Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house.

2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door.

And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.

4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was.

So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

This story is crazy!

Mark has really understated this story.

Can we pause and back this up and think about what is happening?

There is a paralyzed man who has four friends, they’ve heard that Jesus has come back to town and they want to go hear Him preach so they go pick up their friend, literally, and they are carrying this man through the streets of Capernaum.

Imagine how awkward that must have been to navigate him to that house.

And then they get to the house and it is standing room only.

They can’t get in, they can’t get their friend in.

If I was one of those four friends, I would have just said, the dude is going to stop preaching at some point so let’s just grab a spot at the backstage door and we will be the first ones to see Him when He comes out.

But that wasn’t enough for these guys!

And we don’t know how the conversation went but when they got there, one of them said the front door doesn’t work, let’s try something different, obviously the roof!

So they take this paralyzed friend, and they are not only scaling the walls of this house, they are carrying this friend with them.

So you get to the roof, now what?

It says so nonchalantly that they dig a hole.

Guys, this wasn’t just a little hole that is just annoying on a rainy day.

This hole is big enough to fit an entire man through!

Imagine the scene for a moment.

Jesus is inside the house preaching and all of a sudden stuff is falling on is head.

They are excavating the roof!

I want to know where the owner of the house is?

And then it says they lowered him through this hole, how did this happen?

Did they tie their robes together or build some kind of ancient pulley system?

Imagine this scene with me.

There is a hole being excavated in a roof and then a man is lower through that hole on a mat.

And Jesus is looking at the man and the man is looking at Jesus and everybody in the room is looking to see what Jesus is going to do and the four friends are still on the roof peering through the roof to see what’s going to happen.

And it says that when Jesus saw their faith, He said son your sins are forgiven.

Then there is this grumbling with all the religious people about whether or not Jesus had the authority to do that, and Jesus senses that and He was kind of like, watch this, not only are your sins forgiven but take up your mat and walk.

The guy walked out of that house that day with new legs and a new identity because of the faith of his friends.

Something changed in his life because his friends had the tenacity to get him to Jesus at all costs including destroying somebody’s house.

The title of my message today is: who is willing to go to jail for you?

Not really.

We are in a series called ‘Reset.’

Beginning of a new year, we are resetting financially, spiritually, physically and this weekend we are going to talk about how to reset relationally.

I don’t know what situation you might be in.

Maybe there has been a significant life change.

A new job, a new marriage, something that has caused the relational stickiness of your life to shift.

But wherever you are at this weekend, I’m praying that you will hear something that will help you reset relationally this year.

If you are visiting this weekend, maybe you are stepping into church for the first time ever or the first time in a long time, we are so excited that you are here and we really believe that the basic reset begins with Jesus and that is what we are about.

So we are glad you are here and we hope you see a little bit of who He is this weekend.

I want to pull out a few things from this story.

Body:

The first thing I see in this story is that

I. Friends carry the mat.

Friends embrace the awkward.

You think about this mat the man laid on, that was his life.

That was his security.

It was his identity.

It was where he rested.

But it was also the symbol of everything that was wrong.

It screams to the world what the liability was.

It reminded him moment by moment why he was different from everyone else.

It could have been the thing that he used to keep people at an arms distance.

It the thing he could have been ashamed of.

He could have been fearful that people would get too close to it.

It is a liability.

It is a point of weakness.

And that mat could have also been the barrier to keep his friends from having relationships with him.

Man, if we get too close to that, we will have to carry it.

Doing anything with that guy is going to take longer and be a lot harder.

It could have been the thing that kept them from entering into relationship with him.

But both the paralyzed man and his four friends didn’t see it as a barrier, they saw it as the connection point to relationship.

What they did is they realized that the very point of pain could become the place where community could bring the possibility of miracles.

We’ve all got mats in our lives.

It is that thing we keeps us from letting people get too close because if they saw that or they knew that, they would not like us anymore.

It is that shame we walk around with.

The insecurity, the weakness, the secret.

And we think this is a liability and we have to keep people far enough away that they don’t see this thing.

But what if instead we realized that very thing could be the spark for a miracle in our life?

It could be the starting place for transformation.

One of the things I want to know this weekend is who is carrying your mat?

Your miracle may be on the other side of your vulnerability.

Who have you shared your vulnerability with?

And the other question I want to ask is whose mat are you carrying?

Someone else’s miracle is on the other side of your willingness to embrace the inconvenient and the awkward.

Secondly, the other thing I see in this story is that

II.

Friends do the hard work.

This was hard work.

These guys sweated to get this guy to the house and not only that but to get him up to the roof and not only that but to excavate the roof and then lower him down.

I think a lot of times we think the best friendships are the ones that are the easiest.

We’ve said that before.

I don’t have to try hard, it just works so well.

But the more I think about it, the more I think that is not entirely true.

The best friendship are the ones that require some intentionality that causes us to sacrifice our time and our energy.

The ones that require a little bit of emotional capacity and physical energy because those are the ones that are propelling us somewhere.

They are moving us forward.

These guys believed that sweat was the stuff that watered the seeds of a miracle.

Maybe there is a dimension of spiritual maturity that is measured in the calories we expend in serving other people.

Relationships are hard work and someone else’s miracle may be on the other side of your sweat.

Another thing I see in this story is that

III.

Friends change us.

We are just different as a result.

Andy Stanley says that your friends will determine the quality and direction of your life.

Andy Stanley, one of my favorite authors, communicators, pastors, says that your friends will determine the quality and direction of your life.