Sunday Worship Service February 4, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Psalm 32:5
Hymn JBC 94 We are called to be God’s people
Prayer Time
The Lord’s Prayer
Offering
Scripture Luke 5:17~26
Prayer
Sermon “Jesus saw their faith”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 296 I saw the cross of Jesus
Doxology JBC # 673
Benediction
Postlude


The Bible features many kinds of people. People really are all so different in many ways.
There are many of these people written about in the Bible, people who are all different and who, through all sorts of circumstances, receive God’s grace and are changed.
Some people come before God and repent of their sins. Some people are moved by meeting with the true God, and receive faith anew.
However there are also some people who, rather than believing in God, refuse to break out of their shell.
In today’s passage (Luke 5:17~26), we see many different people. Firstly, we see Jesus, teaching people about the Kingdom of God through the Bible.

It is written that the Pharisees and teachers of the law were seated there, where Jesus was.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were well versed in the Scriptures of the time (the Old Testament), learning, studying and strictly following the precepts written in the scriptures.
While Jesus was there teaching about the Kingdom of God, he also healed people of their sickness. However, although this passage does not say how many of these sick people were there, we can assume that there were many there suffering afflictions.
Then there was a paralyzed man lying on the floor, and the people who had carried that man to where Jesus was. (In chapter 2 of the gospel of Mark, where it talks about the same story, it says “four people” carried the paralyzed man to where Jesus was)

Paralysis is a condition that is the after-effect of an illness such as a stroke, where feeling is lost in the body and it can’t be moved.
The people who brought the paralyzed man, most likely his friends or family, were desperate to bring him to Jesus.
They tried to bring him into the building where Jesus was but it was too crowded to bring him in, so they climbed up to the roof and removed the roof tiles.
Then they lowered the sick man down to the floor, in front of Jesus in the middle of the crowd. I think there must be people who are familiar with this Bible story, who have read this passage many times.
The actions of these people who brought the paralyzed man are truly astonishing. No matter how desperate they were to carry this man to where Jesus was, climbing up to the roof and removing the roof tiles is extreme.

If our church was too full for someone to enter in the usual way, so they climbed to the roof and broke through the ceiling to come in, what would we do?
Perhaps we would do our best to try to stop them before it came to that.
When Jesus saw those people, what did Jesus think (or what did he say)? In verse 20 it is written “When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.””
These people behaved in way that we could not imagine doing. Even so, from Jesus’ point of view, these people’s actions were seen as “faithful”.

That is, they were convinced that these people had that only Jesus could heal the root cause of his illness, and that they must bring the paralyzed man to meet Jesus now.
If that wasn’t the case, they would have thought “There are too many people, we can’t do this today, let’s try again another time”.
But, for whatever reason, the thought that “Now is the time, if we let this chance go there may never be another chance for him to be saved” must have come to them from God.
I think even these people must have hesitated at climbing the roof and removing the tiles. However, tiles can be put back after they’ve been removed. The part that’s broken can be repaired later.

If people get angry at you, you can apologize to them profusely. However, the instinct that now was the time to meet Jesus, hear his teaching and receive healing and salvation, surely that instinct was given to them.
There may be times when we too feel the call that “Now is the time”, lead by the Holy Spirit.
“Now is the time to have faith in God”, “Now is the time to make this decision”, “Now is the time to tell them about God”, or “Now is the time to invite them to church”, etc.

If you feel callings like this, shouldn’t we have faith in God and, by his power, obey these callings and make them a reality?
Jesus saw these peoples’ faith and said “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

These words from Jesus should surprise us. There were others (perhaps doctors) who had the gift of healing, others who were healing people of illness.
There was no issue (problem) at the time for Jesus to be healing people of their illnesses. That was considered to be an ability that ordinary people could have.
However, the forgiveness of sins was something that only God could do. The legal scholars and Pharisees were right to think “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”, as is written in verse 21.

Grammatically, the phrase “your sins are forgiven” is in the passive voice. People’s sins must be forgiven by someone else.
And, just as the legal scholars and Pharisees were saying, it is God is the one who can forgive sins.
At the beginning of this sermon, I said “the Bible features many kinds of people”. There are the people who, wanting to bring the paralyzed man to meet Jesus, believing that He had a special power, brought the paralyzed man to where Jesus was.

　There are also the legal scholars and Pharisees who, when they heard Jesus say “your sins are forgiven”, said “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (and possibly became angry).
They certainly thought that in their hearts, as is written in today’s passage. Since Jesus was the Son of God, he understood what they were thinking in their hearts.

Then Jesus said the following.
　 “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

　If Jesus only said “Get up and walk”, and the paralyzed man was healed and got up and walked and that was the end of the story, what would happen then?
Perhaps people would have been happy that the paralyzed man was able to walk, gone around praising Jesus telling people of his amazing gift for healing, and no one would have been upset.
However, by saying “your sins are forgiven”, something that only God could say, it was inevitable that he would be criticized by the Pharisees and legal scholars in particular.
Even so, Jesus said to the paralyzed man from the beginning “your sins are forgiven”.

The reason for that is that the “forgiveness of sins” is the most important part, and is something that all of us need.
The forgiveness of sins is where those who’ve turned away from God to live lives their own way are forgiven for turning their back on God, and welcomed back into relationship with God.
If one doesn’t have such peace with God, even if the disease is cured and the body seems healthy, the sin remains as a deep rooted problem of the soul.

Continuing this way means there will always be an unease, all the time, wherever you are, living without peace in your soul ~ this is the message Jesus was trying to convey.
However accepting the One who has the authority to forgive sins, that is, believing in Jesus Christ and living in Him, you can receive the true peace that is the forgiveness of sins.

Isn’t this message, which Jesus was desperate to convey even if he would be heavily criticized and end up losing his life because of it, one that we should receive again today and believe?
After Jesus said this, He said to the paralyzed man “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
So that the people there (particularly the Pharisees and legal scholars) would understand that the One who had authority to forgive sins was wielding that authority, He commanded the man to “get up”.
When He did this the man stood up before everyone, took up the mat he had been lying on, and went home praising God.
The man must have been happy that he was now able to walk. Even so, he went home “praising God”.
When people who have seen the works of God rejoice at God’s blessings, they come to praise God in this way. They give thanks to God, and sing God’s praises.

Something I earnestly pray for as a pastor is that when everyone gathered here in Church goes home after worship, that they go home praising God.
I pray from the bottom of my heart that you receive the blessings of the Word abundantly through worship, and that you go into the new week praising God.
If we read the last verse in today’s passage, verse 26, the people there were all astonished, and began to praise God.
Faith in God was awoken in many people. Seeing the works of God’s grace, seeing the paralyzed man receive forgiveness of his sins and then stand up and go home praising God, many others came to believe in God and praised Him.
I think that even the people called Pharisees and legal scholars, who said “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy?”, saw these works of God through Jesus, believed in the Lord, and became people who praised God.

　That part is not clearly written, however it does say that “Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God.”, so it should mean that the Pharisees and legal scholars too (or at least some amongst them) became people who praised God.
Receiving the Word of God, seeing the works of God and rejoicing, aren’t these things that we share amongst ourselves too? Aren’t the works of God changing us as well? We pray that this is the case.
Believing the words of Jesus when he declares “Your sins are forgiven”, when you follow the Word, that is when we receive the utmost joy through the grace of God.