Chapter 2 this morning, Mark Chapter 2. Earlier this week, Matt Place had posted on Facebook asking the question, what your favorite miracle of Jesus was? And I think this might be one of my favorite. This is the one that I commented on his post about from Mark chapter 2 where Jesus healed the paralyzed man. And I went back and got to reading it again, and I knew that I would be speaking here this morning, so I thought, let's get into Mark chapter two, and let's go through these first 12 verses, and see what we can get from this this morning. And so, I've titled it Creative Faith, A Roof-Raising Mission. I love this story from beginning to end. So let's start, you can find this account in the book of Matthew, the book of Mark, and the book of Luke, and we'll reference some from the other parallel accounts, but I'm just kind of drawn to the... the account from the book of Mark, so let's read, and we'll read through it, and then we'll get into it and make some comments about it. Mark 2, verse number 1, and again, he entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noised that he was in the house, and straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door, and he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one of the sick of the palsy, which was born of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and take up thy bed and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth. before them all, insomuch that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion." We're gonna talk about creative faith this morning. I love this account. The first thing that we'll jump into, we're gonna really focus a lot on these four friends and the faith that they had, their creative faith, their unusual faith, their out-of-the-box thinking that got their friend to Jesus. and try to draw some parallels to our own lives, to our own church about being creative, being out of the box, and finding ways to get people to Jesus. That's this church's mission. We want to get people to Jesus. We want people to know that they can find Jesus And so the first thing we're going to look at this morning is the packed place and the popular preacher that we see here in the first two verses. And again, he entered into Capernaum. So the place is here. This was one of the northern headquarters of Jesus' ministry. He spent a lot of time here. Many of the Bible scholars think that the house that they go to is Peter's house. There's not definitive proof of that. But many seem to think that it would be Peter's house and there's a lot of things that would seem to make sense. But the house, the owner of this house where Jesus goes really isn't the important part of the story. But he goes to this house. Jesus has just finished in the previous chapter preaching, healing others, healing the man with the unclean spirit. And so a lot of things have taken place. He spends time in prayer and then he comes back to Capernaum and is going to try to attempt to have a little bit of rest. But Jesus is becoming very popular in his ministry at this point. And because of the popularity of Jesus, crowds tended to follow wherever he was at. So there wasn't a lot of rest time for the Lord in his days of ministry. And so word very quickly begins to spread that Jesus is back in Capernaum and that he's at this house. And so people show up, they begin to kind of pack in. Many think that a house like this would hold upwards of, you know, maybe 50, 60 people if you crammed them all into the house. And it sounds as if it was very full. It says that there were many gathered together insomuch there was no room to receive them. No, not so much as about the door. So the house is packed as Jesus is here and he begins to teach. And notice who some of the people were. that were there. If you look over at the parallel account of this in... Luke chapter five, it tells us in the first verse, it came to pass on a certain day as he was teaching, there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by. And so I want you to have the image as Jesus is here and he begins to teach back and forth. You've got some of these very religious people that are in attendance and you have the Pharisees and the doctors of the law. Mark mentions the scribes. And so you have these very religious people probably seated in a place of prominence up at the front of the house. As they began to listen to Jesus, they're very skeptical of this young preacher, of this young teacher, this rabbi that's going around teaching things. And so they had the responsibility the scribes did, of copying the law, the word of God down, and it started probably with Ezra and the scribes. These were very good people in the beginning, but over the centuries, the scribes and the Pharisees, some things began to change, and at this point, it has become very political, and so these are very religious individuals. They have knowledge of God, but I think many of them did not know God. And so here they are in this house listening to Jesus teach. So you have the doctors, you have the Pharisees, these very religious individuals, and then you've got all these other people that begin to come in. They've heard of the miracles of Jesus going on. As Luke introduces us in Luke chapter 5, he mentions the Pharisees and the doctors of the law that were sitting there. And this is the first time that Luke mentions this group of religious people that throughout the ministry of Jesus, he would do battle with multiple times. Jesus would encounter these individuals over and over again as they would challenge his teaching, as they would challenge his authority, and as he would claim to be God. It really did not sit well with these folks. So here they are. Maybe interacting with Jesus for one of the first times in his ministry as they want to hear what is this popular preacher going around? Why are all the crowds showing up to hear this man? And so you've got them there and then you've got all these other people that have heard about Jesus neighbors in the area people that just show up and they begin to listen and they says in Mark chapter to verse number two, that there was no room to receive them and not so much about the door. And so they're just cram packed into this house. They're standing on the outside, looking in around the house. They want to hear what Jesus has to say. And notice it says he preached the word unto them. And so preaching was always one of the central themes. People would show up to see the miracles that Jesus did. But Jesus, in his compassion, he would heal people, he would feed people. But the most important thing that Jesus wanted to do was to preach the word to people. And in our church, the mission has been and will continue to be making sure that people hear the word of God. And you've got some of these people that are there. Maybe some new disciples of Jesus, they've heard him a time or two, and they're interested in what he's saying, and so they continue to follow him. Maybe you have some others that are sort of skeptical of Jesus, but they're interested. Whatever the case is going on here, rumor had quickly spread that Jesus was in the house. Verse number one, it was noised that he was in the house. Rumors quickly began to take place. Hey, do you know Jesus? He's back in Capernaum. He's over at so-and-so's house. He's going to be speaking today. And so the rumors begin to swirl and the crowd shows up. You know, kind of the same way churches deal with a lot of rumors, too. Typically, when you hear rumors about a church, they're usually negative, though, aren't they? It's easy to hear negative rumors about a church. The greatest rumor that could be started about a church, though, is sort of like this one we see here in Mark 2, that Jesus was in the house. If anybody in Searcy wants to know anything about Liberty Baptist Church, a great rumor for them to know about this church is that Jesus is here. They can find Jesus at Liberty Baptist Church. So you'll hear rumors. I've heard rumors over the years about our church. I remember a few years ago when we put these new chairs into the facility, I heard rumors from other churches. Hey, did you hear what Liberty Baptist Church has done? They've gotten rid of their pews and they put in chairs. I know it's a great form of compromise. And so, you know, you hear those rumors. I remember when we put screens in the facility. Man, did you know that church, they put screens up. I love the fact that we are an independent Baptist church, meaning that we do not care what any other church does. They have the right to do what they want to do, and we have the right to do what we want to do. And so we don't care about those rumors that go around. As we enter a new season of ministry, you may hear rumors about our church. I'm glad if people are talking about our church, that means that we must be doing something right. And so anytime you hear rumors, make sure that the rumors that you hear are factual. Make sure that the rumors that you hear are biblical. There were rumors going around here. I hope that people hear rumors and I hope that they show up at our church to find out what's going on. And they'll find that when they get here that Jesus is in the house. Because when that word gets out, people will start to come. The Bible tells us in John chapter 12, Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. And so Jesus has that drawing power. That should be the drawing power to any church. I don't want people to know about Liberty Baptist Church, that it's the music program, that it's their children's program. The most important thing that anybody should know about Liberty Baptist Church is that Jesus is there. And if Jesus is the focal point, if Jesus is the center of things, then we're on the right track. People will come. when it comes to rumors. We ought to be the ones sharing the rumors that this is where Jesus is. Learn to talk your church up. Learn to be excited about what your church is doing. Talk up the fact that this is where Jesus is. There's something happening there. Use those rumors. So not only was the place packed and there was a popular preacher there, but then we begin to see this problem as the paralyzed man and his persistent friends show up in verse number three. He says, and they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four. So we have this paralyzed man. In Luke chapter five, if we go back to the parallel account, And behold, men brought in a bed, a man which was taken with palsy, and they sought means to bring him in and lay him before him. This man, he could do nothing to help himself, could he? This man had no way to get to Jesus. This man needed something from the Lord, but could not help himself. You know, we can see ourselves pictured in this man, just like the leper that Jesus heals, a chapter earlier. We see ourselves in those illustrations. The man's condition was such that he could not come to Christ by himself. Others had to bring him. And praise the Lord that he had some friends who were happy to pick him up and get him to Jesus. Verse number four, and when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. So you've got these four happy men that are trying to get their friend to Jesus. On the unhappy side, you have the crowd here that was in the way. You've got the crowd that was kind of obstructing things from getting the man who needed to get to Jesus to get there. Sometimes that's the way it is in our churches. Sometimes, unfortunately, we're the ones obstructing the way from people getting to Jesus. We don't want to be those people. We don't want to obstruct anybody from coming to Jesus whatsoever. You had some who were there, no doubt, interested to hear what Jesus had to say, but the room had very many. religious individuals in it, taking up prominent positions that were only there to debate and argue with the Lord. Here we have a man who is in desperate need of getting to Jesus, but those people were obstructing the way. We've got to be careful in our lives that we're not obstructing people from coming to Jesus. that we're not selfish, that we're not hard to get past. And so the crowd is between this man and Jesus, but his friends, they were determined, no matter what, they were going to do what it took to get their friend to Jesus. And so here's where we really get to their creative faith. He's helpless. He needs a touch from Jesus. He's paralyzed. And so where there's a will, there's a way. They went up on top of the flat part of the roof, and they uncovered the roof where he was, verse number four, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. They're going to force their way into Jesus. If other people are obstructing the doorways, if they can't get to Jesus, if the religious crowd up front is keeping them from getting there, they're going to get their friend to Jesus no matter what. So they begin to get creative. They dared to do what was difficult. This was not easy to get their friend to Jesus. They could have walked right through the door, that would have been great, but they couldn't. So what I have read about the typical homes of this day is that sometimes there would be a staircase on the outside that would allow you access to the roof. But not every home had staircases. If they didn't, they would have probably found a home that had a staircase, gone up to the top, and they would have constructed maybe some little scaffolds to get across to this home. Whatever the case was, there was some work involved. It wasn't easy just to get the man up on top of the roof. And then the typical home of this day, the way the roof was constructed, they say the timbers were laid kind of parallel to each other, about three feet across. And then crosswise over the timbers, you would have a bunch of smaller sticks laid down on top of that. And then they would lay down reeds, branches of trees, thistles. And then they would take about a foot worth of dirt and spread that over the top of it. They would pack it down so it would resist the water. And during the spring, of course, having dirt and stuff like that up there, grass, flowers, whatever would begin to spring up and grow. And these men, when they get up there, they say typically homes like this, to be able to dig down through it, you were looking about two feet. worth of digging to get through. And so these men get up on top of the roof and they've concocted this plan that they're just going to tear a hole in this roof and they're going to let their friend down to where Jesus is sitting. This is pretty difficult to get to Jesus, isn't it? They have to be very invested in their friend to want to go to all of this trouble to get their friend to Jesus. But that's what they do. And notice it says that when Jesus solved their faith, Jesus began to work when he saw the faith of his friends. Sometimes our faith is a big factor in somebody else's life. Our faith helps bring people to Jesus. Faith, that's something that, you know, it starts in the heart, right? But we know according to scripture, if we have faith, it doesn't just stay inside of us, doesn't it? What does the book of James tell us? A man may say that he has faith, but if a man has faith, it will produce what? Works. We love Ephesians chapter 2 verse number 8 and verse number 9, but we don't want to forget verse number 10, do we? We're saved by faith through grace for what purpose? To do good works. We're saved unto good works. We're not saved by our works, but we're saved to do good works. And so the faith of these four men is working its way out, and it's evidenced by the fact that they're willing to do what was difficult to get their friend to Jesus. Their faith, it was persistent. I mean, they were determined. It wasn't easy. And then they dared to do what was unusual. Their faith was definitely creative. They were thinking outside the box. Okay, if we can't get in through the front door, how can we get him to Jesus? He's got to get there. This wasn't business as usual for these guys, was it? I mean, they do the difficult thing, they go up on the roof, and they say, let's start digging this thing up. Let's start digging the roof up. That's quite the ingenuity to get somebody to Jesus. And a faith that believes that Christ is the only way to heaven will be inventive with the ways that we come up with to bring people to Jesus. And they dared to do what was costly. It wasn't just difficult, it wasn't just unusual, but this was costly. I have a feeling that if we talk to my favorite insurance agent, Erica, and we asked her about homeowners insurance. This would be quite the story that the insurance agent would love to hear. Your roof was destroyed, how? We're used to hearing about the tornadoes, or wind damage. You had four men tearing up your roof to get to Jesus? Now imagine if you were the homeowner of that house. Jesus is sitting inside teaching and talking, you have the religious people sitting here, and then everybody else packed in around the edges. and you begin to hear this noise on top of the roof, knowing how these roofs were constructed, within a few moments, no doubt, debris would have been falling from the ceiling, right over these people, right over where Jesus was. What's going through the minds of those people? What's going through the mind of the homeowner? Maybe it's Peter, whoever the homeowner is. Suddenly this hole begins to appear, and here's some faces up here. Look out below. You know, they're just tearing up the roof. This would have been costly, as I have no doubt that these men would have fixed the roof. So it required something out of them. It was inconvenient for them to get their friend to Jesus. It was costly. There was sacrifice involved. Sometimes what stands in the way between us and being an effective Christian is we don't want to be inconvenienced. We don't want to sacrifice. That limits us in our ability to be effective witnesses for Jesus, doesn't it? Serving the Lord, being involved in the church. Sometimes it's inconvenient. Sometimes it requires sacrifice. It may require a sacrifice of our financial resources. We're two months away from the Dunlops being with us and having our week-long family crusade. And an event like that that we do every other year, we usually spend $2,000, $2,500 to put an event like that on. And many people in this room give to that. You may give in the penny offering each night to make sure that the boys win. You may buy toys. What? You may buy toys. You may provide a meal for the Dunlops. But people are involved and there's giving that's required for an event like that to take place. Sometimes when we give, we think about the fact that, you know, well, we got to keep the lights on, we got to pay bills. And that's true, we do. But I think a better way that we should give is that we really get a vision of what we're giving to. We're giving to see things like the Dunlop Crusade happen. We want to see 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 kids come in every single night. We want to see people come to know Jesus. And so we give because we've seen in the past, we've seen people saved. And that's why we continue to do an event like this, because we've seen how God has used it in the past, and so we do it again. And we trust that God will provide the resources that we need to make that event happen. But here we are two months away. It's time for us to start thinking about that, getting that on our radar. Very soon, we'll start posting some of the lists of some of the things that we need. Some of you may be able to buy some of the toys, the sodas, the chips. All of those things, and this is what, you know, Brother Dunlop tells us this every time he comes. He asks us to look past the fun. He asks us to look past the games, the prizes. We may give away a Nintendo Switch. We may give away a drone. We'll give away something as a big prize at the end of the week. Those of us who are believers, though, we've had people in the past that they haven't liked that we've done these crusades because, you know, they don't like that we give that stuff away. If a kid will get on our church van and come to church because we're giving away a Nintendo Switch that week, they might come for the wrong reason. But while they're here, they're gonna hear the ABCs of salvation. They're gonna hear that they have to admit that they're sinners, that they need to believe that Jesus died for them, that they can call upon Jesus to save them. And while they're here, they might get saved. Now, if they come for the wrong reason, if they come to win a Nintendo Switch, but they get saved while they're here, was it worth giving away a Nintendo Switch? Was it worth spending $100 on some chips and candy and prizes? Was it worth spending $2,000 for a week to host the Dunlops and to give away all the prizes that we're doing? Absolutely. We can't put a price on souls being saved. And praise the Lord, we've seen multiple souls make professions of faith every time they've been here. It's sort of creative. It's not what we do every single Sunday. We don't do it every week that way. But it's a way to get people through the door. It's a way for them to hear the gospel message and they find out that Jesus is here. And so it can be costly. And this church exists Because for 26 years, people have given their time, they've given their money, they've been involved in serving Jesus. And we have a great expectation that continuing to go forward, we're going to continue to see the Lord work that way, that we're going to continue to see people saved. We don't want our church to be one that we look back on and say, man, do you remember those good days when people were getting saved, when we had those kids? We don't want the best days of Liberty Baptist Church to have been in the past, do we? We want the best days of Liberty Baptist Church to be the next 26 years that are ahead of us. And it's one of the reasons why we're launching this brand new service schedule. You know, I'm sure that there were, you know, maybe these guys as they talked, as they were tearing up the roof, they said, we've never done it that way before. I know they hadn't. I was reading a book recently written by Tom Rainer on autopsy of a dead church. And this is a guy who goes and his entire ministry career has been spent helping dying churches. And he's helped hundreds and hundreds of these churches and tried to help revitalize them. One of the things he said that he's noticed as he goes from dead church to dead church to dead church is that that phrase gets used all the time. Well, you know, we've never done it that way before. And he says, and he's right, that's a phrase that we ought not to use in our church. We haven't done it that way before. But why are we doing this? Because we want to be more effective in our ways that we can reach people. We want to be more effective in seeing people grow in their faith. We want to see more opportunities for greater involvement in bringing people to Jesus. Very soon, I don't know if we're doing it tonight and the next week or two, but we're going to be sharing with you our new plan for Wednesday evenings. We're going to be launching a brand new children's program on Wednesday nights. We've used Master Club for several years and it's been good. But we're going to put it on the shelf for the time being and we're going to try something new. We're going to, hopefully, If we have enough involvement from people in the church, we would like to run our van on Wednesday nights and bring kids in on Wednesday night, have a bigger kids program on Wednesday evening. But to do so, to see the ministry carried out the way that we have it envisioned is going to require some extra people helping. We want to provide a meal for them on Wednesday nights. We want to have game time on Wednesday nights. And we're going to need people to help us with this. But I think that if we can get the involvement for a program like our kids' program on Wednesday night will be, I think we might see a good number of kids coming in on Wednesday evenings. I think it'll help boost our teen group on Wednesday nights, because we'll be able to bring teens in as well. and hopefully see some kids change, see their lives change, and then go to their homes as the ultimate goal of the ministry of our van is not just to continue bringing kids in week after week after week, month after month, year after year. We want to see those kids get saved. But then we want to reach into the home and we want to reach their families for Jesus. And we want to move them from being a van rider to a family that drives in. So that way, a seat's opened up on the van so somebody else can have that seat and come in. And then that family that comes, they can begin to be discipled. They can begin to grow in their faith. And they can start inviting people to church. These men, here in Mark chapter 2, had a great expectation for the Lord to work. If they didn't think, if they didn't have faith that God was going to do something, I don't think they would have gone to the trouble of getting their friend on top of the roof, digging the hole, and having to pay for the repairs. They expected the Lord to work in their lives. Here at Liberty Baptist Church, that's the kind of members that we need. We need to be expecting that the Lord is going to work in our church. We need to be expecting the Lord's going to work in our life. We need to have that great kind of faith, expecting the fulfillment of those great expectations. The book of Hebrews tells us, without faith, it is impossible to please Him. And faith And the faithfulness of God's people is one of the reasons why this church is still here today. There was a time early in the church's ministry, some of you have heard Dad share the story, when we had just gotten started, we had got a few people, but for one reason or another they moved, they left, whatever, and we ended up back down to just two families. And he thought, you know, maybe this wasn't the right time to try to start a church. Maybe this just wasn't a good idea. He got together with one of the men from the church and told him, look, it's just our families. Maybe we just need to shut the doors and try this again some other day. But because of the faith of that man, when my dad's faith, when the pastor's faith was a little bit weak, that man's faith said, let's not shut the doors. Let's not be quitters on this. Let's keep going. And the doors remained open. And here we are, 26 years later. And so you folks have trusted the Lord in the prosperous times, and we have to trust God in the lean times. And we've seen he's been faithful to us for 26 years, and we expect him to continue being faithful to us. But there's obstacles that we encounter when we get to this. Just like these guys had some obstacles. When we're trying to get people to Jesus, there'll be obstacles that they encounter. We have to try to help people overcome their obstacles to get them to Jesus. Some people won't put their faith in Christ because of the pull of their friends, because they fear mocking or rejection of their family. Some people don't get close to Christ because of their possessions. You remember Jesus talked about the wealthy young man that he encountered, and he wanted to follow Jesus. Jesus said, well, go sell everything you have, give it up. And it says, the young man went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. See, he wasn't willing to give up what he had to follow Jesus. Some people, one of the obstacles they have is perceptions that are false. They don't get close to the Lord. They don't get near Jesus because they have some false perceptions about things. Some people have the idea that, you know, if I were really to serve God with my life, if I were to try to get close to God, if I was to do that, you know, who knows what might happen with my life? God might do something terrible to me. I talked to the teens about this in the last couple of months as we've talked about trying to find God's will for our life. Sometimes we think that God's will for our life is gonna be some terrible thing. Like God is going to suddenly derail all of our plans that we have. The truth is God's will for our life is good. It's not something we have to fear. It's not something we have to worry about. He's not going to just detour us. from everything that's good. You know, a lot of people think, man, if I was just to tell God that I'll do whatever you want me to do, Lord, then he's probably going to send me to some faraway corner of the world where I have to eat bugs or some cannibal's going to eat me. I don't know why. That's what we always go to. We think God's going to do something terrible to us. And so we believe the lie that his will is a danger to our desires. But we have a good God. And we can trust him. We can trust his heart. We're running out of time quickly here, but let's take just a minute. Flip over to Jeremiah chapter 24. I want to show you these verses. The Babylonians have deported, they've captured some of the Jews. King Jehoiachin, along with some of the nobles and key citizens, and they've left only the poor people to work the land. And so this was the beginning of the end for the nation of Judah. And Jeremiah, the prophet, is very distressed over this. And God, in chapter 24, gives Jeremiah this vision of two baskets of figs that were there, and in one basket, there was a bunch of good figs, and the other basket was a bunch of rotten figs that nobody could eat. And the Lord explained to Jeremiah that the good figs represented all of the people who had been carried away captive to Babylon. And the bad figs represented the people who were left behind there in the land of Israel. And what do you do with rotten figs? Well, you throw them out, you get rid of them. You don't keep them. You reject them. What do you do with good figs? You preserve them, you enjoy them. And so look down to verse number five, keeping in mind that Jeremiah has this message now. The good figs are the people who have been carried away. They're in exile. They're in captivity right now in Babylon. It's not a great place to be. But thus saith the Lord God of Israel, verse number five, like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good. I will bring them again to this land and I will build them and not pull them down. I will plant them and not pluck them up. And I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God for they shall return unto me with their whole heart." God's describing his plans here in these verses, his plan or his will for his people. We see the awesome heart of God. We see his compassion. We see his goodness on display here. Here are God's people. They've rejected him. They've turned against him. They've disobeyed him. They've been carried away captive just like he said they would be if they didn't repent. But even in their sin, even in their times where they rejected God, they've been carried away captive, God is still working in their lives. He knows what they're going through. He recognizes them. He's interested in His people. It's the same way in our lives. God sees us. God hears us. God recognizes us. And then He says, I will set mine eyes upon them for good. God's plans are always working for our good. You can trust God's will to be good for your life. God's plans for us are always good and they're always for His eternal glory. And so God has good things in mind for your life. He's not planning to ruin your life. That's what I'm trying to tell the teenagers. Give God your life. Trust Him. Follow Him. He's not going to ruin things. We ruin our lives when we choose to reject God and go our own way. And so he goes on to describe his plan there, how he's going to lead his people, how he's going to build his people, how he's going to plant his people, how he's going to bring them back to the land. He wasn't just talking about a return a few years from then. He's talking about in the millennial reign of Christ, one day he's going to bring all of those people, all of those good figs are going to come back to the land. So we're yet to see this promise fulfilled. But one day in that thousand year reign of Christ, we will see this take place. That's an awesome, loving, heavenly father that we have. His plans are good. We can trust him. Does that mean everything's rosy when we get saved? No. We're still going to have problems. We're still going to have bad days. We're still going to have difficulties. But will Christ affect our home? if we turn to him? Will Jesus affect our church if we let him? Yeah, that's what he promises to do. Notice back here in Mark chapter 2 how the presence of Christ affected the home where he was speaking. This room is packed with people listening to him. The hole is dug through the top of it. There are people that are sitting there in the house. They didn't like Jesus. They didn't like what he was saying. That can happen to us. There'll be people in our lives. We speak about Jesus. We try to get people to Jesus. Some will oppose the message. Some will be against it. But there's others that are very greatly blessed by it, and their lives were dramatically changed, like the paralyzed man sitting up on top of the roof. So what happens? We have to wrap it up very quick. Look at the powerful physician and the pessimistic Pharisees. Verse 5, when Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. Now, what does Jesus do first? Before he ever physically healed this man, what does Jesus do? He heals him spiritually. Isn't that the greatest need of every single person that's alive? We need to be healed spiritually. It doesn't matter if we have healthy bodies and run into hell with them. Jesus said, you're better off to be game and limp and cut your arm off and get to heaven that way than to be running full steam ahead and go to hell with a healthy body. And so Jesus doesn't say anything about the man's legs. He doesn't say anything about the man's disease. He focuses on his soul. He says, your sins are forgiven. Our main need is not physical healing. Our main need is spiritual forgiveness. But verse number six, there were certain of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. This is when Jesus really ticked off those religious people. He says, your sins be forgiven. That's what they were waiting for this guy to do. And they reasoned in their hearts. Why does this man speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? They have their theology right. Only God can forgive sins. You know what they missed? It was God that was sitting right there in front of them. He was able to forgive sins because he was who he claimed to be. And so Jesus says, your sins are forgiven, their antennas pop up, wait a second, what kind of blasphemy is this that you're talking about? Only God can forgive the sins. And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves. So we have this whole thing happening And nothing's being said out loud yet. Jesus read their minds, right? Jesus knows what they're thinking. They're over here in their hearts, they're thinking this. Jesus knows what they're thinking and Jesus speaks to it immediately. And so Jesus said unto them, why reason these things in your heart? He knew that they were upset about the statement that he forgave their sins. Now, if I stand up here this morning and tell you, hey, your sins are forgiven, you just can take my word for it. There's no way that you can see that I've forgiven anybody's sins. There was no way that they could see that Jesus had forgiven that man's sins. Jesus says, yes, I forgave his sins. They said, no, you didn't. Yes, I did. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. So they could argue back and forth. So what does Jesus do? Now he's going to perform the miracle to back up that he is the son of man, the son of God, the one with all the power, the perfect Lamb of God. And so he says, is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or to arise and walk? So that you may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins. He looks over at the paralyzed man. I say unto thee, arise, take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house. So he's performing this miracle to demonstrate his power and to give credibility to his claim that he can forgive sins. Any of us can tell somebody to do that. But if you're here this morning and you're paralyzed, I might say your sins are forgiven, but if I tell you you're paralyzed to stand up and walk, I don't have any kind of power to do that. My claim would fall flat. And immediately, verse number 12, He arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all. In Luke's account, in verse number 25, it says, immediately he rose up before them. He took up that whereon he lay, and he departed to his own house, glorifying God. Mark's account tells us everybody else there began to glorify God. And we see the praise there. Spurgeon, he wrote, I think I see him. He sets one foot down to God's glory, and he plants the other to the same note, and he walks to God's glory. He carries his bed to God's glory. He moves his whole body to the glory of God. He speaks, he shouts, he sings, he leaps to the glory of God. You know, the Lord can do anything he wants. He chose to heal that man on the faith of four guys who were willing to do what it took to get their friend to Jesus. But more than healing that disease, the greatest miracle Jesus performs is the one that happens in our heart when we call out to him for salvation, when our sins are forgiven. In the book of Luke, it says the power of the Lord was with him to heal. We need to be healed spiritually. It's good to be healed physically, but our spiritual healing is the most important thing. And we've got friends, we've got family, we've got neighbors, we've got people that we encounter on a daily basis that are in the same exact condition as this paralyzed man. They have no power of their own. We've got to help them get to Jesus. We want to begin where we're at. We have a circle of influence. There's people in my life that I have influence over. There's people in your life that you have influence over. How can you get them to Jesus? Our church, we have a sphere of influence. How can we get people to Jesus? That's the ultimate goal. Get people to Jesus, see them saved, see them discipled, and then let them go out and start doing the same thing, bringing people to Jesus. We may be creative about the way that we do it. We may do different things from time to time. We'll be creative. It may be unusual. It may be out of the box. We'll be biblical about the things that we do, but let's get people to Jesus. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity this morning. look into your word. I pray that you would put your hand on our church, that you would bless our church, Lord, as we continue to try to shine the gospel light around, that we would be that influence in our community, that we would see people come to know you as Savior, that you would do what you promised to do, that you would draw men to you. Lord, we want people to know that at Liberty Baptist Church, they can find Jesus. Help us not to be those who would be in the way. Help us not to obstruct people from coming to Jesus. Help us to be like the four men, willing to do what it takes to get those in our sphere of influence to you. Lord, we pray that you'd bless this morning's service. Have your will and way in it. We pray that you would be honored and glorified. Most of all, Lord, we pray that our lives would be changed because of what we hear from the word of God. Lord, for those who might be here this morning that have never met you as Savior, let this be the day of their salvation. We'll give you the praise and the glory for all that happened here today. In Jesus' name, amen.