Mark 2:1-12 - What Is Forgiveness?

INTRODUCTION

Let’s open our Bibles together again this morning to the second chapter of Mark.

We read the entire chapter in our Bible Reading this morning, so I will read verses 1-12 to refresh our memory.

[READ MARK 2:1-12]

For those of you who know we have been in a series of sermons I have called “Difficult Passages”,

You may be wondering what is so difficult about this passage?

This is one of the more familiar accounts of Jesus’s healing in Galilee, found in three of the gospels - Matthew, Mark , and Luke.

The facts in each, even down to the words spoken by our Lord, are almost identical, so there is no real controversy there.

And the story, like that of Zaccheus climbing the tree, is found in most children’s Sunday School programs each year.

Perhaps, you may be thinking, maybe the preacher just wanted a softball passage to preach on Easter Sunday.

Maybe...but no.

The difficulty of this passage may be deeply personal for me.

I have preached from this same passage 2-3 times in my life, and, frankly, I feel like I missed the point of the story.

And if it was difficult for me to understand, perhaps it has been the same for you.

If you have heard this same account taught, what was the application you heard?

Probably similar to the one I taught:

Be like the friends who brought the paralytic to Jesus.

It was a decent sermon as sermons go:

The caring friends who brought their sick friend to Jesus.

Their faith that moved Jesus to heal the man.

Here is one popular commentator:

“What we need in the church today is stretcher-bearers—men and women with that kind of faith to go out and bring in the unsaved so they can hear the gospel. There are many people today who are paralyzed with a palsy of sin, a palsy of indifference, or a palsy of prejudice. A great many people are not going to come into church where the gospel is preached unless you take a corner of the stretcher and bring them in.”

And another:

“We must admire several characteristics of these men, qualities that ought to mark us as ‘fishers of men.’ For one thing, they were deeply concerned about their friend and wanted to see him helped. They had the faith to believe that Jesus could and would meet his need. They did not simply ‘pray about it,’ but they put some feet to their prayers; and they did not permit the difficult circumstances to discourage them. They worked together and dared to do something different, and Jesus rewarded their efforts. How easy it would have been for them to say, ‘Well, there is no sense trying to get to Jesus today! Maybe we can come back tomorrow.’“

But in the times I have heard the passage preached, by myself or others, I have not looked at the most important thing that happened here:

The man’s sins were forgiven.

We kind of throw that part away, don’t we?

We think of the friends, carrying the man on a stretcher, finding no way to get into the house where Jesus was freely teaching.

And we think: “They didn’t carry this man all this way, destroy the ceiling of the house above Jesus while He was teaching the religious leaders,

In order to have Jesus tell the man his sins were forgiven.”

We think, “They wanted the man healed of his paralysis, not just to have Jesus tell him his sins are forgiven.”

It’s almost like if Jesus had NOT made this man walk, the man and his friends would have been sorely disappointed.

Maybe even YOU would be disappointed in the story.

But I will tell you that right now, at this moment, that man, part of the church that awaits the Last Day from heaven,

That man would tell you it didn’t matter if he had never walked again in this life;

His sins were forgiven!

Paralysis lasts only for this life;

The forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ endures forever.

But the question I want to consider this morning is what it means to be forgiven by Jesus.

How could He make such a statement at this point in His life.

We understand forgiveness AFTER the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus -

But how could Jesus say that the man’s sins are forgiven NOW, in this setting?

Some might think that Jesus was just baiting the scribes He was teaching.

And they reacted just as we might expect to His declaration of forgiveness:

Mark 2:6–7 “Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?””

They weren’t necessarily wrong doctrinally -

Only God CAN forgive sins.

That IS the point of it all here: Jesus, the eternal Son, very God of very God, begotten, not created, IS God in the flesh.

The scribes, of course, didn’t see that.

To the best of our knowledge, we cannot tell that the four friends saw that.

But the man on the stretcher - he saw it.

He had a front-row seat to the greatest miracle God accomplishes:

The conversion of a person from the slavery to sin in this world into a CHILD of God.

Look at how Jesus speaks to the man at the very first:

Mark 2:5 “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.””

Jesus was standing in the house, probably Simon Peter’s or the house of Jesus’s mother, Mary,

And He was “preaching the word” to the scribes from the region.

We shouldn’t skip past that:

Jesus was preaching the word.

He was talking of the Old Testament Scriptures to these experts in them,

And He was, no doubt, explaining the prophecies that all pointed to Him,

Or He was talking of the Law that pointed to Him.

The Law that was WRITTEN FOR Him and BY Him

The Law only He could obey sufficiently.

And by “sufficiently”, I mean “perfectly”, because God has only a single standard.

We don’t know the paralytic man’s history - why he was paralyzed.

But one thing we know about him for sure is that since he is NOT Jesus, he is a sinner.

He is in need of a Savior.

Affliction doesn’t remove the guilt of your sin.

Having a disease or a condition or a handicap doesn’t exempt you from the requirement to FULLY obey God’s Law.

Paralytics can sin against God as surely as those who can use all their limbs.

People with cancer can sin just as much as someone with a clean bill of health.

The point is that regardless of your situation or your unique challenges, though they be many and great, YOU need a Savior.

You need Jesus Christ, who both God and man came to pay the penalty for the sins of His people,

And to give to them as a gift HIS righteousness.

There is a second thing we find out about this man who had to be carried to Jesus: he had been chosen by God to be one of His people.

How do we know?

Jesus calls him “Son”.

“Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus isn’t TALKING to the scribes in the room - this is more important.

He is talking to His child.

In the middle of the sermon, in the middle of a point, the dust begins to fall onto the people below as the men clear away the tiles to let the stretcher down.

And at that moment, our Lord’s attention isn’t on the scribes any more:

He needs to have a conversation with this broken child, His son.

There’s no plea from the man; there is no petition from his friends recorded.

It isn’t needed - our Lord knows EXACTLY what His child needs in this moment.

He needs to be freed from his sins.

We can be sure if it was more important for this man to walk than to be forgiven, Jesus would have healed him first.

But it wasn’t more important.

If the man was just healed of his infirmity but not from his sinful nature,

That man’s life would seem more hopeless than when he saw the door to the house full and impassible.

If he left that house still in his sin, he could leave SKIPPING and singing, but that joy would be overcome by the sin that still dominated him.

Have you had those moments?

When you get something that should overjoy you, but not too long later, you find sin has tarnished that prize?

How many celebrities get the fame they have worked for, only to find greater loneliness and vanity and temptations than they ever knew?

In your own heart, do you remember a time when you got exactly what you wanted, only to find that the sin that held on to your heart made the prize bitter?

Mark 8:36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

That’s why Jesus dealt with the main thing FIRST.

Son, your sins are forgiven.

My child, no matter what happens from now on, you can rest in the assurance you are MINE.

And I love you!

This man, this child of God, was one of the reasons Jesus came in human flesh.

This child of God was one of the reasons He was opposed.

This child of God was one of the reasons He was beaten.

This child of God was one of the reasons He was crucified.

And this child of God is one of the sinners Jesus came seeking to save.

Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.””

Jesus didn’t come into the world to seek out those who were strong enough to follow Him;

He didn’t allow Himself the humiliation and pain for those who were good enough to save.

Romans 5:6–8 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Christ died for the UNGODLY.

You may be listening today and thinking, “There is no way I am good enough for God to save me.”

And you are exactly right - you aren’t good enough.

Neither am I.

It isn’t the perfectly healthy person who is in need of a hospital or a doctor -

It is the one who breaks down,

The one who is sick,

The one who is subject to the ills of this world.

That’s the one who needs a Savior.

It is the one who cannot even CRAWL to Jesus.

It is the one who can’t see the way to Him.

It is the one doesn’t even realize they are lost.

Until in that one moment, they see their sin the way God sees it.

And in that moment, the only thing that matters,

The ONLY thing we can cry out for,

The only thing that will give us what we need,

Is to be forgiven by God for our sin.

The truth is that this man in our passage today was saved in the same way EVERYONE who has ever been saved was saved:

By the death of Jesus on the cross.

And the way EVERY person has received that salvation, that forgiveness of sin, is exactly the same from the beginning of time:

By grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

By grace - it is a gift.

That bothers a lot of people.

We think WE have to do something to be saved.

But the man on the stretcher - he didn’t DO anything.

He was forgiven as a gift - by grace.

Whether you are a believer in Christ this moment or not, the way people are saved, are forgiven, is the same:

It is a gift of God.

How heavy is the secret sin you carry?

How heavy is the addiction you weep about in the dark?

How crushing is your sin on those around you that you care about?

Come to the Savior, and hear His forgiveness toward you.

How do you come? Through faith.

You are saved by grace through faith.

Faith means you believe that Jesus does what He says He will do.

That if you come to Him and seek to follow Him, He will not reject you.

John 6:37 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

Faith doesn’t mean you are just trying to clean yourself up a bit so you can continue being the person you were before.

Before you are in Christ, you are a SLAVE to sin - who wants to be a slave?

Faith means you come to Him asking to be HIS child.

To be FREED from your sin, not just to have your history of sin erased.

That is why great saints have called this transaction “conversion”.

You are CONVERTED, changed, from a sinner who is at war with God, a rebel against His holy goodness,

And you are CONVERTED, changed, into a child of God - with all the rights and privileges that implies.

If you aren’t a follower of Christ today, take an honest look at your life:

How well are you doing being in charge of it?

Many simply delude themselves into thinking that the things they do aren’t sinful - that they have no sin.

That’s like denying you have cancer even after you have received the diagnosis.

No matter how many positive thoughts or happy diversions you accumulate to yourself,

It won’t erase the fact you are going to die - and you will stand in judgment before a holy God you have spent your life offending.

All your pride, all your self-confidence, all your positive self-image,

All your self-improvements, all your fame or fortune,

Will be worth NOTHING on that day.

Every one of those things will be evidence brought AGAINST you.

On the day when we will all stand before God, the ONLY plea that will be valid is that Jesus Christ has saved us by His blood,

And that He has given us His goodness in exchange.

That is why salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Faith means nothing if the one you have faith in is unworthy.

You aren’t saved because you believe a whole bunch;

You can only be saved by believing in Jesus Christ, who gives that gift of forgiveness and salvation.

What does that look like?

Repent - look at your life and turn away from your sin.

Look at the offense it is to God who has poured out good things on you, like life.

Repent means to turn around, to change direction from the way you are going.

Because if you aren’t trusting in Jesus Christ, you are going in the wrong direction.

You are walking headlong into a merciless judgment by God for your sin.

It won’t matter that you consider your sin small - God doesn’t.

He is the One who you offended.

With repentance, there is faith - believe that Jesus can save you.

Believe that Jesus WILL save you if you come to Him.

Mark 2:5 “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.””

That is the FAITH that Jesus saw in the five men -

They were all absolutely convinced that Jesus was the ONLY one who could save.

There wasn’t a scribe in that room, sitting in their own petty judgment, that could heal that man,

Much less forgive his sin.

Only Jesus, who would in a short time die once for all for the sin of all who come to Him in faith.

All His children whom He has known from before the foundation of the world.

Before the beginning - when there was only God - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Don’t live another minute without Christ - repent from your sin and turn to Him now!

If you come to Him in faith, you will find He is there,

And through His Spirit He will say to you, “My child. Your sins are forgiven.”

Do you long to hear those words spoken to you?

Come to Christ in faith.