OPEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI7ox_0j-Y0 (First 40 seconds)
Back in early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy set a vision before America “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”
(http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm)
Within that decade NASA succeeded in sending a ship into space that orbited and sent a lunar lander to the surface of the moon. For the first time, man set foot on a celestial body other than earth.
Now, nearly 50 years later, America has a new dream. A new vision. NASA plans to send a manned landing craft to the planet Mars within the next few years.
Obviously this is a huge undertaking.
The orbits of Earth and Mars are such that only once every 2 years is Mars close enough for us to consider sending a spaceship there. And even then (at our present rates of speed in space) is roughly it would be an 8 month trip. That also means that once a human crew reached Mars they would have to wait another 2 years before they could make the trip back home. So, it would take 8 months to get there, 8 months to get back and roughly 2 years waiting for opportunity to make the return trip… that’s about 3 ½ years. That’s a really long time… and it’s a very dangerous and complicated mission.
Of course, they’re not going to do that for a while.
1st NASA intends to experiment with setting up a manned colony on the moon. Then they’ll also be working at creating more powerful and faster methods of travel. And they’ll send unmanned ships to Mars to set up a place to live once our astronauts make the journey.
But the key thing is this: NASA has a mission.
They know what they’re going to do
And they will do whatever is necessary to attain that goal.
It may be expensive, difficult, and dangerous but they will not waver in their determination to reach their objective.
And that brings us to our story this morning.
Today we read about 4 men who were on a mission.
Their friend was paralyzed and these men were convinced that Jesus could heal him.
Now this is the 1st year of Jesus’ ministry.
Ever since the Sermon on the Mount, He’s been out preaching, teaching, and healing, and it seems that every time people know He’s in the area, they surround Him. They literally mob Him.
And now Jesus has come to Capernaum and again He’s surrounded by crowds.
In fact He’s teaching inside a home and it is packed with people.
(PAUSE) And there’s this… paralytic.
As you read the story you almost sense the desperation and urgency in their actions. They have GOT to get into see Jesus. They don’t want to wait. They won’t be put off. Because if they wait, they might miss Him….
I’m sensing from their urgency that this paralytic had tried to get to Jesus before. Perhaps, he had just missed Him days before when Jesus got on a boat and crossed over to the other side of Sea of Galilee.
But now, Jesus is BACK. And this man and his friends know where He’s at and they’ve rushed to that place to find Him.
They’ve got to see Jesus.
They CAN’T risk Jesus getting away again before their friend has had a chance to be touched by Jesus and healed. And here they’ve finally caught up with Jesus… but they can’t get thru!
There’s no room in the house.
They can’t get close to the door.
They can’t even get close to the windows because of the crowd.
(Pause)
So they sit down together and they begin to talk.
There’s no room in the house.
People are crowding the door and they are blocking windows.
"How are we going to get in there?" they wonder.
(Pause)
Then one of them looks over at the house and says "well, there’s nobody up on the roof!!!” And everybody looks at him in surprise, because they all know what he’s thinking.
“I wonder... if we could dig a hole in the roof, then, we could let him down in front of Jesus."
Another friend scoffs "... but we can’t just drop him thru the hole! How are we going to lower him safely to the floor?" Still a third says "If we had ropes... maybe we could lower him down through the roof. Yeah, ropes would do it!”
And off they go in search of ropes to use for their friend.
Now you have to realize this is a bold move on their part.
* They are going to destroy the roof of someone else’s home.
* They are going to disrupt a session being taught by Jesus.
* IN FACT they’re going to be barging into a meeting of some very important people.
But the paralytic’s friends don’t care.
They don’t care if they ruin the roof.
They don’t care if they upset the meeting.
And they don’t care who’s there in house with Jesus.
All they care is that they have a friend who’s sick - and Jesus can heal him.
Nothing else matters.
They are on a mission and they will not waver in their determination to reach their objective, because their friend NEEDS JESUS
So, they get up on the roof.
And they tear away at the tiles and the branches and plaster and reeds that form that roof and you can see the crowd as the debris from the roof begins to rain down on them. They clamor to their feet and struggle to get out of the way.
And then there on the floor in front of Jesus … is enough space for a sick man on a pallet.
The room is quiet.
The crowd is silent.
Sunlight streams down from the hole in the roof.
And you can see particles of dust hanging in air and the room is filled with a haze.
And then the stream of light is blocked as the friends swing the pallet over the hole and they begin to lower their friend into the room.
And there’s Jesus.
Standing.
Watching quietly until the palsied man lies on ground in front of Him.
And He then looks up and sees the anxious faces peering down thru the hole in the ceiling.
And He sees THEIR FAITH.
HE SEES THEIR FAITH.
We’ve been talking the last few weeks about the great adventure that God has for us.
God prepares us and equips us to do a mighty thing in His name.
Ephesians 2:10 says “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared in advance for us to do.”
At one point in His ministry Jesus tells us disciples:
“… whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12
God has a grand adventure for us.
He is preparing us to do a mighty thing.
But what is this grand adventure, this mighty thing, we can do in His name?
There is no mightier and greater thing that we can do that is valued by God than the act of bringing someone to Jesus, like these 4 men did for their friend.
Jesus said “… there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Luke 15:10
Or The Message Bible puts it this way: The angels throw a party “… every time one lost soul turns to God.”
I like that!!
They’re throwing a party in heaven every time someone in baptized into Christ!
So, knowing that, can you imagine the anticipation that occurs in heaven every time you BRING someone to church or Bible study, or talk to them about Jesus? The angels would know that this would be the first step to bringing someone to that point of repentance and accepting Christ.
Somebody did a study sometime back of the people in the New Testament that Jesus healed. Of the 40 times this person studied Jesus healings: 34 were either brought to Jesus by their friends or He was taken to them. In only 6 cases out of 40 did the sufferers find their way to Jesus without assistance.
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT FOR MINUTE
People were BROUGHT to Jesus to be healed.
They weren’t INVITED… they were BROUGHT
They were physically taken by the hand and BROUGHT to Jesus.
Now, here at our church we have many activities here that INVITE people to come join us. We have the clothing giveaway, the free lunches, the food pantry, the youth programs… and on and on and on. And those are all good… and we end up with a few people coming to join us for worship because of those outreaches.
But most people don’t come.
Ah, they’ll SAY they like us and that they are going to come.
But they don’t.
Why don’t they come?
Well, because nobody BRINGS them.
Ray Comfort once said “A church that is waiting for sinners to visit their building is like the police waiting for criminals to visit their station.”
NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!
Now I want to remind you of what the 4 friends were willing to do to bring their friend to Jesus
* They destroyed a roof.
* They disrupted a Bible class.
* IN FACT they barged into a meeting of some very important people
Why would they do that?
They did it because THEY HAD FAITH Jesus could help their friend.
In fact, we’re told Jesus SAW THEIR FAITH.
It was their faith that Jesus could make a difference that drove them to overcome
• inconvenience
• embarrassment
• all kinds of Obstacles
Now, I’m going to say something that may be offensive… but it’s still true:
Do you know why a lot of people don’t bring their friends/ family/ neighbors to church?
Why they don’t talk to people about Jesus?
Why they don’t think about praying for others to become Christians?
Why? Because they don’t really have FAITH that Jesus can change people’s lives.
You see, we all kind of live in an Andy of Mayberry world.
You remember the Andy Griffith Show? (Andy/Barney/ Aunt Bee)
Everybody was just so nice and pleasant… good neighbors/ loving folks.
A couple of episode even showed them in church.
But in all the episodes I ever watched… never once – never once - in that entire show did they ever mention the name of Jesus.
Why? Because didn’t need Jesus. They had Andy.
And that’s pretty much how many folks live their lives in the real world.
Everybody they know is just fine without Jesus… so why bother talking to them about Him?
They don’t have FAITH that Jesus can make any difference … so they don’t try!
ILLUS: We have a church bus. We own it now, it’s all paid off. But we have a problem – we can’t use it to pick people up right now. A circuit board went bad and that circuit board runs the air conditioning and allows us to open and close the main door for passengers. If you can’t open the door… you can’t pick people up for church!
So we bought a new circuit board and found that none of our local mechanics could fix the problem. We had to contact a representative of the company who made the circuit board to come and install it and that will be another couple weeks before he can make it here to make the repairs.
Now, I could get in the bus this afternoon and drive it all through town. It runs. It would be a nice traveling advertisement for the church… but it wouldn’t be able to accomplish the purpose it was designed to fulfill.
Now – do we have a bus? (Yes)
Do we have the circuit board? (Yes)
Do we have the money to fix the bus? (Yes)
Then, why won’t it run?
Why? Because we don’t have the right person that can fix the bus.
And until we get that person… the bus will be worthless to us.
Others might think it does its job… but we know it can’t.
In the same way, there are people out there who are driving their lives down the road, and – for all intents and purposes – it looks like everything is the way it should be. But it isn’t. They’re broken and damaged. They may have the money and the resource and the influence that could fix their problems… but something is missing. Or rather – Someone is missing. They lack the one person who can fix what is wrong in their lives. They don’t have Jesus.
But you do.
And you have the answer (Jesus) these people need. All you need to do is see the need.
Now part of the problem is that we often don’t see a problem.
When we read the story of these 4 friends … their friend has an obvious problem
But the problems in the lives of people around us just aren’t that obvious.
So, what I want us to do this morning is pray with me.
We’re going to pray for someone that you know that God would make their problem OBVIOUS!
(PRAY)
One last thing…
I can’t emphasize enough that the four men BROUGHT their friend to Jesus.
They didn’t invite him… they brought him.
Now I’m going to teach you a simple phrase this morning.
I’m going to say it once and then have to repeat it with me.
The phrase is this:
"Will you go with me to church this Sunday?"
Now I’m going to ask you to repeat this phrase 3 more times and we’re going to emphasize different words each time:
Will you GO with me to church this Sunday?
Will you go WITH me to church this Sunday?
Will you go with ME to church this Sunday?
See how easy that was?
I went to Bible College for 4 years to be able to train you to say stuff like that.
Allow me to illustrate what I'm talking about.
ILLUS: We have a professional basketball team in Indianapolis named the Pacers. They are a decent professional ball club and a lot of people buy tickets to go see them play. But I don’t. It’s more money than I want to part with and I really am not intrigued enough to make the trip all the way to Indy to watch them play live.
But what would entice me to go see them?
Well, if you said to me – “Hey, I’ll take you to the game. I’ll even buy your ticket. I’ll even take you out to eat afterwards.”
Yeah, then I’d definitely go.
ILLUS: I don’t like opera. I don’t understand it and it’s just not my thing.
But what would entice me to go to the opera?
Well, if you said “Hey, I’ll take you to the opera. I’ll buy your ticket. I’ll even take you out to eat afterwards.”
Then I might go.
The thing is… I’d be more likely to go to these events if you personally took me with you... and if you “bribed me”.
Church is the same thing.
Invite people to COME with you.
Promise to take them out to eat if they’ll go with you.
Promise to mow their yard
Promise to wash their car.
If you have to, tie them down to a pallet and have four men carry them bodily into church.
I don’t care.
Just do whatever you have to do to get them to agree to COME WITH YOU!
CLOSE: I read about a young salesman that had just lost a major sale. He’d really counted on this contract… but it fell thru and he was really upset. So he called up a friend of his father’s, who was the Marketing Manager of a large business and shared his frustration with him. He was looking for guidance and maybe just a shoulder to cry on.
In the course of the conversation, they young man shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”
The Marketing Manager smiled at that, and said, “Son, your job’s not to make them drink, it’s to make them thirsty.”
My point is this: you have Jesus.
You have what your friends, neighbors and loved ones need.
But the only way they may accept what Jesus has to offer is if you determine to make them thirsty for Christ.
INVITATION
