Latest / Mercy Presbyterian Church / The Gospel Clarifies (Mark 2.1-12)

Transcript

The Gospel Clarifies (Mark 2.1-12) · Mercy Presbyterian Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, my name is Rob Heron and welcome to Mercy.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you are here and you are familiar with Mercy and with the church, it's a joy to be with you.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're here because you're curious, you're curious about the new sign popping up on Holbrook, or you're curious about what a church plant might be like, or you're curious about the claims that Christians make, it's a joy to have you here.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are here to proclaim what God has made known about himself.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And also every week to openly investigate what God has said about himself, to make the case every single week that what God says is good and true and beautiful.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And by God has made himself known and God has said, talking about the Bible.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Christians believe that the Bible is not merely a book, but that it is breathed out.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The words in its pages are breathed out by God.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's centrally important to the church because it means that God hasn't left us in darkness.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he has given us these breathed-out words so we would know him and receive him and trust him and enjoy him and love him.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because more than anything, what God has made known about himself in these words is his great love for us.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we, as God's people, we gather every single week so that we can be about our first order of business, which is listening.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not primarily to me, but to God and his word.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so my job is simply to restate, to re-proclaim what God has said about himself, so that we all would listen and believe, be strengthened to proclaim it ourselves, and then learn together to embody the beauty of God's word together to one another and to our neighbors.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so with that in mind, I'm inviting us to listen to God's word as we continue in our series on the gospel of Mark.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Mark invites us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, he's the Son of God, and that He came into this world to give his life as a ransom for many.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And last week we focused on chapter 1, 35 through 45, seeing that the gospel cleanses.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're moving into chapter 2, verses 1 through 12, seeing how the gospel clarifies.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's give our attention now to God's word.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home, and many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he was preaching the word to them, and they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, Why does this man speak like that?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: He is blaspheming.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Who can forgive sins but God alone?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they qu they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, Why do you question these things in your hearts?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which is easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise, take up your bed and walk.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
• 3:41
  unknown: Thank you.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The grass withers, the flower fades.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me now for the teaching?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Merciful God, we humbly submit ourselves, asking you as children to our Father, that the seed of your word would be sown in us.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And let it take such deep root that neither the burning heat of trials cause it to wither, nor the cares of this life choke it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: But as seed sown in good ground, let it bring forth thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold according to your purpose and for the sake of your kingdom.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Give your spirit to open our ears to hear, and eyes to see, and hearts to trust, and direct our hearts through your word to Jesus, so that we might believe in him and have eternal life.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: This we ask, Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of your Son.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe my favorite picture of myself from my childhood, and there are a lot of embarrassing gems, comes from a white water rafting trip that my family took.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I believe I was nine, and I remember this trip.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: My family got into the raft, and the the the raft guide handed every single person one oar, one oar per person.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the guide gave instructions to everyone and said, you need to make sure that you're gripping your oar really tightly because when we hit any of the rapids, you might lose it and we don't have any extras.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: No more oars.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I probably nodded along as a nine-year-old thinking, pretty sure I can handle my rapids.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But immediately, the second we hit a rapid, I put my oar into the river to paddle, and the current sucked it immediately out of my grip.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so apparently all the time I had spent playing Sega Genesis hadn't built up my arm strength as much as I assumed that it had.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the snapshot that we got from this trip from the rafting excursion is everyone besides me in the raft holding up their oar, confidently celebrating all the adventure that we were experiencing in that moment.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the picture of me, I am there, my nine-year-old self without an oar, and I'm clinging to the side of the raft, and my eyes are bulging, the veins in my neck are bulging, and my mouth is clearly making the sound eek.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is a wonderful, wonderful picture.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a moment that fully really captures the idea of being up a creek without a paddle, except in this case, thundering down a river without a paddle.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, it was a moment of being, feeling at least, feeling in danger and without what I needed.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that feeling, that feeling, very specific need, that or that's what I wanted.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I needed.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you had asked me in that moment, is there anything that you need right now?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I could have said very clearly, one or please.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You could have offered me a sandwich or$20, and I probably would have screamed at you because what I needed was so clear.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: What I needed was so clear.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So just give me that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Being able to define your felt needs, what you feel like you need, is something that we all can do.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And usually our needs are clear to us because they are clarified by our experiences in trouble, with trouble, or just anxiety-inducing moments.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you have to choose to take on debt to pay for a medical bill, your need is so clear.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You feel that need for financial assistance, financial help so clearly.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: That need, you feel it so intensely that fills up your mind and your heart.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So much of life feels like you're thundering down a river without an oar.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you feel your need so clearly because you don't feel like you have what you need.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I ask you to bring to mind the things that you feel like you need right now, I'm sure that you can do it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that you feel that need for a true friend, or you feel that need of relief from pain.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: You feel that need for a good night's sleep, or you feel that need for a week-long vacation where you can turn off your phone and put it away without worrying that everything is going to fall apart when you do.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I ask you to tell me what you need that you feel so clearly, and then I offer you something else.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I offer you something besides what you so clearly feel that you need, that would probably seem less than helpful, even less than kind.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: If it's clear what you feel you need, and if I have the power to help, then I should just give you that, right?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus challenges us because he calls us to come to him with all of our needs, all of our felt needs, to bring all of it to him, and then he offers us something primarily that is radically different than what we feel we most clearly need.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's challenging.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: What is Jesus doing?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's not unkind and he's not oblivious, he's kind and he knows what we need.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to make the case today as we look at Mark chapter 2 that what Jesus offers us is far better than if he simply gave us what we so clearly feel that we need the most.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's what I want us to see today is that the gospel clarifies our need.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel clarifies our need.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to help us understand what what's happening here, how the gospel clarifies our need, but seeing three things.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see that the gospel clarifies the reality of our need, it clarifies the priority of our need, and it clarifies the direction of our need.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel clarifies the reality, the priority, and the direction.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, first let's see the gospel clarifies the reality of our need.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Here in this story, we're shown a man that is, we'll be in the running for a most obvious need ever.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Start out, Jesus has made his base camp for his ministry in the village called Capernaum.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we see in verse one that he was at home, but the crowds find out that he's at home.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Mark has already told us that wherever Jesus goes, the crowds rush him, not only to hear him preach, but for him to heal illnesses or pains or disabilities.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many people in his home that we see in verse 2, there was no more room, not even at the door.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know who they is, but in verse 3, they came, bringing him a paralytic carried by four men.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so that they, this must be a group that knows this man, family or friends, and the paralytic, the man who's described that way, what this is describing is reality that he cannot walk.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And because the door is blocked, this group carrying this man, they take dramatic measures in verse 4, where they remove the roof above Jesus, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so this obviously shows how desperately this group feel the need to get their friend to Jesus.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because they know the stakes.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: If this their friend or their family member is ever going to be healed, they have to get him to Jesus.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this also shows it's worth pointing out how gladly Jesus receives very needy people.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this group, they just tore off Jesus' roof, lifting, surprisingly, this man down in front of him, and Jesus doesn't call the police, he doesn't yell at them.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every indication is that he receives their neediness with gladness.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: He cares more about them than he does his own comfort.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's worth pointing out.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But most important to our point, the image of the paralytic, this paralyzed man being carried to Jesus, lifted down through the roof, is such a valuable and revealing picture of the way that we need Jesus.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The image captures the reality of our need.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: My son and I went camping on Monday, and as my tradition is with camping with kids, I didn't sleep at all, as is my custom.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so the next day, by the time I tore down our tent and got everything back in my car, I felt like I had been hit by a garbage truck.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then after being hit by the garbage truck, I had been forced to sleep in the truck with the garbage.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I felt.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something about, for me, about camping that uh where afterwards, and I ate plenty, just so you know, I ate plenty while we were camping to comfort myself.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something about when you are, you get done with camping and you are leaving, where there is no other time where I more crave fast food.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling of the need for McDonald's is never stronger than that moment of leaving the campsite after a night of mildly rough camping.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: As much as this is that's a picture of felt needs, it's a poor picture of the way we really need God.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: The reality of our need is not at all captured by getting to a drive-thru, even if we go to that drive-thru desperately hungry.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the drive-thru is transactional.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You show up, you pay, you get what you need, and then you scoot.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So to capture the reality of the way that we need Jesus, according to Jesus, you'd have to imagine yourself starving to death in a wilderness hundreds of miles away from civilization without your phone or your car.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: That would start to be a good picture of the way that we need God.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's the reality.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel clarifies the reality.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We are all, you and I alike, helplessly needy.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel is the truth that when we were dead in our sins, turned away from God, Jesus at that time came into this world to rescue us.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the image of the paralyzed man coming to Jesus tells us that we are in such a state of helplessness that we can't even get to Jesus on our own two feet.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: God has to do the work of carrying us to Himself.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we really need this reality clarified.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are prone to imagine ourselves relating to God as hungry drive-thru customers where God is the vendor.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: We may admit that we are needy and God has the power to give us what we need, but we are prone to imagine it like it's a transaction.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where I come to God and I'm hungry, and I give him my faith or my trust in that transactional way, then he gives me what I need.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can drive away until I'm hungry again.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: But what changes if the reality is pictured by the image of the paralyzed man?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: If before God I am that man, then I don't come to God with just a few specific needs.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how hungry, hungrily I feel them.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll take a number one, no cheese with mayo and a coke.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no transaction.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a customer.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: God is no vendor.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I am myself the need.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: All of me is just a bundle of need.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I relate to God in helpless neediness, or I will stay far away from him.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And God has to be the end goal of my neediness.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not a transaction, I come to him not so that he can hand me my drive-thru order out the window, but so that he can give me himself.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so as the gospel swipes away the illusions and it shows us clear reality, it hits us with this question: Do you know the reality of your need?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know the reality of your need?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do I know the reality of my need?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Are you living in reality?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: To live in reality if Jesus presents it to us, that means that you live as though you are the paralyzed man, helplessly in need of God.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And to live in reality, that also means that you live in the knowledge that God is so merciful that he doesn't wait for you to wake up to reality and somehow make it to him.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Before you ever wake up to reality, he's at work bringing you to himself.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's the reality.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel clarifies our need.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel clarifies our need, clarifies the reality, but second, let's see, it clarifies the priority of our need.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus sees the faith of this paralyzed man and the men who brought him.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what he says surprises everyone.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You look at verse 5.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: He said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: This clearly surprises the scribes who in verse 6 are sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: He is blaspheming.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Who can forgive sins but God alone?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: The scribes were the religious authorities.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: They interpreted and taught people the Old Testament.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: From their reading and their scribing, they knew that only God forgives sins.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is at its core an offense against God, and the offended party must forgive.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so they say that Jesus is blaspheming, meaning that by saying that he has the authority to forgive, Jesus is committing the ultimate offense toward God.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, telling the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven, it is also a surprise to that man and to his friends or his family that have brought him there.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: They carried him there because they knew that he needed Jesus, but they didn't carry him there to remove a roof and to lift him down through the roof so that Jesus could say, Your sins are forgiven.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: They brought him there so that Jesus would give him the ability to get up and walk.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're surprised too.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus registers the surprise of everyone, especially the grumblings of the scribes, and he asked them in verse 8, why do you question these things in your hearts?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your bed and walk.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: The which is easier question, it's really interesting.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: If we kind of roll it around in our heads and comprehend it, we can just keep rolling around.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because on the one hand, it's easier to say your sins are forgiven than to say get up and walk, because to say your sins are forgiven addresses a hidden reality.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas to say walk addresses the most visible physical reality.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: If Jesus says, get up and walk, and the man doesn't walk, then Jesus' words are clearly shown to be ineffective, have no authority.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, Jesus is about to make clear, to say, your sins are forgiven is the far weightier thing to say.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: But he at least clarifies the priorities of the moment in verse 10.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can see.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Son of Man is a title with these deep Old Testament roots and significance.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a title of God-invested authority.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus' priority here, one, is to say that I have the authority of God to forgive sins.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is also focused on the paralyzed man.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's his priority too.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: He has compassion for him.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus says and does clarifies from God's perspective, what is the priority in this man's needs?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: As great of a need as this man has for physical healing, Jesus is saying, the priority is forgiveness.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the greater need.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: To help illustrate what Jesus is doing here, let's speak directly to the kids in the room.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are a kid, raise your hand, let me know who I'm talking to here.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who's a kid?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody a kid here?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every week I want to speak directly to the kid so you can understand a little bit better what I'm saying, so you can better understand what the Bible is saying.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when you imagine you hear one of your friends, and it sounds like she is in trouble.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so you run and you find your friend and you see her, and it's very clear that she is in trouble because her shoe is on fire.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's no time to answer how her shoe is on fire, it just is on fire.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So clearly she's in trouble.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and she also has something hanging out of her nose.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to address the problem in the situation.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you see, somehow, amazingly, in the corner is a bucket of water.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: You think that would put out the fire on your friend's shoe.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and there's also a box of tissues.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's very little time.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: No time to think for long.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you grab the bucket of water to put out the fire, or do you grab the tissue to get rid of the thing hanging out of your friend's nose?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: So little time.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Bucket or tissues?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bucket! I think that's probably a good answer.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's probably a good answer to deal with the fire.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: As gross as the thing hanging out of your friend's nose is, I think the fire might be the bigger problem.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that might be the priority.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the point.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus loves us, he clarifies the priority in our needs.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: But let me let me try to be really clear.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm not saying is that our other felt needs are small.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or that God looks at your felt needs, financial needs, physical, health concerns.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he treats them as insignificant.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the opposite of the case.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many needs represented by the people that are in this room, and many of those needs are incredibly weighty.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And God sees all of those needs, and he cares about all of them.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: From the incredibly weighty to the seemingly small.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that's just the point.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: As weighty as the seemingly greatest need that I feel and that I have is the need that I feel most clearly, as weighty as that is, it is small in comparison to my need for God's forgiveness.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't belittle your need for relief from pain.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't belittle this man's need for physical healing here in Mark 2.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: It magnifies the weightiness of our need for God's forgiveness.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness of sins means restoration of your relationship with God.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is making it clear what does it ultimately benefit you if I restore your body and I don't restore your relationship with God?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Making it clear, what does it ultimately benefit you if I give you back the use of your limbs, if you use those limbs to push away the God that you're made for?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: The priority is clear.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, what this means for us if we trust Jesus is that we should ask God to address all of our needs.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus clarifies the priority in our needs, not to stop us from asking God for the things that we feel that we need, but so that we can have greater confidence to ask.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus not only clarifies what we need the most, he fully gives us what we need the most by paying the cost of our forgiveness.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that the gospel invites us to continually and actively ask God to address the things that we feel that we need.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we, whenever we ask, and whatever we ask, the gospel makes us confident that God loves us.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so he cares about all of our needs, from the weighty to the seemingly small.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the gospel makes us confident that even if God doesn't give us everything that we feel that we need, God has his priorities in order.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: He has his priorities right.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: His priority is to overcome our sin and draw us closer to himself.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And part of, an essential part of drawing closer to God is learning to trust God as a loving father who has proven himself.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And God is a perfect father who has proven himself by giving us what we most need and giving it to us freely.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's that kind of perfect father, drawing closer to him means that we come to him as children who ask again and again for the things that our hearts feel that we need.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants us to learn more and more clearly that he will give us exactly what we need.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we can learn to trust that because he's already met our greatest need.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But still, the promise that God will give us exactly what we need, that needs exploring more.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move to the third point.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel clarifies our need, it clarifies the reality and the priority, but let's look last at the direction of our need.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus told the paralytic to get up and walk.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in verse 12, the man rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before the mall.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that we're all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: If we saw Jesus do this, we would say the same thing.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've never seen anything like this.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's really interesting here is that at least for some of the crowd here, they may have already seen Jesus do something like this.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: They may have already seen Jesus do miracles, perform healings that were like this.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Them saying we've never seen anything like this, it's possible that what they're saying is we've never seen healing combined with the forgiveness of sins.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've never seen, in a way, we've never seen anyone made so completely whole.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've never seen anyone's need so completely and fully met.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they respond by glorifying God, which means they praise God's goodness and his kindness.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And though we don't know anything about the ongoing story of this former paralyzed man, it's fair to make the assumption that he went out, his greatest need met, and he did the same.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Praising the goodness and kindness of God.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus' healing, it clarifies the direction of the man's need was always toward God's glory.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, Jesus met the man's greatest need so that he would then live a life for the glory of God.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus met this man's greatest need so that man could go and live for God, serving him, praising his goodness and kindness.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny Ericsson Tata is a woman who, when she was 17, she became paralyzed from the shoulder down after a diving accident.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And since the accident, she has had no use of her limbs, and she's had to navigate life without the use of her limbs, and she's also had to navigate life with chronic pain.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, here's what she writes, which is one of the many places where she writes about asking God to address her felt needs.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: She says, if God chooses to heal me of this wrestling match with continual pain, I will give him great glory.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy, you just watch.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if for his own good, unfathomable reasons he chooses to allow the anguish, this sharp, deep thorn in my flesh to remain in some form until he finally issues my boarding path for heaven, and I want a window seat, then I will also pour my life into bringing glory to his most precious, saving, healing, holy name.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I will.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: She believes the central question is has God given me what I need to serve him?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Has God given me what I need to honor him?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in spite of all that she's lacked, really in the middle of experiencing such profound lack, she continues to say, Yes.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he has.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fair to say the former paralyzed man here in Mark would have said yes as well.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the essential point, though, that he would have said that before he was physically healed.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: For this man, the direction of his life was changed before he was physically healed.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: The direction of his life was changed the moment that Jesus said, Son, your sins are forgiven.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as Jesus said that, he might have been carried out of this house still without the use of his legs, and he would have still been given what he needed most.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: He still would have been given what he needed to live for the praise and honor of the God who rescued him from sin and brought him close to himself.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: God knows all of the needs that we so intensely feel.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he cares for each of our needs, and he promised a day is coming where every pain will be relieved, and the lame will walk and the blind will see.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And at the heart of this promise is this promise that we who trust him will fully know and experience the fullness of his glory, see his beauty in the face of Jesus.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Until that day, God's purpose for us is to live for him, to bear witness to the gospel so that the world would hear and see and believe.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so the central question is: has God given you what you need to serve him?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Has he given you what you need to glorify him?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if he's given you what you need the most, if he's restored the relationship, if he's forgiven your sins, if he's canceled your debt, then the answer must be yes.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that yes doesn't erase the pain.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: That yes doesn't erase how deeply we feel our needs, and that yes doesn't erase the fact that God is mercifully attentive to all of our felt needs as we wait for them to be met.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: But he gives great hope right now for needy people.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because this clarifies that God is perfectly able to work through you, through your life, through your need to glorify himself.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's working through your felt needs.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of what he is doing to make all things new.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Point to his work accomplished in Jesus.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: In your need, you can say, God will take care of me, because he's already given me what I need the most.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this can be our prayer today.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, equip me so that all of my life, every good that you give me, and whatever you withhold from me would be useful and your hand to honor you.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, work in my life so that all that you give me and all that you withhold from me would be useful for you to honor yourself.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel clarifies our need, it clarifies the reality, it clarifies the priority, it clarifies the direction of our need.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the gospel above all clarifies that we have a God worth trusting, because the gospel makes clear to us that God does not need us.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yet it makes clear that God loves us so perfectly that he sent his son to cancel our debt, offering up his perfect life to bring us back to himself.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he's done this so that you would more and more clearly see the glory and beauty of his heart for you, so that one day you will feel no need, only the satisfaction of his healing presence.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Allah have needed, his hand has provided great is his faithfulness to me.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for your word, your word that promises us that you delight to give us all that we need, both now and forever, now in hope, one day fully and finally.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So teach us to hear your word, believe it, lay it up in our hearts, and follow Jesus all of our lives.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: You take this word, and by your Spirit, help us to apply it every part of our lives, now and forever, for our good and for your glory.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: This we ask.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.