Luke 5:17-26

A metric of faith

Intro

As MIT training you learn tricks of the trade.

As a time filler ask people to turn to someone next to them and reflect and pray.

Start a pastoral conversation by asking “how is your faith”.

So…how is your faith church, turn to the person next to you.

Not going to do that.

But seriously ask that question of yourself. Usually when we are asked these types of questions as British we give British answers (Not bad or could be better but could be worse)

Needing a metric

But we need a metric or a language to answer that question. This passage in Luke gives us that language by the people who we meet in this passage:

A: The Pharisees

A group of very religous people who take their religion very very seriously.

Who have protected the Jewish faith from foreign invaders, but who have become set in their ways have become so entrenched and guarded that they have externalisd their faith and forgotten to seek and love God with their hearts.

B: The people

Then the onlookers, the other people crowded around this nazerene whom they’ve heard amazing things about. Who want to gorge on his teaching, soak in all he has to say in amazement. Hoping to see his miraculous teaching.

But blind to the need around them.

C: The friends

The friends who will go to any lengths to bring someone they love to the feet of Jesus. To be in the presence of the one who loves and heals.

Who see need, respond to it and no who to turn to.

D: The paralytic man

The one in need of healing adn restoration and redemption, even if they know it or not. The one who is knows they need help but cant quite get there alone and can’t quite reach for it themselves, stuck in their situation.

Which group are you

Let me ask you, which one are you right now. Which group do you indentify with, using these groups work out…how is your faith?

ARE YOU…

The pharisees:

Have you become so entrenched in your faith that you begun to externalise it, losing the heart, becoming religous in the worst sense. You’ve become hard to things, have stopped seeing God’s work in the world, because of your own sense of what you think God is doing or should be doing or how the plan should look. Perhaps a little blind to God’s mission and Jesus’ message is just too subversive.

The People:

Are you in a season of gorging on teaching and reading, it’s become an academic exercise and you’re waiting in anticipation that God is going to do something forgetting the need around you or that actually God is calling you in to that work in to that mission in the world. Do you need to simply look up? Take that teaching and do something with it.

The Friends:

Perhaps you are out there discipling people, joruneying with them to bring them to the foot of Jesus. Willing to give all and go to any lengths to do that. You know where the need is and you know where to carry people even if perhaps you’re not quite sure what that healing will look like, even like in the passage if its healing that appears at first invisible.

God love you for that.

The man on the man:

Perhaps you are the one in need of the healing and restoration, you just aren’t sure how to get it or even feel incapable of getting there alone and need some help from friends. Perhaps you know you need Jesus but it feels like a struggle, it’s not coming naturally.

So how is your faith?

Which one are you right now?

Temptation to say no right/wrong answer…but only one right answer and thats the answer that is the most honest.

Don’t lie to God…baby Jesus cries.

The truth is in this strange journey of training and formation I am on, I’ve been all 4. Not just trying to be relatable.

EXPLAIN EACH ONE.

Man on the mat…I’ve never stopped being him.\

We all can change from one to another in different seasons.

In truth none of us stop being him…

So what now

So what now…now we’ve worked out who we are and what state our faith is in what do we do with it?

None of us as Christians exist in a vacuum. If we can recognise that in ourselves we can recognise that in others around us.

We can begin to truly joruney with each other, helping each other.

That is the church Christ has called us to be, to love one another and to holf together the tension of being a community. A community under God, in Christ for the Gospel.

Pharisees > The people > The Friends

Get back to the teaching of Jesus and see his heart. See the outpouring of faith around you.

The people > Friends > Man on the mat

Learning is great but look at the need around you, look at the mission you are called in to. Work of a disciple, apply that learning.

Friends > Man on the mat > WARNING Pharisees

Don’t forget that you too need to rest at the feet of Jesus, that he is still doing a good work in you that will not be done. be humble, warning of becoming a pharisee if that healing takes time or doesn’t look how you expect it to look.

Man on mat > The people > Friends > Pharisees

We are all him, we need to guard ourself from our own perception of what healing should look like and how long it should take. Be like the people, learn about God have roots in the Gospel teaching. Surround yourself with good Christian friends who can carry you when things are near impossible. But be humble and patient don’t become a pharisee.

SIN HEALED FIRST

We are called to be the body of Christ. Our strength lies in a love for the other. If we can journey together humbly without judgement then we can be what we are called to be.

More importantly…if we can do that fir each other in this room, we can do it for anyone who walks in that door, or even more so whoever we meet out there in a world in need of Jesus.

Conclusion

Because there is one I have missed out in this scene…the one all these groups are drawn to, whose orbit they are moving in. Jesus!

Central to all these at the heart of this scene at the heart of it all is Jesus. So long as he remains central to our lives we can all become what he is calling us to be…people of a gospel intended for every nation and peoples.

Orbit mechanics: hard to tear yourself out of an orbit. He will not let you go.

REMEMBER

“'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. '” — Jeremiah 29:11

PRAY REFLECT