bible where Jesus says some form of fear not.

We don’t like to admit our fears, but everyone of us has them in some form. We are all afraid of something. Maybe it’s something that you don’t want anyone to find out about. Maybe it’s fear of the future… Whatever you are worried about today… health… future… elections… wars… relationships, your kids, Jesus understands these and he says, let me ease your fears.

When you struggle with these fears but don’t handle them and you push them down, they become depression. Depression is often expressed in rage of frozen fear.

Proverbs 12:25 NLT

25 Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.

I don’t know what everyone is going through this week, but Jesus cares. He will send someone along to encourage you.

So, what should we do with our worries?… our fears?

We need to give our fears to Jesus.

1 Peter 5:7 NLT

7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Fear is a universal problem …

Why was Jesus first response to remove our fears? Fear keeps us from getting close to Jesus.

We don’t grow closer to the Lord because we are afraid. We are afraid of the unknown. If I commit to the Lord, what is going to want me to do? What is he wants me to be a missionary somewhere? What if my friends think I’m weird?

Listen, God doesn’t make people goofy, we do that all by ourselves. We are afraid to give up control of our lives… our kids… our careers… our finances… our future. What if I can’t live up to god’s standards?What if God doesn’t like my past?

You may be thinking all of those, but push through it because Jesus said, perfect love casts out all fear. The better you know Jesus, the fewer insecurities and fears you will have.

Just like David prayed, we can pray…

Psalm 34:4 NLT

4 I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.

Write it down,

The more you know God, the fewer fears you will have.

Do you want freedom from fear and anxiety? This is the starting point, to come to Jesus and say, “I want you to change me.” When you come to him and honestly ask Him to change you he will first ease your fears, then ...

2. When you ask Jesus for help, He will eliminate your guilt.

Look at what Jesus said to this young man.

Luke 5:20 NLT

20 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”

Now this guy didn’t come asking for forgiveness, he wanted to walk. But Jesus told him that his sins were forgiven… what’s up with that?

Like many of us today, this man was more interested in his external problem… not being able to walk, but Jesus looked at his looked at his heart issues. Jesus does the same with us. Jesus looks beneath the surface issue to the issues of the heart. He looks beneath the symptoms and deals with the real issues. He deals with the cause of the problem.

When Jesus deals with your life, he always deals with your heart first.

Write this down.

All of us carry some form of guilt and shame.

This man, like many of us was paralyzed by his past. You can’t move into your future when you are stuck in your past by either guilt over things you have done, or by resentment over what others have done to you.

So Jesus says, Young man, your sins are forgiven.

Most of the world longs to hear those words. Why? Because we have all blown it at sometime.

Guilt or Shame is a terribly paralyzing emotion… maybe the worst of all. It robs you of your strength, your energy and your joy. It destroys relationships.

Guilt or Shame are also unhealthy physically. Studies show 50% of all hospital beds are occupied because of stress related illnesses and primarily caused by unresolved guilt or shame. Not all … but a lot.

Here’s a question for you.

Should a follower of Christ ever feel guilty? Absolutely yes. We all blow it and are guilty. courageous scene where the young man said he was tired of feeling guilty. His partner said, you are guilty. But we don’t need to stay guilty because it turns to shame. We need to confess our sin to god and turn away from it. Jesus relieves your guilt and eases your fears.

What does Jesus forgiveness look like? Write this down.

Jesus forgives us instantly.

Isaiah 55:7 GNB

7 Let the wicked leave their way of life and change their way of thinking. Let them turn to the Lord, our God; he is merciful and quick to forgive.

God doesn’t say, well, let’s let him suffer a little while. That’s how we do it, not the way God does it. Jesus forgives us instantly.

Jesus forgives us completely.

There is no son you can commit that when you confess it to God, that he will not forgive. He forgives ALL of our sins.

Colossians 2:13–14 GW

13 You were once dead because of your failures and your uncircumcised corrupt nature. But God made you alive with Christ when he forgave all our failures. 14 He did this by erasing the charges that were brought against us by the written laws God had established. He took the charges away by nailing them to the cross.

When Jesus was nailed to the cross, our sins (yours and mine) were nailed to that cross with Him. They are all forgiven. The ones you did intentionally and unintentionally. All of them.

Jesus forgives us freely.

IOW, we don’t have to try and earn it. Rom 3:22

Romans 3:22 LBP

21 But now God has shown us a different way to heaven—not by “being good enough” and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way (though not new, really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago). Now God says he will accept and acquit us—declare us “not guilty”—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like.

Jesus paid the price for your sins because it was a price that we could do nothing about. He created you and I to be in a relationship with him so he wants to forgive you and me.

Jesus looked at this paralyzed man… and saw that he was paralyzed by his guilt. Jesus didn’t minimize his sin or guilt, He eliminated it by forgiving him. Here is why that’s important to understand.

If you don’t understand God’s complete forgiveness, every time something bad happens, you begin to think that God is punishing you.

The bible says that when we give our lives to Jesus, he took the punishment for our sins.

When you really understand God’s compete forgiveness, you are amazed that God would love and forgive someone like you.

When you ask him to change you… he will. You just have to understand tha tone of the ways he does is to set you free from guilt and shame.

3. When you ask Jesus for help, He will enable you to do what seems impossible.

Mark 2:10–12 NLT

10 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, 11 “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” 12 And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before!”

When Jesus healed the man, he thed asked him to do what was previously impossible - get up and walk.

Jesus could have asked him to do anything, but he asked him to do the one thing that he previously could not do and that was to walk.

Why would Jesus do it the way he did? He did it that way to stretch the man’s faith. Write this down.

Faith is a belief that results in an action.

Faith is not something you think, it’s something you act on. Faith is obeying God and doing what he asks even if it seems impossible.

Mark 10:27 NLT

27 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

When God asks you to do the impossible, He gives you the power to do it.

Maybe there are things in your life that you just do not seem to overcome… addiction… bitterness… a habit. You think that you will never become who God wants you to be so maybe you have become paralyzed.

But God will give you the power to do it… to break the addiction… to overcome loneliness… to overcome depression… grief…

Let me ask you,

What seems impossible in your life right now?

It doesn’t matter what it is… It doesn’t matter how powerless you feel facing it. Jesus can change anything. He is the God of the impossible. You may be paralyzed by depression, anxiety, grief, envy, shame or guilt. You feel like I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do.

It doesn’t help just knowing that Jesus can ease your fears and eliminate your guilt and enable you to do the impossible. It doesn’t help knowing all that if you don’t do anything about it. You have to act on it yourself. It makes no difference knowing Jesus will forgive you instantly, completely and freely if you don’t accept it and act on it.

So what you need tonight is to do the three things the paralyzed man did.

1. The paralyzed man turned to Jesus for help.

He could have stayed home, but he didn’t. He reached out to Jesus for help. We typically try to handle tings on our own only to find out, we can’t. Save yourself a lot of trouble and turn to Jesus.

2. Believe Jesus can and will help you.

This man would not have put himself in a place of embarrassment if he did not believe that Jesus could help him.

3. Do whatever Jesus tells you to do.

If you want transformation… if you want to change… you have to act on what Jesus tells you to do. What would have happened to this guy if he had not gotten up when Jesus told him to? Nothing!

What about you? Are you going to leave another great service at River church and lie back down on your mat? If you are tired of that, Jesus wants to change you and he can change you no matter how jacked up you are.

Prayer

Are you going to trust Jesus Christ for a miracle today? If you’re serious about wanting real change in your life, freed from fears, guilt eliminated, power to do what seemed humanly impossible prior to this follow me in this prayer in your heart. God knows what you’re thinking.

Just say it in your mind, “Dear God, You know the emotions and the hurts and the mistakes that often hold me back. Today I ask You to help me change from the inside out. I admit that I’ve often held back from You out of fear. Forgive me for looking to other sources to solve the problems that only You can solve. If I am Yours, You will take care of me. Please set me free from my fears and worries as I learn to trust You more and more. I also need You to forgive me for the things I know are wrong in my life. Jesus Christ, thank You that You forgive me instantly and completely and freely. I am amazed at Your love and grace. I really want to get to know You better and better. I invite You to be the manager of my life. You call the shots and I’ll follow. And Lord, You know the situations in my life right now that look impossible from a human standpoint. Forgive me for forgetting that nothing is impossible with You. Help me to focus on Your greatness and watch my problems shrink in comparison. In Jesus’ name. Amen