Matthew 9:1-8

Introduction

I Hope Everyone Had a Wonderful Christmas

With Lots of Food, Lots of Family Time, and Lots of Presents

Speaking of Presents:

I Want You to Try to Think About the Greatest Christmas Gift You Have Ever Received

Was it Something You Asked for?

Or was it a Surprise?

Sometimes the Best Gifts are Ones We Never Expected

Imagine You Have One Box Left to Open on Christmas Morning

You Have in Your Mind What You Hope it is…

The Very Thing You’ve Been Wanting More Than Anything All Year

Then You Open the Gift to Find Something Other Than What You Wanted…

But So Much Better Than What You Wanted

In This Lesson, We are Going to See a Man Who Desperately Wanted Something

Something that Would Be Life-Changing for Him

But What He Received was So Much More and So Much Better

Matthew 9:1-8

I’ve Mentioned that There is a Lot of Structure to How Matthew Has Written His Gospel Account

He Structured it Around 5 Major Teaching Discourses of Jesus

We Finished the 1st (Sermon on the Mount)

And We Will Start the 2nd in Chapter 10

But Currently, We are in the Gap Between the 1st and 2nd

In This Gap, Matthew Shows Us 9 Miracles Split into 3 Groups of 3

And 2 Discipleship Passages in Between the 3 Groups of Miracles

We are On the 3rd Miracle in the 2nd Grouping

With These 3 Miracles, Matthew Wants Us to See Jesus as Possessing the Authority of God

1st, He Has the Authority to Command Nature

2nd, He Has the Authority to Cast Evil Spirits to Torment

Now, We Will See a 3rd and Absolutely Amazing Aspect of Jesus’ Authority

Matthew 9:1 (NASB)

Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city.

Last Week, the Gadarenes Begged Jesus to Leave Their Region

So He Did, and He Came Back to “His Own City”

He was Born in Bethlehem and Raised in Nazareth…

But Neither of These Towns are Jesus’ City

Back in Chapter 4 We Learned that Jesus Began Living in Capernaum

Capernaum Became His Base of Operations and “His Own City”

We Can Know This is the Case Because Mark Tells Us This Took Place in Capernaum

So Jesus Sailed Across the Sea, Calmed the Storm, Cast Out the Legion of Demons…

And Then He Sailed Right Back to Capernaum

Matthew 9:2 (NASB)

And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”

Matthew, as He Has Done Before and Will Continue to Do, is Not Concerned With Details

We Don’t Know When This Took Place

We Don’t Know Where This Took Place

And We Don’t Know Who “They” are

We Don’t Know Any of the Details of This Situation

Matthew Just Jumps Right to the Parts He Wants to Focus On

But for the More Curious People Like Me, We Have Mark and Luke’s Accounts of This Event

Combining the Details They Give Us, We Find:

Jesus was Teaching in a House (Possibly Peter and Andrew’s)

Scribes and Pharisees From All Over the Map Were Sitting Down and Listening to Jesus’ Teaching

There Were Also Many Others, Because…

There was Such a Crowd in and Around the House that No One Could Get in

There Were 4 Men Carrying a Paralytic On His Mat to Jesus to Be Healed By Him

And Matthew Even Left Out the Most Famous Detail of This Event

The 4 Men Couldn’t Get the Paralytic to Jesus Because of the Crowd…

So, in Their Sheer Determination to Get This Man to Jesus…

They Decide to Go in Through the Roof

Many Palestinian Homes in the 1st Century Had Flat Roofs that Consisted of:

Wooden Beams Overlaid with Branches and Sticks and Covered By Dried Mud and Clay

It Would Have Been Sturdy Enough to Walk On…

And Not Terribly Difficult to Dig Through

Once They Dug a Big Enough Hole Through the Roof…

They Lowered the Paralytic Down in Front of Jesus

That Leads Us to Where Matthew Begins the Story (Put Matthew 9:2 Back Up)

Matthew 9:2 (NASB)

And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”

Why Do You Think Matthew Would Leave Out Such Interesting Details?

Because Matthew Isn’t Here to Tell Us Interesting Things About the Life of Jesus

He is On a Mission to Show Us that Jesus is the Messiah

And that He Has Come to Bring God’s Reign Over All the Earth

He Isn’t Concerned With What These Men Did

He is Concerned With What Jesus Did

And How What He Did Proves He Has the Authority of God Almighty

First, We are Told that Jesus Sees the Faith of These 5 Men

How Do You See Faith?

What They Did was Proof of Their Faith

They Were Willing to Rip Someone’s Roof Off in Order to Get to Jesus

That’s How Much They Trusted in Jesus’ Ability to Save the Paralytic

True Faith Always Leads to Action

If Your Faith in Jesus Doesn’t Lead You to Action…

Then the Faith You Have is Not the Faith Jesus is Impressed With

James Calls it a Dead Faith

Even the Demons Have That

Christians, if Our Faith Isn’t Leading Us to Act in Love Towrd God and Toward Others

We are Not Faithful at All

And Without Faith, We Will Never Please God

After Acknowledging Their Faith, Jesus Speaks to the Paralytic

“Take Courage, Son”

Take Courage = Have Confidence, Be Assured, Cheer Up

Son = Child

Jesus Used it as a Term of Endearment

These Were Words Meant to Comfort This Man

Here We Get a Glimpse of the Compassionate Gentleness of Our King

We Aren’t Told Why Explicitly…

But Jesus Knew This Man Needed Encouragement

And the Words He Says Next are Surprising

“Your Sins are Forgiven”

He Spoke this in the Present Tense…

Meaning This Man’s Sins Were Being Forgiven Right Then and There

We’ll Look at the Implications of That in a Moment

To Me, These Words Might Have Been Discouraging at First

You Have Gone to Extreme Lengths as a Paralytic to Reach Jesus and Be Healed

But Then All He Says is “Your Sins are Forgiven”

It’s Like Hoping for Something Amazing, But Then Receiving Something Completely Different

But it’s Unlikely the Paralytic was Anything Less Than Delighted to Hear These Words

It was a Deeply Rooted Conviction in Judaism that All Suffering is a Result of Personal Sin

And that No One Could Be Cured Unless They Were Forgiven First

Job’s Friends Believed He was a Sinner Because of His Suffering

In John 9:2, the Disciples Ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

Rabbi Chija ben Abba - “No sick person is cured from sickness until all his sins have been forgiven him.”

Rabbi Alexander - “The sick does not arise from his sickness until his sins are forgiven.”

The Book of Job and Jesus Both Taught Against This Way of Thinking…

But Many in Jesus’ Day Still Held to it

Many Still Do Today as Well

To This Man, These Words of Comfort and Forgiveness Likely Gave This Man Hope in More Ways than One

But There Were Others in the House Who Were Not Thrilled By Jesus’ Words

Matthew 9:3 (NASB)

And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This fellow blasphemes.”

Mark and Luke Tell Us the Scribes and Pharisees Were Reasoning in Their Hearts:

“Who Can Forgive Sin But God Alone?”

How was Jesus Blaspheming/Speaking Evil of God?

By Claiming that He, a Human, Could Do What Only God Can Do

He was Claiming to Have the Authority of God

And for the First Time in Matthew (But Definitely Not the Last)…

Jesus is Facing Opposition From the Jewish Religious Leaders

Matthew 9:4 (NASB)

And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?

Jesus Knew What They Were Thinking

Was He Using the Power of the Holy Spirit to Read Their Minds?

Or Was He Simply Watching Them and Perceiving Their Reactions to His Words?

Regardless of How He Knew What They Were Thinking…

He Knew

And He Makes Them Aware of the Fact that He Knew

Matthew 9:5–6 (NASB)

“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.”

Which is Easier to Say?

His Point is that It’s Easier to Say, “Your Sins are Forgiven”…

Because That Can’t Be Proven False By External Evidence

It’s Much Harder to Claim to Heal a Paralyzed Man By Telling Him to Get Up…

Because it Can Be Proven False By External Evidence

Jesus is Proving to These Unbelieving Scribes and Pharisees…

That He has Authority On Earth to Forgive Sins

If He Can Do the Harder Thing, He Can Certainly Do the Easier Thing

Matthew 9:7 (NASB)

And he got up and went home.

He was Immediately Healed

In the Minds of Many Jews (as We Noted Earlier)…

A Person Couldn’t Be Healed Without Having Their Sins Forgiven First

When This Man Got Up and Started Walking…

It Would Have Been Solid Proof that Jesus Had Also Forgiven Him of His Sins

This Man Was Carried into the House on His Bed…

Physically and Spiritually Broken

Now He is Walking Out of the House, Carrying His Own Bed

Physically and Spiritually Whole

Matthew 9:8 (NASB)

But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

The Crowds Were Afraid (Reverential Fear) When They Saw the Man Get Up

And They Began Praising and Glorifying God

They Recognized that This was the Working of God

They Glorified God, “Who Had Given Such Authority to Men (Plural)”

This is Likely Just a General Statement:

How Wonderful it is that God Has Given Authority to Forgive and Heal to a Human

Application

In This Story, 5 Men Showed Great Faith in Jesus

The Paralytic was Expecting a Wonderful Gift of Healing

But What He Received was So Much Better

This Man Experienced Physical and Spiritual Healing

He was Fully Restored in Every Way

2 Things Made This Possible

1st and Foremost - The Authority and Compassion of the Messiah

2nd - The Faith of the Paralytic

Jesus Offers Full Restoration to Us as Well

He Sits at the Right Hand of God Almighty to Be Our Advocate

Because He Lives to Make Intercession for Us, We Have No Condemnation

We Have Hope for a Future Day

A Day When He Will Return

And We Will Be Resurrected to Transformed, Everlasting Bodies

And We Will Live Forever With Each Other and With Our Lord

Will You Place Your Faith in Him Today?

You Don’t Have to Dig Through the Roof to Come to Jesus