The Forgiveness Wager
Luke 5:17-26
This is a great story for challenging your faith by identifying with some of the characters.
Am I most like the optimistic friend, willing to go to great lengths and inconvenience to help a friend get in front of Jesus because I’m confident it’ll make a difference?
Am I most like the person who needs to stop objecting, forget about my embarrassment and welcome the help others can offer?
Am I like the critic who needs to let God to work outside the limits of my own understanding?
Am I like the spectator, unsure of what to do with this Jesus, who needs to admit He makes more sense than any other option?
1. The faith-filled friends teach us to bring a friend to Jesus knowing it will make a difference.
These men had a friend in need and they cared. You have friends with needs; material, physical, spiritual, emotional. Do you want to do something to help them?
These friends had faith. We might call it exceptional faith. Jesus was pretty impressed. It says He saw their faith – it was visible in what they did. Does your faith lead to action?
These friends had determination. Luke’s story doesn’t tell us how many there were, but Mark mentions there were four of them. Even so, the going may have been tough. You can imagine one saying, “I’m tired. It’s time for someone younger to carry this stretcher.” One could have complained, “This is taking too long. I have other plans and responsibilities.” When they arrived at the house where Jesus was teaching one may have said, “Look. There’s no way we’re getting in there. Let’s go home. I’m sure someone else will carry you home. Remember, God loves you and so do I.”
I wonder how often we quit too soon, when the goal could have been achieved with just a little more determination and perseverance.
These friends were creative risk-takers. They knew the time had come to get unconventional and think “out-of-the-box”. It was time to make some noise, to make some dust, to alter a roof-line.
Now I’m not suggesting that in your service you be too quick to break a law or vandalize someone’s property. But are you willing to take chances, to risk humiliation in order to get someone in front of Jesus?
These friends also had a lot of joy. When you get to the end of the story, can’t you see them on the roof, watching their formerly paralyzed friend walk out of the house, laughing, giving high-fives and saying, “mission accomplished.”
I think Jesus probably looked up at them, smiled and said, “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. You guys are awesome! Well done!” Then He may have added, “After this service I want you to fix the roof.”
Have you known the joy of helping another person experience Jesus’ touch? If so you may be like the faith-filled friend. You know that it’s worth helping someone to Jesus because He will make an amazing difference in their life.
2. The patient teaches us to welcome the help we need.
How do you think he responded to their efforts?
Was he the kind of person who said, “It won’t work. Forget it. Put me down.” When they started up the exterior steps to the flat roof of the house he would have been hanging on for dear life saying, “Are you crazy? Be careful!” And as they lowered him from the roof, “I am soooo humiliated!”
Or, he could have been the kind of guy who cooked up the idea. “Hey, guys I’ve heard what Jesus can do. I don’t care how you do it, just get me to Jesus.” When they got there he might have egged them on, “So you can’t get in. What do you mean you’re giving up? No way! Think! There has to be a way. I’ve got it. Take me to the roof!”
When Luke said Jesus saw “their faith” he may have meant the faith of all five men, not just the four friends.
After all their efforts, what do you think the paralytic thought when Jesus said, “your sins are forgiven”?
He may have thought, “That’s pretty irrelevant! That’s not why I’m hear!”
But Jesus knew our real problem is sin. The first thing we need is spiritual healing – salvation.
That’s why you and I should pray at least as much, even more, for other people’s salvation as we do for their sickness. Do I seek spiritual health as fervently as I seek physical health, financial well-being, emotional happiness?
Is there some spiritual paralysis in my life that Jesus wants to heal first? A paralysis of sin that needs to be forgiven.
Learn from the patient here and welcome the help you need.
3. The critics teach us to permit God to work in ways outside the box we put him in. We need to discover God won’t be confined by the limits of our understanding.
These Pharisees & Doctors of the law were very suspicious of Jesus and were watching for any reason to criticize and discredit Him.
It helps to know that the Party of Pharisees was six thousand strong in Jesus’ day. They were respected for their devotion to living according to the law, including oral interpretations and regulations that had been added over time to the law given to Moses.
While they painstakingly observed the outward provisions of the law, they violated the spirit and fell into hypocrisy. In pride and self-righteousness they exalted themselves over the common people. They lived under the delusion that their outward observance of the law guaranteed rich rewards from God. Through spiritual degeneration they were blinded and rejected Christ. He didn’t fit their expectations of Messiah. They believed their coming Messiah would be a powerful earthly ruler who’d exterminate the godless from Israel, crush demonic powers and protect his people from the reign of sinful men.
But forgiveness of sins was never attributed to Messiah. Only God could do that. So when Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven,” they thought He spoke with an arrogance that offended the majesty and authority of God. And that was blasphemy, punishable by death.
Jesus knew what they were murmuring and issued a challenge – a wager. “Is it easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Get up and walk’?”
One statement can be easily proven, the other can’t. They’d immediately see if Jesus had power to heal him. But how could they see if his sins were forgiven. So Jesus said, “Do you want proof of my authority to forgive sins? Okay, here it is. If I have authority to make him walk, then I have authority to forgive him. Deal?”
Here’s the way it happened. Jesus said, “I will prove that I, the Son of Man, have the authority on earth to forgive sins." Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, "Stand up, take your mat, and go on home, because you are healed!"
When Jesus said that, some Pharisees doctors of the law had to think of Daniel’s prophecy: "In my vision… there before me was one like a son of man… He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed” (7:13-14).
They’d have to admit there’s so much more going on in this room than an amazing healing. God is in this room!
Are you sometimes like Jesus’ critics? You’ve already decided what God can and can’t do? Are you unwilling to acknowledge he may want to do things – in your life, in others, in the church – that you don’t think He should? When did you get bigger than God? When did you become wiser than God?
Learn from the critics in this story that it’s time to let God be God and submit to Him.
There’s one more group.
4. The spectators teach us that it’s time to get off the fence and decide Jesus makes more sense than any other option.
Are you hiding in the crowd? You need to know you haven’t escaped Jesus’ attention. Are you trying to keep your distance and stay uninvolved?
Maybe you’re curious and checking Him out? You have some faith or wanting to believe but you’re hesitant to take that crucial step? I know what that’s like.
On Sunday morning April 29, 1973 I was talking with my youth pastor’s wife after worship and most everyone else had left. At one point she asked, “What’s keeping you from giving your heart to Jesus right now?”
Four or five good reasons were always readily available in my head and as I opened my mouth to tell her, every excuse suddenly vanished. So I said, “I guess there’s no reason to wait.” And I gave my heart to Jesus Christ then and there.
You’ve been a spectator long enough. You know all you need to know to take this crucial step. It’s time to decide that Jesus makes more sense than any other option.
Prayer:
Lord, encourage us today that it’s worth it to be like those faith-filled friends. We love it when our eyes meet yours and we see your smile of approval when we helped get someone in front of you and you do something amazing in their life.
Some of us here are paralyzed. Lord we want to believe. We want to be mobile again. But we don’t want to make a scene. Help us to stop being self-conscious long enough to be Christ-conscious, to hear the authority in your voice to declare us forgiven and healed. And give us strength to get up and get moving in faith.
Some of us have been unwilling to abandon our mistaken notions and wishful thinking about Jesus. We’ve tried to prevent Him from really being Lord in our lives, in our families, in our church. Today we let go of what we want you to be. We’re done arguing with you and surrender to your heart.
Lord, I know you’re speaking to heart of some bystanders, some spectators who’ve tried to stay lost in the crowd. But you’ve noticed them and they know it. They’ve been watching, curious, wanting this Jesus to be for real. Help them put aside hesitation, see what you’ve done and step out from crowd to reach for you, to receive the gift of your saving grace, the gift of your forgiveness. My friend, there are no more excuses to wait another day…
