Sermon Tone Analysis
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Welcome and announcements
Easter Service
I want to set a goal to have 50 people here on Easter.
We are not going to advertise like we did last year
I want each of you to take this responsibility personally and bring people with you
If everyone in here brings at least 1 person on Easter we will meet or exceed our goal
I will not be going Door-to-Door evangelism this afternoon
That does not mean you cannot go!
I am taking my family to the zoo to look at dinosaurs.
2022 Goals
Goals are important because they give us some accountability to our calling.
Here is the thing about goals: WE MUST SEE OURSELVES AS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE
If 3 out of 20 are working towards meeting these goals then we will never meet them
But if we all get involved, we will have a successful year
Ways you can help meet these goals:
Give sacrificially!
Witness faithfully!
Pray continuously!
Scripture Reading
1 Chron 16:23-25 “Sing to the Lord, all the earth; Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.
Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He also is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and joy are in His place.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the Lord in holy array.”
Pastoral Prayer
May your Holy Spirit fill this place today
break our hearts for you and may Your word penetrate deep within Today.
INTRODUCTION
I am so excited to be here today!
What a great day to worship God and to hear His Word preached!
What a great day to come together to exalt Jesus Christ with born again believers!
This morning we are going to talk about forgiveness.
Not as in we must forgive one another (though we should) but “The Miracle of Forgiveness” that each one of us desperately needs.
The kind of forgiveness that makes us right with God.
The kind of forgiveness that washes away all of our sins: past, present, and future.
The kind of forgiveness that only God can grant to us.
As we approach Easter, this is really what Easter is about.
It is about the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ that paid the penalty for our sins.
The forgiveness that Jesus offers that can only come through the cross.
Matthew 9:1-2
Explanation
By this time Jesus has healed many people.
His reputation has gone out all over the place as one who can heal the sick, cast out demons, turn water into wine.
Crowds are coming to him.
Jesus is becoming widely known as a miracle worker because he can do what the world has never seen.
Here we have four men bringing to Jesus a man who is laying on a bed paralyzed because he needs a miracle.
We do not know much about the man other than he is unable to walk because he had to be carried to Jesus.
And we can imagine these four men each holding a corner of this mat carrying this man to the Healer.
As we are reading this story, what we expect to happen is Jesus to heal this man’s physical ailment.
We expect Him to touch or command the man to walk and the man to get up and walk.
Because clearly this man is in great distress and has probably suffered for many many years.
And it seems so obvious that by bringing this man to Jesus is to expect him to be healed.
But that is not what happens.
It almost seems as though Jesus completely ignores the man’s paralysis and yet grants him forgiveness instead.
And this verse ends with Jesus telling the man to “take courage!”
In other words, there is no need to fear anymore child because your sins have been forgiven and everything else is trivial compared to this.
This is what Jesus is saying with His action: your biggest problem, the root of all of your problems, the problem that has separated you from God your entire life is gone.
That great need of being able to walk cannot even be compared to the burden that I have taken off of your back.
1) There is no greater need in the human life than to be forgiven
Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the people who were watching this thing unfold.
We can only imagine what was going through those men’s hearts as they carried this man all the way to Jesus, and instead of healing him, He forgives him.
And I could only imagine there were some people in that crowd who felt like the man got cheated!
Here is the great Healer!
Here was the man’s chance to have another shot at life!
To get up off the streets and go and make a living!
To go and have a wife and children and have some kind of quality of life!
And Jesus completely ignores this man’s obvious physical need!
Bridge
Jesus knows so much more than we think we know.
Quality of life does not come from the ability to walk, but by being made right with God!
And the only way to be made right with God is to have our sins forgiven!
It does matter how much we have, or how good our health is we will never have the true quality of life apart from the forgiveness of God.
John tells us: “In Him was [life], and the life was the Light of men”.
Life doesn’t begin when we begin to walk, it doesn’t begin when we begin to talk, it doesn’t begin when we grow up and get a job and a family, LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE ARE BORN AGAIN!
There are essential things that we need for life and Jesus gives them all!
Miracles of healing are temporary!
Everyone is going to die!
If Jesus came and made my body whole today, that will not matter at all when I draw my last breath!
What matters most in this life is not having the best earthly life, but having spiritual life!
These earthly bodies are temporary, they are going to wear out I promise!
But our spirits are eternal!
And what Jesus has done to this man we must understand if by far greater than any kind of healing of these earthly bodies!
Application
Do you know what brought this paralyzed to Jesus?
It was his paralysis.
It was the condition of his physical body.
It was the situation that he had been given in his life.
It was his predicament in which he had no way out of!
And do you know what God often uses to bring us to Jesus?
It is some sort of physical, relational, or predicament that we find ourselves in with no way out.
Do you know that God will let your life fall apart if that is what it takes to bring you to Him? Do you know God will let bad times and hard times come into your life so that the only hope you have left is Jesus Christ?
It was a broken marriage and alcoholism and a hopeless situation that God used to bring me to Christ.
It was the extreme hopelessness and darkness in Ashley’s life that God used to bring her to Christ.
God often uses the broken areas of our lives to bring our focus to Him so He can give us the greater need.
2) Your faith plays a part in the forgiveness of others
Matthew 9:2 (NASB95)
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.”
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