Power in the Pulpit | Matthew 9:1–8

Introduction: Thank you all for being here tonight. I know it’s not quite the same when we don’t have Leighton here, but he has gone with a group to a conference in McDonough that I think will serve our church well. If you have a Bible with you tonight, if you could turn to Matthew chapter nine. We are going to be looking at verses 1-8. If you were to go back and look at the previous few passages, you would show Jesus demonstrating that he has authority over different elements of the world. In verses 23-27 of chapter eight he showed he had authority over the wind and sea and could calm storms. Last week we saw that he even had authority over the spiritual realm when he healed two men who were possessed by demons. But this week we are going to see Jesus demonstrate that his authority goes beyond those things. But it’s not just that. Jesus is going to teach us something about ourselves as well. The main idea of tonight’s text is that the biggest need we have is the forgiveness of sins, andJesus has shown his divine authority to do so. We are going to see this in Jesus revealing the greatest need we have. We will see it in the the right answer but wrong motive to what Jesus said, and we will lastly see it in Jesus making known his authority. As we do every Sunday night, would you please stand as we honor the reading of God’s Word.

Verses 1-2: The Greatest Need

Exposition: Verse one reads Matthew 9:1 “And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.” If you remember last week’s passage, Jesus had crossed over from Capernaum to a gentile area. But was asked by the locals to leave that area when he set free two men from the possession of demons and then sent the demons into pigs who then ran off the hill into the water. The people were like, “nah, this isn’t for us.” So Jesus acquiesced to their requests and went back to the other side of the water. And not long after he gets there, something kind of strange happens. Verse two begins, “And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed.” Now, Matthew is kind of abbreviating this story. We know from reading the accounts found in the gospel of Mark and the gospel of Luke, these men didn’t just bring a guy laying on a bed. They brought him to Jesus who was in a house surrounded by a huge crowd. When they couldn’t get him, they went and dug a hole in the roof and lowered the man in front of Jesus.

Explanation: So they carried this guy on a mat who knows how far. Think of how much trouble you had doing it across the sanctuary. They carried him all the way to Jesus and we know from the other accounts that they then carried him up the stairs to the roof of the house, dug a hole and then lowered him into the house. Do you know how much strength that would have taken to do that without dropping him into the floor? But they did it. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that the next thing verse 2 says is, “And when Jesus saw their faith,” How could Jesus see their faith? Was it because Jesus knows all things? Well it doesn’t say knowing their faith. It says seeing their faith. And how did Jesus see their faith? He saw it because they were so certain that Jesus could heal their friend that they were willing to carry him who knows how far to get before Jesus. Their faith was seen through the action they took.

Application: This should be true in our own lives. Faith should not be something that can only judged by knowing what is in a person’s heart. Faith is something that is visible. If we truly believe that Jesus is who He says He is. If we truly believe that he is worthy of all our praise, all our adoration and all of our worship, then our lives should reflect that. James 2:18 reads James 2:18 “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” our works don’t save us. They don’t make us right with God. But they show us what God has already done inside us. There is no such thing as private faith because faith leads us to take bold actions. As we grow in our relationship with God. As we spend time in His Word and in prayer, our boldness for Him will grow too.

Exposition: So these guys carried their friend this far, and Jesus takes note of that. But what he says next is so important. Verse 2 says, “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son: your sins are forgiven.” I would have loved to have seen the look on the faces of the men when Jesus said this. They were all probably exhausted. But what Jesus tells them, isn’t really what they were looking for. They had come to Jesus so that the man would be made to walk again. And we know Jesus wasn’t punishing them. The text says that Jesus did this because he saw their faith. What is going on here?

Explanation: What is going on is that Jesus recognizes the man’s real need. He recognizes what the man’s ultimate need is. The man had a physical need, that is correct. But that wasn’t his ultimate need because no matter what, the man’s time on this earth was limited. Jesus could have healed the man and just been done. But the man’s sins still would have existed. And without the forgiveness of sin, the man would have remained separated from God. And no matter what physical need was met, the man was still going to have the problem of the sin that separated him from God.

Illustration: Back in January I bought a car. I researched it and researched it and everything seemed to be checking out. About three weeks after I got it the car started having problems. It turns out the dealership had sold us a bad car. The car has a design flaw that even though it is an automatic, it has a clutch that the computer system shifts for you. But the clutches in these cars get stuck. Well, the dealership found some place for us to take it that worked on these cars. They came back and said it wasn’t the clutch, it was something that controls the clutch. So they replaced those. A week later, it starts messing up again. So they said let’s try something else. They tried it, it didn’t work. They tried one more thing, and it didn’t work. Eventually, they just had to replace the clutches. Why, because they could fix all the problems around it, but it didn’t solve the issue the fact, that none of that mattered unless the clutch was fixed. Sometimes we look at our lives and we see all these needs we think we have. But every single physical need or emotional need does not fix the fact that the wages of sin is death. That no matter what, death is coming for us all. And those who die without having their sins forgiven and allowing Jesus to be Lord of their hearts, dies apart from Christ and will spend eternity without him. This is why the most important thing we can have happen in our lives is to seek the forgiveness of sins that is available through Christ.

Verse 1: Going back to the previous chapter, Jesus had taken a boat over to a gentile side of the lake but after Jesus healed the man with the demon they were asked to leave.

Transition:So we see that Jesus shows that he biggest need we have, what the man who had this terrible physical condition needed more than anything was the forgiveness of sins. But not everybody agreed with what Jesus said because of the implication He was making.

Verses 3-5:The Right answer but wrong motive

Exposition: We read in verse 3 Matthew 9:3 “And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”” Blasphemy is to speak in an irreverent manner. It is to not give God his due. We know from Luke’s account the specific reason that they said this was blasphemy was that only God has the power to forgive sins. By Jesus saying what he said, he was claiming the power to forgive sins which only belongs to God. But Jesus’s response to this is super interesting. Matthew 9:4–5 “But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” Jesus never once tells them they are wrong. There are other examples of when Jesus knew the thoughts of religious leaders and explained to them why their thinking was wrong. He didn’t do this here. You see Jesus knew the motivation behind what they were saying was wrong. They did it under the assumption that Jesus did not have the power to forgive sins. But Jesus never corrects them to say that somebody other than God has the power to forgive sin. He just asks them which is easier to say. Get up and walk or your sins are forgiven. The reason Jesus responds in this way is because He is God and He does have the power to forgive sins.

Explanation: The idea of the trinity is something that is really hard for us to understand. How can we worship one God, but their be three different forms of that God existing all at the same time in the Father Son and Holy Spirit? It’s something that is hard to get our heads around. The best of all the imperfect descriptions I can give is the points on a triangle. A triangle has three points. All three points make up a triangle but are separate points. And that is just what a triangle is. In the same way, God exists as one God but in three persons. That’s just who God is. And Jesus, is the Son. And the Son has always existed. He was with the Father during creation and was experiencing all the glory of heaven. But he left that behind to come to earth for a time. Yes, God himself left the glory of heaven to come experience this broken world. And not only that, but he was God, which means He was sinless. But he took on the punishment we deserved by dying on the cross. Paul describes it so well in Philippians when he writes Philippians 2:5–8 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Illustration: Muslims actually find the idea of the crucifixion deeply insulting to God. They think it is insulting to think that God would be humiliated by coming to earth and then dying on a cross. They think it’s too incredible to believe. And they are half right, it is incredible. But it is to be believed. We should never forget of how incredible it is that God loved us enough to leave heaven and come to this broken earth and die a death we deserved to die.

Transition: So Jesus never argues with them He is God. He just asks them a question that proves their thinking is faulty. But He’s about to show He can do what he says he can.

Verses 6-8: Making known his authority

Verses 6-7

Exposition: Reading in verse six we see Matthew 9:6–7 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home.” We see that Jesus does end up healing the man. But he doesn’t backtrack on what he has already shown. He is not changing his mind about what the man really needed. No, going back to verse 5 and reading this whole sentence we see Matthew 9:5–6 “For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”” Jesus healed the man so that they would know he had the power to forgive sins. Jesus didn’t heal the man just because he wanted the man to be able to walk. But he did it so that they would know he did indeed have the authority to forgive sins. Once again Jesus was acknowledging that the man’s biggest issue was not the inability to walk, but the inability to save himself from his sin. But he wanted to show them what he was capable of here.

Application: There is a great lesson for us to learn here. We sometimes as Christians we do ministry by quietly doing nice things. Maybe we supply food for the hungry. Maybe we collect coats. Sometimes we meet a variety of needs. And these are all things we should be doing. But if we meet these needs without communicating how we are all sinners in need of the forgiveness of sins. If we do not explain to them that Jesus is the solution to their biggest problem, than we have not helped them in the say they ultimately needed. It is a good thing to meet needs. But it should be an avenue for sharing the gospel, not a replacement for sharing the gospel. Any worldly need is temporary. But a life a part from Christ is eternal.

Verse 8: Jesus wasn’t merely a man, but he was a man.

The passage ends with verse 8. Matthew 9:8 “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.” This is obviously a different reaction than when the people told him to leave. But the people were amazed that a man had this kind of authority. He had the authority to calm the seas. He had the authority to drive out demons. And by showing his authority to heal, he showed his authority to forgive sins. Jesus wasn’t merely a man. While he was fully man, he was also fully God. And he was there with a purpose. And that purpose was to bring forgiveness of sin.

Conclusion: When I was in New York, I was talking one time with a kid about what he had learned in summer program. The thing he told me was that before that he thought Jesus was somebody that went around and freed slaves. He had no idea he was somebody that had died on a cross and risen again. Now I could get lost in the missions part of this, but I won’t right now. But what he thought is that Jesus was just somebody that did a bunch of cool things. But Jesus was more than that. He is God the Son. And he saw the problem we had. Since sin entered the world in the garden of eden, sin has been the biggest problem we have. It is what separates us from God and destines us for an eternity separated from God. But Jesus left the glory of heaven and was born as a man. He walked through the brokenness of the world and then took on the punishment we deserved before rising again three days later. And he did all this so that the biggest problem we face could have a solution. He willingly went to the cross so that we didn’t have to. And he was risen again giving the hope of salvation to those who would turn from their sins and believe. So I want to do something we don’t do here very often, but I do think it is important we do from time to time. I need every student in here to bow their head and close their eyes. Maybe you are here tonight and you have never sought the forgiveness of sins. But you know it’s time. Maybe you realize that it’s time you repented of your sins and you are ready to make Jesus Lord of your life. If that’s you tonight, with every eye closed and every head bowed, I want you to raise your hand. Thank you. Let’s pray.