“The Jesus You Need” Mark 2:1-12 October 15, 2006
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
This morning, our passage is
another healing miracle.
There are many of them in Mark’s Gospel.
You will notice that Jesus
never did things the same way twice.
There were always surprising differences in
the way Jesus healed people.
Those different things that
Jesus did or said are very important.
They show us things about Jesus that we need
to know.
For example, last Sunday, in
the healing of the leper—
there was that significant detail, Jesus
touched him.
Saw the tremendous
significance of Jesus touching the unlovely,
what a perfect fulfillment of the law that
was, how it empowers us.
In this miracle, Jesus did
things very differently.
He didn’t touch the man and say, “Be clean.”
Instead, Jesus first said something that
surprised and angered people.
This is a good example of
what I said at the very beginning of our study:
The Gospel of Mark is about Jesus Christ,
Son of God, invading this world,
challenging our perceptions about what God
is really like.
We see in this story the
Jesus we need, but not necessarily the Jesus we want.
INTRO: Have you ever seen a kid with a heinous runny nose?
Green, yellow—almost too gross to look at.
All the world can see that this kid needs
his nose wiped.
But what happens when his
mother comes at him with the Kleenex.
He twists his head and fights—it is like he
is being tortured.
All he wants is for his nose to be left
alone.
If little children could articulate
their concept of the ideal mom
they would say I want a mother who makes me
happy—
who never makes me bathe,
who lets me play till I drop from
exhaustion,
and who feeds me only French fries and candy
and coke.
But that’s not the mom they
need—
they need someone who gives them baths,
naps, and vegetables,
and who is committed to her version of what
will make them happy
for the rest of their lives.
We’re often like little
children when it comes to Jesus.
We want a Savior who is going to give us
what we want when we want it.
And who is going to leave alone the things
we want left alone.
We think we know what we need
for our eternal happiness.
And Jesus is the one who is able to get it
for us—and he better.
But that’s not the Jesus we
need and that’s not the Jesus we see in this story.
In this miracle we see Jesus utterly
committed to his version
of the
eternal happiness of this man who was brought before him
for
healing of his paralysis.
Jesus knew what this man
really needed,
he saw down into the depths of his soul,
and understood his deepest needs.
And even though Jesus did
heal his body,
that’s not where he started.
And when he finally did raise
him up to walk again,
he did it at the perfect time to accomplish
all his purposes.
The reason Mark wrote his
Gospel, reason all four Gospels written
and preserved by God through the ages in the
Bible—
is to show us Jesus as he really is.
This is the Savior you
need—this is the Jesus you must turn to in faith.
This is the Jesus who can challenge and
change you.
This miracle shows us three
things about Jesus.
1. Jesus knows you better than you know
yourself.
2. Jesus gives you what you really need.
3. Jesus loves you enough to make you wait.
And just like last week, I
want to give credit where credit is due.
Tim Keller’s sermon on this passage was
tremendously helpful to me
in my study and preparation.
MP#1 Jesus
knows you better than you know yourself.
Jesus was back in
and there was a huge crowd, the house was
packed with people—
there was not even any room outside the
door.
When these four men arrived
carrying their paralyzed friend
they were so determined to get him to Jesus
for healing,
that they got up on the roof and tore a hole
in it and lowered the man down.
Every single person there
knew what these men wanted, what man himself wanted.
They probably thought that Jesus would
simply take the man by the hand
and command him to rise and heal him on the
spot.
But instead Jesus said: “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
This is an extraordinary
statement—
Because what Jesus was saying to this man
was essentially:
“You think you know the main
problem of your life, but you don’t.
“Your problem is not your paralysis—it’s
your guilt.”
You think you know what main
need of life is, but you don’t.
Your main need is not to be able to walk,
it’s to have my grace.
That’s offensive.
If you went to a person and said, I have
this problem, will you help me with it?
And person said, “That’s not
your problem.” You don’t know your
problem.
Your problem is your wrong response to the
problem.
That’s what Jesus was saying to this man.
Or to look at it another
way:
You know that this man had
said to himself over and over—
“If only I could walk. If only I could walk.”
Then my life would be complete. Then I would be happy.
I would never complain about anything else
for as long as I live.
But Jesus was saying: You’re wrong.
You think, if only I could
walk, I’d never be unhappy again.
But you would. In a few months, in a few years you would
find
other reasons to be unhappy and
incomplete.
Tim Keller quotes a
well-known
she has known a few struggling actors and
actresses who finally became famous.
Before they became
famous—stressed, struggling, driven people.
But when they got what they wanted, it
destroyed them.
“I pity celebrities. No, I do.
Celebrities were once perfectly pleasant human beings, but now their
wrath is awful. You see they wanted
fame, they worked, they pushed. The
morning after each of them became famous, however, they wanted to take an
overdose. Because that giant thing they
were striving for, that thing that was going to make everything ok, that was
going to make their lives bearable, that was going to provide them with
personal fulfillment, and happiness happened, and they were still them. The disillusionment turned them howling and
insufferable. I think when God wants to
play a really rotten practical joke on you, he grants you your deepest wish and
then giggles merrily when you realize you want to kill yourself.”
We all think we know
ourselves, our real problems and needs.
We all
have our lists of the things that are going to make life ok.
Success in business, relationships—marriage,
children.
Achieving a certain standard of living,
admiration of our peers, whatever.
Jesus is audacious enough to
look at a paralyzed man and say:
You may be unhappy, angry and empty now
because you can’t walk—
but if I give you just that, you will become
even more unhappy, angry and empty.
I know you.
I know your real problem and your real need.
Jesus says the very same
thing to you and to me.
Our real problem is that we are building our
identity
and resting our hopes other little saviors
besides Him.
If Jesus was in this
building, and you knew he could give you whatever you wanted,
what would you tear the roof open to ask him
for?
Oh Jesus, fix this thing and
everything will be ok—
I’ll never be unhappy again.
Just give me this one thing
and I will always be content.
Jesus wants you trust that he
knows you better than you know yourself.
He knows your problem, he knows your need.
He is the Savior you need, not anything
else.
Trust him. He will give you what you need.
That’s the second point that stands out.
MP#2 Jesus
gives you what you really need.
This man needed
forgiveness. That’s what Jesus gave him.
That’s what we all need most of all.
More than any of the other things we need.
Forgiveness of sins is more
than simply the removal of guilt.
Jesus says:
“Son, your sins are forgiven.”
He is granting this man
reconciliation with God.
Sonship, adoption into the family of God.
He is making him one of the number.
Forgiveness of sins is simply
shorthand for salvation itself—
in all of its dimensions.
This is what the man really
needed—this is what Jesus gave him.
But why would Jesus forgive
the sins of a man who didn’t ask for forgiveness?
The Bible makes it clear over and over that a
person must ask for forgiveness.
That’s called repentance or confession. God requires it.
Shows that the heart is softened toward God,
eager for change.
1 John 1 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just and will forgive us . . .”
Psalm 32 “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away . .
. then I acknowledged my sin
to you and did not cover up my iniquity and
you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
This man was lowered into the
room and didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Why did Jesus forgive him?
It’s no mystery really. Mark tells us what Jesus did see something.
“He saw their faith.” Not just the faith of the four lowering the
man.
But the man as well, this was an act of
faith on his part.
He had obviously asked his friends to bring
him.
Jesus saw more in this man’s
faith than a desire to be healed of his paralysis—
He saw an inarticulate but heart-felt desire
for mercy and grace.
It was overshadowed by his
desire to be healed perhaps—but it was there.
And Jesus responded to that inarticulate
desire by pouring out his forgiveness.
The old hymn puts it well:
All the fitness he requireth
Is to feel your need of him.
That’s the kind of Savior
Jesus is. Love the way Tim Keller puts
it:
“Jesus Christ is aggressive in his grace.
He knows what we need, wants
to give it to us, comes to us aggressively.
There is a wonderful picture
of this in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
One of the Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis.
There is a boy called Eustace. He’s a rotten, unpleasant boy.
Finds this cave filled with dragon treasure.
Decides to keep it all for himself. Now he can get back at people he doesn’t like.
There is a big golden
bracelet slips on his arm—
falls asleep on the treasure—when he wakes
up, has become a dragon.
Has this terrible pain in his
arm, now a claw, bracelet cut into flesh.
As he looks at himself, sees how ugly he is,
has a terrible sense of loneliness.
Then Aslan the lion appears,
who is the Christ-figure in the Narnia Chronicles.
Aslan takes him to a clear pool and tells
him to undress and jump in.
So Eustace begins to peel off
his dragon skin,
finally gets it off, but like a snake, he
has another dragon skin under it.
So he does it again, but he is still a
dragon underneath.
So Aslan says: I’m going to have to do that for you.
“I was afraid of his claws, but I was pretty
nearly desperate now, so I let him do it.
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right
into my heart. And when he began pulling
the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right
off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they
hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and
more knobbly looking than the others had been.
And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch. Then he caught hold of me and threw me in the
water. It smarted like anything, but
only for a moment. I found that all the
pain had gone from my arm. And then I
saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”
That’s the work of
Jesus.
He hears inarticulate, imperfect expressions
of faith,
often mixed up with all sorts of other
desperate longings—
and he responds by pouring out just what
people need—
the grace of forgiveness and all that
entails.
Sonship, adoption into the
family. And with that painful but
beautiful changes.
Jesus wants you to trust him
to give you what you need.
You may be crying out to him right now, in
some kind of pain.
He hears you, hears your cry.
Might be other things he
wants to do first. Might put that claw
into your heart
to peel away ugly things. But it’s a gracious claw. He loves you.
And that brings us to the
third point that stands out in this miracle story.
MP#3 Jesus
loves you enough to make you wait.
The man didn’t have to wait
long to be healed, but it was a significant wait.
Between his forgiveness and his healing of
paralysis
was a very significant conflict between
Jesus and the religious leaders.
This is the first time in
Mark where Jesus faces the teachers of the law.
What happened after Jesus
forgave the man?
The teachers of the law began to accuse him
of blasphemy in their minds.
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
Of course, they were right.
Who can forgive sins but God alone? No one.
They understood what Jesus
was saying to this man—
All your sins were against me.
I am not just a healer, I’m your Savior and
Lord.
Now at this point, Jesus had
a choice.
He could have just left them
with their thoughts.
And perhaps they would have dismissed him as
a nut.
But instead he provoked them
with a question:
Which is easier:
To say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are
forgiven.’ or to say:
‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?
Anybody can say, “Your sins
are forgiven.”
But how do you know if they really are? Where’s the proof?
But if you say, “Get up and
walk” to a paralyzed person,
everyone can see right away whether or not
you have the power to heal.
Jesus was setting them up for
the miracle he was about to perform.
He was going to use the miracle to verify
his authority to forgive.
Which was exactly what he did.
He turned to the man who he
had just given the thing he needed most—forgiveness,
and he healed his body. He gave him the thing that he wanted so much.
“Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”
This was his open declaration
to the religious leaders of
I am the Messiah of God. I am the Savior.
And at that point, the shadow
of the cross fell on Jesus.
What does this show us about
all the things we bring to Jesus in prayer?
All the other things besides our requests
for forgiveness and grace—
things like healing from disease, or help in
business,
or resolution of problems with people, or
financial needs?
We see that he cares. He loves us.
It was with compassion he healed this man.
He was moved by his faith and the faith of
his friends.
But we also see, in this
short but significant wait—
that Jesus has a big plan—his Father’s
glory, his glory, our eternal good.
He even worked this man’s healing into part
of his plan—
part of his path to the cross.
That means that it will be
according to his timing,
his purposes that he will answer your
prayers.
Pray for forgiveness, pray
for grace—he delights in answering immediately—
But pray
“Lord, let me walk again. Lord,
give me success in my business.
Lord, help me find a job. Lord, restore my marriage.
He hears. He loves.
But he answers in his time and way.
How long? He doesn’t say. Sometimes you have to wait till you get to
heaven.
Might be heaven before you will walk again.
Might be heaven before certain tears are
wiped away, things made right—
or it could be tomorrow. That’s up to him.
So how do you deal with that
uncertainty?
Go back to where we
started. Jesus knows you, knows what you
need.
And he has given you what you really need,
his grace.
Paul had his thorn in the
flesh. What was that? His eyes?
Imagine the difficulty for a man who loved
to read and write.
Three times he asked the Lord
to remove it and what was the answer.
My grace, my grace is sufficient for
you.
And when you see that and
delight in it—
and Jesus starts to become to you the
deepest desire of your heart—
then wonderful things will happen, waiting
will not seem so bad—
Because you have Jesus, and
he is all you need.
Jesus wants you to trust him, trust his
timing for all your requests.
He loves you. He is carrying out his big plans.
CONC: The Jesus you need is not a Savior who does your
bidding—
Who you can turn to and say—
Jesus, give me this and everything will be
ok.
The Jesus you need is the one
who says—
No, that’s actually your problem—
putting your hopes in other saviors besides
me.
The Jesus you need is the one
who knows you better than you know yourself,
and who can teach you to know yourself.
The Jesus who comes at you
aggressively with his grace and forgiveness—
always ready to give you what you need.
And the Jesus who loves you
enough to say, “Wait, I’m working out good things,
beautiful things, eternal things, trust me.”
That is the Jesus who as in
the house in
And he is with us today by His Spirit—
there is no need to tear a hole in the roof—
He invites you to meet Him at
His Table.
Let’s do that now.