Bringing A Friend to Jesus

We are starting our second week of praying for our “one”.

I hope that God is opening your heart to care more and more about that individual, and that you are looking for opportunities to help them come to Christ.

Last week, we saw that Jesus extends a call to all of us to join him in seeing people given new life in him, but it comes at a great cost. To follow his call, we have to be willing to give up anything and everything, even our jobs and our families for him.

This week, we are going to see a powerful example of what it looks like to bring someone to Jesus.

As you are thinking about your “one”, our hope is that you truly want to see this person come into the kind of relationship with Jesus that you have.

This week, we are going to see a powerful example of what it looks like to bring someone to Jesus.

What does that take, though? What should we expect to deal with if we are going to bring our friend to know Jesus?

The account we are going to look at this morning highlights the faith and determination we need if we are going to bring our friends to Jesus.

The men in this story are going to teach us four main lessons about what to expect when we bring a friend to Jesus.

Turn over to .

Jesus’ ministry is in full swing, and we find him back at his home base in the town of Capernaum.

He has been healing and teaching, and word has really spread about all that Jesus is capable of doing.

As we pick up in verse 17-20, we find another day where Jesus is teaching.

Look at those verses with me.

Religious leaders from throughout Israel came that day to hear Jesus preach.

Add in all those who lived locally and came to hear Jesus, and the house he was in was packed to capacity.

Luke notes that the power of God was in Jesus to heal that day.

That seems like somewhat of an odd statement. After all, isn’t Jesus God?

He is, but if you remember, he voluntarily limited the use of his divine power unless God the Father told him to use it:

John 5:19 CSB

Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things.

Today was one of the days where the Father directed Jesus to heal those around him.

Enter some unnamed men with a friend who was paralyzed. In the face of all these religious leaders who doubted what Jesus said, we have a group of men with a simple, hard-working faith.

They aren’t the heroes of this story, because Jesus is. However, their faith and determination gives us a great picture of what it takes to see our friends come to Christ.

We want to copy their example as we seek to see those around us be drawn closer to Christ.

So, if that’s the case, then we are going to have to start where they did:

1) Care enough to bring them to Jesus.

Read verses 18-19.

There are so many details the Bible doesn’t give us that I would have loved to have.

We don’t know why this man was paralyzed. Was he born that way, or did he have an illness or injury that left him paralyzed?

Who were these men? Were they family members? Friends? Neighbors?

We don’t know their names, we don’t know where they came from, and we don’t know why they were in the situation that day. Mark records this same event and lets us know there were four men, but that doesn’t really help much.

As much as I would love to know, I think God did this on purpose. Why?

Because it keeps us from being able to explain it away.

If we knew they were his cousins, we might say, “Well, of course they did that. He was family.”

If they were neighbors, “That just makes sense. They lived nearby.”

Each of those could be an excuse for us not to care about someone God wants to draw to himself through us.

“You want me to witness to that person? Well, she’s not family, so somebody else closer to her should do that.”

“You want me to go where to tell people about Jesus? Have you seen the news? They are so far away; someone closer to them should to it.”

Listen: If God is laying someone on your heart, you need to do what you can to see them come to Christ!

I don’t care if it is a family member, a co-worker, a neighbor, the homeless man you see out walking, or an individual in a city across the globe who doesn’t even know Jesus’ name.

Every single individual on earth is created in the image of God and needs a relationship with him.

Romans 3:22 CSB

The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction.

The only way they can be right with God is by placing trust in Jesus Christ, and anyone who will place their trust in Jesus will be saved.

Do you care enough to bring them to Jesus?

These four men cared so much for their friend that when they heard Jesus was in town, they wanted to bring their friend to him.

Do you care that much?

Here’s an exercise that can help you with that: Next time you are in public, get your head out of your phone or your shopping list and look around for a minute.

Statistics tell us that it is possible that 3/4 of the people around you may not genuinely know Jesus, so picture the word “lost” over the heads of three out of every four people you see.

People-watch for a minute or so, and let the weight of that settle in on your heart. Ask God to give you a love for those who don’t know Jesus so that you will care enough to bring them to him.

Caring enough means more than just saying, “Well, bless their heart.”

That is the second lesson we see from these men:

2) Work hard to bring them to Jesus.

Here’s where you have to love their boldness. Pick back up in verse 19.

You have to love the tenacity of these men. They wanted their friend well, and they weren’t going to stop at anything until they got him to Jesus.

We will look at their determination in a second, but it started before they got to the house.

They carried him on a stretcher for whatever distance they had to travel. Although I imagine they were stronger than most of us, have you ever tried to carry someone who is paralyzed? There is nothing that feels as heavy and awkward as a body that isn’t controlling itself. Maybe you have picked up a child out of their car seat and tried to get them in their bed while they were asleep. It is like wrangling an octopus!

In high school, I helped a man transport an individual who was paralyzed from the neck down. We tried to get him into a car that was similar to mine, and it was incredibly difficult because he could do nothing to help us.

So, they carry him for whatever distance they had to carry him and they get to the house to find out that it is already packed and you can’t get in.

What happened next would have been great to watch.

You can imagine that they were frustrated when they couldn’t get in. Maybe the paralyzed man even told them, “Thanks, guys. I appreciate you trying, but let’s just go back home.”

I don’t know how long they deliberated, but they came up with a new plan.

The houses in that day would have had a flat roof, so the friends either grab a ladder or use an outside staircase if there was one.

They then have to carry their friend up to the roof.

Without knowing exactly what the house looked like or where in the house Jesus was, we can’t say for sure exactly what happened next.

Luke makes it sound simple, just like you were taking out a drop ceiling like we have in our sanctuary. However, Mark indicates that it was more work than that and that removing the tiles would have required them to do some digging through the mud and straw that made up the roof.

Either way, they still had to carry their friend onto a roof that was at least 7’ off the ground, open up that same roof, and lower their friend down gently in front of Jesus.

Look back at verse 19. It almost reads like one of the old McDonald’s commercials with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. Remember the “off the floor, off the scoreboard, nothing but net,” ads? Luke says it was on the stretcher, through the roof, into the middle of the crowd, before Jesus…nothing but net.

That wouldn’t have been quick, and it would have caused a scene, wouldn’t it?

Apparently, these friends lived by the adage, “Desperate times call for drastic measures.”

Think about how hard this was!

It was physically difficult, because they had to carry him and do whatever they needed to do to open the roof up and then lower him down.

To say it would have been awkward would have been a massive understatement! Never mind the fact that you probably just tore up someone’s roof, you also interrupted Jesus while he was teaching religious elites from all over the country!

Plus, there may have been others waiting outside who hoped to be healed. What makes you so special that you can cut in line?

Why would they do this? Because they knew their friend needed Jesus, and they were willing to do whatever it took to bring him to Jesus.

I am afraid that this is one of yours and my biggest problems. We aren’t willing to work hard to see people come to Jesus.

We don’t want to make the relationship awkward, or we don’t want people to think we are one of those weird Christians who is always pushy. We don’t want to be accused of being on the wrong side of history.

If God is calling you to share the gospel somewhere away from here, you may not want to go because of how much it will cost or all that you will have to give up.

When I look at the excuses I make in my own life, I have to realize that they are incredibly lame excuses!

Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not I am willing to sacrifice everything to follow Jesus like he commanded us to last week.

We have to be willing to work hard to see people come to know him.

That’s why the great preacher Charles Spurgeon famously said:

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” (C.H. Spurgeon)

We need to exhaust ourselves on behalf of those who have not yet come to Christ.

They are in dire need of him, and we must warn them before it is too late.

However, in the third lesson we learn from these men, we also must...

3) Leave the results up to Jesus.

Read verse 20.

This is a little surprising, isn’t it? After all, if you can’t walk, and your friends bring you to Jesus, what would you expect him to do? Hopefully heal your legs.

Yet, what does Jesus do? He forgives his sin.

I know I might be tempted to be upset here, because if I were paralyzed, I would think that what I needed was for Jesus to heal my legs.

Yet, Jesus looks past the surface need and sees their hearts, and he sees that they are trusting Jesus to do whatever he can to make him well, so Jesus heals his soul.

If that doesn’t sound like a big deal, then you haven’t really seen what the stakes are.

Without a relationship with God, you are dead in your trespasses and sin.

You are lost and without hope, so even if your legs work perfectly fine, you are still going to die and stay separated from the goodness and grace of God forever.

What Jesus offered the man was the healing he most desperately needed: a soul made right with God.

Here’s how the psalmist would describe it:

Psalm 32:1–2 CSB

How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How joyful is a person whom the Lord does not charge with iniquity and in whose spirit is no deceit!

Also, we have to understand something about their culture in that day.

We don’t know exactly what was wrong with this man. We don’t know if he was born disabled or if he had an illness or injury that left him unable to walk.

Either way, the religious leaders who were filling that room often taught that major problems like this were a direct result of sin. If you were born with a disability, it was because your parents sinned. If you developed some kind of malady, it was because you did something wrong.

So this man would have been told for years that he was worthless and a sinner.

Even apart from bad teaching, he would have been looked down on for being disabled. Our society is perhaps better about this at times, but if you have ever had to use a wheelchair, you know that you draw attention and sometimes get weird looks from judgmental people.

So here is a man who feels like trash, who can’t provide for or take care of himself, feeling like the lowest of low in society.

He has friends who care so deeply for him that they will go to great lengths to bring him to Jesus.

Now, having been plopped down in the middle of this crowded house of religious elites who had to be furious about what was going on, Jesus, the son of God, with the power of God to heal and forgive, extends the healing that his soul desperately needed.

Have you ever been really cold and drank something warm like a good cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate? You know that feeling where the warmth flows down inside you and you can feel it going all the way down into your stomach?

How much greater would this have felt? All that shame of being overlooked by so many for so long, with every eye in the room glaring at you.

And suddenly, you hear that you are forgiven.

Your shame, your guilt, all melts away.

Maybe that is what you need today—you need to be forgiven.

You came here today because you thought you had all kinds of other needs, but what you really need, at your core, is to place your trust in Jesus and be forgiven of everything you ever have done wrong.

You are ashamed, and what you have done is shameful, but Jesus took that shame on himself and died in your place to give you his honor.

You are guilty, and you deserve to be punished, but Jesus was punished in your place.

Will you put your faith and trust in him?

That means you are going to turn from living life your way to turn to following him, to run after him instead of what you think is best.

It is going to be hard, and your life cannot stay the same, but you can find hope today as you look to Jesus for forgiveness.

Have you forgotten that Jesus said those words to you? Perhaps you have drifted and you know you aren’t honoring Jesus with the way you have lived.

Will you look to him and again hear him say, “Friend, your sins are forgiven?”

He took your shame, he took your guilt, not so you could keep sinning, but so he could give you his grace.

Let the rest of the world disappear for a minute. Look into the face of the God who loved you so much that he would die in your place, and hear again, “Your sins are forgiven.”

That was so much more than this man’s friends could have anticipated.

However, when they laid the man at Jesus’ feet, they trusted that he would be able to do whatever would be best for him.

Did you notice that? Verse 20 shows that it wasn’t only the paralyzed man who was trusting in Jesus—it was their faith. The friends and the paralyzed man all believed that God could do something incredible for this man.

As you are praying for your one, you care and fight enough to bring them to Jesus.

As you lay them at his feet through prayer and even as you talk with them about what it looks like to follow Jesus, you and I have to leave the results up to him.

In this instance, the man got so much more than he could have imagined. His soul was made right.

That’s why the great preacher Charles Spurgeon famously said:

However, as we keep reading, we see that Jesus didn’t stop there.

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” (C.H. Spurgeon)

That leads us to the fourth observation:

4) Let God show how great he is.

You have to read the rest of this, because it is so cool to watch Jesus work.

Pick back up in verse 21-26.

The religious leaders and teachers should have been incredibly excited to see how God was working through Jesus, but they still didn’t understand who they are dealing with.

Jesus, being God in the flesh, knew what they were thinking. Isn’t that awesome? This account shows time and time again just how incredible God is.

He uses this as an incredible teaching moment to show the religious leaders just how wrong they were, proving that he really is God in the flesh.

“You don’t believe I can forgive sins? How about if I heal this man’s legs so you can see what God can do?”

Immediately, he was healed, picks up his mat and goes home how? Look at verse 25. Glorifying God.

Glorifying God.

Because his friends had cared and worked so hard to bring him to Jesus, trusting him with the results, their friend not only was healed spiritually but physically as well!

Now, with a new heart, he walked out of there, giving God glory and honor for what he had done.

He wasn’t the only one impacted, though. Look at verse 26. The other people who saw and heard what had happened gave God glory as well!

Think about what that means: when God works through you to see someone come to Christ, it doesn’t just impact the person who comes to know Jesus. It doesn’t stop with you, either; all those who see how God transforms lives get to see and know God better because of how he works through you!

When God saved you, he put you into a community of all the other believers around the world. Part of our job is to challenge and encourage each other to grow closer to Jesus.

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

By the way, this is the third week in a row this has come up. We saw Moses investing in Joshua’s life, we have seen that being Jesus’ disciple means we are going to help others follow him as well, and now again we see how others learn more about God as they see him work in and through us.

Not only that, but we are also living, working, playing, going to school, and everything else around a lot of people who don’t know Jesus.

As they see the love that Christ shows through us to others, they get a taste of the love that he has for them!

We are strengthened as we join together in seeing Jesus exalted as he draws people to himself.

All of this was because of some determined men who loved their friend so much that they wanted to bring him to Jesus.

What about you? Maybe you are here today because someone cared enough about you that they wanted you to know Jesus. Why not surrender to him today?

If you know Jesus, how much do you really care about the people around you who don’t know him? What lengths are you willing to go to so they can be laid at Jesus’ feet? Once they are there, it is up to him, and he may do greater things than you could imagine.

Pray for God to give you that kind of heart for your “one” and the other “ones” around you who don’t know Christ.