All right. Well, beautiful singing if I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here, and I’m glad you’re with us today. So if you have a Bible with you, if you open up to the Gospel of Luke today, our text for study is going to be Luke 5, verses 12 through 26. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, there are Bibles scattered throughout the pews, and it’s on page 502.
So Luke 5:12, 26, 6. So please follow along as I read. After I finish reading our text, I’ll pray, and then we’re going to get to work. So Starting in verse 12, this is what Scripture says. While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy.
And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one. But go and show yourself to the priests and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded for a proof of them.
But now even more. The report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and be healed of their infirmities. But he withdrew to desolate places and prayers.
On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord is with him to heal. Some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. We’re finding no way to bring him in because the crowd went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And we saw their faith.
He said, man, your sins are forgiven you. The scribes and Pharisees began to question, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sin but God alone? When Jesus received their thoughts, he answered them, why do you question your hearts? Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven you?
Or to say, rise and walk? You may know that the Son of man’s authority on earth forgives sins. He said to the man who is paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. Immediately he rose up before them, picked up what he had lying, what he was lying on, and went home glorifying God. And amazement seized them all.
And they glorified God, were Filled with awe, saying, we have seen extraordinary things today. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
Lord, I pray that you would bless this time. Lord, please help me to be a good communicator. Help me to speak well and to speak truth. Please prevent me from error. I pray for the power of your spirit.
You also would help the congregation to be good listeners. They would hear what the Spirit is saying through the Word. And Lord, I pray that in this time that you would grow our faith and that you would set our eyes on Jesus.
Pray us on his name. Amen. Okay, so this morning I want to start by being maybe a little bit vulnerable. Vulnerable with you from growing up when I was a kid and a lot of advantages not all kids have. So parents love me, we’re together.
We had a lot of family in the area, always healthy. I had friends, among many other advantages that not everyone grows up with. However, one of the things that my family I did not have, even though my parents were hardworking people, was money. Where times were always tight. And because things are always tight, everyone knew, myself included, that my family did not have money, that we were poor.
So my grandma would tell stories that when she was a kid, where she grew up poor, but because everyone else around her was poor, like, she didn’t know it. Well, I knew we were poor, and I knew that everyone else knew that we were poor. I tried to find ways just to kind of hide that reality. So let me just show you one way to kind of help set the stage for today. So because we were poor, my family qualified for various assistance, one of which being free school lunch.
Now, at my school, to get lunch required lunch tickets that required to be purchased at the school office. So on Monday mornings, everyone would crawl the office, money in hand, to buy lunch tickets for that week. However, because my lunch tickets were free, what I had to do was just go to office workers, ask them for an envelope which had my tickets in it. And because I didn’t want to see everyone, to see that those tickets were handed me, because then they would understand that my family was getting free lunch. So what I would do all Monday morning, I would just try ways like to kind of like pace the hall, to like, walk by the office with the hope that I could slip in, get the envelope with my free lunch tickets during a time when no one other student, no other students were there.
And this is something I actually did for years. It wasn’t just with free lunch tickets, but so many other realities would come our way that not only underscore that we were poor, but. But these realities that cause like different anxieties. Well, of my heart, right. Just try to like cover up that reality and the stigma that I attached to being poor.
Where so much of my time and my identity was wrapped up in this stigma like it was consuming. Where seemingly everything in my life revolved around this stigma that I wanted to be freed from. Now I tell you this story this morning with the hopes of just try to self Our passage of scripture today was a passage I just read for you that tells stories of two different men who came to the Lord Jesus Christ looking for healing. As we worked through these two stories this morning, my assumption is that you’re familiar with these stories or at least familiar with stories of Jesus healing people. In fact, a few weeks back the sermon involved Jesus healing many in the town from Capernaum, including the healing of a mother in law of Simon Peter who we learned last week became one of Jesus first disciples.
And because of the familiarity of these stories of Jesus giving healing, the temptation is to kind of like gloss over these stories without taking maybe much time or thought to like try to place ourselves in the story, to consider all the things that are happening in the story, which is something I want to do today specifically to try to place yourself in the story by considering the various ways that Jesus shows care and love to the two men in the story, including in ways maybe we would not consider just the social stigma that these two men surely felt as they came to the Lord Jesus for healing these two men in our story would have carried awful social stigma that I’m sure was like consuming to them that no doubt was like their identity that they desperately wanted to be freed from. We’re talking more about through the passage, but before we get there, just a quick reminder where we left off last week. It was a very helpful sermon from Ben at the start of Luke 5 where Jesus now fully into his earthly ministry and he’s ministering in the region around the Sea of Galilee, which was not like the most prestigious or well thought of area of Israel. This is kind of like a backwater place in many ways. Yet as Jesus was ministering in this area which primarily came through his preaching and teaching ministry, although he also was healing many in the area as well as casting out demons as he was ministering, his fame is now spreading all over the region as people from all over began to wonder if perhaps Jesus was indeed the long awaited Promised Messiah, the Christ as mentioned in our text last week as Jesus called his first disciples to come follow him, including Simon Peter.
These were like common fishermen. So not a prestigious vocation, not a well paying or well educated job. Yet in his grace and wisdom, that’s who Jesus chose as his first disciples as he’s about to take common fishermen to make them fishers of men through the proclamation that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. So that’s where we left off last week. Jesus calling common fishermen to be his disciples who upon hearing the calling of Jesus on their life, left everything and followed him.
As mentioned this morning, Jesus continues to minister in the area. And we see Jesus minister to two men with deep social stigma attached to them. Men who came to Jesus in desperation, looking to be freed by him, looking for his care, for his love. So it brings us back to the text. You want to look back with me in verse 12, if you have your Bible open, please do keep them open.
We’re going to walk right back to the text. So verse 12 says while he Jesus was one of the many cities around the Sea of Galilee. There came to him a man who was full of leprosy. Full of it. Now if you’re not familiar with leprosy in scriptures, this seems to be almost like a catch all term used to label various like skin diseases.
Many of them are like painful and gross. Some of them are like kind of highly contagious skin diseases. And because the contagious reality that accompanies some of these diseases in the Old Testament there was like rules and requirements given to lepers which you can read about in the book of Leviticus, including which is required in chapter 13, verse 45 says this, that a leprous person with disease like who has this disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair on their head hang loose and they shall cover his lip and cry out unclean. Unclean meaning a person who had leprosy was not to like to try to cover up that reality in ways like maybe I try to cover up my family being poor. Rather to help spread or prevent the spread of the disease, the law required lepers by appearance.
That is to make it very clear that indeed they actually were a leper. In verse 46, chapter 13, Verticus says this. He should remain unclean. As long as he has disease, he is unclean and he shall live alone. His dwelling should be outside the camp.
And to further stop the spread, the leper had to isolate themselves. So this is a concept that we’re familiar with from few years back social distancing. However, commentaries are read this week so lepers didn’t have like the six feet of social distancing that we had brother peers. In his culture, lepers had to be like at least 50 paces away from others, which is maybe like around 100ft. So if you think about like a football field, that’s like from goal line to 50 yard line away, that’s a significant distance.
During the time of Moses, as God’s people camped in the wilderness, those with contagious disease were required actually to stay outside the camp, stay away from some, everyone. So for a person with leprosy, so not only they live with like the pain of the disease, right, There have been incredible social stigma tied to as well. You had to stay away, you had to avoid a person with leprosy. In fact, in the Old Testament, it appears like those who had leprosy were viewed by society as basically being as good as dead. So as you can imagine, the pain, the hurt, the stigma that this man is caring as he comes to Jesus, this is a heavy burden to carry in life.
This would have consumed literally every aspect of his life, one that he could never get away from. But I should also mention here that in this culture there’s a belief that if something bad came your way, like leprosy, it’s because you, like, you did something bad, like by breaking God’s law. So the ailment that you’re suffering with was brought on because of your own sin. So remember the story of the man born blind. So people wanted to know, like, how did this bad thing come about?
Because who sinned? Did he sin or did his parents sin? Now, biblically, yes, it is possible. Bad things come our way because of sin. Sin has consequences.
So it is possible. But not always. However, in this time, in this culture, it was always so back to the text for this man to come to Jesus. He had a lot going on, keep saying a lot of stigma that he’s carrying. So verse 12, in his desperation, as he sees Jesus, we see like he falls on his face, which not only is a posture of worship, but a posture of desperation.
In his desperation, he started to beg of the Lord, saying, lord, if you will, you can make me clean this morning. As we try to put ourselves in the text, we just really need to feel how desperate this man is. He’s coming to Jesus, like at his wit’s end. This disease has consumed every aspect of his life in the most awful ways. He’s miserable, distraught, he’s virtually hopeless, with the only hope that he had is that Jesus would show compassion on him.
And respond to his begging by giving him mercy. I was guessing this is probably something this man would not receive much of any from the society that he lived in because of the stigma that he was carrying. People would have avoided him. They would have harshly judged him. In the text, as Jesus heard this man begging of him.
Verse 13, instead of avoiding him or judging him, we see in the text Jesus actually stretches out his hand and touches him. This is an incredible act of mercy and compassion to touch this man whose skin was being attacked by an awful disease. I don’t think it’s a stretch to think it’s been a long time since anyone physically touched this person. But here Jesus stretches out, touches him. While this would have been an act of grace and compassion for the man, for the rest of society, this actually would have been like a scandalous act for Jesus to do, to touch a man who was unclean.
This would have called like a societal like uproar, like, how dare Jesus do this? The text, Jesus touched the man. He spoke words of kindness and compassion and mercy, saying, I will, I will make you clean. As he declared to the man, to the disease that was covered in his body, be clean. And Jesus spoke as he gave this command.
Even this awful, painful disease of leprosy has no ability to resist the command, the call of the Lord Jesus. So in the text, so immediately to leprosy, all things associated with it, including social stigma, they all leave him. He’s healed. He was set free from that which was consuming his life. No doubt, as this man was healed, he desired to show everyone what happened, I’m sure in part so he could rejoin society.
However, in the text, even though this man had this burning desire to share, to testify about the great and merciful compassionate Jesus, what Jesus did for him, verse 14, maybe surprisingly to us we see Jesus actually stopped him, stopped him from going around and sharing what happened. As Jesus charged the man to tell no one what had taken place outside of the priest, as a man was directed by the Lord to go to the priest to show yourself, as it was the priest’s job to affirm to the rest of society that the one who was unclean was now clean and is able to return to normal living. And after he showed himself to the priest, Jesus also instructed this man to obey the Scriptures and to make an offering for his cleansing, as Moses commanded in Leviticus 14 as a further proof that the leprosy was gone, that he’d be safe to return to society without a risk of an outbreak. Now, if you’re curious why Jesus prevented the man from telling others what he did for him. It’s actually something he somewhat did earlier in chapter four as he commanded a demon to not tell others that he was the Christ.
And it seems like this call to silence in chapter four now again here in chapter five, this has ensured that Jesus mission would go forward, which was a mission that ultimately was leading him to a cross to die for his people, to save his people from their sins. Now throughout the Gospel accounts as the word about Jesus spread, so many other had like missions for Jesus that they wanted him to accomplish that did not include the cross. You know, some want him to be like a military or political leader who leave some type of insurrection against Rome who ruled in the area. Others seemingly wanted Jesus just to simply be that of a healer. So as a way to prevent what one commentary I read labeled as the wrong kind of enthusiasm, being whipped up with the wrong kind of understanding of what Jesus came to do.
In the text, Jesus would call for silence. However, even though Jesus called for silence, verse 15, news about him continued to still rapidly spread throughout the region as the text tells us Even more, the report about Jesus went abroad. And as the news of Jesus was spreading far and wide, it caused great crowds to continue to gather about Him. Our text tells us to hear him preach, to seek healings from their infirmities. So in verse 16, as Jesus lived with this grueling ministry, demands as more and more were coming to him point at him in his human form, Jesus would grow tired.
So in the text he would like withdraw to quiet desolate places, not only recharge, but in a text to pray, to have communion with His Heavenly Father, doing so in ways that he could get back out there to continue to minister others, which by the way me a little side note, the smile of Jesus. This is so much different than like the self care talk that our society loves to have, which in the end is just like narcissism. So our Lord would like get away recharge so that he continued to minister to others, which is something he did in verse 17. So now we don’t know the exact timeline of how long from when he withdrew recharge and pray to verse 17. Our text simply tells us on one of those days as he was teaching, which continues to stress teaching and preaching.
This is the primary ministry of Jesus, even more than the healing, the miracles and the exorcisms. So one of the days when he was out teaching in the crowd included Pharisees and teachers of the law, which are Pharisees. And teachers of the law who came from all over Galilee, all over Judea, including Jerusalem. Which further underscores how much of a buzz about Jesus was spreading around the area. Like all kinds of people are coming to him.
From like social outcasts, like lepers, to like the social religious, really like Pharisees and teachers of the law. All from all over coming to Jesus just trying to figure out who indeed he is, as people are coming all over to hear him teach. We read the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal, which no doubt was a power to heal. Also attracted people from all over to come to him. Including verse 18.
If you take your eyes there, we see that some men came to Jesus and they brought to him a man who was confined to a bed because he was paralyzed, like physically unable to get to Jesus on his own. And these men, these friends, they brought this paralyzed man to Jesus with the desire to like lay him before the Lord, clearly with the hopes that Jesus would heal him. Now, before we keep going, just a few things here. First, just try to feel the stigma here. So the leper carries stigma.
This man here also would have carried a real social stigma. Culturally. He would have most likely been an outcast where many would have judged him being paralyzed as him getting something he deserved. So a lot of stigma tied to this man. Second, just notice and what awesome friends here.
This is the type of friend I hope that we all desire to be. Type of friend that really are aiming for as a church. When we talk about our church, pillar of connect, that we connect in ways that we are actually going out of our way to bring others in a community to Jesus. Knowing the end, that’s the one that we all need. By the way we find ourselves in the thick winter blues, cabin fever pressing in.
There’s a lot of people in our church that are sick right now. Be that type of friend. To be intentionally connecting with others, to care for others, to do things for others perhaps at this point they can’t do for themselves. This is what the man’s friends were doing for him who was paralyzed. Verse 19.
The friends got to the place where Jesus was. We see that they had a problem, a problem with the desire to lay the man before Jesus. And the problem that they had was the size of the crowd that’s like engulfing the house where Jesus was, in which the crowd that was so big that they found no way to bring the paralyzed man in. However, this problem was not going to stop the friends see in the text. He quickly became problem solvers.
Which led them up a ladder that was common in housing structures, this time to the roof of the house, which would have probably would have been a flat roof. Where from there, verse 19 tells us they started to remove, like, tiles that covered the roof with hopes of creating an opening by which then he would, like, proceed to, like, slowly lower the man down from the roof into the house to put before the Lord Jesus. And this really had to be an incredible scene here where the crowd surrounding the house was probably like a rowdy and raucous crowd. They’re probably yelling and pushing and shoving, all trying to get to Jesus. I’m sure as the men problem solved their way to the roof, the crowd was probably screaming at them for doing that, right?
They were to wait in line. They were to wait their turn for us. As we think about this passage, this would not have been some type of neat, organized, quiet, polite crowd. This is a rowdy, a raucous crowd. I’m sure at some point, almost like, close to like a riot, everyone trying to get to Jesus.
While as the men problem solved as they’re able to get their man down before Jesus, we see that the Lord honored them for what he did, meaning he didn’t, like, rebuke them for, like, jumping the line. He didn’t scold them for not being patient enough. Rather than the text, he honored them and the faith that they had in Jesus, which here in verse 20, Luke doesn’t define if the faith was just the friends or the friends and the paralyzed man that Jesus honored. Because the lack of definition, I think Luke is communicating that all at that scene had faith in Jesus Christ. And as Jesus honored their faith, he did something that the crowd, particularly the religious leaders in the crowd, would have felt even more scandalous than touching a leopard.
Because we see in the text, we keep going, that Jesus then forgives the paralyzed man of his sins, simply saying in the text, man, your sins are forgiven you. Now Jesus made the statement of forgiveness. Not only a paralyzed man hear what Jesus said. But we see the scribes and Pharisees who came from all over to be at the scene. We see that they also heard this declaration of Jesus.
And as they heard Jesus forgive the man of the sins, they began to question among themselves what Jesus said. And these weren’t like questions of like clarification, trying to better understand what Jesus was saying, or like questions of like awe and wonder that Jesus would do this for this man. Rather, these are like questions of accusation, questions of like anger. To say it again, as scandalous as it would have been to touch a leper. Jesus forgiving this man’s sins was even more scandalous because the Pharisees, the teachers of law, actually rightly understood that only God can forgive sins.
So they began to question, began to question Jesus like who does he think he is to do only what God can do. What’s in your text? The end of verse 21. So the scribes and Pharisees be questioned among themselves. Who is this that speaks blasphemies who can forgive sins, but God alone?
Not just to pause a couple thoughts here. So first, in a sense the scribes and Pharisees were correct. This is actually a right theology. Only God ultimately can forgive sin. It is a great blasphemy for someone to basically declare themselves to be God, which is exactly what Jesus is declaring this text.
However, second, what were the scribes and Pharisees are so wrong is they didn’t understand or believe that indeed Jesus is God. God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us. And because Jesus is the great God man, yes, he is actually able to forgive, including all of us here today who come to him by faith. Jesus has all power, all authority to forgive us of all of our sins. We were just saying his mercy is more he forgives us all of our sins, including some of the worst social stigma that tied to them on text.
The Pharisees and scribes were given their questions of frustration and anger towards Jesus to further display that Jesus indeed got in the flesh. We see in the passage that he was able to perceive their thoughts. He knew what they were thinking, he knew what was going on in their heart. And as he perceived their thoughts in the text, Jesus and Sharon had question for them. Pharisees, scribes, teachers of the law, why do you question your hearts?
This what I just declared as I forgave this man of his sins. Do you not understand who I am? So further let me ask you, scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the law, those who claim to know the Scriptures, which is easier, which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to rise and walk. And this is kind of a fascinating penetrating question here by Jesus. 1 I just think, I do think implies the Pharisee scribes must have felt that this man was paralyzed because of result of his sin.
However, in the text, Luke doesn’t share how the scribes and Pharisees how they answer the question or even if they attempted to answer the question of Jesus. Instead, we read that Jesus answered the question for them with the answer. Scribes, Pharisees These are actually both easy for me to do because Jesus has authority and power over both. Verse 24. But you, so that you may know that the Son of Man.
This is a common way Jesus referred to himself. So son of man is a phrase found in the Old Testament, perhaps most famously in Daniel 7, where a son of man is like riding on the clouds, which is a divine act, making the Son of Man in Daniel a God man. In the text, in the answer Jesus gave that you may know that the Son of Man has divine authority on earth to forgive sins, Jesus says to the man who was paralyzed, who was at this point of desperation, who had social stigma tied to being paralyzed, that man, Jesus commanded, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And just like the leper or the leprosy, had no choice but to immediately respond to Jesus when he cleaned the man in the previous passage in verse 25, paralyzed man also immediately responded. He rises up before them all the text we see, picks up his mat that he’s lying on and he walks home doing so, singing a chorus in his heart where he’s glorifying God for what has taken place.
I said this earlier. This is a pretty familiar story to us. One of you might maybe feel a little tempted just to climb and gloss over, but just to continue to try to put ourselves in the scene. Just think how incredible this must have been. I mean, just moments beforehand, the crowd was like, pushing, shoving, yelling at each other, all trying to get to Jesus.
Only for a group of friends outsmarting everyone by going to the roof to lower down their friend, which I’m sure led to more yelling, screaming, pushing, shoving from the crowd. This is an absolutely chaotic scene. Then in the scene, the religious leaders trying to pick a theological fight with the Lord Jesus, or I’m guessing they’re probably even trying to, like, rile up the crowd against Jesus for declaring the forgiveness of sin. Only now for the paralyzed man getting up, taking his mat, walking home. I gotta imagine this wild scene with a rowdy, raucous crowd.
I mean, they had to be, like, stunned into silence as this man got up, which I actually think our text applies in verse 26, as he was seized by amazement. However, we’re going to end in our text today, verse 26. If they were stunned into silence with the amazement that seized him, that silence did not last long. We see they joined the chorus of the once paralyzed man as they too started to glorify God, being filled with awe as they testified for all to hear, saying, we have seen Extraordinary things today, which by the way, may be true of us as well as through the eyes of faith, that we see the glory of God revealed in his word found in the face of Jesus Christ, that we too may declare that we have seen extraordinary things in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as I close, how do you want to close?
Is first by just giving two very practical applications of the passage, things that have already kind of been passing, mentioned. And then I want to give just one, one big major takeaway that we are to leave here this morning from this text. So first, just two real practical applications as you’re trying to think through this passage. First one is from verse 16 and 17.
We’re practically in this life. We are to follow the model of Jesus, to withdraw, to pray, to commune with God. We’re seeking to like, watch over our soul, to care for our soul. But we do so, at least in part, so that we can like, get back out there in ways that we’re seeking to minister to others.
We don’t, like, just isolate, just for like me time, where the entire focus is on ourselves, our own self care, our own self help. We’re just becoming like narcissists. Rather, we isolate primarily to commune with God, but doing so with the desire so we can like, better get out there to better care for and love and serve others. Which leads to the second practical thing, which is verses 18 to 20. And practically, friends, be a friend, a friend who brings others to Jesus Christ with your words, with your deeds, where who knows how the Lord might use you to bring glory to himself with amazement and awe for others to see.
I already mentioned, as a church, you know, we do talk about pretty often a desire to connect. Let’s connect in this type of way where we’re continuing to bring each other before Jesus, even if it cost us. Like as a church, we do constantly talk about our desire to go. And friends, let’s go in this way where we’re seeking to bring others in our neighborhood, school, place of work, family members, we’re seeking to bring them to Jesus as well. By the way, if you’re looking at one of the great ways to fight the winter blues, care for others by bringing to Jesus.
That’s a great way to fight the winter blues. Finally, just one major takeaway from the text. That takeaway is just by faith. Come to Jesus knowing that he loves you and then he cares about you, meaning not just trying to bring others to him, but you come to him as well, which I do think is maybe one of the harder things for us to believe, like to come to faith in Jesus knowing that he cares for us and that he loves us. Like we might think that to be true for others, but sometimes he has a really hard time to think that’s true for us.
This week I was thinking about this passage and these two familiar stories of these men. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how Jesus cared for them and loved them in really every aspect of their life. In the text, Jesus cared about their mental well being. You think about the awful social stigma that these guys carried. They consumed their life.
Yet in the text, in the deep care, the deep love of Jesus, like he welcomed a leper into his presence. And not only that, he touched them. Say it again, that would have been a scandalous act. That is exactly what Jesus did. Likewise, in his care and his love.
Jesus like welcomed this paralyzed man into his presence, not rejecting him. Even though I think we do get the sense in the text, the social stigma he had is that he got what he deserved. He was paralyzed because of his sin. This morning, if you’re here carrying some type of stigma that you feel is like defining you, weighing you down, consuming you, whatever it may be, by faith, friend, come to Jesus knowing that he cares about you, knowing that all who by faith come to him will know his love, which is the love that sets us free, a love that changes our identity from whatever stigma that maybe you’re carrying to an identity that is now found in Him. For the more in these stories, Jesus also clearly cared about their physical well being as both these men were healed, which is something Jesus does time and time again throughout the Gospel of Luke heals the sick, the lame, the deaf, the blind, non Scripture, while it does teach us times in this life the Lord does heal, this is actually something we have to pray after, seek after.
But that being said, in this life, there’s no assurance that the Lord will give physical, physical healing like in this life for his purposes in this life, he might allow physical ailment, sickness to remain even to the point of death. However, that being said, Jesus still does care about our physical well being. And for those who by faith come to Jesus, there is a promise that healing indeed will come. When the eternal life that is to come, our bodies will be completely healed of all afflictions where all sickness, all physical affliction, even death, will be forever removed from us. Friends, Jesus does care about our physical well being.
This morning, if you’re having physical ailments, whatever they may be by faith, come to Jesus with them knowing that He Cares knowing that he loves one more. Jesus also cares about our spiritual well being and the sin that affects it. This is something we all have. We all have sinned. We all have sinned against God and by birth, by choice, we are separated from Him.
And because of our sin now we cannot come to God on our own. Yet because of his great care, because of his great love and grace and mercy, Jesus forgives sinners who come to him by faith so he can bring us back to God. For us. We know that Jesus cares and loves us in this way, not only because of what we see in the text as we pronounce forgiveness of sin to the man who is paralyzed, but we know this ultimately because was the message of his gospel, which is a message where we see Jesus actually going outside the camp where for us he faced the most painful of social stigmas, where he’s despised and rejected by man, where he was not esteemed, where he was afflicted with the worst physical pain, where he bore our infirmities and where he carried our sorrows as he was nailed to a cross to take on the punishment of our sin. Where he was crushed for our iniquities so that by his wounds we would be healed.
So that through his love not only we’d be forgiven, but we would have peace with God. Just something only he can offer through his death and ultimately through his resurrection from the dead on the third day. So yes, Red Village Church as we read through these familiar stories of Jesus healing the sick and the lame, may we be reminded just how much Jesus cares, just how much Jesus loves His people who come to him by faith. Where he cares for us, where he loves us in every aspect of our life. Where through his care, through his love, he frees us.
We free us in ways that we can bring glory to God. Being filled with awe and wonder, we’re able to testify how the Lord has done extraordinary things in our life. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for Jesus.
And Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I do pray that the care and the love of Jesus which is fill our hearts in this time, that we might bring much glory to Him.
And Lord, I pray this morning that you would either recapture or further capture or capture for the first time just the awe and the amazement that comes by setting our hearts towards Christ.
Pray this on in Jesus name, Amen.