Jesus Saw Their Faith

And these men were audacious enough to believe him! They were boldly saying, "If you say so, we are going to trust that you care more about people than buildings, and we are going to tear a hole in your roof and put before you one of the very kinds of people you said you have come to help." They believed the things that he had said about himself and they acted on their belief. They were willing to go to lengths that other people would regard as questionable.

I think that illustrates a point about how we are to experience the Christian life. Let me ask you, is there anything bold about your faith? Jacob wrestled with an angel, who was really nothing short of God himself. He wrestled all night, and then grabbed him and held on and said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me" (Genesis 32:26). Let me tell you, that’s a pretty bold thing to say to God. And yet, boldness is a word that the Hebrew writer uses to describe how we ought to approach the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16).

There is a boldness that comes by believing deeply that God means what he says. Someone has said, “When we are asked to describe our relationship with God, if the first adjective that springs to our minds is ‘polite,’ then we have a problem. It means that we are not listening. There needs to be a boldness with which we confront the Lord, and insist in his presence that we are going to take his word seriously and we likewise expect him to take us seriously.”

You see, a hole in the roof was no problem for Jesus. People have always been, and always will be, more important than buildings to him. So he saw a both faith in the action taken by these four men.

I want to briefly look at three qualities of their faith that I believe need to be a part of our faith as well.

I. Jesus Saw Four Men Who Cared

These were four men who weren’t thinking of themselves. They didn’t need a special blessing from the Lord. But they had a friend who did. And they went to a lot of trouble to get him the help that he needed. The reason is that he was important to them. They cared about him.

Someone has well said that "They won’t care how much we know until they know how much we care."

Certainly Jesus set the supreme example in this regard. There’s a beautiful story in Matthew 11 where John the Baptist was in prison. He heard about some of the things Christ was doing and he sent two of his disciples to find out if Jesus truly was the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus said,

"Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them." (Matthew 11:4-5)

You go back and you tell John about a man who truly cares about people, who hurts where they hurt, who is concerned about their needs. I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful that Jesus didn’t just come to the earth, preach a couple of lessons a week about how sinful people were, and then ascend back to heaven. It helps to know that our God is full of compassion, that he truly cares about us and our problems.