Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, turn with me in your Bibles this morning to the gospel of Mark.

What we have been learning so far is that Jesus is the Messiah and that He is the Son of God.

The gospel is all about Jesus and we saw that in Him we find repentance and forgiveness and God’s gift of the Holy Spirit.

We saw as Jesus begins His ministry that when Jesus speaks things happen.

ORDINARY PEOPLE FOLLOW HIM, AND TROUBLED PEOPLE ARE SET FREE.

Not this morning were going to learn more about what happens when Jesus steps into a persons life, what difference will it make to your life, when Jesus Christ touches you.

What difference will it make when you become a follower of Jesus Christ.

Now were going to cover two stories from Mark’s gospel this morning, and were going over these two stories in reverse.

So if he was known as Simon the Leper and now is not we can gather that it is likely that Jesus healed him.

Jesus healed thousands, the purpose of all these miracles was done in order to show that Jesus is the Son of God.

It validated what He said after all the most important thing to Jesus was the message He preached, we saw this last wee

First in the proper order you have the account of the leper and then you have the story about a paralytic at the beginning of chapter 2 but I am going through them in reverse order because I think they will make more sense that way. .

The Setting:

:38

Remember Jesus has been surrounded by great crowds in Caperneaum, because many people had heard of His healing power and they were coming out to Him in droves bringing their various needs with them.

If you’ll remember Jesus said in verse 38 “we’ve got to go to some other villages so that I can preach there also, for this is why I have come.”

So Jesus went and so did the first disciples on this ministry trip, the first tour of the various villages of Galilee, and Mark records only one story from this time traveling throughout the towns of Galilee and that is the story of the leper as far as that time of traveling is concerned he tells us

He came to preach to sinners and lead them to repentance.

If you have teachers out there teaching alot of different things, how do you know who’s telling the truth?

But at the end of this little tour Jesus comes back to Capernaeum and as soon as He returns, the crowds are back again.

Well the one who is casting out demons, who is healing the multitudes, day after day, month after month, year after year.

The one who has total control over life and death, who can raise people from the dead, that’s the guy you listen to.

So the miracles were there only to point to the fact that Jesus is who He was claiming to be none other than the Messiah sent from God to save the world from their sins.

He puts on a massive display of divine power, which leaves the nation fully aware of who He is.

They never denied His miracles or His power , only the religious leaders said that He did what He did by the power of satan, and Jesus rebuked them for that.

So Jesus on the first day of His ministry walked into church and cast a demon out of a church member, then he went and healed Simon Peters

It is a amazing thing when a leper appears in the Bible because the nature of the disease...

Now remember they were stationed at Simon Peters house, where Jesus had miraculously healed his mother in law.

This was also the house where all the demoniacs and sick had come before and now Jesus has returned to the house and the crowds are back outside and inside again.

Notice what Jesus did while they were there.

But before we get into that let’s read the account.

“He preached the word to them.”

(read)

That is Jesus’ priority, we will kept seeing this as we study the gospel of Mark.

Right in the middle of Jesus’ teaching there was an unlikely interruption, imagine Jesus is sitting at the front of the room and He is preaching a message, and as He is preaching little particles begin to fall from the ceiling.

At first I am sure people were wondering what it was but then larger pieces of thatch and straw began falling down into the crowd and it became so noticable people began looking upward and as they looked upward a whole appeared in the cieling.

Dow through the whole comes this man who is paralyzed being lowered down into the house by some of his friends.

His legs wouldn’t bear the weight of his body and being unable to move, he was confined to a mat on which he sat or slept, and he simply lay there.

The title of todays message is “Jesus trades places with a leper” just listening to the reading you can hear how this event caused the leper and Jesus to trade places.

The leper an outcast was forced to stay in islolated places came into the city, met Jesus .

Jesus in the city after healing the leper ended up in isolated places.

Jesus

But this man was determined to get to Jesus.

When they arrived at the place where Jesus is staying they immediately find that the house is swarming with people, not only crammed inside but the crowd spilling out the door already and they realize there is no way they are going to get a man on a mat through this crowd and to Jesus through the front door.

So these 5 men had a problem and its a problem were going to address this morning, HOW DO YOU GET TO JESUS CHRIST?

They use their imagination beutifully here they can’t get through the door and so they decide to come in through the roof....

I WISH I COULD HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN DONT YOU?

Now remember this was Simon Peter’s house so I wonder what Simon thought as he watched his own roof being opened up.

I mean he had to be thinking is this what it means to be a follower of Jesus?

This is good… THE LESSON IS THIS IF WERE SERIOUS ABOUT MINISTRY, WE OUGHT TO EXPECT THAT THE BUILDING WILL NEED A FEW REPAIRS NOW AND THEN RIGHT lol

Now were going to come back and see what we can learn from the paralyzed man and his freinds but i want us to focus on what is the main point of the story.

The friends lower the paralyzed man through the roof and he winds up laying looking up into the face of Jesus, and we read in verse 5 that when Jesus saw their faith he said:

Now the question here is this: WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

HOW IS THAT RELEVANT?

This is NOT why the paralyzed man has come, this man on his mat has clearly come to Jesus because ....

He is paralyzed that is why he has come.

But Jesus completely disregards the mans most obvious problem and talks to him about something else.

SON YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN.

OK Jesus well thank you but to talk to a man about forgiveness whose obvious need is healing seems to me to be disconnected, it seems off the point, it seems irrelevant doesn't it?

I imagine the paralyzed man there on his mat having made this great journey and being lowered into an enormous crowd and now hearing this word from Jesus had to be confused.

He must have thought “Jesus that’s great but that’s not why Ive come.”

More than that don't you think that at first sight that what Jesus says here might have seemed a little insensitive?

IT’s often said you can’t preach to a man who has an empty stomach.

If you're going effectively communicate to a man who has an obvious need you have to meet his obvious need before you can think that you can say what you want to say.

I was taught that at college, and there is some truth to that.

But I want you to notice that Jesus does here the complete obvious doesn’t he?

I mean He completely ignores the man’s obvious needs and says nothing about it, and goes straight to what He wants to say to the man which is “Son your sins are forgiven you.”

I mean can you imagine what you would think if you were with me and you decided to come along one day and see what I did during a day of ministry and a man came into the office and was in dire need of food, and he was clearly starving and I looked at him and said Son your sins are forgiven you....

You would think I was an insensitive jerk, would you not?

But think about these people in this time, they didn’t at this point know who Jesus was, they knew he had the power to heal and that was all and now this man clearly desperate gets lowered down through the roof of all places and Jesus tells him about His sins being forgiven.

it would be strange.

Now let’s just pause for a moment and try to apply these things to ourselves in this congregation today, there is a vast array of need.

Some of it known some of it hidden, but all of us have come and many of us are facing issues in our lives that really press in on us, and they are things that a very important, they are heavy, heavy burdens and we all carry them in.

Some of us are really struggling with loss, some of us are battling depression, some of us are struggling with fear, or with anger, or with worry, or with lack of self esteem, or loss of confidence, or lonliness, we have issues that relate to money.

We have issues that relate to health, we have issues in our marriage, and other relationships and these things press in on us and they fill our minds and they are very real needs.

So much is that the case that I would honestly be suprised if there was one in 100 people here who actually thinking conciously “my greatest need is forgiveness from Jesus Christ” probably not 1 of 100 has been thinking about that as we came to church this morning.

Now its for this reason that many people feel disconnected from the gospel because it doesnt seem to address the issues were facing.

That is why there will always be pressur eon the church of jesus Christ to reposition the gospel to fit the needs that concern people today.

So you shouldnt be suprised when you find in our country versions of the gospel, that are targeted to the concerns that people have.

This is where you find gospels mainly concerned about health, about properity, or personal fufillment.

Why does that happen?

Because there is always a pressure on the church to speak to me and my obvious need.

If you find the preacher speaking about forgiveness to be disconnected from your life that probably means your in the same position as the man laying on his mat in front of Jesus.

“YES THATS GOOD, BUT THAT’S NOT WHY I CAME.”

But as we look at this account we can see clearly that as far as Jesus is concerned forgiveness, is a higher priority than any other need in this man’s life.

That’s what matters to Jesus, and seeing that we can assume that forgiveness is a higher priority in your life than any other need that may be pressing in on you this morning.

So Jesus, completely disregarding the mans most obvious problem, says YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN YOU.

How is that relevant?

The second question is:

HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?

YOur sins are forgiven, notice that the teachers of the law pick up on this really quick in verse 6.

Now these men were obviously good teachers of the law because they were absolutely right in what they are saying.

The principle is that the only person who can forgive is the one who has been offended.

If you set my house on fire, I have the ability to forgive you.

It is my house what you have done you have done to me.

I have that authority.

But if you set Cory’s house on fire there is no use coming to me for forgiveness there is nothing I can do about it.

The only person who can forgive you if you do that is Cory, and He is not as loving as I am lol jk.

The principle is the only person who can forgive is the person who has been offended.

Heres the one thing you need to know sin by definition is an offense against God! but of a study done throughout America’s churches only about 17% of church goers defined sin as an offense against God.

What that means is, that at least according to this survey, published in the book “The day America told the truth, 83 % people in this country, 4 out of 5 people you meet in this country, do not know what sin is.