Sermon 9/13/20

Jab 1

college Professor from Morehouse

Explanation

Luke 5:17–26 NLT

One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.” But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God. Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, “We have seen amazing things today!”

The gospel of Luke was written to Theophilus who was a person that Luke was mentoring in the faith. The beginning of the Gospel tells us that Luke is writing the book

Luke 1:4 NLT

so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.

-keeping in mind that Luke is investigating and writing so that Theophilus can be confident in his faith.

4 perspectives for us to look at today

1. Men carrying their friend

2. The Man being carried

3. Jesus

4. Religious Leaders

Men Carrying Friend

(If they were Jewish......) this may be irrelevant because Luke’s purpose for writing was to help assure a greek man what he was taught in the faith was authentic. So the fact Luke mentions nothing about the man’s background is showing us that Luke’s focus was on the acts of what was happening with the interactions with Jesus.

-It was commonly believed that people who were stricken with disease or disability were people who had sinned or their parents had sinned (John 9:1-2)

-associating with people who were unclean left you open top the potential of being made unclean as well in terms of the temple requirements.

-Being made unclean cut you off from the whole flow of community life. So being his friend according to the cultural religious standards made the potential high that they would be cutoff from life in the temple community.

(If they were not Jewish)

-The lives of the friends were being interrupted in order to minister to their friend.

-They were determined to get their friend to see Jesus because there was an expectation of what would happen?!?!?

-Do we expect Jesus to work.....do we live and act as if the lives of the people we love depend on them seeing Jesus?

one perspective I had not thought about much was something that Jesus has really been talking to me about this week...

-What if the men carrying their friend would have gotten to the house and seen the crowd and their inability to get to Jesus the first time and would have said..... “I guess it’s not in God’s will for you to be healed.”

-They knew that Jesus could and would heal him, because he had done it in the past all they needed to do was to get their friend to the feet of Jesus

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2. The Man being carried

How many times do you think he was prayed over?

How many solutions had he tried?

Did the man want to be well?

John 5:1–6 NLT

Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

-This is a question that Jesus asked a man that had been so close to the source of his healing for many years, but had never been healed.

-If you could get up off the mat and walk would you want to lead a life of health away from this place?

-Why did Jesus ask that?

-Jesus was asking him a question of identity… are you your disease? Are you ready to leave this culture and place

THIS TIME JESUS TELLS HIM ......your sins are forgiven.

-When he tells this young man this statement he starts to live in freedom, but nothing changes outwardly.

-Is this something we are ok with? If we pray for healing for someone and there is a great spiritual work that is done in their life, but no physical healing or changes.......are we ok acknowledging the greater work has been done in their life?

-Jesus was establishing himself as the one that John foretold would come with this one statement of forgiveness .....this is why he tells the young man at first his sins were forgiven.

-Jesus tells the man to get up......life changing

-He leaves praising the Lord and spreading the mission and people who knew him can see his life was transformed.

3. Jesus- he saw the place to fulfill the mission in the situation he was presented with in that moment.

-through forgiving the mans sins he was able to reveal to people that he is the messiah John the baptist was telling them about.

4. Religious Leaders- These guys missed it.....there was a power that was on Jesus…an anointing was on his life and people saw it .....except them they missed it.