Forgiven

“Forgiven”

Matthew　9:1-8 Preacher: Rev. Mark Bartsch

Kobe Union Church

March 23, 2025

There are two messages in the passage I hope to draw out today. One is simple, and the other a little deeper. The first is about being a good friend.

Jesus says to the disciples, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:15)

The second part of this story is not really about healing, even though a healing takes place. It is really about Jesus’ authority and His unity with the Father.

I hope I am a good friend. A quote from my father: "If you want good friends, you need to be a good friend." I hope I’m a good friend to those I love. I hope I’m willing to go out of my way for them and am not a fair-weather friend. I strive to be the kind of friend who’s present not only when things are fun and good but also when things are hard.

Proverbs 18:24 says, "A person of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

I’ll say it slightly differently: "A person of many acquaintances may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a family member."

The guys (we assume they were guys because women would not think about digging up another person’s roof) from Mark 2 are the kind of friends we should all be. And being a good friend wasn’t easy then—it still isn’t today. Being a good friend means taking a risk. Sometimes it requires having hard conversations. It means speaking the truth into your friend’s life, even when it’s not what they want to hear, but it is what they need to hear. Because if they don’t hear the truth from you, where will they hear it?

Mark 2 tells us that when these friends couldn’t get through the front door or the back door because of the crowds, they improvised. They climbed up to the roof, tore through it, and lowered their friend down in front of Jesus. Imagine the effort, the dust, the awkwardness—but none of that mattered because they believed Jesus was the answer. Do you?

Can you imagine the questions, especially from the crowds? "Where are you guys taking him?" "Is he okay?" "What are you doing?" People are basically the same today as they were 2,000 years ago. And people gawk. Everyone loves a spectacle. And being a spectacle is often the first barrier that people do not want to cross. But these friends kept going—until they hit a second barrier. There were just too many people. They couldn’t even get close to Jesus.

A lot of us feel that we can’t get close to Jesus for different reasons:

"I can’t come to Jesus because I’m afraid He’ll treat me like everyone else does. (garbage)""I can’t come to Jesus because I’m not good enough. (A lie)""I can’t come to Jesus because I don’t know the right words to pray. (He doesn’t care)"

Sadly, those who really need Jesus are the most likely to talk themselves out of coming because of these real—and perceived—barriers.

There’s a quote: "Where God guides, He provides. Where He leads, He feeds. Where He directs, He protects." God leads and protects these guys as they bring their friend to Jesus. And they don’t take “no” for an answer.

Speaking of not taking "no" for an answer, Colonel Sanders (the founder of KFC) took his chicken recipe to over 1,000 restaurants before one said yes. When asked why he kept going despite so much rejection, he said, "Because I knew my chicken was that good." (Makes me hungry for some fried chicken.) But do you know that Jesus is that good? Finger-lickin' good. (Ha, ha.)

Galatians 6:9 says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Some never reap a harvest because they give up at the first sign of resistance. Don’t give up. Run your race to completion. When they couldn’t push their way through the crowd, they climbed onto a stranger’s roof and started digging—just to lower their friend in front of Jesus. Picture the owner of the house: "What are you guys doing? This is my house!" Imagine the guy's wife.

Bits of debris falling on the people below as they listened to Jesus. Just a few weeks ago, a ceiling panel fell outside the sanctuary. This wasn’t just a panel—it was a hole big enough to lower a body through. As Jesus looked up, He saw their faith, and I think by Jesus’ response to the paralytic, that it was the four stretcher-bearers' faith that Jesus was seeing. (I could be wrong.) Maybe it was all their faith. They lowered their friend gently in front of Jesus, and Jesus responds with, "Your sins are forgiven." Excuse me, Jesus—that’s not what I ordered.

When I go to KFC, I don’t order a pizza or a cheeseburger. This man wanted healing—and instead, Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven." And that statement set the crowd off. How dare you say that, Jesus?

Remember—this was His hometown. They knew Joseph (who was probably dead by this time). They had watched Jesus grow up, from at least age three. And here He was, saying something that only Yahweh could say. It was blasphemy.

These guys who brought their friend to Jesus clearly wanted Jesus to heal him, so why did Jesus say to them, "Your sins are forgiven"? Is Jesus not reading the room? Sometimes I get so caught up in my own thoughts and plans that I do not see what is plain to everyone else. While I can get caught up in my own plans, that is not what is happening here. Jesus sees a deeper need beyond just the physical body.

Yes, Jesus cares about our physical bodies—there are 37 specific mentions of healing in the New Testament. Jesus cares about our physical bodies. But He cares for the soul much more. Actually, most healings are opportunities for Jesus to teach about a deeper relationship with God.

I liken it to going to the dentist to get your teeth whitened. You go for a specific purpose. But while at the dentist, he finds you have a deep cavity. Now, if he just does what you want him to do—whiten your teeth and send you home—it would be irresponsible for a dentist to ignore the pressing issue. Jesus sees that the man has a cavity, and instead of focusing on the teeth whitening, He decides to care for the major problem, not just the surface issue. We will find out that He does the teeth whitening at the end too, but that is not the primary blessing he received.

In counseling, there is a concept of the presenting issue (the obvious or surface-level issue) and the underlying issue (a deeper, more complex problem). For example, the presenting issue might be that a person is not sleeping well, so he goes to a counselor to help him sleep. But the counselor finds out that the underlying issue is unresolved trauma from his past. Sure, a counselor can teach techniques to help the person sleep better, but it would be irresponsible not to address the unresolved trauma—because the person will be back in a matter of months with a different presenting issue if they do not deal with the major problem. Jesus sees the underlying issue and deals with it first. It is not that the man’s sin caused him to be lame, but his sin and this is not always popular to say in some churches was the bigger concern to Jesus. So, Jesus prioritizes it.

Yes, we must care for the outer man or woman, Matthew 25 is very clear on this. If someone is cold, we give them a coat. If someone is hungry or thirsty, we give them something to eat or drink. But we also must give them living water along with mizu (H2O). And share the reason for the hope we have in our Lord Jesus. Very quickly, we learn that Jesus’ statement about forgiving sins did not go over well with the crowd. Verse 3 says some of the scribes said, "This man is blaspheming."

Just so you know, blasphemy is speaking evil of the Lord or claiming for yourself the authority that only God has. These scribes rightly thought that Jesus was claiming the authority of the Lord. It is also why people got mad at Jesus when He read the scripture passage from Isaiah (Luke 4). They thought (rightly so) that Jesus was declaring divine authority upon Himself.

The scribes believed that ONLY God could forgive sins. (Guess what? They were correct! They were not wrong.) And do you know that Jesus did not tell them they were wrong?

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?” Knowing that only God can forgive sins, He asks them this question. Notice that Jesus is not confronting their theology but the anger and evil thoughts they had in their hearts.

I want to tell you, I have met a lot of people who have sound theology. You can’t argue with them because it’s correct. But some with solid theology express that sound theology like a demon straight from hell. Jesus said true worship is what? (Wait.) It is to worship God in truth and in Spirit (John 4:23). Yes, I mixed up the order on purpose. The people I’m talking about worship God in truth (no problems), but their spirit is anything but Christ-like. Their spirit is more like that of the Pharisees than our Savior. A bruised reed these people will break (Isaiah 42:3) because they want to keep their theology so pure. But our Savior will not break a bruised reed. We need to worship God in truth and also the Spirit of Christ or we have nothing. 

Jesus' question, "Which is easier: 'Your sins are forgiven' or 'Get up and walk'?" is a bit of a trick question. Technically, both are equally hard, and only God can do either. But Jesus knows that only one of these two statements can be immediately verified. To prove He has the authority to forgive sins, He demonstrates His power by healing the man.

Now, focusing on forgiveness: Do you know that after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples and gave them (and at Pentecost, all of us) the authority to forgive sins, with the leading of the Holy Spirit, of course? When we hear someone's confession, we can, when led by the Holy Spirit, pronounce forgiveness.

In John 20:21-23, Jesus says, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that, He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." It is not blasphemy to pronounce forgiveness when led by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus challenges the scribes to watch as He proves his authority to forgive sins by commanding the man to take up his mat and walk. If the man did not walk, Jesus would have exposed himself as a charlatan or a fake. Essentially, Jesus paints himself into a corner as a way of witnessing to those who knew him and His family.

"But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." So He said to the paralyzed man, "Get up, take your mat and go home." Then the man got up and went home. (Matthew 9:6-7)

Jesus exposes the scribes' error. Remember, their error was not in their theology but in their failure to recognize the One who was speaking. Their mistake was not recognizing that they were in the presence of God’s Son—who has the authority not only to say, "Get up and walk," but also to forgive sins and restore our relationship with God the Father.

Over the past four weeks, as we have gone through Matthew 8 and part of chapter 9, we see the progression of Jesus revealing Himself to those who are willing to see and perceive. When He heals the leper, we learn that our filth cannot make Jesus unclean, but He has the power to make us whole. In the centurion’s story, we see that Jesus has resources beyond what we can imagine by just speaking a word. In the boat, we learn that Jesus has the power to bring peace to the chaos of our storms. And today, we see that Jesus has the authority to restore your relationship with the Father by offering forgiveness.

Last week, after Jesus saved the disciples in the boat and storm, they asked, "What kind of man is this?" Well, I don't know. (I guess I shouldn’t say that). I don't have a box big enough to fit Jesus into. But as I walk with Him and talk with Him, He leads me to understand Him better and to know myself as well. And that is the beauty of our faith, we are invited to keep walking, keep asking, and keep discovering more of who Jesus is.

Let us pray.

Possible Questions 

  What does the story in Mark 2 teach us about being a good friend, and how can we apply this lesson in our own relationships? 

  Why do you think Jesus chose to forgive the paralytic's sins before healing him, and what does this reveal about the nature of Jesus' mission? 

  How do we often create barriers that prevent us from coming to Jesus, and how can we overcome these barriers to experience His grace? 

  What does Jesus' authority to forgive sins teach us about His identity, and how does this challenge our understanding of God's power? 

  In what ways does the passage from Matthew 9:1-8 reveal the difference between physical healing and spiritual restoration, and why is spiritual healing more important?