Matthew 9:1-8

Last week we considered Jesus’ Lordship, in light of the points that Matthew was putting on the table in chapter 8. Jesus had previously said, listen to me, and follow me, He said do these things if you want to be built on the rock, and then Matthew followed that up and said listen, everything else listens to Him, disease listens to Him, literal storms listen to Him, even demons listen to Him. And I believe all of that was said, in an effort to make the big point, that we should really listen to Him too. Everything else does. So last week we looked at Jesus as the Lord of lords through all of these things, and this week, He’s still Lord, obviously, He’s still doing some crazy things, and as we go through this, I want to understand the situation that is happening, but I also want us to grow from Jesus’ example in regard to forgiveness as that is the main thing that we will be looking at this morning. Let’s read our passage.

 

Read Matthew 9:1-8

 

Last week if you remember in Matthew 8, early in that chapter, Jesus was in a city called Capernaum, and that’s where He was engaging with the centurion guy who was asking for his servant to be healed. But after engaging with the centurion, Jesus and the disciples got on a boat and crossed the sea, and that’s when they ended up in the storm, where they all thought that they were going to die, and Jesus was just sleeping through it. Then they woke Jesus up, and Jesus told the storm to stop, which was crazy, and the storm listened, which is amazing and miraculous, and then they ended up on the other side of the sea where Jesus ran into those demon possessed guys and just told the demons to “GO”, and they went into some pigs and ran over a cliff into the sea and died.

 

But now we find at the beginning of chapter 9 that they are now crossing back over the sea back to the city of Capernaum once again, which Matthew records as “Jesus’ own city” in verse one. This is kind of where they set up their base of Kingdom operations and they end up back here regularly. And so this trip across the sea was probably calmer than the last trip going the other way, it doesn’t say that they ran into a storm this time, it doesn’t seem like they thought they were going to die on this leg of the trip, and while verse one seems like a calm boat ride back across the sea, verse two and three ramp up pretty quickly, in to the people engagement, and also the people drama, that Jesus was dealing with. Let’s read those two verses again so that we can focus on them specifically for a moment.

 

Read Matthew 9:2-3

 

These people come to Jesus carrying a stretcher with a paralyzed man on it. There’s no record of conversation that is had if there was one, between Jesus and these people, but whether by their words or by Jesus being God and just looking at the contents of their hearts and minds, which He will do to others in a minute as well, one way or the other it says that Jesus saw their faith there in verse 2. And in seeing this faith, Jesus says to the paralyzed man, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” And as a result of this you see the response of the scribes in verse 3 and they called Jesus a blasphemer. And you have to wonder in these accounts, at least I do, like did their just happen to be a group of scribes standing by when this situation happens, or was Jesus just on their radar now and maybe they were actively following Him around, and trying to catch Him slipping, so that they could try to discredit Him? We don’t really know, but they sure are around a lot, and now through this situation they think they have something on Him. They think they have caught a mere man making claims to do what only God can do.

 

This same situation is recorded in the Gospel of Mark and in Mark’s Gospel we can clearly see that this is their understanding. That Jesus was claiming to do something that only God can do. And Mark’s Gospel has a little more detail about these circumstances, so I want to just jump over there and deal with all of this from Mark’s perspective. So, let’s head over to Mark 2.

 

Read Mark 2:1-12

 

So now we see a little more information about the situation, like I said in Matthew, there’s still no recorded conversation between Jesus and these guys, but maybe that makes a little more sense now, with the fact that these guys were literally up on the roof, and dug a hole into that roof, to lower the paralyzed man right to where Jesus was. They couldn’t get to the front door, it was standing room only in the house, but these guys were motivated, Jesus said that they had faith, and they got up on that roof and made sure that this guy got to Jesus.

 

Part of me is like, man, this is a pretty interesting event that is unfolding here, and Matthew didn’t bother to cover the dramatics of the moment, but He just focused on the really important elements. He didn’t talk about the new skylight and this guy hanging above Jesus, instead He talked about this apparent issue of the forgiveness of sins and how these scribes reacted to that statement. Remember in Matthew that these guys were hanging out, they were hanging around, some of them were probably following Him for recon, they were seeing what was going on, and then they called Jesus as a blasphemer when He said what He said about the forgiveness of sins.

 

And just so that we’re on the same page in regard to what blasphemy is, I googled the definition for us:

 

 

So, these people were saying that Jesus was showing a great disrespect towards God. And how did they think that He was doing this? Well Mark makes it a little clearer for us in verse 7.

 

Read Mark 2:7

 

They basically said, like, how can He say these things? Who can forgive sins except God alone!? And you wish you could just grab hold of these guys and be like, you’re so close guys, you’re so close to understanding what is going on here, you’re absolutely right in that statement, that only God can forgive sins, and so if He is in fact forgiving sins, then let’s put those things together to figure out exactly Who He is.

 

It’s what I would want to say, but even in that, there is definitely still care to be taken, because there are people, who are just people, that do claim to forgive sins, who have you confess your sins to them and they pronounce forgiveness for you, there are people, who are just people that do this, so there still is reason to be careful in this area. And it’s definitely not bad to confess our sins to one another, but we would do that for accountability, and for the care of each other, and to help each other not continue in these sins. But what we must recognize is that we go to God and God alone for the forgiveness of sins. Yes, there is also the apology and forgiveness aspect with other people as well, but God at the end of the day is the only one that can truly forgive sin at His level.

 

And so, these scribes were like what in the world did He just say? Which is interesting too, because it likely wasn’t what the paralyzed man and the men carrying Him were expecting to hear either. They were probably expecting, be healed, or get up and walk, or whatever else right off the bat. But Jesus is like, son, your sins are forgiven. I just imagine, and just purely imagine or assume, that a lot of people in the room, were kind of like, “what?”, he needs to be healed of the paralysis Jesus, that’s what he’s here for. But maybe unknown to them, was that there was a much bigger issue on the table then the man’s paralysis. Sin’s paralysis of this man’s soul was a far greater issue than the paralysis of his body, and so Jesus went straight for the bigger issue at hand.

 

And that’s something for us to really stop and consider today. Maybe sometimes we can get so focused on specific issues, that seem so big to us, but at the same time, fail to see the issues, that God sees, as so much bigger than the other things that we are stuck on. These people came for healing of paralysis and received initially the forgiveness of sins. It probably wasn’t what they were looking for or expected, but the reality is that the sin issue far outweighs the paralysis, even though that might be hard to see in the middle of dealing with a difficult thing like that. And we have to understand that even if the next steps of this passage didn’t happen, even if God never did heal this man’s paralysis as well, that God would have taken care of the greater issue that this man was facing in this circumstance.

 

This paralysis is a huge thing in this man’s life, and maybe we’ve got all types of things, big and small, in our lives, and we’re like God would you deal with all of these things? And maybe He will with some, maybe He’ll deal with all of them, but maybe He won’t. The guy with leprosy last week, was like, “Jesus if you are willing, you can heal me”, he didn’t demand it, he left it completely up to God’s decision. But even with all of the other things that may be going on, that maybe we are praying for, have we gone to God for the forgiveness of sins? That’s one that He guarantees, if we go to Him in faith, like these people are doing in this account today. And will we then recognize that even if God doesn’t work out every other issue, He’s worked out the BIG ONE, He’s worked out the one that would have kept us away from Him forever. And that is truly something to be thankful for.

 

So, circling back again, Jesus took care of the big issue, but all of these scribes took issue with Him doing this. And Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking and saying. Matthew and Mark both talk about Jesus just supernaturally aware of what they were thinking within themselves. We see this in verse 8 of Mark 2.

 

Read Mark 2:8-9

 

Jesus knew what they were thinking and so Jesus engages the situation, and He asks them a question. He asks them “Which is easier, to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, and pick up your pallet and walk?” And what does He mean by this? What does He mean by, which one is easier? I mean obviously the forgiveness of sins, is a God sized task, it’s something that only God can do, surely it must be more difficult, but the forgiveness of sins in this moment also doesn’t have visible evidence. So, Jesus’ point is that it’s actually easier to say something that doesn’t have any visible evidence, like what He just did when He said “Son, your sins are forgiven”, and obviously these guys were all, so bothered, by that already. But it would actually be, much harder, to say something, that would be proven true or false, immediately, based on what happens after He says it.

 

So, Jesus is like, so you guys want some proof? You want to know that the Son of Man (who is Jesus) has the authority on earth to forgive sins? You want me to do the harder thing to prove that fact? Let’s read verses 10-12.

 

Read Mark 2:10-12

 

Jesus does the harder thing. He tells a fully paralyzed man to get up, pick up the stretcher, and head home. And the guy does just that and of course everyone in that place, was amazed, and glorified God, and they said, “We never saw anything like this!”. Back in Matthews account of this, it says in verse 8:

 

Read Matthew 9:8

 

They marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men. They got the glory to God part right, but a lot of these people were still in the same boat as the scribes, they were marveling that a man had been given such power but failed to understand yet that this was not just a mere man. This was once again as we talked about last week, the very Lord of lords. This was God come down to men, this was Emmanuel, which means God with us, this was Jesus Christ.

 

And so, what can we practically take away from this account this morning?

 

First off, in continuation of the point from last week. That He is the Lord of lords. We see Him in the passage declare the forgiveness of sins, which only God can do, and then when challenged, He proved His point, by healing this paralyzed man. He is able to do these things.

 

And lastly, let’s take to heart God’s example as a forgiver. For every single one of us, every one of our sins, is a sin against God specifically. King David in Psalm 51 said:

 

“Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight”

 

We have all done plenty of dumb and sinful things in our lives. 1 John 1 says:

 

^“8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

If we go to Him with our sin, if we repent, if we turn from that sin, He has promised to forgive us. It said there that He is faithful to forgive us. Some people try to take a truth like that and run with it, like YES!, I can do whatever I want, because He will just keep forgiving me. When Paul was dealing with the Romans in Romans 6, he was basically like, should we keep on sinning, because God will keep forgiving us? And Paul was like ABSOLUTELY NOT!

 

The gravity of His forgiveness should change and transform us, not cause us to be more comfortable in our sinning. But we will probably, still mess up at times, and I’m so thankful that He is so forgiving and gracious with us.

 

But if we see that in Him, and if we now stand in the grace of His forgiveness, shouldn’t we seek to be like Him and be forgiving of the people that have wronged us as well? Nobody has done as much bad against us, as we have all done against Him, and yet He still freely forgives us. We’re trying to be like Him, we’re trying to be His disciples, that means follow Him. Let’s follow Him in His example of being a forgiver as well.