Crazy Faith

Crazy Faith

Mark chapter 2:1-12

Introduction- Good morning everyone, welcome to Rosedale Church… We are glad you’re here.

What if a couple minutes with the Lord could change your life- would you take time to do it? Believe it or not some would say no or they would say yes and come up with a millions reasons why it didn’t happen.

Christians say you have to have faith… but I look at some people’s faith and I say I don’t want it. It is not worth anything to me! Because they only have it when it is convenient. Right?

Faith is a funny thing-

You really don’t know how much faith you have until it is tested.

We can say we have faith but until you put it into practice, you are not sure how much you have.

Example… you tell others how they should act when they are going through hard times, you tell others that they must trust the Lord and then what do you do when you go through some tough times?

Faith to me is an action word.

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for but the evidence of things unseen.”

If you can see it, it is not faith. Faith operates on what you know to be true not what you always see

Our text this morning is a faith building text- You can see it and you want to have it!

Prayer-

Mark 2, the text will lead you. 2nd book in the NT.

Mark 1 Jesus calls his disciples.

He cast out demons and heals many people.

Chapter two Jesus does and says something He has not done or said before. He forgives sin!

Some loved it and some were beginning to hate Him and want to get rid of Him.

He was beginning to step on toes.

You can say a lot of things about Jesus but He was not afraid to step on toes and He was not afraid to let people know who He was.

Mark 2:1-12 Read from Bible

Jesus was in Capernaum and the crowd that was following had pushed their way to Peter’s house. It was crowded. Shoulder to shoulder and there was no room for anyone to move. The house was full and people were outside packed like sardines.

We are told that Jesus preached the word to them.

For those who get claustrophobic, they would not like it.

Packed house- preachers delight- standing room only

You could not get in if you wanted- in fact we are told that four men who had a friend that was a paralytic tried to get in the front door and weren’t let in.

Picture it “excuse me”, excuse me, we have a friend that we want Jesus to heal. These people looking at them and saying, we have our own problems for Jesus. You should have been here earlier.

When He came to town they ran to see him but these guys couldn’t run to see him because they had their friend in tow on a bed and carried his dead weight to get him to Jesus.

These guys didn’t give up- they couldn’t get him through the door so they made a new door through the roof.

Not unusual to be on the roof during those days.

That roof they broke through was the roof Peter may have been on when they came for him later.

The roof was a place of talking and sitting, they usual had some kind of stairs that lead to the roof.

These guys went up those stairs and cut away a part of the roof that was made of mud and sticks and beams that went across for support they cut between the beams and lowered this guy down to Jesus.

I have been interrupted as a preacher before but no one has ever cut a hole in the roof.

Can you imagine listening to Jesus and parts of the roof start falling on you and the sky light is opened up.

You would think that Jesus would have stopped it but he didn’t.

(V5) “When Jesus saw their faith, he says to the paralytic… son, your sins are forgiven.”

Can I say this before we look at what Jesus did for the paralytic- let’s look at these friends of his!

Who wouldn’t want some crazy friends like this when you were going through something!

Who wouldn’t want friends who wouldn’t give up just because they run into some obstacles?

If that isn’t crazy faith … I don’t know what is.

We are not even told if that guy in the bed was a believer. We know a lot about the four because of their actions. They just didn’t say they were crazy, they did crazy things to get that guy in front of Jesus. They did what it took no matter what because they knew that may have been the last chance for them to meet Jesus.