The Ministry of Forgiveness

Mark 2:1-12

If you brought your bibles turn with me over to the gospel of Mark chapter two. The Gospel of Mark chapter two and in a moment we are going to read verses 1-12 of the gospel of Mark chapter two.

We are continuing our study in the gospel of Mark this morning and we are walking through this book verse by verse and line by line, and today I want to talk to you about the Ministry of Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the greatest need in a person’s life? Our greatest need, in this world is not a higher standard of living. Our greatest need is not a better quality of life, with a better Job or new career.

Our greatest need is not that we are able to live in better health. It is not that we have a stronger marriages or better finances. All, those things are important and great but, the greatest need in every human beings life is that we have our sins forgiven.

 Why? Because there is nothing more offensive to a holy God than the sin in our life. The Bible tells us that, when we sin in this world, we are sinning against God and we are sinning against ourselves. Just one sin committed against a holy God and we incur the wrath of God on ourselves for all of eternity.

That is all it takes to separate us from God forever. James 2:10 tells us that if you are guilty of breaking just one of the laws of God than you are guilty of breaking the whole law.

That means that just one sin demands God’s justice. And if we doubt that, then we do not know how holy God is and we do not understand how sinful we are.

 The good news is, God offers us forgiveness and grace through Jesus Christ. The good news is that God is not only the judge, but He is the justifier.

He is the Holy God who came to die in the place of unholy man, so that our sins could be forgiven. That is the gospel. Jesus came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

 That is what we see in this story. Jesus heals a paralyzed man physically, but more important, He heals him spiritually. And, He teaches us that our greatest need in life, is God’s forgiveness.

So lets read this passage here in Mark 2:1-12 and look at the ministry of forgiveness.

Mark 2:1–12 KJV 1900

And again he entered into Capernaum, after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.

(pray)

Father, I thank you for your Word! I pray that as your Word goes out you would give us ears to hear, eyes to see, and heart willing to respond.

Grant us the privilege of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of your Word and give me the ability to speak it clearly, in Jesus name, Amen!

 In our passage this morning we see the public ministry of Jesus is on full display, as He returns to the city of Capernaum.

In chapter 1, Jesus came to town preaching the gospel and demonstrating the power of God by healing every kind of sickness and disease, and casting out demons.

His miracles were eclipsing His message and the people were flocking to Him to see what He would do next. So, naturally, when they heard of His return, they bombarded the house He was in.

In this passage, Jesus heals a paralyzed man, both physically and spiritually, but He puts the greatest emphasis on the mans need to be forgiven. He teaches us an incredible truth; our greatest need in life is God’s forgiveness.

I. The Crowd. Verse 1-2 There was always a crowd around Jesus.

In verse one It says, “When He had come back to Capernaum”

Capernaum became the central hub for the ministry of Jesus. It was the launching point. It was an important place because it was the largest city in Galilee, right along the North West shore of the Sea of Galilee.

  And Mark says He came back, “after several days.”  Well we know where He was at for those several days, and we know what He was doing. He was out in the wilderness in the deserted places, the unpopulated places.

Why? because He had healed the leper and He told the leper not to tell anyone, but the leper did it anyway. And we know from verse 45 that even in the deserted places, people were still coming to Jesus from everywhere. There was always a crowd around Jesus.

 But one thing I have noticed in Mark gospel, is he never points to the crowd as a sign of ministry success. The crowds around Jesus were more of a hindrance to Him.

They were a novelty. They were indifferent to Him. They were not seeking Him spiritually for understanding, but for whatever they could gain from Him materially.

Not all of them though, I am sure there were some that were there for the right reasons. But, the majority of them just wanted to see what they could get from Him.

And Mark tells us in Vs. 1, “it was noised that he was in the house.” The house he is talking about was Simon and Andrews house. That was where He had healed Simons mother-in-law in chapter one, of a fever.

It was the same house, He had healed people through the night on the Sabbath. They were bringing people to Him who were sick, and demon possessed and He healed them all.

 Well now, they heard that Jesus was  back, and the crowds began to gather again. Verse 2 tells us, “They filled the house until there was no room.”

It was standing room only at Simon’s house. They were in the doors. They were in the windows. There were people surrounding the house. They were packed together so tight they couldn’t move.

And we are told “He preached the word unto them. ” That is interesting to me, because it is ironic.

What we have here is; The Word of God, Jesus, was speaking the Word to them. I think, that every time Jesus spoke, He spoke the Word. If He was speaking at all, He was speaking the Word.

 Just as a side note; We talk a lot about growing and becoming more like Jesus. That is our goal as Christians. To become Christ like.

I want you to know we are never more like Jesus than when we are speaking the Word of God to people. We are never more like Jesus then we are telling people about the Kingdom of God.

 That is what He did, He spoke the word of life to people, and everywhere we go we should do the same.

Jesus was a fisher of men who was creating fishers of men. That teaches us; the greatest joy of our life is to be used by God to have an impact on someone else’s life, and we do that by speaking the Word of God to them.

 One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century was the sinking of the Titanic. We all know the story. It was a huge ship that hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic ocean. And many people died that night because of it.

But there was another tragedy that night. Most of the lifeboats that rescued the people from death, were only half full, because the people were unwilling to turn back and share their salvation.

We don’t want to be like the people on the Titanic. We don’t want to just sit and watch people drowned in a lost and dying world. We want to share what God is doing in our life.

    So, we begin this passage by looking at the crowd. It was an enormous crowd. There was always a crowd of people that surrounded Jesus.

II. The Cripple. Vs. 3-5

 Notice Verse 3 says, And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, carried by four men.”

This was a paralyzed man. A man who could not walk on his own. Maybe he was a paraplegic, maybe he was a quadriplegic, we don’t know.

Whatever the case may be, this man represents all of us in this world, because that is the condition we are in spiritually without Christ; we are helpless. We are unable to do anything for ourselves, and Just like this man, we cannot even come to Jesus on our own.

John 6:44 Jesus says, “No man can come to me unless my Father draw him.”  Until God moves on our heart and draws us to Christ, so our sins can be forgiven, we are completely helpless like this paralytic.

 Then I want you to notice these four men carrying him. These four men are doing the greatest thing in life that anyone can do for someone; they are bringing this person to Jesus.

The greatest thing a person can do is bring their friend to Jesus. The greatest thing a mother or a father can do is to raise their children to know Jesus. And that’s what these four men were doing, they are carrying this man to Christ.

Notice Vs. 4 tells us when they got to the house, they “were unable to get to Jesus because of the crowd.”

Again, I want you to see how this crowd is unsympathetic. They don’t care. If you and I were in the way and someone was trying to get a paralyzed man to Jesus, we would move out of the way, but not these people.

But I want you to know that didn’t stop these men. They didn’t give up. They were on a mission and they were not going to quit.

They climb up on the roof and they began to tear a hole in the roof. Now, most people might not be able to appreciate that, but, I know we have builders here in this congregation, and they know; when you start tearing a whole in a roof, especially one that is made out of dirt and thatch and tile it makes a mess.

This was no little opening they were making. It was a hole big enough to lower a man on a pallet through. And I am sure everything inside the house stopped until they could figure out what was going on.

But what is important for us to see is that these men who were bringing their friend to Jesus, were determined. They were not going to give up. I wonder if we would have the same determination. I wonder if we would go through such great lengths to get someone to Jesus.

I mean we have such a difficult time sharing our faith, inviting someone to church, and just talking to someone about Jesus, would we be willing to do what these men did? or would we just give up?

 These men wanted to get the attention of Jesus, and they did. Look at verse 5 it says, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said unto the sick of palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.”

Jesus was able to see the faith of these men. He looked into their heart and saw what true faith looked like.  Let me ask you this, is your faith something that people can seen? Or is it something you keep to yourself?

There were three things about the faith of these men, I want you to notice. First, there faith was active. It was alive and it was at work.

James 2 tells us “faith without works is dead.” Our faith should always produce action. These men were not just sitting on the sidelines, they were in the game. True faith is never passive, it is not private, it is always at work.

Second, their faith had expectation. They believed if they could get this man to Jesus, He would heal him.

They believed that their effort would pay off. They believed it was going to work. They were expecting something to happen.

Let me ask you this, are you expecting God to do something in your life? Does your faith have expectation?

And the third thing I want you to see is; their faith was determined. Faith that is determined doesn’t give up, no matter what the obstacles are. It keeps moving forward. It doesn’t turn it’s back on God.

We have all seen people who were once on fire for God, serving in the church, a part of the fellowship, and then they walk away, why? because they never had a true saving faith. They never had a faith that was active, expecting and determined.

In the end Jesus says to the man, “son, your sins are forgiven.” When everyone else in the room could only see this mans physical need, Jesus saw his spiritual condition.

He saw that the most important need in this man life was to be forgiven by God. And that is the most important need in our life, and Jesus has met that need through the cross.

Ill; The biggest bulldozer in the world is the D575A. It is 16 feet long, 25 feet wide and 41 feet high. It weighs 225,000 pounds. It is a huge machine.

A couple of years ago a country in Central America was having a problem because they were overloaded with garbage. So, they brought this bulldozer in to dig a big hole and collect all of the garbage and remove it from their lives.

That is what the cross has done for us. The cross was God’s bulldozer. And it dug a hole big enough to collect all of our garbage, past, present and future. And on the cross, God gathered all our sin and placed it on Jesus and removed it from our lives.

 In this passage, we have seen the crowd and we have seen the cripple. Now, I want you to see

III. The Critics. Vs. 6-7. “But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

I want you to understand that these critics were right about what they were thinking; Only God can forgive sins.

That is a principle taught throughout the Bible, Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.

Daniel 9:9 ““To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him;”

Micah 7:18 “Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession?”

 So, these critics were right, only God could forgive sin. But we know, on this side of the cross, what the critics didn’t know; God is the one who was doing it, because Jesus was God in the flesh.

 These critics were scribes, they were lawyers. They were Rabbi’s. They were experts in the law. Luke 5:17 tells us, there were Pharisee’s and doctors of the law, that had mingled their way into the crowd.

No doubt their purpose was to try and find something wrong, something they could use against Jesus, and hear it was. “He is Blaspheming.”

The lesson in this for us is; Whenever you are trying to do something good for God, there will always be someone there to criticize you.

That is the way Satan works. He puts people in our path who don’t like it because we have something they do not have. A positive attitude. A spirit filled life. A willingness to love and be loved and forgive and be forgiven.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:11, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

In other words, when you are doing something for God and people are criticizing you for it, wear it like a badge of honor. Own it because Jesus says, you are blessed because of it.

  These scribes were looking for ammunition and this was it. The conflict had begun that would lead all the way to the cross.

In this passage, we’ve seen the crowd, we’ve seen the cripple, and we’ve seen the critics. Now I want you to see the confirmation.

IV. The Confirmation Vs. 8-12. Because Jesus is going to prove who He is and that He has the authority of God in the world.

  First, notice verse 8 says, “immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?”

Imagine that for a minute, Jesus knows exactly what they are thinking. He shows us the omniscience of God by reading their minds. Someone once put it like this, He read the letter without even opening the envelop.

Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking, and He didn’t like it. These people were more concerned about what Jesus said, than they were about the paralyzed man sitting in front of them.

That was the problem with Judaism; it had become a dead religion. It was all about following rules and regulations and the problem was their hearts. Their hearts were not right with God.

We have to make sure as Christians we don’t become like these Pharisees in the story. We must guard our hearts against legalism. That doesn’t mean we waver on the truth the bible teaches. But it means being able to rejoice over the forgiveness of God in someone else’s life, without judging them.

Sometimes we have to allow time for the Holy Spirit to work in a persons life, before we step in and start trying to correct them.

Our job is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor’s as ourselves. We have to make sure we have removed the beam from our own eye before we start trying to clear the dust from our brothers and sisters eyes.

 Then notice Jesus challenges them with a question in Vs. 9. “Which is easier to say to the paralytic; your sins are forgiven or to say, get up, pick up your bed and walk?”

Certainly, it is easier to say, “your sins are forgiven” because no one can prove that. No one can see if this man’s sins are forgiven.

  However, in verses 10-11 Jesus gives them the confirmation of who He is, He says, “ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has the power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed and go thy way into thine own house.”

And we know what happened next; the paralytic is healed. He gets up and he takes his stuff, and he walks out of a house. And that is amazing. Imagine that for a second. This man who had to be lowered through the roof gets up and walks out the front door.

That is a picture of our salvation. When our sins are forgiven we are healed instantly and completely.

 The people in this story were shocked, they were amazed, and they glorified God. They had never seen anything like this before and they will never see anything like this again.

This was God in the flesh, standing in their midst, who had come to save and redeem mankind.

Conclusion

 So, this story teaches us that God’s forgiveness is the greatest need we have in life.

Because it teaches us, It is more important to God that our sins be forgiven than anything wrong with us physically. True healing  comes with forgiveness. It is a healing that lasts for all of eternity.

     The paralytic in this story came to Jesus on a stretcher, and left walking through the door with his head held high, because he had been healed from head to toe. That is a picture of the transformation that takes place in the life of a believer. When we come to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our sins are forgiven, and our lives are changed forever.

     If you do not know Jesus that way. If your sins have never been forgiven, don’t wait. God offers us healing and forgiveness in the name of Jesus today.

Father, I thank you for your Word. I pray that your Word would open the hearts of your people. I pray we would understand our desperate need for you.

I pray your Word would find its place in our life and transform our minds. That we, like the crippled man in the story, would find immediate forgiveness.

Lord, grant us the privilege of faith. In Jesus name I pray, Amen