The Joy of Forgiveness - sermon at FFMC 24/11/24

The King’s Authority In His Kingdom: Forgiveness

 And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. 2 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” 3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 7 And he rose and went home. 8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

 9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 10 And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:1-13)

 

  The passage of Scripture we are considering today can be divided into 2 parts: the healing of the paralytic and the calling of Matthew. But both of these parts have something to tell us about forgiveness and the God who forgives. I felt that today I should do something a little different. Instead of my usual 3 to 4-point sermon style, let’s take a journey through the passage and stop at some waypoints

 “And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. Mark 2:1-17 and Luke 5:18-32 tell us the same story, and we learn from them that ‘his own city’ is Capernaum. From them we also learn that this was the incident where 4 friends brought the paralytic to Jesus by breaking the roof and lowering him in. Ever wonder whose roof it was? Mark tells us he was ‘at home’. So it was Jesus’ house whose roof was broken into. As a neurologist, I wonder what kind of paralysis it was. Clearly, it involved his legs because he was bedbound. Was it a stroke? A nerve disorder? A hereditary muscle disease? A traumatic spinal injury? We do not know. I think it speaks well of the paralysed man that he had 4 good friends who were willing to do this for his sake. They were loyal. These are the kind of friends we all need – those who will do crazy things for our sake, going above and beyond the ordinary, but more importantly – those who will bring us to Jesus. It is noteworthy that all 3 gospels who tell this story tell us that Jesus saw their faith. Sometimes, in our need for forgiveness, it is real friends that open the way for us. We must choose our friends carefully. We ourselves should strive to be this kind of friend.

 I think that when you meet someone for the first time, our initial words are important. How much more when it is the Lord speaking. Jesus looks at this man and says, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” That is such a beautiful thing to say. “take heart” means, “don’t be discouraged” “cheer up”. Jesus is always saying this to people (Mt 9:2, 22; 14:27, Jn 16:33, Ac 23:11). Brothers and sisters – do we feel discouraged and low today? Hear the first words of the Lord to this man and receive them for yourself. God is on your side. God wants to lift you up. He loves you and wants the best for you.

 We would think the man was sad because he was paralysed, and Jesus would meet his need by healing him (“rise and walk”). But the Lord sees the man’s true need. The man needs forgiveness of sin. It is unlikely that the Lord would have said something like this to someone who felt no need for forgiveness. Something is tormenting the man’s soul. He felt condemned and guilty for some reason. It is possible that in some way, it was a sinful act that led to his paralysis. Very likely, he blamed his physical state on his own sin. Jesus steps in and heals the man’s soul before He even addresses the external illness. We are often like that man. Our deepest needs are not material – food, drink, clothes, a roof over our heads, air-conditioning, a job, a car – they are relational. We need acceptance. Unless you are a psychopath and serial killer material you and I never feel good if we know that someone resents us or hates us or blames us. How much more it is with God and our sin! If a human being is angry with you and wishes you harm, how much worse it is if the ultimate judge of the universe has something against you. Sometimes we feel guilty even when there is no wrongdoing on our part, and sometimes there is no guilt even when we are truly guilty. We can be crushed by guilt. The only solution to real guilt is real forgiveness. We need to see and feel the smile of God. We need forgiveness more than physical health. We must be reconciled to God.

 The scribes understood this well. They understood the importance of God forgiving sin. All sin against people is committed at 2 levels: against human beings, and against God. Put another way, you may have earthly forgiveness from people, but you may not have forgiveness from God. On the other hand, you may sincerely seek forgiveness from someone you have wronged, but not receive it. And yet God may forgive you. When the scribes heard Jesus forgive the paralytic, they knew that he was not the earthly person the paralytic sinned against, and that he was therefore acting like God in presuming to forgive the man. That’s why they said Jesus was ‘blaspheming’ (v.3).

 Jesus knew what they were thinking and calls their thoughts ‘evil’ (v.4). In trying to preserve God’s honour they had instead slandered one sent by God as a blasphemer. He asks them a question: “which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? The obvious answer is that it is easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ because there is no visible indication whether that has occurred or not.  It is impossible to disprove. It is harder to say, ‘Rise and walk’ because if the man does not get up., the one who said the words will have no credibility. The logic here is that, if Jesus can do the visible miracle of healing paralysis, this is evidence that He also has power to do the invisible miracle of healing sins.

 At a deeper level, however, forgiveness is harder because only God can ultimately forgive sins. Also, many paralytics I have seen can walk again with modern-day medical treatment without need for miracles. God forgives sin only through Jesus’ death on the Cross on behalf of forgiven sinners. His justice does not permit him to forgive without the cost of punishment for sin. Every sin ever committed that is forgiven, from the sin of Adam to the sins we are now committing, and every sin we will ever commit, is forgiven only through the shed blood of Christ. Jesus knows - He knows - that when he pronounces the man’s sins ‘forgiven’, that it is because He will bear the punishment for those sins on Calvary. Jesus is the One in whom we are reconciled both to one another and to God (Eph 2:14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility) speaks of the deepest divisions being healed.

Jesus is the one in whom we find the forgiveness we need. He meets our deepest need for reconciliation. He paid the price for forgiveness on the Cross.

 We move on to the story of the calling of Matthew. It’s quite cute to see how little the man himself writes on this event. He does not give an elaborate personal testimony. It is the other gospel writers  who tell us that Levi (another name for Matthew) made Jesus a great feast in his own house and that many of Matthew’s tax collector colleagues and ‘sinners’ had believed in Jesus.

 We know that tax officials in Jesus’ time were regarded as agents of a foreign occupying power. So people hated them and considered them ‘unclean’. Somehow, Matthew must have heard of Jesus. Some time in the past he must have imagined what it would be like follow this person. Perhaps he was amazed that someone would accept him. Perhaps some of his tax-collector friends had told Matthew about a teacher who accepted even despised tax collectors. Luke says ‘leaving everything’ Matthew followed when Jesus called him. I think there was no regret, no double-mindedness, because one of the first things he did was to throw a big party in his house and call his ‘many’ friends. Matthew clearly wanted to celebrate the fact that he too, like the paralytic, was forgiven and accepted. When the deepest needs of our heart are met, there is more reason for celebration than when we win the lottery, or when we are healed of a dread disease. Imagine if you were guilty of a terrible crime, convicted in court and sentenced to death, it wouldn’t matter if you had money or perfect health. Lesser things fade before your impending doom. But imagine that simply because the judge saw that you were truly sorry, the judge simply let you go free with no penalties whatsoever. Imagine the joy of realising that you have experienced something almost too good to be true.

 God not only saves us from punishment – He invites us to celebrate. God himself likes to throw parties

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
    of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.(Is 25:6)

 God invites us to join His joyful feast. We are meant to sit down with Jesus and Matthew at the same table and to feel secure and accepted. If we cannot feel this joy as the beloved children of God, it is because we do not feel fully forgiven and accepted even though we are objectively forgiven when we trust in Christ by faith. We feel joy when we believe that we have God’s favour and that He is pleased with us in Christ. We see His face light up when he sees us come through the door. We feel joy when Jesus is sitting at our dining table and enjoying himself with us and our friends. We need this kind of deep assurance as much as we need a firm intellectual belief that Jesus has died for our sins. Forgiveness is not experienced as a mental concept. Forgiveness brings joy.

 Like the scribes with the paralytic, the Pharisees here hate the fact that Jesus forgives. Think of the earlier scenario where the judge simply let you go free. How unjust! How undeserved! That’s thinking like a Pharisee!  In their minds, tax collectors and sinners have no right to be forgiven. They have no right to God’s company and fellowship. And like the scribes, their theology is correct. Sinners have no right to be forgiven by God. Although their theology is correct, it is incomplete. What they didn’t see was that everyone is unclean before God. They thought they were well and that the tax collectors were the sick ones. But God’s forgiveness is freely given to those who feel they need it, not to those who don’t. Sometimes I see patients who are sick but demented or have a brain tumour who just refuse to get treatment. Jesus reverses the standards of formal religion. The ‘righteous’ people – righteous in their own eyes - who don’t think they need forgiveness will not receive it. Theirs is a religion of ritual (‘sacrifice’) where they think they can earn by their own effort a good standing with God. God looks for those ‘sinners’ with a broken heart who seek mercy from Him and give mercy to others. Sinners know that they need grace.

 We find it hard to feel the power of grace and the cost to our Lord. Our brains are wired to feel that when we receive grace all the time, it becomes a right, not an underserved gift. We have to feel the wonder of grace again and again. If we think forgiveness is a right, we have no joy. We don’t feel much joy when we get what we think we deserve because it is well-earned. But if we know we have received what we don’t deserve, our joy becomes full.

 If we feel the joy of forgiveness, we also will forgive others freely - the goodness we have received from God will flow out to others.

 These are the truths in this passage

1. We need forgiveness more than we need physical health.
2.  Jesus is the one who reconciles us to God and to one another. He alone provides forgiveness.
3. Forgiveness brings joy.
4. Forgiveness is only for those who feel they need it.

Video here