Your Sins Are Forgiven

You have to know who you are. You have to know your need. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus came for sinners because his ministry is forgiveness. Jesus says in Mark 2, 17, those who are well have no need of a physician.

But those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. It's this aspect of Christ's ministry, His authority to forgive sin, and our need for forgiveness that we'll be focusing on today on Renewing Your Mind. We must never outgrow the sense we had of our need for Christ at our conversion. We desperately need him.

And none of us can stand before God without the forgiveness of sins and His righteousness that's given to us.

So stay with us as W. Robert Godfrey continues his study in Mark's Gospel. We're continuing to look at this second section, the second chiasm in Mark's gospel that I've labeled Jesus and his followers. And we have looked a bit about how he began with just a few. Followers, how he healed on the Sabbath day in a non-controversial way, how he cared for Simon's mother-in-law and for the immediate.

people who were supporting him, how he went preaching throughout Galilee, the cities of Galilee, to call people to follow him. And we come now to this section on Jesus and the unclean, where a leper comes to him. This is a Very dramatic, very important moment because leprosy was a great scourge in the ancient world. It was a terrible disease. There was nothing they could do about it.

You became a social outcast.

So the practical consequences of leprosy were terrible. Very often, leprosy so damaged the nerves and the extremities that when you slept at night, rats could come and eat off your. Fingers and toes because you had no sensitivity, no pain. And so it was a terrible way to die. And he was very specifically commanded in the law of Moses that those who were sick with leprosy were unclean and had to be separated from the rest of Israel.

So the appearance of this leper before Jesus challenges not only his power to heal people, in this case a person afflicted with this terrible disease, but also challenged how he would relate. To someone who was both literally very sick, but also legally unclean. And we have there in chapter 1, verse 41. This wonderful statement about Jesus moved with pity. When Jesus saw the leopard, he Was it repelled?

He didn't flee away. He didn't remove himself. We can almost imagine the Pharisees walking away from the leper because they didn't want to be. Infected to the extent they knew that infection might be possible, but even more, they wouldn't have wanted to be ritually unclean, which is a condition that could go on for days. And so the contrast of Jesus' compassion, Jesus' concern for this man, is remarkable, and then even more remarkable that he reached out and touched him.

Um That was something lepers never experienced once they were diagnosed, that anyone would touch them. But Jesus touched him and declared him. Clean, and we read, and immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And Jesus shows his. Conformity to the law of Moses.

Jesus is not a rebel against the law of Moses. All his life he keeps the law of Moses. And so he says to this cleansed leper, Go at once and show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for proof to them. Um Knowledgeable of the law of Moses, he keeps the law of Moses, he encourages others to keep the law of Moses. And he asked the man to be quiet.

Because again, we see this phenomenon that the miracles complicate. The work of Jesus because it draws such a huge attraction, huge crowds.

So we read at the end of this section, but he went out and began to talk freely about it, that is the cleansed leper, and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.

So here we see the crowds beginning to grow, the followers being multiplied. And so we have moved through this early part of this section, and we come now to the center. Of the chiasm. And in chiasm, centers are always particularly important. They certainly don't nullify the importance of other elements, but the center has a particular focus, usually highlighting the basic point being made in the chiasm.

And here we come to the very famous, well-known story of the healing of the paralytic whose friends have to. create an opening in the roof and lower him down into the presence of Jesus because the crowds were so great they couldn't get him in to see Jesus.

So here is a man who is unable to move himself We're not given great details about him, but we're told he's not able to walk, he's not able to move himself, so four friends have to carry him. And they then lower him into this crowd. And chapter 2, verse 5, we read: When Jesus saw their faith. The friends and the man.

So here again, we see followers who are coming to Jesus, five of them. But when Jesus, Saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.

Now This highlights for us, doesn't it? That this is the central message and the central activity of Jesus' ministry. Jesus is there in Capernaum, his home again. And he's preaching to those who have gathered in significant numbers blocking the door into his presence, And of course Jesus knew. why these four friends had brought the paralytic.

They had brought him so he could be healed. They knew How awful it was in that society, in particular, to be paralyzed, unable to care for yourself. And so they brought him to be healed. And Jesus is moved by Their phase. There.

reliance on Jesus. But what Jesus is really saying here. is I see your faith. And I see your need. And let me give you the very best thing I have to give.

Your sins are forgiven. And Mark tells it this way to intentionally highlight. The centrality, the importance. of forgiveness, the message of forgiveness in the ministry of Jesus. It would be great.

To Have our diseases healed. But the truth is, whatever disease we have that Jesus heals. Eventually we're going to get sick again. And Jesus is saying, if I forgive your. Sins, that's once for all.

Then it's taken care of. Then you have the best gift I have to give you. And um So here Mark is really highlighting for us At the center of this central element of the chiasm, that Jesus, who began his ministry preaching repentance and belief in the gospel for the forgiveness of sins. Fulfilling what Isaiah anticipated, fulfilling what John the Baptist had said, now comes back to this central, crucial moment and says, Your sins are forgiven you.

Now up to this point There has really been no controversy in Jesus' ministry. except, we could say, when he confronts the evil one, when he casts out demons. But there's no human opposition to Jesus recorded in Mark's Gospel up until this point.

So here at the center of the second section, suddenly we see things change in the ministry of Jesus. Verse 5, Jesus says, Son, your sins are forgiven. Verse 6.

Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts. Why does this man speak like this? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God? Alone.

Here they are, they're listening. They're present. As people looked around in the crowd, they probably didn't stand out as different from other members of the crowd. But in their hearts They're not just questioning him. They are rejecting him.

They are saying he is blaspheming. which is a capital crime in Israel. To blaspheme God To curse God, really. Is to subject one to the death penalty. And you notice how Mark once again is being elusive.

They say in their hearts. Who can forgive sins but God? Now, if I was writing this. I go on to say And this proves, of course, that Jesus is God. But Mark sort of says, in effect, I don't need to say that.

because you're smart people, some of you anyway, and you'll see that. Immediately. That's the obvious point. This proves that he is God. He is taking a divine prerogative on himself.

And out of that He is speaking.

So they're right. God alone can forgive sins. And Jesus is demonstrating. To us. to the world that he is God come in the flesh.

And Ed If the claim to be able to forgive sins was not enough, to show that Jesus truly is God. Look what immediately happens. Jesus perceives. That they're questioning in themselves.

Now, Marcus said they were questioning in their hearts. It wasn't like some of you in the back road leaning over and whispering. What do they think he's talking about? How dare they do that? No, that's not what's going on here.

They have just been thinking things, and Jesus knows what they're thinking. And Jesus responds to them. Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, Or to say Rise, take up your bed, and walk. There's a great question to To pause and ponder, right?

Which is easier. Which is easier? For Jesus to heal the man will take power. What will it take for Jesus to forgive the man? It'll take his death on the cross.

Which is easier? The exercise of power is much easier. But, Jesus says, that you may know. That the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. That you may know I'm here From God and by God's authority, and with God's power, and with God's approval.

He said to the paralytic. I say to you Rise. Pick up your bed. and go home. Another mini resurrection.

Here is a man who could not walk, and now he walks. He's risen from the bed, but. Just as Jesus in his death on the cross forgives sins, so Jesus in his resurrection assures our resurrection. And all of this is being pointed to by Mark in the way He tells a story. And the man, the paralytic, he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.

Of course, that's literally true, isn't it? No one had ever seen anything like this because God's own Son had never walked on earth before. Our hearers Indeed the time fulfilled. Here indeed is the king come. and exercising his power and His Majesty.

So we have followed this. Through this second section, the followers, we have come to this center section, and now that means, of course, we're going to. move back up the other side What has been helpfully pointed out is my upside-down pyramid. And that means we're going to have to look next at the unclean. And that's what exactly happens, isn't it?

Before the paralytic, we had the unclean leper. And now, after the paralytic's healing, what do we have? We have unclean Levi. Verse 13 of chapter 2. Jesus went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them, and as he passed by, He saw Levi.

the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And another mini resurrection. He rose and followed. You see, Mark doesn't have to say he rose and followed.

Mark could just say, and he followed. But all of this is to Maybe slow us down, certainly to keep us thinking focused on the central thing. In that society, a tax collector was a social outcast. He might be rich, but he's not popular. Jesus, however, And this is Mark's point.

has come for anyone who will follow him. The leper is his if he follows it. The paralytic sinner is his if he follows him. The tax collector is his if he follows him. And this is what is Crucial for us as Christians to realize everybody is welcome.

If they come to Jesus. No one is turned away who comes to Jesus to follow him. And what a beautiful picture of the gospel. That is. And Jesus not only said, follow me.

But Jesus then follows him home to dinner. Again, food keeps recurring. The fellowship of joining together around a meal. And so Mark writes verse 15 of chapter 2, and as he reclined at the table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

So this is a party. Jesus has gone to this home. And many are invited. Many tax collectors and sinners.

Now, sinners here is not just Everybody, because we know everybody is a sinner, but these are the notorious sinners of the time. those who clearly were not keeping the law. therefore absolutely despised by the Pharisees for their Failure to keep the law. And that's why we read in verse 16: And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, And of course the act of eating means he's Unclean according to the dietary requirements of being separated. From these sinners.

Of a friend who had moved in next door to him, a rabbi from an Orthodox Jewish synagogue. And so as a welcome, they went next door with some food for the family. And the family was very friendly and very appreciative, but they couldn't take the food. because food coming from a Gentile kitchen was unclean. And so Jesus is eating an unclean meal here.

And the Pharisees know that, and it's all part of what they see as his indifference. Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? Terrible thing to do. And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician. But rather the Those who are sick.

I came not to call the righteous. but sinners. At several points in Mark's Gospels, we have these great, we might almost say proverbial statements of Jesus. I come to call. Not the righteous.

but sinners. Uh now he's not saying who fits in the category of the righteous. But what he's saying is: if you don't know you're a sinner, I'm not really for you. You have to know who you are, you have to know your need. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

He came for sinners because his ministry is forgiveness. And here we have this piece. Powerfully reiterated. He cleanses the unclean. whether it's a leper or a tax collector.

And then uh They go on to challenge him, and he preaches and teaches to them on the matter of fasting. Isn't it interesting? He's sitting at table, he's eating a nice meal, and they say, Why isn't he fasting more?

So we're still talking about the market. Talking about eating. I feel like I'm getting heavier just talking about this section of the scriptures.

Now, John's disciples, this is verse 18 of chapter 2.

Now, John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Fasting had become a regular. and fairly central part Jewish religious life amongst the pious. And the idea was that you abstained from food as something of a sign of repentance and gave yourself to prayer.

And this was maybe once or more a week that this was being done by pious Pharisees and presumably John's disciples, paralleling that. It's interesting when you look into the Old Testament. Fasting is required in the Old Testament only one time a year. Only one day a year is there a requirement of fasting in the Old Testament. And that's on the Day of Atonement.

Other than that, there is no legal requirement for fasting in the Old Testament. And so, what you have here introduced really is This elaborated tradition of the Pharisees. And it's illustrative of how the Pharisees approached piety. If fasting once is good, fasting very often must be better. And so they are trying to impose on Jesus and his disciples the customs that they have developed.

And Jesus has an amazing response to them. First of all, he responds by saying, you're missing the time. What what Time is it? It's not fasting time, it's feasting time. Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

You see, he's coming back till the time is fulfilled. The king is coming. That's what my disciples know. Jesus says, the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. But even then, he seems to go on to imply, there'll be a difference.

No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth. on an old garment. We don't know that much about clothes shrinking anymore.

Some of us may be old enough to remember if you... dried some kinds of clothing too quickly, they shrunk. And suddenly, instead of a sweater for yourself, you had a sweater for a doll. But um That was true in these days. And if you took an unshrunken piece of cloth and Sewed it to an old garment, then when that new cloth shrunk, it would tear the old garment.

So you'd be worse off than when you started. But what Jesus is saying more importantly, he's not really giving us sowing a lesson here. What he's saying more importantly is: as the new comes, it's going to change the old. It's going to change our relationship to the old. Just as you can't put new wine into old wineskins.

That will cause the wineskins to burst. and the wine will be lost. Don't confuse. The new and the old. Don't mix up the new and the old.

I am the bridegroom who has come to bring the new. And you'd better learn that lesson. Otherwise, it's going to be destructive. And of course, what Jesus is implicitly saying here is so much of what has developed in Judaism. Is really not what God intended, it's not what God taught.

is not good to be preserved. but in fact is all going to pass away.

now that the king has come. And so he is challenging them. Through his preaching, to be real followers of God. not to follow only on their own terms. But to follow precisely in the way that Jesus has taught them.

That was W. Robert Godfrey on this Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thanks for being with us. As we approach Friday, we are coming to the end of our time in this new series from Dr. Godfrey, simply titled Following Jesus.

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