Well, hello everyone and welcome back. This is our daily devotional for Wednesday, November 26th, 2025. And I hope that it finds all of you doing very well and that your plans are going great for a very, very happy Thanksgiving. Lots of stuff going on by this time. My bird should be brining. And if you're a Facebook friend, no, it's not in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator. Don't worry. especially church people, I'm not doing that to your refrigerator in the manse. But nevertheless, the bird should be brining, things should be coming together. And I'm excited about that time of enjoyment, that time of celebration, that time of Thanksgiving. And I hope that you are celebrating Thanksgiving, whether you have a big meal planned or not, because I hope that Thanksgiving is a regular part of your life. Now, that being said, this is the last time I'm gonna be with you this week. I'm not gonna be here Thursday and Friday. Sorry, family in town, that kind of stuff. We will be here Sunday morning, Lord willing, at 10 a.m., and soon. If you haven't made plans, you know what I'm gonna say. Get yourself in a Bible-believing church. But that being said, y'all, it's a special time of the year at Old Providence. Decorating has already been done. We don't have the poinsettias yet. This coming Sunday is the last week to order those. The sanctuary is beautiful. We're gonna be singing Christmas carols. Y'all, it's wonderful. It's a great time of the year. I'm preaching on a passage for the first Sunday of Advent, and yes, I do an Advent series at Christmastime, tis the season. I'm preaching on Micah. Never preached on Micah before, so I'm really excited about that opportunity, but not every week. I'm doing different passages every week, but for the sake of this first week, we will light the advent candle that represents hope. And of course, Micah prophesies about the coming Messiah. But nevertheless, that Sunday morning, where are we today? Well, y'all, where we're continuing is we're just pressing forward in our time together in the book of Matthew, the gospel according to Matthew. Do you remember where we were yesterday? We saw the episode of Jesus healing the two demonic men, and no, it's not a contradiction of Mark and Luke because there's only one We talked about all of those things. We even saw visual aid here, the hill where the pigs rushed headlong into the Sea of Galilee to be drowned after the demons were exercised from the men. But really, really fascinating stuff. Remember what Matthew's doing as opposed to Mark and Luke. Mark and Luke are focusing on the individual aspect to following Jesus. Matthew is focusing really a lot more on the corporate aspect. He's writing to Jews. Some of them are saved. Many of them are not. And what he's doing is he's showing Jesus his dominion. His power, the strength of His reign that He came, not just as a man, not just as a prophet, but as God the Son with dominion over all things, including the demon possessed. But today as we continue along and we're going to Matthew chapter nine, and we're finally out of Matthew chapter eight, we're into Matthew chapter nine. Now, yet again, we see Jesus's dominion, but we see it in a different way. over a different sphere, if you will, over a different part of life. It's not about the demonic world. Instead, we see Jesus's dominion over our hearts. We see Jesus's dominion over sin and soon to be over death itself. I'm getting ahead of myself there. Let's pray, and then we'll dig in. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that you have given to us, and we pray that you would work in our hearts as we come to your word. Give us wisdom, give us understanding. Guide us by your Holy Spirit so that we would see the authenticity of Jesus, and also his power, his might, and all of its grandeur. We're not gonna see these things unless you turn the lights on for us, and guide us by your Holy Spirit, so please do that now. and we pray it all in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so geography-wise, you know that Jesus was in Capernaum, healed Peter's mother-in-law, demon-possessed. If you have those little nifty but non-inspired chapter headings like I do, mine says, Jesus heals many. The end result of that is that many, many more people come. And then he says, all right, time to get out of here. So he says, let's go across the lake. They go to Galilee of the Gentiles, where we find what happened yesterday. But where we come to today is Jesus going back to how, I love how this is put, to his own town. And his own town, of course, is Capernaum. It's where he lived for three years, where he did his ministry. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. Matthew chapter nine, verse one, it says, Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over, and came into his own town. I didn't have the picture of it with me, but when you go to Capernaum, which they actually, that's the Greek anglicized version, right? It's a Greek word that's anglicized for us as we read it. It's Capernaum in Hebrew, right? Capernaum. And anyway, we pronounce it Capernaum. But nevertheless, when you go to the town, right outside it says Capernaum or Capernaum, the town of Jesus. And for good reason. So much of his ministry was done there. Seven out of his disciples were called out of there. And it's fascinating. You go there and you see things on the columns that they have unearthed after the fact, after Jesus would have been crucified and resurrected. They have columns from the fourth century. that talk about the sons of Zebedee. It's carved into Aramaic onto those columns that were outside of the synagogue. So y'all, if you doubt that these things are true, remember, the more archeology they do, it's always, it would be comical if it weren't so sad, because people want to discredit God's word. They wanna say, ah, that's myth, that's never, they weren't even real people, that kind of stuff. Well then, as archeology improves, and the more they dig out, The more they find that it's not that archaeology disproves the Bible, it proves the Bible. The liberal commentator, Bill Maher, now he denies the truth of God's word. He says that the Bible's got it all wrong about heaven and hell, which, you know, he's an atheist. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. But even the fool can recognize something for what it is from time to time. He said the Bible has this nasty habit of archaeology proving that it is true. He said that in relation to Israel, because Muslims say, oh, no, they never had the temple, all that kind of stuff. The more they dig, the more they find that proves the Bible to be absolutely true. Such is the case with Capernaum. But nevertheless, Matthew 9, verse 1, Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over, and came into his own town. Some men brought to him a paralytic laying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, son. your sins are forgiven. Now y'all, pausing for just a second before we get to the dominion part of this. This is such a beautiful passage for two reasons. Number one, you see Jesus's heart here, where he says to this paralytic man, he doesn't just call him man or hey buddy, he calls him son. Which is, by the way, a thing of authority, right? He's referring to him as son, and no, this is not evidence for priesthood. It's not what this is, right? Go in peace, my son. This is a loving term of warmth, of acceptance. But also it's beautiful because he says this in light of the faith that he sees. Oh, it couldn't have been easy on this man or on his friends. He's paralyzed, he can't move. They don't have wheelchairs. They're hauling him on his mat. And Jesus sees their faith. And in his mercy, he reaches out to them, not just as one in authority, but as one who reaches out in love. with endearment and refers to this man as son. So I want you to see that, but also I want you to see where Jesus's priorities are. Yeah, it's true, as we know, he's gonna heal him. But what's important to Jesus? Not that the man can walk. What's important to Jesus is that his sins are forgiven. This is kind of like that old saying, right, where you give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, you teach a man to fish and he'll never be hungry for the rest of his life. Giving the man the fish would be healing him. Yeah, it's a temporary thing, right? To what end, what good is it that Jesus heals the paralytic? So hey, he can get up and walk and he can work and he can do great things, but he's still got sin that's going to send him to hell. It's temporary relief. Jesus is much more interested in the state of his heart. One of your devotional thoughts for today is, you know, Jesus hasn't changed. It's not that he doesn't pay attention to the things that we face. It's not that he is not well aware of our plight, of the difficulties that we encounter. But what is most important to Jesus is your heart. Why? Because wherever your heart is there, your treasure is going to be also. Remember he said that when he said, don't store up things, you know, treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and the thief breaks in and steals and kills. Store up for yourself treasures in heaven. Jesus is concerned about the heart because he's concerned about your eternal destination. And in his love, he wants to be with you. There's only one way that you're going to be with Jesus. It's gonna be if your sins are forgiven, because God is perfect. If you're imperfect, you cannot be in his presence. There has to be a way for you to be made perfect, and the only way you can be made perfect is if your sins are forgiven. So Jesus lays that paradigm out, first and foremost, says your sins are forgiven. Verse three, at this time, some teachers of the law said to themselves, this fellow is blaspheming. Now, here's another interesting thing. I've made allusion to this before, and it's just something that eats at me. It's the idea that the world has, and C.S. Lewis has this wonderful quote about this, this idea that the world has that Jesus was just a prophet, he was just a teacher, he was just a wise man, but he's not really God. C.S. Lewis had this marvelous quote, and I'm not going to try to reproduce it, but basically he said, you can't say the kind of things that Jesus said and do the kind of things that Jesus did. and not be God and at the same time be a good man because you can't say these sorts of things and be good because either you have the authority to say them or you're a lunatic. And he said on the level of someone who calls himself a poached egg, right? And that's fair because y'all, either Jesus has the power here to forgive sins or he doesn't. There's only one way that he has the power to forgive sins and that is if he's God. You know, ultimately, the only person that can forgive you for the offenses that you've made is the person you have offended. That's one of the problems with our modern day society that wants to apologize for sins of the past as if we can repent for something that somebody else did. How arrogant is that? Yeah, but not only can we not repent for somebody else's sin, we can't forgive the sin that has been committed against another because it wasn't committed against us. Only the person who has received the offense can forgive the offender. So bringing it back to Jesus, for those that say that Jesus, oh, he's just a good guy, he's not really God, that how can he be a good guy and make proclamations like this? He'd have to be crazy or he'd have to be exactly who he said he was and is, God the Son. Also, this should do away with the notion that we get from Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses that Jesus is just a man, or he's a God like you and I are a God, and he's not really divine. No, y'all. Jesus would not be out there forgiving sins if he didn't have the authority to do so, if he wasn't the one who ultimately was sinned against. And by the way, this is not just my reasoning. There's a reason why the teachers of the law are going nuts here. It's the same reason why when he's at Caiaphas' home and they say, hey, are you the one that's been saying, are you the son of God? And Jesus responds, I am, evoking the name of God himself. Y'all, this was blasphemy of the highest variety. There's a reason the Pharisees are ripping out their beards and tearing their clothes. It's not because they're saying, oh, just listen to this person who's a good man saying it. No, they knew that Jesus was claiming to be God. So either he is or he isn't. If he isn't, then you can't call him a good man, because that makes him a liar, makes him a lunatic. But if he is, my oh my, the authority that he has. Yesterday with the demoniacs, we saw that Jesus had authority over the demonic realm. But today we see that Jesus has authority over your heart. that Jesus has the authority to forgive sin. But that's not all Jesus did. Verse four, knowing their thoughts, which by the way, only Jesus can do that, you know. That's that whole bit about not judging motives kind of thing. Knowing their thoughts, verse four, 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? but so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Then he said to the paralytic, get up, take your mat and go home. And the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe and they praise God who had given such authority to men. Y'all, there are many things that can be said of Jesus. I like how John's gospel ends, that if you took the time to write them down, there wouldn't be enough paper, enough ink, enough space in the whole world to contain all the volumes that could be written about the things that Jesus did in his earthly ministry. But what we find here at the beginning of Matthew chapter nine is that while yes, Jesus has authority on earth, we see a different kind of authority altogether. beyond that of just the prophet, beyond that of just the priest, beyond that of just the king. What we see is God the Son. Who we see is God the Son, exercising authority, speaking as one who had authority, and in fact, doing that which was his right. But look at the start with Jesus. It's never just the circumstances. It's never just the situation. It's never the tangible alone. It's also the untangible, the intangible. It's also the eternal. It's also the thing that you can't see that Jesus is exercising authority over. And now it's time for me to say yet again, you know he hasn't changed, right? No matter what it is you're facing, No matter what it is you have gone through, are facing, or will go through, Jesus is in charge. Jesus is working. Jesus has dominion. And his primary concern should be our primary concern, and that is making sure our hearts are his. Does he intervene? and change our lives for the better like he did with this paralytic man? Oh, absolutely. Like he did with his friends? The idea we get there is that his friends carded him there knowing that they were not gonna be carrying him back. Oh, that we had such faith. But the reality is is that we can have such faith. All we need to do is remember who we're dealing with when we're dealing with Jesus. that the regular things don't apply to him because he's not like anybody else. Matthew yet again shows the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. I hope that you see him the same as one who has dominion and authority over everything you're facing. This is one of those things we can say we do. We can say, oh yes, yeah, I believe that. But what it comes down to is how you trust. Where's your hope? And also, given that this is the day before Thanksgiving, where's your gratitude? Do you know these things about Jesus and do you live a life of thankfulness to Him as a result? What does that look like? It looks like trusting Him, but it also looks like testifying to His greatness too, knowing that He's working and being ready to give others the reason for the hope that you have in Him alone. So, with Thanksgiving being tomorrow and knowing that We're all facing different circumstances. Let me encourage you. Take heart, son, daughter. In Jesus, your sins are forgiven. And so much more than that alone. Christianity, as I said this past Lord's Day, it's not about what's going to happen someday. It's about what happens today. It's about the benefit that we receive now, not just in eternity. the benefit of knowing that Christ is trustworthy. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that you've given to us and for this wonderful reminder of Christ's dominion. We pray that we would live in light of these things, ultimately producing gratitude and thankfulness in us. Let us be quick to proclaim our thankfulness and your faithfulness, and I pray it all in Christ's name. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back Sunday morning at 10 a.m., and then again Monday morning at 6 a.m., but until then, I hope you have a very, very happy Thanksgiving, and a wonderful Wednesday, or whatever day it happens to be, and oh yeah, get yourself in a Bible-believing church. We'd love it if it were Old Providence. It's a wonderful time of the year. Till we meet again, take care.