Jesus Forgives Sinners

As we think about what's going on here in Mark, I want to ask a question. What is your favorite kind of Jesus? What is your favorite kind of Jesus? Now, I don't ask that because I think you should have a favorite kind of Jesus or a variety of different kinds of Jesuses. I ask that because I think we typically do have our favorite kind of Jesus. For instance, when you're going through a trial, you really enjoy and cling to the Jesus the Comforter, the shepherd who holds you near and cares for you. Or in the middle of a difficult season of trouble, you love the Jesus who will crush his enemies. Or maybe you're full of guilt and shame and wrestling with what that looks like, and so you love the Jesus who forgives. Maybe you're sick and hurting. You love the Jesus who heals. Now, what's amazing about our Lord and Savior is He's such a great God who meets our every need. He is the prophet who speaks truth. He's the king who reigns with authority. He's the priest who provides perfect salvation. Oftentimes, we can kind of get focused in on that one kind of thing that we want. Oftentimes, I believe we think of Jesus according to our most felt need. And Jesus, I think, welcomes us to do that. But I think we're going to see this today in our text, is we need to be open to Jesus teaching us about our most important need. So Jesus does care for us in our most felt need. Praise God for that. But He also comes to us and helps us in our most important need. If you're following along with Mark and what we've been going through so far, chapter 1, verses 1 to 13, that was really kind of like Mark's prologue, his introduction, the beginning of the gospel, John was coming to prepare the way, Jesus was baptized, he was tempted, and then he begins his ministry proclaiming the gospel. Well, last week, we looked through the last half of Mark 1, And the main point there is Jesus has the authority to heal the sick and preach good news. No one's ever not liked that Jesus. The one who heals and the one who says good things. That's an easy Jesus to receive. But here in Mark 2, I believe our author is turning the story to show that Jesus is more than a healer. He's more than a wonder worker. He is God himself who forgives sins. We're going to divide our text up, verses 1 to 17, into two parts. And they go together so well. First, we're going to see that Jesus has the authority to forgive sinners. First, Mark presents that Jesus has the authority to forgive sinners. That's verses one to 12. And then, verses 13 to 17, we will see Jesus invites sinners to be forgiven. Jesus has the authority to forgive sinners. Jesus invites sinners to be forgiven. Chapter two, verse one, we have Jesus, he's returned to Capernaum, and he's back at home. And it appears this is the same place where Jesus would have healed Simon's mother-in-law. Jesus appears to have taken up residence in Simon's home or his own house, but we most believe he's back here in Simon's home. And so he's at home, and they've come, and they've packed the house. He's growing in fame, and the house is so full that there's no room in the door. And notice what he's doing. They've gathered there. There's no room, and he's preaching the Word to them. And then what the preaching looks like, we can just go back to chapter 1, verse 15. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. repent and believe in the gospel. That is Mark's summary of whatever Jesus is preaching. Now obviously he's elaborating on that in many ways, but he's teaching how God has been making promises throughout history, and now God is fulfilling those promises as the Messiah has come. If we just picture these first two verses, how great this would be. You're in Jesus' house. He's the Son of God. You're getting to sit there and listen to God Himself tell you about who He is and who you are. Best lecture, talk, sermon ever. It's a wonderful opportunity that people have come to and they've filled the house. And then we have verse three. And they came. This great opportunity that people have packed in the house to hear God Himself. They may not realize this is God Himself, but they hear the words that draw them. They're enjoying this time with Jesus, this new Teacher, and they came. This is a disruption. Well, who is they? There's four men carrying a paralytic. So there's a man who cannot walk, he would have his mat, he would normally be a beggar, very dependent upon other people, and these four men, we would call them maybe four friends, they know where Jesus is, they know what Jesus has done for other people, so they are going to bring this paralytic to the house. Well, there's a problem. The house is packed, verse four. They could not even get near him because of the crowd, and so they removed the roof above them, and they made an opening. Now this might seem odd to our modern architecture and structures, but most homes would have had kind of a roof patio, or a roof standing area. They would have had stairs that go up, so these four men carrying them up to the roof would not be that big of a surprise. It's a mud roof, and it wouldn't have been too hard to tear apart. But as we picture this, let's go inside the house. Okay, we're inside this room, and we can kind of picture what's going on. It's packed, there's no room. It's probably not that big of a house to begin with. Jesus is teaching, and the people who got there first, they're sitting there at His feet, enjoying the words coming off of His lips. They don't know why it's so powerful. They don't know why it's so sweet. They just know they love it. And then all of a sudden, little pieces of dirt, and stick and mortar and leaves start falling down on your head, and Jesus has to stop teaching because of this intrusion. You got there early, and all of a sudden everything's coming down on your head. The roof's coming down. It's kind of an awkward scene if you're inside already. If you're looking around, the crowd probably sees this is a distraction. Why are you doing this? If you're Simon the homeowner, you're thinking, how am I going to fix that? Notice verse 5. Jesus saw their faith. He's not upset about this intrusion. He's not worried about what's going on in the house. He sees their faith. Now whose faith is a key question. It's at least the four men, because it's plural. Whoever they are, it's the four men. And I believe it's the paralytic as well, because he's the one who gets the blessing. Jesus sees these men all working very hard to have a certain goal. He sees their faith, and in response to seeing their faith, he said to the paralytic, And now again, imagine that the crowd's somewhat at least confused. I'd be mad. Dirt just came all the way down over all of us. A paralytic is hanging down from the roof. Jesus simply looks at him, and he addresses him first, my son? That's very personal. That's very caring. Your sins are forgiven. This is an amazing, powerful declaration. It's not something you would be used to hearing in this culture. Now, I do want to step back and just ask, how do you think the paralytic and the friends responded to hearing that as what Jesus said? What do you think they wanted to hear? Take up your mat, get up, and go home. But that's not what they heard. They went through all this trouble with the paralytic so that they would see Jesus heal the paralytic. And instead, Jesus actually goes to something much more significant. As we'll see, your sins are forgiven. Now, this culture oftentimes saw sin and sickness as necessarily related. So it's likely that the people who pass by this paralytic every day, the first thing they would think of him as is a sinner. They would ask something along the lines of, what did he do? Or what did his parents do to cause this problem? So it's not unrelated in the way these folks think. But Jesus doesn't say, get up. He says, I'm going to give you the blessing of a conscience cleanse. I'm going to give you the declaration that your sins are forgiven. All right, verse six, we are introduced to another group of characters. So a teaching room where folks are just loving what Jesus is saying has now turned into a disruption where a man has had his sins forgiven, and now we get into a theological debate. The story keeps progressing. Some of the scribes were sitting there. Now, Remember in chapter one, that the crowds, the way they described Jesus' teaching is it's with authority, not like the scribes. The scribes that have been in the synagogue, they may have heard this kind of reputation he's getting, and here, they're actually at his house, and there's a way in which you can sit when someone's talking. You kind of sit back with your arms crossed and you're evaluating. It's kind of a picture going on here. The scribes are, they're waiting to figure out something that they can cling on to that causes trouble. And Jesus just gave it to them. They're sitting back. They're questioning in their hearts. Now, they're not saying anything audibly. They're internalizing this. Verse 7. Why Does this man speak like that? Notice there's an accusation and there's a explanation of the accusation. He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Now the accusation first, blasphemy, this is a bold accusation that's worthy of death. But by declaring he is blaspheming, he should be taken out in stone if he is truly blaspheming. Blasphemy is saying something that is untrue of God. It's denying a power of God, or it's claiming to have the power of God that you can't have. Here he's blaspheming because he's saying, I can forgive sins, and the rule is only God can forgive sins. That's the explanation. And they're right about that. Their reasoning, the theological side of what God alone can do, is correct, but they're misunderstanding who's actually right there in front of them. This preaching point has turned into a messy room, and now it's turned into a duel. The new teacher versus the established leaders. Who can forgive sins but God? That's true, only God can forgive sins. So basically what they know, they're making the right charge. Look at verse 8. Remember in Mark, and immediately is a, is a, is a key phrase that, that every time you see it, something's about to happen, good, make sure you're paying attention. It's a phrase he uses often. And immediately, Jesus perceiving in his spirit that they're questioning in their hearts All right, let's just pretend someone out there is thinking, I can't wait to have that egg sandwich after church. And I just started saying, why are you thinking about that egg sandwich? You'd be kind of freaked out. Everyone else would be, why is he talking about an egg sandwich? But what you're thinking, I know, and I'm going to start talking to you about. That's what's happening here. Jesus, as God, is already presenting that he knows things he should not be able to know if he's just a man. He starts dialoguing with our internal thoughts. That should be terrifying. Why are you thinking these things? Why are you questioning these things in your hearts? Which is it easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your bed and walk? So he's asked them a bit of a trick question here. At one level, He's told many people, get up and walk. He's told many people, the leper, he's healed him. He's done amazing, miraculous things that no one else can do. But when he says it, what's easier, at one level, you have to be able to demonstrate you have the power to heal. So that's hard, because if you're going to say, get up and walk, you better have the power to do that, because then people can see you, he's going to get up and walk. But he's also saying what's harder, only God can forgive sins. He's claiming to do something that only God can do, and look at verse 10, because that is extremely important that we see what Jesus is doing here. But that you, scribes, may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he's talking to them, so that you, scribes, so I want you to know, he turns to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. And immediately, He picks up his bed. The, the setting is really the paralytic getting physically healed. But, but the purpose here, the final purpose of what Jesus is doing is he's trying to heal the scribes' spiritual paralysis. He's trying to, to help them see you have a lot of understanding, you have a lot of knowledge, but you're not getting who God truly is because he's standing right here in front of you and you're not recognizing him. I want you to know who I am. Get up and walk. There's evidence that is demanding some kind of a verdict here. And I want us to see here, he uses this title, I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority. This is the title that Jesus has on his lips most often throughout Mark. It is as important as the title Son of God. Mark starts with the Son of God as, this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus never has the title Son of God on His lips. The Father calls Him the Son of God at the beginning of the book. At the end of the book, a Roman centurion calls Him the Son of God, and then other people declare He's the Son of God throughout. But the phrase that Jesus uses, the title Jesus takes on is Son of Man. The background of this is from the book of Daniel, and it's, it's, it's tied to Jesus being the one who is betrayed, the one who has authority, and who is finally vindicated. He is the elect one of God, the God-man, who is going to be betrayed and suffer. He's going to have, he has all authority, and he will be vindicated. Here it's clearly tied to authority. I want you to know, scribes. I want you to know, the one who's questioning, that Jesus is who He says He is. Jesus can do what He says He does. And He's saying He's doing something that only God can do. I want you to know that I can forgive your sins, is what Jesus is saying. Get up and walk. And the man got up immediately. He went out before them all. So, so everyone seeing this, And Mark always tells us what the response of the crowd is. They're amazed, just like they were back in Mark 1 at the healing and the preaching. And now he adds, they glorified God, saying, we have never seen anything like this. As we conclude this particular story, we need to just come to some conclusions. Our most basic question as we walk through Mark, who is Jesus? First thing I believe we just saw was that Jesus is God Almighty. Jesus is the one who has created this world. Jesus is the one who has made promises to this world. Jesus is the one who is the promise to this world. Jesus is the one who has formed this world. He is the one we've sinned against, and now he's the one who has come down, taken on flesh, walking among us, teaching us. Jesus is God Almighty. And we see there that he has the authority of God. He forgives sins. He has the authority to see and know how wicked we are. He has the authority to see and know what we've done, what we've not done. And he has authority to say, I forgive you. He has authority to wash us of our sin. He has authority to cleanse our conscience. He has authority to renew us and give us new life. He's God. The other thing I want us to see here is He sees us. He saw the paralytic for who he was, and He saw his faith, and He saw what he needed. He saw what he wanted, and He satisfied that paralytic in every way, for what he wanted and what he needed. He also saw the scribes. He saw their own thoughts. We need to realize we can't fake it in front of Jesus. He is God. He forgives our sins. We can't fake it in front of him, and he sees our needs and seeks to meet those needs. Well, how do we respond? First, I want to say we should have a heart of joy and peace and response. This is a fantastic story that points us to the one God who has come down to give us forgiveness. There's a worship of response to this story. But that worship really only comes if we want to be more like the paralytic and less like the scribe. We need to be teachable. that the scribes are getting everything they need to know who Jesus is, and yet it appears they keep their arms crossed, sitting back and evaluate. The paralytic, he's healed. We need to respond by going to Jesus, confessing our sins, having full confidence that he is a loving God who forgives. He has authority. to forgive sinners. But let's go on to our next passage, because it continues the theme of forgiveness, and how Jesus relates to sinners. The focus is still on Him being the forgiver, and it goes from having a conflict with the scribes, to having a conflict with the scribes, not just over can He forgive, but how He's actually inviting people. The second half, Jesus invites sinners to be forgiven, there's really two scenes. And they're promoting the same basic message. In the first scene, Jesus calls a tax collector to follow him, verses 13 to 14. The second, he invites a tax collector and other sinners to dine with him, 15 to 17. Let's look at the first scene. Jesus went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him. and he was teaching them. Okay, this seems like a normal day. We've seen a pattern already. By the sea in Capernaum, that's where he first called Andrew, Simon, James, and John. We've seen him already call disciples who are fishermen that said, put down your nets, come and I'll make you fishers of men, follow me. Here he makes a similar invitation while he's walking and teaching with the crowds. Verse 14. And as Jesus passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. Levi's a tax collector. And he said to him, follow me. The exact same words he gave to James and John and Andrew and Simon, or Simon and Andrew. Jesus says to a tax collector, Follow me. Now this is a, this is a significant invitation. Let's walk through it very slowly. Who is giving the invitation? Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man. He's going around, He's teaching, He is the Creator, He is the one who can forgive sins, and now He's giving an invitation, come follow me. That is an invitation to have faith in Him, It's an invitation to be like him, to see he is a master. He is God Almighty saying, come and be with me. It's very significant in this particular story who he's inviting. It's not fishermen. It's a tax collector. Now, for us, we could think of maybe an IRS auditor. That would be something similar. And no one thinks there's something just wrong with an IRS auditor, but no one wants to know one professionally. No one welcomes that duck at the door or that letter in the mail, because that's kind of awkward. That means something's wrong, and there's some fear and anxiety there, because that person has some power to possibly cause a lot of frustration. Something's off. I'll remind you, Romans 13 says it's a part of worship to pay taxes, so we want to pray for IRS. It's not quite the IRS. Tax collectors in this day, they were Jewish men who worked for the Roman government. Rome had stretched its arm over Israel, and it was controlling them, and Rome was imposing taxes, and so Jews were having to pay taxes to a Gentile nation who had overcome it in battle and was oppressing. And what the Romans did was they recruited Jews to come and be the tax collectors among their own people. So the Jewish people would necessarily see a Jewish tax collector as a traitor. Somebody not to be trusted. Someone despised. Someone who had gone in for financial gain, decided they were going to betray their own people and be an outcast. Remember Matthew 18, Jesus says, if somebody does not listen to a confrontation, even to the point of church, you're going to treat them like a tax collector. Somebody you're standoffish from. You can't trust them. There's something scandalous going on. Tax collectors were outcasts. They were despised. Oftentimes they actually were robbing their own people by adding taxes and taking more than they should, because they're not going to rob Rome. They're gonna go after their own people who are mostly powerless. Most people did not want anything to do with tax collectors. Kind of like the leper, right? People wanted to stay away from the leper because they were afraid of the curse of leprosy, so they stayed away from him, and Jesus goes and touches the leper. Here, Jesus sees this tax collector, and he extends to him an invitation that no one ever gives him. Follow me. You who are an outcast, you who are a traitor, you who are pursuing financial gain, follow me. He's inviting this man who would have been publicly seen as a sinner to participate in his own life. Something that's just sweet about Jesus that we've sung already. He invites us to come. He invites us to come and participate in His life. He invites us to come as we are, so that He can heal us, forgive us, patiently walk alongside of us, transform us. If you're not a Christian this morning, I want you to see from the first story, Jesus has the authority and the power to forgive sin. to heal you, mind, body, soul, to restore you, and He invites you here. He invites you. Come to Me. If you're exhausted trying to fix all the questions and confusion and what we would call sin that corrupts, He says, come. I'll forgive you. I'll wash you. I'll restore you. Do not resist Him. Christian, Jesus doesn't just make this invitation once to us. He's constantly calling us, come. Come, set aside the sin that so easily entangles you. Come and worship the Father in my name. Come, deny yourself, carry your cross, follow me. Leave behind the sin and the pride. Have a patterned life of regular repentance so that you're regularly coming and enjoying Jesus. It's the greatest, horrible, twisted irony. For some reason, we love sin, so it means we don't want to submit to Him. But when we finally submit to Him, we're truly satisfied. He who truly satisfies says, come, follow me. I can help you. Let's look at our second scene. So he's out at the sea, and he invites a tax collector to follow him. And we see the tax collector, he follows him, and he rose and followed him. He left, he left behind his money to follow Jesus. Verse 15. Now we have a new scene. Notice we're in his house. And as Jesus reclined at table in his house, Jesus appears to be the host of a party. Many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. All right, so the scene here is Jesus reclining at table just means this is kind of a dinner party. And the people he's invited are tax collectors and sinners. We've already discussed tax collectors, but sinners here is kind of that general declaration for someone who is missing the mark. Most believe this is probably folks who are earning money in a dishonest way. Gamblers, thieves, money that would not be accepted at the temple for worship. Jesus is inviting these kind of people to sit with him at his table. Now, having lunch with someone or sharing a meal with somebody in our culture, that's not something you just go casually and invite anybody to go do. It usually has some kind of purpose or a meaning. In this culture, to share a meal with somebody is to share your life with them. You are very protective and careful about who you would associate with over a meal. And Jesus is here joining in the most clear and intimate way He can with the tax collectors and sinners saying, I'm sharing my life with you. You are welcome to my life in the greatest, most significant way. It's a shame and honor culture. Jesus would be bringing the kind of shame that the culture would have seen on the tax collector on Himself by eating with them. And actually, most likely, Jesus' disciples would have that kind of shame on them from those looking from the outside. Let's look at those who are looking from the outside. Verse 16. And the scribes of the Pharisees Now, scribes were the folks who were designated to be the students of the law, of scripture. They transcribed scripture. Pharisees were those who taught the traditions that were the conservative party. And here we see two different groups, but they overlap. The scribes were among the Pharisees. When they saw that he was eating with people like that, He said to his disciples, why does he eat with the tax collectors and the sinners? He's defiling himself. He's unclean. He's unfit. Why would you be a disciple of somebody who spends time with people like that? Well this time Jesus hears them. He heard it and he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus often times, he sets up his teaching with something that's general and obvious and true. Who likes to go to the doctor for fun? Yeah, nobody just signs up, hey, let me go wait in the waiting room for 30 minutes and then go wait in the smaller room for 30 minutes and then just tell the doctor, I feel fine, how are you doing? You go to the doctor when you're not well. When you're sick, you need the physician. Jesus is saying, I am the great physician, and I have come to help with the greatest sickness. Specifically, I did not come to help the people who are righteous. I did not come for the people who are whole, personally. I did not come to help those people who have no relational difficulties. I did not come to help those people who have never sinned against God. I have not come to help those people who have perfectly figured out life, and they're just loving it and enjoying it. No, I came for the people who've missed the mark. Their lives are off course. They've sinned against God. They've transgressed against God, and there's nothing that they can do to fix their problem. The scribes are sitting back. And again, he's trying to help them with their problem, but their problem is they're so focused on the kind of people Jesus is spending time with, they're so focused on their sin, they actually are failing to see they could be saved. Jesus says, I did not come to call the righteous. That's true. But there's no one who is righteous. No, not one. He's trying to help the scribes see, you are not righteous yourself. Why do you think you're better than the tax collector? Why do you think you're better than these sinners? The scribes, in many ways, they're a warning to us. Our failure to see our own sin causes us to judge others. Our failure to see our own sin leads to our not seeking and enjoying forgiveness. Our failure to see our sin is what keeps us from rejoicing in Jesus. It's so easy to see everyone else's sin. It's just easy. There's no spiritual gift there. It's just easy. It's a grace from God that he would actually let us see our sin and see the one and only solution to that sin that is Jesus Christ who forgives. I encourage you today. Meditate upon Psalm 32. Or Psalm 51. Against you alone have I sinned. These Psalms are meant to lead us into a confession of sin that brings a restoration and a forgiveness. Here is the one absolute truth that we can enjoy today. If we confess our sin, He will forgive us. That is the great truth of Jesus Christ alone. As we conclude, let us ask our question once more. Who is Jesus? He's the one who not only has the authority to forgive sins, but He proactively calls sinners. He's welcoming. He is inviting sinners to attach themselves to Him, to be with Him, because He's the only hope that they have. These two truths need to simply wash over us today. This is the way to converse today over lunch or whatever you're going to do. Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, and He welcomes you to be forgiven. He has power, and He uses it for our good. Sinners, rejoice. Jesus' arms are open. Jesus' arms are open. The invitation is here. He offers a balm for our guilt and our shame. He offers a cure for our sin and rebellion. He gives us peace where pride has poisoned our hearts. Jesus is God who forgives us. A question that we need to ask, are we boasting of our righteousness or of Christ? Galatians 6, 14 is a passage to meditate upon here. But for me, but for me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. If we're not boasting in Jesus, we're probably boasting in something of ourselves. There's two signs that we're boasting in something other than Jesus. The first is we're taking our defeat too seriously. Where we're meditating on how defeated we are, and we're letting that define who we are, and what we need to do is go to the cross and see He has resolved our defeat. He has come to take away our defeat so that we can have victory. Or we're not taking our defeat seriously enough. Where we're not seeing sin as a danger. We're holding on to sin rather than taking it to the cross in prayer. So there's something we need to see first, that Jesus is the God who can forgive sins and welcomes us to forgive sinners, to be forgiven. Also make sure we understand the way Mark writes and the way the Gospels are presented, it's not just to help us see who Jesus is, but it's supposed to help us see who we're supposed to be. If we're going to follow Jesus, we have to start living like Jesus. If we're going to follow Jesus and be part of His life, we actually have to do the kinds of things Jesus did. So I ask, are we as open-armed as we see Jesus being? Are we as welcoming to people who we might see as all that different as Jesus is? This is amazing. Jesus actually was different than the tax collectors because He actually was righteous. But He didn't let that keep Him from inviting them into His life. What keeps us from inviting other sinners into our lives? It's a wrong sense of self. There's a question here. Who are we willing or unwilling to associate ourselves with? Who are we willing to invite into our homes? First, as Christians, we should be doing this with one another. This is the way the church gets built up in unity and peace and sharing our lives with another. extend it here. What neighbor, friend, co-worker should you be inviting into your life? Is there somebody right now you're thinking of? Pray that God would give you the grace and the boldness to say, I want to invite you into my life. Not to correct that person, but to invite them into your life so that they might actually see Jesus, experience the warm open arms of Jesus, and come to Jesus. If there isn't that one person you're thinking of, pray that God would give you one person to be starting to start pursuing here. Christians, we have received such a glorious invitation. Confess your sins and I'll forgive you. We need to be proclaimers of that invitation by welcoming others to it. Will you pray with me?