“Rising Above the Crowd”
Have you ever considered how our church would get along without a full-time pastor? After all, many of the young churches of the New Testament didn’t have a “pastor” there most of the time but they grew and flourished just the same.
The fact is, that with or without a pastor, our service to God--our effectiveness of bringing light to this dark world is up to us. You see, what’s wrong with our churches today is that we tend to leave the majority of the “soul winning” and ministering up to our Pastor, Elders and leaders of the church because we think that they are more capable--we feel like this is what they are called to do. The problem with this mentality is that it is not effective and it’s not what the bible teaches. But even so, many believe that IF we had a Pastor that could preach powerful and heartfelt sermons every week, then the church would grow almost automatically. Right now, we have no idea who our next pastor will be nor do we know if he will be a gifted speaker or not. You see, it’s a fact that every minister is not an evangelist but it is also a fact that every member should be, in some way, a minister. Turn with me if you will to the gospel of Luke chapter 5:17-26 and I’ll show you what I mean.
“17 One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for
him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins....” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
Now then, with just a “surface reading” of this story, we are quick to focus on the paralytic that was brought to Jesus. But, is he indeed the main character here-- is the plot of this event built around him and his condition alone? Is this story recorded so that all paralytics will know that they need to get some friends to take them to be healed?
Not necessarily. You see, if you take a closer look at this story, you will notice that it could very easily represent the organization of the church even today. For instance, in the story, We have a house that they are all meeting in....and for the sake of comparison we’ll call this house, which was actually Peter’s home, the church building. Now who does the
bible say was inside this church?
Religious leaders, apostles, teachers of the Law, the sick and disabled, and I’m sure that there were also some there that were just curious as to what was going on. Now, in our church today, don’t we have a similar combination of people?
And as this story will indicate, sometimes that barrier that prevents others from getting into the church is the people already inside! I’ve often said that there is no perfect church, and you will be quick to notice that the imperfection of the church can always be traced back to the people in it. As long as there are people in the church, there will
be problems. I’ve had many people often tell me that the reason that they don’t go to church is because there are some hypocrites and other undesirable characters that are members and even officers there. Well, if you are waiting to find a church where these kinds of people don’t exist, then Satan will succeed in keeping you out of the body of Christ
because you will never find a perfect church.
That’s why they say that the church is like a hospital and it’s true; in a hospital you find two kinds of people: the sick ....... and the staff. And make no mistake about it; sometimes even the staff get sick-- you might even say that the hospital sometime gets a “staff infection” of sorts. And that’s the way it is with our churches, it’s a body of
imperfect people in the process of being made perfect-- in the process of being sanctified.
And it’s interesting to note that even though that house somewhere in Galilee was full of sinners and hypocritical Pharisees, even though there were people of “questionable character” attending this meeting.......Jesus was still there---in fact the bible says that; “the power of the Lord was present to heal” Among all those sinners? Why???? Because the Lord Himself tells us that He came to seek and save that which was lost...and He also tells us that where there are two or three gathered together in His
name, there He will be also.
But the bible says that “because of the crowd” these four men couldn’t get their friend into the presence of Jesus. Now, back to that statement I made about some people thinking that it is basically the “pastor’s job” to bring people to Jesus. Now, what is the job description of a priest or a minister? To bring people into the presence of the
Lord. Well we see here that it was not the priests and the church officers that were ful-filling the requirements of a minister, it was four friends -or laymen.
So, they knew that their friend needed to be in the presence of Jesus and they brought him to this house or their “church” if you will where they knew their Lord was ministering. But when they realized that they couldn’t get him in the door because the crowd was in the way.....what did they do---say oh well, sorry ... we tried... and turn around
and go home? No! You see, what many people don’t realize is that, though there is only one way into heaven, there is more than one way into the church. Some come in the front door, some in the side, some in the back....and as we see here in our story today; some even come in through the roof!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that different people are brought into the faith in different ways. And it’s up to us--the members -- to do all that is in our power to find a way -- to clear a path so-to-speak -- so each individual can find his or her way here into the presence of the Lord.
There was a sign outside a church somewhere that said; “ You put ‘em in the boat and Jesus will clean ‘em.” And that’s true. We can’t forgive sin, we can’t sanctify, cleanse or spiritually heal anyone---that’s not our job. Your job and my job is to get ‘em in the church and the rest will be accomplished by
the Holy Spirit. But again, how do we get them here? Different ways; in order to get us in Wal-Mart, they run sales on items that they know that we want or need. And while we’re in there we purchase many other items that we didn’t realize that we needed!
And this form of marketing is not limited to superstore chains, we did the same thing at our Net ‘99 meetings; (now don’t look at me like that) we did! ---- we advertised prophecy because that’s what everyone had a present interest in at the time. And when the people came ‘into the boat’ and while they were learning all about the End
Times, they realized that there was something else that they needed; something actually more important than what they came for, --a relationship with the Savior! And as a result, thousands of people were baptized into the faith.
So, the paralytic couldn’t get into the presence of the Lord because of the people at the church, but ( and this is a very important lesson for all of us) the people in the church were not going to keep this man out of the church! No, his four faithful friends knew the power of Jesus and knew of this man’s need, so they didn’t give up.....
They made their way up to the roof and began to remove some of the tiles. Now, just imagine that you are in the house listening to the Master and you hear the commotion coming from the ceiling. I can imagine that as the tiles were removed, that beams of sunlight began to break through and perhaps illuminated Jesus face as he looked up in amazement as these four men lowering down their paralytic friend on a mat. Now if you picture this scene in your mind, you need to realize that, in order to lower this man
down without tipping him off of the stretcher, they had to work together! Same with any church that is successful in it’s ministry; everyone has to come together (in one accord) under the leadership of the Head of the church Who is Christ.
So the bible says that they lowered him down right in front of Jesus. I can imagine that at this point the Pharisees and other uptight legalistic public figures there must have become very indignant and made comments like; how rude?! and who do they think they are?! But the scriptures indicate that Jesus thought quite the opposite. In fact, in verse 20 we find something that is very interesting; It says; “When Jesus saw THEIR faith, He said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’”
I’m going to tell you something brothers and sisters, this statement is perhaps one of the most uplifting and hope inspiring verses of scripture that a believer can read. Why? Because it says; “when He saw ‘their’ faith.... “ This is one of the best examples of scripture that shows us that ‘our’ faith--our intercessory prayers our efforts to bring others into the presence of the Lord can be very effective in securing salvation for someone else. Now I don’t mean that our prayers can secure heaven for someone
against their will, but our prayers of faith can be a very pivotal point in their salvation. And this is why I hate it when I hear Christians say; Oh well, I guess all we can do is pray....... like prayer is a bottom of the barrel--last resort option!! I don’t know what your bible says, but mine says that prayer is powerful and effective! It is the most valuable asset-- the most effective weapon that we have to extinguish the fiery arrows of the Devil-----even when he’s shooting them at someone else! Brothers and sisters, as sons and daughters of God, we have to “rise above” the cloud of doubt and disbelief just like these four friends of the paralytic had to rise above the crowd.
Let’s look again at verse 20. It says; “When Jesus saw their faith, He said; ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven’.”( in Matthew’s account Jesus says; ‘take heart son, your sins are forgiven.) Inspiration tells us that this paralytic was in fact suffering in this condition as a direct result of a specific sin in his life. He was tormented continuously
with guilt and remorse realizing that he had, through his own sin, separated himself from God. He had often appealed to the Pharisees and Rabbis pleading for some sort of help and reassurance but had only been turned away labeled as unworthy, justly despised of God, and doomed to perish in his own sin. They perhaps told him something equivalent to a saying that we are familiar with; “you made your own bed, now lie in it.”
But when his friends told him all about what this Jesus was doing, how He was healing the lame, cleansing the lepors, and even forgiving sin.... ...then he, for the first time in many years, saw a glimmer of hope for himself. And when he finally found his way to the Feet of the Master and heard those beautiful words; “take heart son, your sins are forgiven”,...live or die at this point he was finally free from the burden that he had been carrying around for so long and his soul was filled with an indescribable peace. Because you see, what brought this man to Jesus was not so much his desire to be physically healed but to be forgiven and reassured that God still loved him.
But these same words of Jesus that filled this paralytic with peace and thankfulness, only filled the Pharisees and other religious leaders with anger and thoughts of murder. For in their hearts they were calling Him a blasphemer. Jesus knew their thoughts and read their callused hearts. He could also read the heart of the paralytic and saw that he accepted His forgiveness by faith, and it was then that He determined to heal the whole man. Knowing that the Pharisees were trying to cast doubt on His authority to
forgive sin, He did something that proved His authority. He actually reversed the consequences of sin. (VS. 22)
I just love a happy ending don’t you? But you know, it could very well have turned out quite the opposite for this paralytic. He could have continued to live his life
begging for food and living off the pity of the people. He could have denied to himself that he had any sin in his life whatsoever and that he certainly didn’t need forgiveness from some self proclaimed prophet. But here is where we find the endless mercy of God; you see, through the Holy Spirit this man realized that he was indeed a sinner--and that it was
him and him alone that was to blame. This is called conviction friends. And when he was lowered down at the feet of Jesus that day and in the sight of all the others there, he was ashamed.
But you know, in our society, we don’t like to admit any kind of sin in our lives because we feel that guilt is always a bad thing.....but it is not: It is the role of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin. John 16:8 says; “When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and to righteousness and judgment.”
Like I said, today we do everything we can to avoid seeing the sin in our lives. For instance, we call homosexuality an “alternate lifestyle”; adultery and fornication we label as “casual sex”; when a husband beats his wife...we call it a “dysfunctional family”; and when we put money and greed in front of God....we call it “being successful.”
Friends, ignoring sin is like putting a Band-Aid on a spot of skin cancer and never going to the doctor and let him have a look at it. Sin is the same way... we need to be worried about it, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to invoke within us a sense of guilt so that we’ll hurry to the Doctor and let Him have a look at it---ask Him to remove it! And
listen people, God doesn’t want us to confess our sins to Him “so He’ll know”...... He want’s us to confess so WE’LL know that we need Him to conquer it. You see the guilt brought on by the Holy Spirit doesn’t last forever; it will always go away in one of two ways: when we confess and are forgiven( like the paralytic) or we refuse to see it and allow our hearts become hardened to the voice Holy Spirit.
Let me ask you, what brought you into the church? What caused you to become a follower of Christ? Let me tell you what did; GUILT brought you to the foot of the cross-- just like it brought that paralytic that we’ve been talking about to Jesus. In a manner of speaking; guilt saved you from hell because it made you realize that you needed the
Savior. But I can tell you that there are countless people outside these walls and many INSIDE the church that have not yet given their lives fully to Jesus. People that are paralyzed with sin and don’t even know it because they have allowed their hearts to become hardened to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and Satan through our society has convinced them that there basically is no sin.
Brothers and sisters, just as that paralytic walked out of that church a forgiven man-- a man freed from the burden of his past sins and strengthened against future temptation, you too can walk out of this church forgiven, strengthened and freed!
But when you do leave this sanctuary this afternoon.......after you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good....after you have been forgiven and uplifted....., after you have basked in the Glory of the Goodness of God..... please remember your responsibility as a Christian and that is to do all that you can to clear a path so that next week you might lead someone else here into the presence of your Lord and Saviour.
