Valuing The Lord’s Presence

In your Bible, if you would join me in Matthew chapter number nine, and we're going to read verse nine down to verse number eight, verse number one down to verse number eight. I'm sorry.

Yeah, kind of an awkward way to read, wouldn't it? Matthew chapter nine, verse one down to verse number eight. The Bible tells us Actually, let's start in verse thirty four of chapter eight because that's going to tie into what we're going to talk about today It says in Matthew eight thirty four and behold the whole city came out to meet Jesus and when they saw him They besought him that he would depart out of their coasts that sounds like America doesn't it and He entered into a ship and passed over and came into his own city and behold they brought to him a man sick of the palsy Lying on a bed and Jesus seeing their faith said into the sick of the palsy son be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee and behold certain of the scribes said within themselves this man blasphemeth and Jesus knowing their thoughts said wherefore thank ye evil in your hearts for whether is Easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or to say arise and walk But that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins Then saith he to the sick of the palsy arise take up thy bed and go into thine house And he arose and departed to his house But when the multitude saw it they marveled and glorified God which had given such power unto men God again your word before us is our wisdom.

It is our understanding and we rejoice That you've granted us such grace through the scriptures and I pray God that you would Unpack your truth for us today. I pray that our hearts would be Open and receptive to what your word has to say to us that we would leave here Lord refreshed encouraged Edified built up on the Word of God and that it would be our foundation it would be the rock upon which we stand and when men in this world ask us and challenge us that we would go back to The scriptures and ask the question what sayeth the scriptures that it would be our light our wisdom And so at this time Lord we pray for your blessing and may your Holy Spirit have his way in this service now And we ask it all in Jesus name and God's people said Amen, you may be seated If I were to ask you this morning, what do you value most in life? And I gave you a piece of paper with three slots on it What would be the top three things that you would write down that you value most in your life? I'm sure many of us would say our families our Our health our home God and his word But The then the question would come is do the pursuits of our life reflect those values Do the things that we are pursuing? With our time and our energy and our resources reflect our values Or do we know the right answers, but we don't always live out those right answers If Christ's value is based on our pursuit of him with our lives What could you point to to show his value?

What would you say? I know the Lord is valued in my life because of this What priority does the Word of God have in your life? Do you study the scriptures?

I would say in essence the difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible is people who study the Bible ask questions What does your church attendance say Do you do you come to church with a desire to grow and to love and worship the Lord? Or has it become some kind of a ritual in essence? Do you desire to get involved in classes and learn about Christ? You know last Sunday was a record Sunday in our life groups.

That's the most we've ever had in the history of lighthouse That's good news. Isn't it people wanting to plug in and learn the Word of God? What does your evangelism sharing your faith say about how much you value the Lord in your life? The Bible is clear that there is nothing more valuable nothing more precious than knowing Christ in Matthew chapter 13 verse 44 through 46 Jesus talks about the the value of the kingdom of heaven and he said it would be worth selling Everything you had to have that to give up all that you had for that priceless treasure The value of Christ is really seen in the heart of the psalmist and David's words in Psalms 84 verse 2 He says my soul longeth Yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God Would it be great if if that was the desire of the believers of our day? He says in verse 1 and 2 as the heart panteth or the deer pants after the water brooks So panteth my soul after thee.

Oh God my soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God? I was reading this week and my here journal doing a study out of John 5 and and Jesus is talking to the scribes and Pharisees and he says search the scriptures For in them you think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me And what you find is the religious leaders of the day Had had memorized much of the Bible. They had read it. They had studied it, but they missed Christ they they missed Jesus in the midst of their reading and And they were they were religious readers But they missed the worship and the glory of Christ in the scriptures and he says you you're doing it all in vain and and I fear today that that We can come to the Word of God and we can read the Word of God and we can walk away without seeing Christ in the scriptures and In the way that happens is you read the scriptures and we're unmoved by his glory Like it's una it doesn't affect us We read it and we're you know, I'm not quite sure what I just read but but I know I read for the day I checked the box off got that time slide in and we move away. We're doing Doing nothing efficiently for our lives We're we're in some sense taking lightly God and Christ and and there is no longing there is no crying out There is no seeking him with all of our heart soul mind and strength and loving him and we're somewhat Pharisaical and going through the motions of reading and missing the glory of Christ in the midst of his word He says search the scriptures for in them You think you have eternal life and they testify of me then the men on the road to Emmaus miss Christ in Scripture He says he says you err and he begins to he says you're fools in the Greek.

It's morass It's where we get the word morons. He's like you're morons you you and and and he begins to go through the Bible with them to show them how these things had to happen to him So today let's not be morons Let's come to the Word of God worshipful of Christ You shouldn't look forward to your coffee more than you do scripture Amen Get your coffee sip your lattes, right? but worship Christ You should you should get done reading and fall on your knees before him You should get done reading and say I I have to bow in his presence for a moment I I am I am overwhelmed with the glory of Christ Paul exemplified this spirit in Philippians 3 he went through his resume of all that he accomplished for God and he says I I've added all of it up everything I've ever worked for it. He says I count it but dung It is nothing to me compared to the All surpassing glory of knowing Christ. He said I would gladly give all of it up so that I might know him in Philippians 3 7 through 10 That is the beat of the heart of those who understand the value of Christ A.w. Tozer wrote in his book the pursuit of God that we are in danger of the love of This world and the tyranny of things Possessions worldly things grab our hearts And Years ago, there were some believers in Russia who if you're a believer in Russia You basically put your life on the line many times and you it's just you're but but they they're so Devoted to Christ and some of them shared with one missionary They said it must be very difficult being a Christian in America because you guys don't have persecution. You guys have so much stuff We Christ must be hard to worship in the midst of all of that You know, we don't have anything I Fear too often we can give God our verbal love but our actual love is kept from him A.w. Tozer wrote a prayer 20 years ago that when I read it, I've just never forgot it At the end of chapter 2 he writes father.

I want to know you but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys And he said I can't part with them without inward bleeding. I Do not try to hide from thee the terror of the parting I come trembling, but I do come Please root from my heart all those things which I've cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self So that thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival Well, we need prayers like that today, don't we? Y'all with me this morning you believe that?

Okay, don't get me worked up. I'll start all over again And today I want to look at the example of those who could care less about Jesus They could care less if he stayed or if he went and really they just didn't want to have him And then we're going to see an example of one who desired him greatly and today we're going to be looking at a message I've entitled valuing the Lord's presence and First of all, we see the tragedy of rejecting the Lord's presence and it starts back in verse 34 of chapter 8 It says and behold the whole city came out to meet Jesus and and boy that starts off real good It's like wow, you know, they're coming out to meet Jesus and when they saw him they besought him It's like oh man that they're they're seeking after him But what are they seeking him for that? He would depart out of their coasts And you know what verse 1 the next thing it says and Jesus began to say no you don't know how valuable I am I want to bring my word to you. I want you to be saved You need to know me you need to repent heaven is real.

Hell is real. You need to be saved It's not what it says It's not what it says at all They said Jesus we want you to leave He says bye Walks off scene Anybody see that coming You don't want me You won't have me You asked me to go and I will get on my ship and I will never return here That's what he does. He never comes back ever Gedera never meets Jesus again But he does send a demon-possessed man to preach Demon-possessed guys like Jesus can I go and he says no Says you go back into that city and you tell them what I've done for you You know what Gedera miss Jesus because they would they would rather have two maniac Demon-possessed people than Jesus Christ on their shore Well, that sounds like America does it they'd rather have drag queens talking to children in our schools than Jesus Think that's true But the ACLU would come against Jesus They would let drag queens live all day among our children and why on earth do men want to dress up as women and talk?

to little children That is a sick perversion, isn't it? In verse number one, this is also very interesting to me It says and he entered into a ship and passed over and what's the last part of verse one say and came into his what? now now if if you didn't know this passage you would think that He came into his own city being the city of Nazareth Wouldn't that be right? I mean, where did Jesus grow up? He didn't grow up in Bethlehem He had to run from Bethlehem He didn't grow up in Egypt He grew up in Nazareth The Bible tells us that he grew up in Nazareth According to Luke chapter 4 verse 16. It says and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up You have your Bibles you can flip over to Luke 4. I want to show you a couple things there One thing you find about Nazareth in the Bible Nazareth was a very insignificant town I mean, this was not like a popular city. Jesus didn't grow up in like the cool town He grew up in a place kind of like Xenia We've had people come to our church and they I said who invited you they said, you know So-and-so invited me and I was like, you know you guys you get a church in Xenia We've had people who come here and they they laugh about it now But they said, you know, we our friends were like you go why you go to Xenia Isn't there a better town than that with a better church than that? There you go And so he comes to Nazareth or he Nazareth I should say was his hometown You know when when when Philip came to Nathaniel said we found him Jesus of Nazareth remember what Nathaniel's response was. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

That's what Nathaniel said about it. It was it was a spurned city scorned look down upon that they they would It was kind of a mocking way to call them the the sect of the Nazarenes is what they called the early church believers and what's so amazing is When he does come to his hometown of Nazareth Which was his hometown His first message that he ever preached is recorded in Luke chapter 4 verse 14 in Nazareth And it says in Jesus returned in the power of spirit Into Galilee and there went out of fame of him through all the region round about and he taught in their synagogues being glorified of all Everybody's praising him worshiping him and then verse 16. He comes to Nazareth where he had been brought up I mean for 30 years of his life. I mean this is where he lived and And then look and as his custom was he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. And what did he do?

Instead of three. Why do we stand to read? It's honor the Lord and his word, right? So he preaches a message to them from verse 17 down to verse number 21 he goes through some passages with them from Isaiah and Look what verse 22 says after they get done hearing him and All bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth like wow, this is powerful Something but how do they respond it says and they said it it's not this Joseph son This is just Jesus What caused them to stop marveling at Christ was they they just turned Jesus into the all-too-common Jesus Oh, I've known Jesus. I grew up as Christian. I went to Christian school. I didn't personally but people into Christian school I grew up in church as a little, you know, I've heard all that before. Oh, okay You from Nazareth Is that where you from are you a Nazareth Christian today?

You're one of those guys Jesus nothing really special to you. He's not really the Son of God to you He's kind of the son of Joseph, which is clearly false, right? I mean look at verse 23 and he said unto them you will surely say to me this proper physician heal thyself That's what they did when he was on the cross didn't they? And whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum do thou here in thy country and he said verily I say unto you No prophet is accepted in his own country I remember when my brother-in-law Chad was going to start a church in Xenia He never came to Xenia to do it because his family were all here And he told me he said a prophets not without honor except in his own country And so he went up to Greenville and started a church So I came to see He said a prophets not without honor except except in his own country and It begins to talk to them about how Elijah Was rejected by the nation of Israel and he said, you know in the days of Elijah there were a lot of widows But Elijah was never and there was a lot of widows in need during the drought during that season three years of drought, but God never sent him to any of the widows of of Israel but he did send him to a widow That was of Sarepta a city of Sidon unto a woman and it was a Gentile woman and he says and there was a lot of lepers in the time of Elisha But unto no Leopard did God send Elisha to heal in Israel, but he did heal Naaman the Syrian who was another Gentile So he's like the two greatest prophets of Israel during those times when they rejected God God rejected them and And They missed the blessing of God upon their nation.

How do the people respond to this you think they're accepting of it? You know conviction does one of two things you either get humble and repentive or you get mad y'all with me You ever anybody ever been mad at a message just irritated that thinking preacher You know frustrated I've had people so mad at me before I had people thought I preached the whole sermon just to them I Might only do that to Ken fry. There's really no one else that I do that for here Verse 29 and look what they do in verse 28 and all day in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him into the brow of the hill where on their city was built that they might cast Him down headlong. They were going to murder him for his message Do you think Jesus was?

Seeking to be popular Did it look like he was more concerned about truth than he was? acceptance You know unless we really make the world the church like the world and the world feels really comfortable in church You know that we really know we don't do that. You know, the church service is not designed for unbelievers This morning is not designed to make a lost person feel comfortable quite frankly I don't want lost people to come in here and feel comfortable I want them to feel loved and welcomed and all of that But they should leave here Billy and if they're not right with God, they need to feel that They need to feel the weight of that I'm not in here gonna preach John 3 16 every week We're gonna dive into the word verse by verse because God's people need God's work to grow That's that's it. That's a very important difference between lighthouse and some other churches The church is not designed for the lost it is designed for the saved We don't meet to evangelize we go to evangelize.

Does that make sense? Now people get saved almost every week in our services but that's not like our focus is is growing the believers so that they can go out and evangelize and win the lost and bring them and so forth, but And so and so they reject Christ he leaves the city and look at verse 31 of Luke 4 the passing through the midst and he leaves in verse 31 and came down to Capernaum in in chapter 5 verse 1 of Luke 5 and it came to pass as the people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God and You find by verse number 3 that he sat down and taught the people He taught those who wanted the truth. You need to hear this very clearly Gadara didn't want Jesus. He left them Nazareth didn't want Jesus. He left them And then later on the city of Capernaum didn't want Jesus and he leaves them to Jesus Christ will give you the Word of God. He will bring you the truth, but he will not force-feed you He will not make you accept it Sometimes I've had people say you know what? You know Lord just really needs to and they begin to put all these mandates upon God God's got to do something special to kind of do to Them for them to really believe in him I'm like really? You think God's on trial here, right? You don't put God on trial you're on trial He is perfect. You're the one jacked up You need to humble yourself and like seek him like if you read the Bible you like I got nothing out of it It wasn't the Bible's fault that morning We Just didn't value him You know, God is not cheap.

Did you hear that? Like God's not like hey, you can buy him at Walmart on the checkout line. We want the Walmart checkout line, Jesus We want the microwavable fast-food Jesus He's like I don't feed people like that You don't you don't take me serious You don't sit down and study and long for and hunger more than your necessary food the Word of God Then you'll leave empty every time You come to church half-white eyes half-closed still sleep.

He's thinking about the things in the world. You're gonna leave empty If you get up this morning and you seek him and you're longing for him and you're reading the word studying it Desiring the things of God he will fill you in direct proportion to the desire that you've shown him Know that Know that Friend how valuable is Jesus in your life? That's why we do life groups The Bible says study to show yourself approved unto God. You mean I got to do some homeworks You can go to life group and do no homework You don't have to fill out that page It takes probably five to ten minutes to fill out if you don't want to answer questions about the Bible You don't have to answer them but you better know those answers when someday God has somebody coming to your life and you're not able to answer those questions because you Didn't want to answer questions The difference between reading and studying is people who study ask questions we design questions so that you You can study the Word of God. Well, I don't want to do that then Is it is it just so unenticing is it so undesirable Well, what does it take you five ten minutes? Are you on Facebook for four hours this week, but you can't take four minutes to study like I can't even get that That's you don't have to do that work You don't have to you can still sit and grow and do all those things But I can tell you you'll miss out on some stuff in life. I don't like doing degree I don't want to do a here journal really Why you don't want to study you don't walk away that day with something you can share I could share from the overflow of my heart for the rest of this sermon Just the things that God's shown me in the last couple weeks and just doing here journals don't miss that stuff and you think by going through some ritual checking off a box walking away and What do you have that day that you could share with somebody that you learned?

Do you have something? Or is Jesus just the all-too-common Jesus. Oh, that's just the Son of Joseph We may never say that but our life speaks a lot louder than our lips beware friends We can become Nazareth How much do you desire him, you know, I think about it Moses in Exodus 33 He told God he said God if you presence doesn't go up with me. I will not go I'm not going to go Exodus 33 verse 15, you know America is like the Titanic and the icebergs of sin are just beating this nation down and and it's collapsing and what to God God would do a Revival in the hearts of his people the answer will never come from the White House. It will come from the church house There's got to be believers who get real serious about the Lord Jesus Christ. He will revolutionize people's lives. I Mean look what he's done in 13 years six to seven hundred people at lighthouse. God has done some great and marvelous things that only he gets credit for Wouldn't it be great to see Churches splattered all across the country that we could train people and send guys out and start churches and send missionaries out Here in Matthew 9 Capernaum is referred to as his own city Capernaum is only about 20 miles away from Nazareth But tragically by the time you get to Matthew 11 verse 23 and 4 they also had rejected Christ And so Christ's response to those who don't want him. He'll he'll just let him go He doesn't like scream at him preach at him yell at him try to force them.

He just you don't want him He'll just let you go Secondly an example of those who valued Christ's presence is found in verse 2 and And behold the word behold there is like a grab your attention word This is like an exclamation point and behold they brought to him a man sick of the palsy lying on a bed So he came to his own city and then there are some guys bringing a man who's paralyzed lying on a bed This story is repeated both in Mark chapter number 2 and in Luke 5 in high school. I played football and there would be times where we would have drills where you like put a guy on your back and like Like crawl or like do some kind of you'd lock arms and do some different things like carry them I hated that it was there was nothing easy about carrying another person and sometimes somebody would get injured and like you would have to carry them off the field or something and and It's just dead weight like that is very hard You could take a guy could deadlift 315 pounds that guy ain't picking a 300 pounder up and carrying him anywhere You just can't do it. It's just a very it's not easy to do So there's four guys carrying a paralyzed man on a on a makeshift bed And I just wonder how far did they carry this guy? I Mean it a half mile away if their town was I mean that's a long way to carry a guy on a bed, isn't it?

You ever like it'd be like four guys carrying like a small refrigerator. It's like after a while. You're like man I got put my hands are killing me Come on now And you get up and go again and it's not like smooth roads. I've been over there. It's it's rocky terrain. It's hills It's like you don't have a real comfortable place to put him down at even if you stop I mean, this is this is taxing. This is hard.

What if it was two miles away five miles away? I Mean, this is not an easy situation here The first thing that value and Christians will do is it will cause you to be committed These guys were committed. They were committed to getting their friend to where the Lord was What you value in life you will commit to if you value your marriage will be committed to it. You value Christ You'll commit to him And and one of the sign of a true friend is they will always seek to bring their friends to Jesus You know the greatest friends in my life are the ones who brought me to the Lord These guys are making some serious sacrifice of time and energy to bring him To where the Lord was and there are some challenges here verse 2 Just says these guys are bringing a man sick of the palsy lying on a bed But when you read mark 2 and also in Luke chapter 5 Luke chapter 5 verse 18 says and behold A man brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy He's paralyzed and they sought means to bring him in there Like where can we bring him in Jesus in this house and we got to get him to Jesus To lay before him and when they could find not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude I mean they carry their friend the entire way they get to Jesus and they're like all the crowds are too many, we can't get him in and you would think somebody be like hey, you know that There's four guys. They're carrying this guy with a who's paralyzed on a bed.

Let's let's make some room. Nobody does that Everybody just kind of like whoo It's my chair Small parking lot. It's my spot, you know, they're kind of an us-for-no-more mentality, didn't they? And If I ever hear of the attitude of somebody here that says, you know, that's my chair I will sit in your chair I Will preach from your chair and then I will park in your parking spot So what do they do the rest of verse 19 and Luke chapter 5 says this they went upon the housetop and let him down through the tilling Or the ceiling of the house with his couch into the midst before Jesus Mark 2 4 says they uncovered the roof where he was when they had broken it up They let down the bed where in the sick of the falls he lay You need to have seen houses in those days had flat roofs They usually had a stairway outside that led up to the roof there People would sometimes even sleep on the roof because the heat of the house and the kitchen and so forth If you remember in Acts chapter 10 verse 9 Peter was up on the roof praying These men go onto the roof with the paralyzed man. They're literally pulling off the ceiling and the roof tiles of the house digging through the clay underlayment and Commence in lowering this man down in front of where Jesus is, you know, there's there's quite a few reasons I thought they could have stopped and Been like, you know, this is really Friend we brought you here, you know, the rest is up to you I mean, I mean this is This is tough. I Thought I thought if I saw Jesus this far that would be enough. I Thought if man if I made the journey Surely that's enough and no there's there's more that you got to do sometimes when you seek after the Lord There's there's some obstacles that you're gonna have to overcome Sometimes you're gonna have to be made a little bit more uncomfortable than what you reckoned But some people don't want to press into where Christ is because it's just too Externally uncomfortable. What are people going to think if I got that serious about being where he was? I Mean there was a lot of reasons these guys could and I'm sure when they're starting to pull the tiles off There's people like you What are you guys doing?

Stop? I Mean you imagine Jesus teaching and somebody's like I knew the roof was gonna fall in on me I knew I wasn't worthy to be here, you know roof starts coming down on the heads. I Mean and somebody would have thought, you know, he's in the middle of a message This is so disruptive We had somebody just a few minutes ago walking up on the roof of the building here you some of you probably heard like what? Is that you know, I should time it to be like, okay When I hit this button jump on the roof, I'm gonna be preaching real loud, you know people like whoa Some of you have sit in here and the Lord's gonna come up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right we go so I'm sure they're there. I'm sure they were thinking let's wait till the message is at least over Let's let's like maybe get Jesus on his way out Let's wait till the crowds kind of spins and then you have to ask the question It's a little precarious to lower a paralyzed guy with ropes down You know, like if you're laying on bed, you'd be like leaning one way or the other but this guy's paralyzed You roll him wrong and he's off like sorry, I Told you John you hold your side up, you know, I mean, I'm just telling you this is when you start thinking about it This is not like an easy process Like these guys I mean and how do you hold that?

Like that's not an easy move to like lower down. This is extremely distracting I mean after a while you'd have thought the crowds would be like, okay. Listen, just bring him around the front No They're lowering the guy down to where Jesus was this is just incredible to me They wanted their friend to be in the presence of God so much that there was literally no Obstacle too great to keep them from bringing their friend to the Lord.

Nothing. Nothing would stop them Nothing would stop them Dear friends if we would have that kind of heart today That we would look upon those in our lives that are broken hurting and lost to To have a heart to bring them to Christ to see their only hope is him Who in your life is not saved? You and I can't save them, but we can tell them do your neighbors know that you're a Christian and do they know Christ? You should not be able to live where you're at very long without having invited your friends to church Your neighbors to church or at least told them about Christ that should not be said of you If that can be said of you, then you're missing it If I died and my children were lost would I want them to be your neighbor Could I trust you with my children? Could I trust that you would go to say something to them? Or would I say no no, not that person.

They would never go to their neighbors. They're too concerned about the obstacles It'd be too tedious for them Be that person and I love the stories I hear at lighthouse of people going to their neighbors doing different events inviting people Praise God for that Let me ask you another question. How hard have you sought to be in the presence of God? Well, it doesn't take much to get people away from the Lord.

Does it? You know time change Sunday is annually the lowest Sunday typically of the year. Just one hour knocks 20% of the church out One hour it's all it takes I Wonder if the Super Bowl was at 7 a.m. On a Sunday morning if those same people would get up and watch it But it just takes one hour. It's like, you know 11 o'clock service even like there's an 11 o'clock by 11 o'clock two-thirds of my days over I Preach much better in the early service by 11. I'm like man mentally I'm getting foggy right now I'm trying to you think you would do better the second time around.

No. No, I slow down 11 o'clock is like late We need to have like a seven and a nine o'clock services, I think let's get really fresh, you know, so It doesn't take much it's it's I used to get discouraged by time change Sunday now I actually kind of enjoyed because I get to come and preach to those who are really committed Like they're really serious. The Lord convicted me about that years ago, and I'm like, you're right Lord. I I I I try to preach the best sermon I ever can on those kind of days I try to study extra for those seasons when I know The committed will really make the sacrifice because it's like you're you're getting out of your comfort zone a little bit more.

I Just I Just never want to turn into a Nazareth Christian I Just never want to be a good dare a Christian. I never want to be somebody who just Treats Jesus as common Let me give you a third thought here and we'll kind of move toward the end It's a general direction The Lord's response and reward to those who value him in verse 2 through 8 Says in Jesus seeing their faith You know, that's an interesting statement, isn't it and Jesus seeing Does it say his faith or their faith their faith? This is vicarious faith, isn't it? Jesus is literally gonna bless the man for their faith and I I believe the man was also could be in the word there But these men are also there How do you see faith well, I believe true faith always has some flesh and bones on it James 2 18 says show me thy faith without thy works and I'll show you my faith by my works You know faith is like the wind though, you can't see its essence you can see its action you can see its effect Do you have a living faith?

Like can you point the things in life and say? This evidence is my belief. I mean you being here at like 830 in the morning evidence as you believe There is you believe something here. I mean, I believe you trust in Christ. I believe you believe his word.

I believe you're serious. I Want you to see here also again, it's it's not It's not simply the man on the bed who had faith these men blessed him with their faith as well This Also happens back in Matthew 8. It seems Matthew wanted to highlight the power of vicarious faith Do you remember when he came to the Centurion the Centurion said my? Servant is sick But speak the word only and he shall be healed the nothing said of the servants faith But the Centurion had great faith and Jesus says go home. He will be healed just as you have believed Do you realize that's what happens when we pray for our lost loved ones? God can so often bless them because of our faith not because of their faith They must personally receive the gospel, but God can soften their hearts and prepare them for salvation How does Jesus respond to their faith in verse 2 it says and he's seeing their faith set into the sick of the palsy Son be of good cheer. I like that word son child.

I mean the guy had to be a little bit worried, right? Not only for me lower down but also from like Coming into the presence of God Like either he's going to destroy me or he's going to save me like like what's he going to do? Then he says son child be of good cheer. Thy sins be forgiven me He lowers they they lower him down and Jesus forgives his sins It's kind of interesting the Greek word there for forgiven FMI and the Greek refers to sending something away It's exactly what Psalm 103 verse 12 means when it says as far as the east is from the west so far hath removed our Transgressions from us.

He just took them away from us. He cast them away When you come to Christ, he casts your sin away Now why does God forgive the sick of the palsy instead of healing him I Mean these guys had to be thinking, you know Can you heal him and the guy on the bed could have also been thinking that When they finally get him to Jesus after all the sacrifice carrying the man by hand arriving there Exhausted on a Black Friday crowd climbing on the roof opening the roof up lowering him down What's Jesus do he forgives him? Where's the healing? There's a very amazing truth here What you see here is Jesus giving the man the best up front They sacrifice to get to Jesus and he's going to give the guy the best thing up front You make that kind of sacrifice. I'm not going to wait to forgive you. I'll give you the best thing now And you know why forgiveness is the greatest miracle that Jesus has ever done in our lives ever People say do you believe Jesus does miracles every day forgiveness of sins the greatest miracle? Because nothing is more destructive in our lives than sin sickness is not more destructive to you than sin Cancer is not as damaging as sin sin ravages us from the inside out It's so damaging Jesus said it'd be better to have bad health and to have salvation and good health and go to hell right say cut your hand Off rip your eye out better to not even have body parts Also, no miracle is greater than forgiveness because nothing costs more than forgiveness It costs God more to forgive us than it ever would cost him to heal us And then thirdly no miracle is greater than forgiveness because forgiveness has the most lasting effects I Mean there was some point where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but Lazarus died again Lazarus at the end of his life had to think here we go again You know everybody that Jesus ever healed died But a hundred percent of those Jesus forgave are still forgiven So which one would you rather have today a perfect health or perfect salvation You know what he did for us he's given us the best up front He's given us the best up front is the healing come and all it's coming and What we find here in these miracles of Christ is him Prefiguring the kingdom where Psalms 103 says he forgives our iniquity and heals all of our diseases One day eternally we will live without any type of physical effects of anything So, why does Jesus save this man from the four of his sins because he responds to faith faith provokes God's blessings And you know their reward was greater than what they came for. They brought the man for healing and he left forgiven When you pursue God when you make sacrifice to be where he is when you overcome obstacles The Lord will bless you more than you had expected him to That's Ephesians 3 20, isn't it? When he says now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think according to working of his mighty power There's some critical responses in verse 3 and behold certainly describes said within himself this man, blaspheme I always remember when God's at work the enemy is at work Whenever God is working you're gonna always have a front row critic. These critics came from within the house not from without They were right in front Just just always know when you make a spiritual decision. Somebody's gonna be like, well, let's see how long that last Well, let's see if you're really serious Why doubt that's gonna change anything? There's always gonna be somebody who criticizes you Why are you going on Sunday mornings every week?

You crazy? Why are you investing financially in that church? Why are you coming Wednesday? Why are you why are you going up there and helping these days? and how does Jesus respond to these critics in verse 4 and Jesus knowing their what their thoughts said wherefore thank ye evil in your hearts Boy that just that just raised the temperature in the room, didn't it? at that moment their mouths were not running their mind was and then Jesus just brings to light what they were thinking They thought only God can forgive sin who this guy think he is God He's like, why are you thinking that? Well, that was weird, I mean this this this would have startled them this would have shocked them But before they could think anything else Jesus gives him something to ponder He says whether is easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or to say arise and walk what's easier to say What a great question Like well, you can't tell somebody they're forgiven. That's a divine prerogative and you can't heal somebody. I mean, that's a divine prerogative The answer is they're both impossible right You can't forgive somebody sins and you can't heal them They literally have no answer for Jesus Now to the natural man, it would be easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee.

Here's why If you say your sins are forgiven you for all time You can't test that right? You can't see that that's an invisible thing it would be much harder to say to a paralyzed man rise and take up your bed and walk because if he didn't rise up and Walk, then it would verify that he was paralyzed That your words mean nothing So here Jesus is going to validate the invisible The spiritual the forgiveness of sins by healing the man's paralysis So not only does Jesus give the guy the best upfront by healing by forgiving his sins Now he's going to heal him to prove the naysayers wrong verse 6 is this But that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins Then say if he to the sick of the palsy arise take up that bed and go into thine house I can tell you every eye in the room is looking at this guy If he gets up Jesus has power to forgive if he doesn't he is a fraud So what happens verse 7 and he arose and departed to his house His outward healing just validated his inward healing Jesus put on display physically what happened to the man? spiritually his external health was reflective of his internal health And how did the people respond to this in verse 8 but when the multitude saw it they marveled and glorified God which had given such power unto notice they saw Jesus as a man We never got his glorified men are blessed the greater the glory the greater the blessing This man brought his lost broken life to Jesus and when glory met him it saved him and restored him You know, it's interesting he got up and went to his house he immediately went to his house I Just wonder Who at his home he needed to talk to Perhaps he got injured perhaps something happened Maybe even a sin caused him to have this health situation And maybe that's why this man felt guilty over his sin And Jesus forgave him first to relieve the pressure on the inside because I can tell you this and you know this to be true Of your own life the greatest pains we have in life are not external are they they're internal So Jesus brings the healing first where it's needed most But Maybe this man could no longer take care of his wife his children his family his kids Maybe he's never wrapped his arms around his wife and children for years because of his paralysis. This man gets to go home fully healthy there's no go and see the Recovery group later, you know go you're gonna have to go through some therapy for a while None of that Jesus heals.

It's a hundred percent done Perhaps today you feel broken like you need someone to carry you just to make it. I Want you to know when you come to Jesus when you make the sacrifice of Truly pursuing him yourself not half-hearted Not partially but fully to lay your life before the Lord. He will give the best to you He will lavish his blessing of forgiveness to the humble soul It was a man who beat upon his chest saying God be merciful to me a sinner that went home forgiven And I close today by asking what does your pursuit of the Lord say about his priority in your life Gadera rejected Jesus Nazareth treated him as common But for these five men that day they came in faith and left eternally blessed How have you come today?

How have you come today? Also, the greatest friends in life are the ones who have brought me to Jesus Where would you and I be if that person didn't care for our souls? Who have you brought to Jesus? Will anyone be in heaven one day because you brought them the gospel? It's going to be uncomfortable sometimes But you know what for these four men Their discomfort was worth bringing their friend to Jesus I fear too much we put our comfort in front of our friends who need Jesus Why didn't you share the gospel with them? Well because it made you uncomfortable. So you're telling me you love yourself more than them, right?

That's that's that's what that problem is. Well, I'm just kind of shying backwards. No, you actually love yourself more than them You're self-loving We've all done it myself included, right? Anybody ever loved yourself so much you didn't tell somebody about Jesus because you were too afraid Yeah, if you're not raising your hand, you're not telling the truth or you've never even tried which is even worse So we've done that and you know what we need to we need to say God forgive me you know when God stirs our heart to talk to our friends and our loved ones about Christ and we don't do it what we're Doing is we're putting ourself in our own comfort. Praise God for four guys like that.

Wouldn't you like to have friends like that? I Would love to have four and praise God he's given me a whole church family of people that are so gracious Thank you for your faithfulness today Thank you for your pursuit of God and I pray today that it would stir up in us just a greater hunger a Greater thirst a greater longing for God I pray tomorrow that when you open the Word of God that you're searching for Christ that you want to see him on the pages of scripture and you would read and you would study and you would write down questions and you would pursue answers those questions and you Would long for that truth so that you might learn and you might pour that truth out to other people You ever get around people that are just you know, they've been in the word because the word just spills out of them they just you you know, they're serious about their faith because it just that's what they talk about you get around other people and all they Want to talk about is the things of the world Don't don't don't let us be people who say we value him We say okay. What do you value most we would know what the right answers for one two, and three are you know? God family and then we go down the list Ask yourself is that what my life is showing If that's really what I value if that's if God is my number one does my life show that because if he's not Has a little bit of Nazareth crept in I Can tell you the moment we get to heaven there ain't no Nazareth belief going on there That's that's gonna be rejoicing with joy and speakable and full of glory He will bless us. He is he has blessed us already more than we could even imagine The the south and sometimes, you know that man could have said Jesus I can't believe you haven't healed me yet, you know, and but he doesn't say he does that but you know That's what sometimes we can be like Lord my my ankle hurts today.

My back hurts today my shoulder hurts You know, what are you gonna take this pain away from me? And I think the Lord would say if you knew how much I've done for you so far And sometimes God doesn't give us perfect health here just to remind us. This is in our home This earthly tabernacle of this body will one day be put off and we'll put on a new body Which will be eternal and mortal and just like his glorious body So when our back hurts and our knees hurt and our neck aches and all these things that happen we can say thank you God that this is just a temporary dwelling place for me I look forward to paradise with you and being in your presence and thank you that you've made me perfectly clean on the inside Well, we have so much to give praise to God for amen, but maybe today why don't you labor in prayer for that friend? Who is lost who needs Christ?

What have you done? And what obstacles are keeping you from bringing them the gospel? Maybe you need to come and pray for that person Maybe today you just need to come and pray that God would help you to be more devoted as a Christian Whatever that need is, but if you're here today and you stood before God and he said why should I let you into heaven?

You don't know what you would say. I would love to talk with you We have men and women that could show you from the Bible at the conclusion of this service How you can know when your life's over you'll be in heaven. Nothing more important than that I saw stand this morning with heads bowed knives closed Father we thank you for your word today. What an absolute joy it is to be saved. We are so blessed by your grace Father I pray that you would bless this time as we just reflect upon what we've heard That your word would be our wisdom. It would be our joy. We would long for your word as our more than our necessary bread and And Lord you long to bless us you you have taken the first step You Came to this earth and died on the cross to bring us salvation. You've called out to us. I Pray God that we would come and humble ourselves Before you longing for you you said in your word that When we seek you we will find you when we search for you with all of our heart Let us not be half-hearted creatures Let us be fully devoted to the things of God Friend that is our joy and our fullness Right now if there's people in our lives that we have not shared the gospel with may you stir us up and open those doors To bring the gospel to them that you and all things would be glorified in Christ name