Well, let's study the Bible together in Mark chapter two, and then we want to have a good lengthy time of prayer. I'm so thankful that all of you came out this evening so that we can sing together, look into the word of God together, and then pray together as well. I was just sharing even earlier today with someone over lunch how important it is for us as a church family to gather for prayer. And I I know that the prayer meeting is is so tragically kind of a lost a lost thing and the church in our in our nation. And it shouldn't be. I'm so sad that it that it has become that. But I pray that we will keep gathering to pray and call upon the Lord and humbly depend upon him for strength and power and sanctification and courage and boldness and salvations and so We'll call upon the Lord together tonight. But Mark 2 is where we are, verses 1 to 13. We're kind of taking a little bit of a bigger chunk of Mark. We've been looking kind of at one verse and a couple of verses, but now the next section we have is 13 verses. And we're looking at Jesus, the healer who forgives your sin. This is a great account. This is a great account that I trust The Lord will use to encourage your heart tonight. If you're a believer here in this room, I pray that God, the spirit will take his word and drive it deep into your heart to encourage you, uh, to give you joy and gladness and remind you of the position that you have of being a forgiven child of God. If you're here tonight and you are not a believer. If you're here tonight and Christ is not your king and your Lord, and you don't know that you are truly forgiven, my prayer is that the spirit of God will sovereignly take his word and drive it deep into your heart all by his grace. Verse one, when Jesus had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that he was at home. And many were gathered together so that there was no longer room, not even near the door. And he was speaking the word to them. And they came, bringing him a paralytic carried by four men. Being unable to get to him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming who can forgive sins, but God alone. Immediately, Jesus aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves said to them, why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and pick up your pallets and walk. But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up, pick up your pallets and go home. And he got up and immediately picked up the pallets and went out in the sight of everyone. So that they were all amazed and were glorifying God saying, we have never seen anything like this. And he went out again by the seashore and all the people were coming to him and he was teaching them. Lord Jesus, right here in this passage. We learn that you are the healer who forgives sins. We pray that this great truth would be taken by the glorious Holy Spirit and driven deep into our hearts tonight. Change us, teach us, comfort us, change us, we pray for the glory of Christ. Amen. I know what all people in the world need. I know what every person in all of the world needs, and that is the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. All people, anywhere in the world, all across the planet have the same need, and that need is they must be forgiven by God to go to heaven and escape hell. I think of David, how he prayed in Psalm 25 verse 11, pardon my iniquity, O Lord, for it is great. Isaiah 55 in a very evangelistic portion of the Bible, Isaiah 55, seven, God says, come to me and drink of the waters freely. And then it says, he, God will abundantly pardon. I love that phrase. He will abundantly pardon. One of the highest privileges, and I think the distinctive mark of a true child of God, is that he is a forgiven man. Yesterday I was at the abortion mill and the security guard walked by me again, as she does every Tuesday, and she'll often say to me, stop judging me. And I say, I'm not judging, I'm preaching. And I say, there's only one difference between me and you. I'm forgiven. And you have the opportunity to be forgiven right here today. It's the great privilege. It's the most distinctive mark of a child of God. He's forgiven. I think of the book of Numbers chapter 14 when God pardoned the children of Israel when they were grumbling. I think of Isaiah chapter 6 when Isaiah knew that he was a man of unclean lips and God forgave the man Isaiah. In Ezekiel 16 verse 63, and no doubt the most graphic chapter in the entire Bible, speaking of Israel and their sinful condition, at the very end God says He pardoned Israel for all of the evils they had done. Or in Luke chapter 7, David Varghese preached this a few weeks ago. Luke 7 verse 48, the immoral woman was forgiven much. In Daniel chapter 9, the prophet Daniel was praying, and he said, Oh Lord, you hear and forgive. In Luke 23, our Savior was hanging on a cross in the early hours of the crucifixion, and he prayed, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. We love the verse in 1 John 1 verse 9, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous. And he will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now in our text tonight, in Mark chapter two, we are going to see so many themes and it would be wonderful to kind of travel and follow many of them and explore them. the deity of Jesus, the healing ministry of Jesus, the anger of unbelievers in their hearts, the determination of four men to bring a friend to Jesus. And on and on we could go with these great lessons in the text. But no doubt the point of the story is Jesus' forgiveness of sin. In Luke chapter 24 verses 47, can I just remind you as I remind myself that you and I are given the great commission to speak that repentance for the forgiveness of sin is available to all nations. In Acts chapter 26, the apostle Paul was told by Jesus on the Damascus road that he is to preach so that many might turn from darkness to light and receive the forgiveness of their sins. So my goal tonight is for all of us. Number one, ensure that you are forgiven. Number two, that you would enjoy this forgiveness. And then third, that you and I would take up the baton yet again and evangelize with the hope that sinners can be forgiven. If Mark 1 was the beginning chapter of the gospel, introducing us to Christ and showing us the glory of Christ, chapter 2, without a doubt, is the chapter of conflict. If there's one word for you to put in your mind about Mark 2, even into Mark 3 as well, It's all around this theme of conflict. This is a chapter, it's almost like a forest fire, where conflict is going to rage more and more and more every time we look at the next story in Mark 2 and 3. It all begins with some Jewish leaders who kind of reason in their hearts and they're angry and they're upset that Jesus says he can forgive. And then next week, they are going to complain about Jesus to other people. And then in a few weeks, we're going to see that these Jewish leaders are going to protest to Jesus himself. And then in chapter 3, they are going to be so livid and the conflict is going to rise to such a level that they are going to plot how to destroy Jesus. This in Mark chapter two and three, we might say Jesus meets the critics in Galilee. There are five accounts in Mark 2-3 that we're going to look at over the next five weeks. Forgiveness of sins, fellowshipping with the unclean people, fasting, Jesus will be working on the Sabbath and healing on the Sabbath, and the Jewish leaders are going to get all uptight with the conflict in every one of these episodes. Now, I think I put it in your outline. In each of these episodes, there is a three-fold pattern. And I put it here, I think it's just kind of helpful to understand how Mark puts it together. Jesus will do an action and then the Jewish leaders are going to ridicule him. Maybe it's verbally, maybe it's in their hearts, but there's going to be some sort of a conflict that ensues. And then third, Jesus will respond with a word or an action or a miracle and he will silence the Jewish leaders and it will stun the crowds. And that seems to be the ongoing pattern of each of these episodes. Mark two is a remarkable account. I pray that this tonight will be an encouragement to your heart. I want to, as it were, take you by the hand. and take you into the room, into the house of Galilee 2000 years ago, as if you and I were hearing the Savior teach and you and I can see and hear and experience exactly what's going on in this event as it transpires before our very eyes. So follow with me in your outline with number one. Let's look at the faith. of the sufferer, the faith of the sufferer. So Jesus, verse one of Mark two is back at Capernaum and he is at home. Many people are packed together. He, he is speaking the word to them. According to verse two, a little bit of an inclusio verse two and 13 sort of frame, they kind of bookend a section with Jesus teaching. And then in verse 13, he is teaching and preaching the word. Well, in verse three, we read in our story that they came to Jesus, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Here's a man who has the extreme loss of all ability of motion. He has the inability of his muscles to function appropriately, perhaps an injury in the areas of his brain and spinal cord. The man can't move. He's motionless. He even had to be carried according to the end of verse three. It's like Marcus saying, here's a hopeless, here's a helpless, here's emotionless, here's a desperate, and yet here's a believing, here's a believing man. But there's a problem. Verse four, they can't get to Jesus. The house is so full of people. There are so many people in the house. It is packed and they can't get in there. Think of a sporting event or a concert or some venue where you've been at where you're just shoulder to shoulder with people and there's like no place to go. You can't hardly move. And that's what it was like in this home on this particular occasion. And so in the ancient Galilean homes, roofs were often flat and they were made of mud and they were made of straw with some branches on top. And often in the Galilean homes, there would be a staircase outside the home so that when the Mediterranean winds come and when the hills surrounding would bring the cool breezes down in the Galilean area, they would go to their roof for the afternoon breezes and cool off. Well, these friends are pretty creative. They're pretty creative. They take the crippled. They take the paralyzed man. They can't get into the house. So they go up the staircase outside the house up to the roof. And then very interesting in verse four, it says they unroofed the roof. They unroofed the roof. And then what do they do in verse four, but they dug an opening in the roof and they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And no doubt, maybe a little pallet with four ropes on each of the four corners of the pallet and, and, and the four men lowering the rope and they lower the man right in front of Jesus. Verse five, Jesus saw, notice the plural, their faith. Notice how these four friends would do anything to get their friend to Jesus. It's almost like James chapter two, their action of faith. was so clearly evident to get the man to Jesus. They were extraordinary. It was an ardent love. They were persistent. They were shameless. It was, this is a living faith. They knew that they had to get this man to Jesus. They believed Jesus. They knew he was their only hope and they would do anything to get their friend to Jesus. They were, they were creative, a little bit intrusive and yet shameless. And did you notice there's not a word spoken? There's not any word spoken by these four or by the paralytic himself. It's all faith. It's all trust. It's all action. The four friends bring the paralyzed man to Jesus. But now we come to the main climactic part of the story in verses 5 and following. Look in your outline, number 2, the forgiveness of the Savior. Now, this is the main theme of the whole account. We know that because the same phrase is repeated four times. Your sins are forgiven. Four times that phrase occurs. Your sins are forgiven. Verses 5, 7, 9, and 10. Four times. Your sins are forgiven. So imagine you're there. You're in the house. It's packed shoulder to shoulder. Jesus is teaching the word. You're gripped by his teaching and there's a bit of commotion. And you hear a little bit of noise up above and there seems to be some people on the roof. And they're digging away dirt, and they're tearing away branches, and they're prying the roof loose between the beams. And as you're looking up, debris begins to fall, and dust and dirt begins to fall. And then as you're looking up, all of a sudden the crack of sunlight starts beaming through the roof. Above, there is light streaming through the roof as four sweaty men lower their friend. Below, you have the Pharisees, you have the scribes, and you have some crowds that are shaking the dirt off of their robes. Right in the center is you have the Savior, and now a paralyzed man right in front of him. And then all around are these crowds swarming and stunned with their faces spellbound. And verse 5, the very first thing Jesus does when he sees their faith, he begins the whole discussion with this declaration. Son, your sins are forgiven. Notice the three things here. Number one, the tenderness. He calls him child. He calls him son. He calls him my child. What tenderness Jesus has toward the helpless. Second, I want you to see the promise. The promise. They are forgiven. He doesn't say they might be forgiven. They will be forgiven. But they are forgiven. It's a state of being. Third, I want you to see the specificity. Yours. It's singular. Your sins, young man. Your sins are forgiven. Jesus had tenderness to the suffering man, and he got to the real need for him personally, and that was not the physical healing from the paralysis, but it was dealing with a sin. Your sins are forgiven. We come now to the doctrine of forgiveness. The doctrine of forgiveness. I want to talk about it for a couple of minutes. We have the time and I want to encourage you and remind you and maybe teach perhaps something new in a fresh way about the forgiveness of God. What does it mean for God to forgive? What does it mean for God to forgive? A lot of people think they're forgiven. And there's a lot of people who think that God's going to forgive everybody. So what does it mean when it says your sins are forgiven? When we gather up all of the biblical evidence, I think we could summarize it in this phrase. God's forgiveness is a promise of pardon. God's forgiveness is a promise of pardon. It is to release the debt and no longer hold you accountable. It is God promising to pardon you and He releases you from the debt so you are no longer accountable. Maybe there's other ways that we could define God's forgiveness. It means to absolve. It means to clear. It means to pardon. It means to release. It means to expiate or to wipe away or think of like an eraser, kind of erasing something away. It is a promise to pardon. Often in biblical counseling, maybe dealing with communication issues or married couples or premarital counseling or something like that, there's always the issue of forgiveness and conflict resolution. And these things will always come up in the topic of forgiveness. It's very important that we understand forgiveness doesn't mean to ignore. Forgiveness does not mean to minimize. Forgiveness does not mean to shrug something off. We're often, it's easy to say, no big deal. No big deal. Forgiveness does not mean that I pretend that something didn't happen or God pretends that it didn't happen. And certainly forgiveness does not mean that we just kind of bottle it up inside. No, no, no. You see, sometimes in the mind and the hearts and the ideas of people in our culture today, that's what forgiveness is to many. I just kind of minimize it. I kind of ignore it. I pretend it didn't happen. I don't want to deal with it. I bottle it up, but that's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is when God makes the promise to his people, I will not hold this sin against you. That's beautiful. That's what God does to every one of his children. The biblical language of forgiveness includes these kinds of verbs, to blot out, to remove. to pardon, to put behind, or to throw behind, to throw into the depths of the sea, to cover, to wash, to cleanse, to atone, to release. All these verbs sort of bring this full color portrait of the forgiveness of God, that He makes a promise to pardon His people. from their sin. Verse 5, here's a man lowered right in front of Jesus with all the crowds, including Jewish leaders, and Jesus makes the declaration, your sins are forgiven. But there's a big problem. No one can forgive sins, but God and him alone. Psalm 103 verse 3, God pardons all your iniquities. Psalm 103, 12, God has removed our transgressions far from us. Psalm 130 verse four, if you, Oh Lord, kept a record of sins, Oh Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness. Isaiah 43 verse 25, I, even I am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake. And I will not remember your sins. Micah 7, verse 19, God will cast your sins into the depths of the sea. Or Hebrews 8, verse 12, God makes the promise. I think this is the simplest definition of forgiveness in Hebrews 8, 12. I will remember your sins no more. I will remember them no more. So, God is a God of forgiveness. This is our God. Jesus is the one, verse 5, who says, your sins are forgiven. So, consider with me this great, grand, glorious doctrine of forgiveness. Number one, it's free. The forgiveness of God is free. You cannot do anything to merit the forgiveness of God. It is all of grace. Second, the forgiveness of God is sufficient. It is sufficient. It's enough. It's all that you need. This destroys every other religion and cult in the planet that teaches works righteousness. Because if we really are forgiven by God, that means this forgiveness of God is sufficient. It's all that we need. I don't need to add anything. I can't add anything. Third, The forgiveness of God is humbling. It's humbling because it humbles the proud that God would pardon me for my sins. And then this forgiveness is God given. It's God given. God gives it. God declares that I can't make you forgiven. I can't bestow forgiveness upon you in an infinite, eternal way. Only God can. What glory. What glory there is in this God. Christian, you can thank and you can bless and you can praise the Lord tonight if he has forgiven you of all of your sin. Lord, thank you that you have forgiven me, that you have removed my transgressions. God, that you have wiped out my transgressions, that you will remember my sins no more. God, that you have abundantly pardoned. God, thank you for forgiving me. Question for tonight, for all of us is number one, are you forgiven? Are you forgiven? It's the most important question a person could ever ask and answer. Are you forgiven of your sin? Has God cleared the debt? Has he promised to pardon you? This is the only way that a guilty soul could ever go to heaven is by being forgiven by God. Well, that leads to the friction. What's going to happen next in the account? You see, we have the man who's the paralytic brought to Jesus, and then we have the forgiveness of the Savior. But now third in your outline, we have to look at the friction of the scribes. Look at what happens now. Verse six, there are scribes sitting there and they're reasoning in their hearts. Interesting. They're thinking in their hearts. They're thinking. Why does this man speak this way? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? They're right. They know that only God can forgive sins. They're spot on with that. So either Jesus is who he claims to be, that is God, but they don't want that. So they choose to believe option two. Jesus is a blasphemer and he's unjustly claiming the prerogative of God to forgive sin. And thus he's a blasphemer. He's a liar and he's a fraud. What does blasphemy mean? Blasphemy is irreverent speech about God. Irreverent speech about God and Leviticus 24 said, The penalty was death. Blasphemers were to die. It's fascinating in Mark 2, I'll mention it and then we have to leave it. You can trace it if you want. But in Mark 2, the Jewish leaders begin the thinking of blasphemy. This will come to full blossom in Mark 14 when Jesus finally affirms, yes, I am the Christ, I am the Son of the living God. Caiaphas rips his robe and he says, blasphemy, we've heard it. And that'll lead him to the cross. This is sort of the beginning of that road. Jesus knows what they're thinking. He knows what they're thinking and He initiates the conversation. He initiates the conflict in verse 8. Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier? Maybe a good way to think about that, which is more provable? Both of the options here are just completely impossible by human strength. Both are impossible. So which is more provable, which is more observable, which is more verifiable of these two options to say your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and pick up your pallet and walk. Well, anybody could just verbally say you're forgiven, but why don't you prove it? Why don't you verify it and say, get up, pick up your pallet and walk in front of everybody here. Verse 10, Jesus said, so that you may know. If Mark had a highlighter and if Mark had big font, all caps, underline and italics, he would put the verb know in verse 10 in that red font underline. The whole main verb that Mark wants to highlight in the entire account is the word know. It's an emphatic verbal form that only occurs right here in this whole account. I want you to know, you've got to understand this, that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. I have authority and I want you to know it. I want you to know this. Jesus is God, and I'm going to prove it by means of this miracle. And then he said to the paralytic verse 11, I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home. Now. I'm not sure if I can overstate how important this moment is. Jesus has just put the credibility of his whole ministry on the line. I mean, the entire plan of God hinges right here on the success of this miracle. The whole divine mission is hanging on this moment. The man has to be healed because if he's not, Jesus is a liar. He's a blasphemer. He's a fraud. Jesus said, I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home. In the presence of the crowds, in the presence of the Jewish leaders, in the presence of the paralytic, in the presence of all that have gathered there, verse 12, look at what happens. And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and he went out. It's interesting language in the original Greek. before the very eyes of everyone there watching him. I mean, everybody's shoulder to shoulder, and you can almost kind of imagine a guy picking up his pallet and, excuse me, you know, let me leave now. He was just paralyzed a minute ago. And there's no rehab, complete healing, full, immediate healing. He goes out, verse 12, so that all the people are amazed. They're all glorifying God. We've never seen anything like this before. And then Jesus goes out and teaches. What a Savior. You see, He does the miracle. He does the healing of the paralytic, not just to show us that He's a healer. That's true, He has the power to do that. But He does the miracle to prove and to show And so that we might know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. Let me prove that I am God. Let me prove that I am the one true God, and I have the authority, and I have the ability, and I have the right, and I have the prerogative to say, your sins are forgiven. What a Savior. What a God. What a Lord. What a king. I want to do a couple of things here before we close and pray. I want to go on the polemic side for just a minute and talk about some of the evils of the Roman Catholic system. And then I want to probe your heart with the encouragements of being forgiven. But I think our story tonight exposes, if I could just take a couple of minutes here and go on the offensive, I think our story tonight exposes the evils and I think the true blasphemy of penance in the Roman Catholic system with specific reference to the doctrine of absolution. The Roman Catholic Church says, quote, Absolution forgives the guilt of sin. It removes the eternal punishment. And yet the sinner still may be responsible for temporal punishment in purgatory unless an indulgence is applied. You say, Jeff, what do you mean by absolution? Well, somebody sins. And so they would go to the priest and they would confess their sins to the priest and they might pray a prayer and resolve to really try hard to not do it again. And then the priest would verbally give an absolution with a fixed sacramental formula. The catechism of the Roman Catholic church, paragraph 1461 says, Since Christ entrusted to his apostles, the ministry of reconciliation, all bishops and priests continue to exercise this ministry. Indeed, bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of the holy orders. Did you hear this? They have the power to forgive all sins in the name of the father, son of the holy spirit. That's blasphemy. Roman Catholic Church catechism paragraph 1495 says only priests who have received the faculty of absolving from the authority of the church can forgive sins in the name of Christ. They have a lengthy section on penance and the sacraments and reconciliation chapter two of the catechism of the Catholic Church. At the very end of that is paragraph 1498 when they say Quote, through indulgences, the faithful can obtain the remission of temporal punishment resulting from sin for themselves and also for the souls of those in purgatory. It was a number of years ago, 2016, that the Washington Post came out with an article where we read that Pope Francis gave, quote, permission. to all Roman Catholic priests to forgive the sin of abortion. The Roman Catholic Church says that when the person comes to the priest and confesses his sin to the priest, that fixed formula that the priest is to say is this. Listen to this. Here's the fixed formula. I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and the Son. and of the Holy Spirit. That's devilish. That's blasphemous. It's wicked. All priests like that who claim that are evil and unconverted and they do not know God. But there is a true priest who forgives. There is a great high priest who has passed through the heavens and he has made a full atonement for our sins. And he is the one who makes the promise to pardon us of our sin. Do you remember? Do you remember when God saved you and you were forgiven and you realized that hope that you were forgiven, you were washed, you were cleansed of your sin? Consider the abundance of your forgiveness. That God forgives all of your sins, 1 John 1 says. That he forgives all of your transgressions, Colossians 2.12. Think about the position of your forgiveness. 1 John 2.12, my little children, I am writing. so that you will know that your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. You right now, Christian, you are living in the position of being forgiven of all of your sin. I want you to consider the merits of your forgiveness. How are you forgiven? It's not because of your merits. It's because of the merits of Christ, your great high priest. He pardons your sin. How can he, how can he take your sin and throw it behind his back? It's because the punishment fell upon him. Consider the sin abhorrence from your forgiveness. If God has forgiven you, you will grow to hate and abhor your sin more and more and more. Consider the duties upon you as one who has been forgiven. A forgiven person is called to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Matthew 18 and Matthew 6, Ephesians 4, 32. We are to be tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God and Christ has forgiven us. Consider the joy and the assurance of being forgiven, of having the Savior even say to your own heart, child of God, you can hear the Savior say to you, son, your sins are forgiven. What joy, what assurance, what comfort, what security to cause you to leap and to shout and to praise God and to thank the Lord for what He has done. by his grace, what forgiveness God gives. We sang it in greatest life, faithfulness, pardon for sin and a peace that endureth. What a savior who pardons your sin. He does the miracle. He heals the paralytic all verse 10 so that you might know that the son of man has authority on earth. to forgive your sin. In closing, Esther Bergen was a Canadian woman who I was reading about her. She was born in the early 20th century and she was married to her husband and her went down to Mexico as missionaries as a wife and a mother and a teacher, a writer and evangelist. She, in fact, she would love to write poetry and she loved to write hymns. She wrote these words when she and her husband were doing missions work in Mexico. She said, all my sins have been forgiven. God is merciful to me. Faith has claimed the Savior's promise, grace and pardon, full and free. Oh, my soul be ever praising for the great Redeemer's love. Joyous songs to him be raising unto God in heaven. above. Christian here tonight, rejoice and give thanks because the son of man has authority on earth to forgive all of your sin. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the promises of scripture. Thank you for the forgiveness that we have in Christ. Encourage our hearts. Meet with us now. Commune with us now. Fellowship with us now as we respond in a time of prayer. In Jesus name. Amen.