It is a true joy to be with you, to worship among you, to exalt the name of the Lord together, adding my voice to yours. I do come bringing the greetings and the profound gratitude of your brothers and sisters in Christ at Greystone Theological Institute, which has a number of locations in this country and several in the world at large and is based in Pennsylvania. We are deeply honored, humbly grateful for your partnership and the work not only of training ministers of the gospel, but of encouraging those who are already engaged in this urgently necessary and profound calling of serving the church and continuing education in similar contexts. We rejoice with you and the minister the Lord has sent you, who is a friend of mine, but I offer my thanks to the Lord, not because of that, but because of the fruit of his ministry over many years, which we pray will continue and go from strength to strength. Friends, this evening I would ask us to look together to Matthew's Gospel and the ninth chapter to read the first eight verses. Matthew, the ninth chapter, the first eight verses. And as we hear these words, friends, let us remember these are not Merely the words of any man, these are the words of the living God. And so let us hear him. And getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven. And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, this man is blaspheming. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise and walk. But that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He then said to the paralytic, Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid and they glorified God who had given such authority to men. Amen. Let us pray. We bless you, our God, as the God of blessing, who is himself ever blessed. We bless you because you have seen fit to give your church all that is needed for life and for godliness. And in your inscrutable wisdom, you have seen fit to give to your church a word by which to live, which serves as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, as it gives us nothing less than the Lord Jesus Christ, who is light and life for us. As this is your word, and as we are your people, and as you have promised to bless, to guide, to correct, to strengthen, to comfort, and to lead your people by your spirit through this word, so we pray that you would accomplish all your good purpose among us here this evening, which we seek in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a look, if you would, at your copy of God's Word here in this place, Matthew chapter 9. Glance at the top of the chapter. Glance at the heading that the editors of whoever made the Bible you are using placed above this passage. Note, of course, in case you weren't aware of this, these headings are not original to Holy Scripture. They are provided by the publishers as a guide, as a help, so that we know what's going on in terms of the content of the passages we are looking at. Just like the chapter numbers and the verse numbers are not original, but they're there to help us as readers chart our progress and distinguish sections from one another. So these headings are there only as a help or a guide. And I'm going to guess that the heading you have before Matthew chapter nine says something like, Jesus heals a paralytic. Now this might sound quite odd, But in this case, I'm hoping that by the end of our brief reflections on this passage, we will come to understand why that is not only maybe a little mistaken, but in fact, contradicts Jesus' whole point in this passage. That if we were to come away thinking this passage is about Jesus healing a paralytic, We will not only be incorrect, we will be on the side of those Jesus corrects, Jesus admonishes. That does sound a little odd, doesn't it? After all, aren't we reading a passage in which Jesus heals a paralytic? What's so far-fetched about describing it that way, placing a heading over it that says as much? Well, let's think about the passage and how this may be so and why it matters so very much for our Christian lives, our confession of the faith and our quest by God's grace to walk in faithfulness before him. This story here in Matthew 9 is one of many stories we have in Matthew that is also found in Mark's gospel and in Luke's gospel. And Matthew's account is, as it is in other cases, the shortest of these three versions of the story. And this is a story that, as I read it, you may have thought it sounds a little familiar. But if I were to read the stories of the same event found in Mark and Luke, you would say, oh yes, do I ever know that story? It is one of my favorites. This is the story that we read about in Mark and Luke, where the friends of a man who is paralyzed, in love for their friend, push their way through a crowd that has surrounded Jesus' house in his hometown of Capernaum, and that is filling the house itself. And they push their way through, they climb up to the top of the house with their friend who is prostrate on a cot-like bed, They carry him to the top and they start pulling away ceiling tiles from the top of the house and they create a hole in the top of that house to let their friend down which they do by rope through the very hole in the ceiling they have created so that Jesus would see him and Jesus would heal him. Ah, now I remember that story. But then why is it Matthew giving us all those dramatic details? Why do Mark and Luke tell us about the friends and what lengths they go to in love for their friend? And I mean, what a dramatic scene. A man descending from the ceiling almost like a magic show by rope. And right there in front of Jesus, he ends up and Jesus heals him. Why would Matthew not include what Mark and Luke do? Matthew's abbreviation of that story, is what makes it clear for us that the emphasis in the passage is in fact not Jesus the healer, but Jesus the forgiver. For him, here in Matthew 9, that is the important thing. And to think that this is about healing, to think that Jesus is about healing, or about any other way in which he can fix our earthly lives, is the very thing Jesus is saying we must not misunderstand him and his mission to be. This patient was a paralytic. which explains why he is being carried. He is lying on a bed, a portable bed, a mat. None of the three evangelists suggest that the bearers or the patient actually ask for healing. Instead, the effort of these friends makes it obvious what they're hoping for. But not a single word from them is recorded in any of the Gospels. The plight of the man and what they looked for from Jesus are obvious enough without words. And we are told Jesus sees their faith. But Matthew doesn't tell us how it is. He sees it. Now we know in Mark and Luke what might have suggested that they have faith. bed bearers making a hole in that roof, lowering the man in front of Jesus. It shows that they have deep conviction Jesus can and will heal their friend. But we must ask the question, has Jesus misunderstood the situation? Jesus seems to misunderstand the situation, doesn't he? Because in our passage, With the friends loving their friend to such length as this, with a dramatic scene as it has unfolded, it's clear enough to us as readers, as it was to those in the house on that day, what it is the friends want and what this man himself wants, and that is healing. And Jesus says to the paralytic, take heart, my son. You will be healed. Actually, he doesn't say that, does he? He speaks about forgiveness and about sins. Now, it's one thing to say, maybe Jesus has misunderstood the situation. But if you were there, and here's the key concern of our passage, let us imagine that we are there. Let us imagine that this Jesus of this story is here in our lives, in our situations, in our stories, where it may be paralysis or it may be something else. And we have presented this grand need to the Savior. And we have said, my son has run away from you. My daughter has run away from you. I have just received this diagnosis. I have just lost my job. I have just had this profound hurt and disappointment. I don't know what's going on in my country. I don't know what's going on in my home. I don't know what's going on in my church. I don't know what's going... I am asking for you to fix this. And in reply you hear, No worries. I love you and your sins are forgiven. We would not think Jesus misunderstood the situation. We would run a really high risk of being nothing less than insulted, offended. I know that. I know that you do that. But do you not see what I am going through? Do you not understand how deep my pain is? Have you heard nothing that I've said? You can imagine in this scene, did you not see what my friends just did, bringing me down to the roof this way? I need healing, isn't that obvious enough to you? Jesus might have seemed to misunderstand or ignore the reality of the need, but he didn't. He didn't because he pierced through to the very heart of every need. That deep, deep reality of our need, which accounts for all of its earthly forms in life, and that is that we need to be righted before God, and to be told we are forgiven, and that all will be well for eternity, not merely for a moment. not merely for the breath that is this life, but for the breathlessness of eternal life. Because if that is true, well then God cares for my moments and my days as well. He seemed to misunderstand it, but he didn't. But then there are others in the picture, in this story, the scribes. The scribes, hear what Jesus says, and Matthew tells us they say not out loud, but they say to themselves, this man is blaspheming. They are disturbed by Jesus's words. They don't speak out against him, not here, not this early in the story. They talk among themselves, they speak to themselves, either among themselves verbally or to themselves in their own minds and in their hearts. Either way, Matthew is talking about something that happens inside them, something true about their hearts, their inward reflection about this most unusual thing they have heard this man just say. And this provokes in them a contempt. Despite this man, they say. This man, this fellow. And they hurl the most serious accusation possible. He's blaspheming. As the scribes see it, for Jesus to forgive sins is to assume divine prerogative. In Mark and in Luke when they tell this story, they go on to ask these scribes, who can forgive sins but God alone? That is what concerns them. So the scribes seem to understand the situation. But of course we as readers know that they did not. The irony of all of their accusations is that they are assuming as false the very thing that is unassailably true. You're exactly right. No one can forgive sins but God alone. But let me tell you something, scribes, about the man you are speaking to. He is nothing less than God in the flesh. They think of him as no more than another Galilean. As someone to be understood within ordinary human limits. And for someone like that to bestow forgiveness or to pretend to do so is nothing less than blasphemy. Now what's interesting is how much we have in common with these scribes. What is their fundamental problem? They are looking at Jesus in relationship to them and in relationship to all, according to the terms of ordinary human limits. And when we do that, we are preoccupied with the chaos in my health. and in my marriage, among my children, in my community, at my work, in my church, in my nation, and so on. But if he is not less than ordinarily human, but far more than ordinarily human, if he is fully man, but also fully God, then we would not content ourselves with mere trifles. when we know he doesn't merely give life, he is life. So Jesus moves on to a question of his own. He puts two statements in front of them and asks the scribes which one is easier to say, easier to affirm. His first is the statement he made when he forgave the paralytic sins. The second one introduces a new dimension to the picture. Get up and walk. Now the obvious answer would be that it's easier to say sins are forgiven because it's impossible as a bystander to confirm or refute what has just been said. Whereas when a paralyzed man is told to get up and walk, anybody can see whether the command is obeyed or not and whether this proves to be true or not. And so everyone in the room assumes. Well of course it would be harder to tell a layman to get up and walk than it would to say your sins are forgiven. But of course the message of the passage and of Jesus's reply is that at a far deeper and more basic level it is in fact the statement to forgive sins that is infinitely harder than what a healer could say. Get up and walk. In fact, Jesus does not say, this one is easier than that one to say. Instead, as he often does, he poses his question and he leaves it right there. And then he goes on to demonstrate that he can say both things. And you're here wanting healing? And you're not going to believe what I say about forgiveness unless I heal? Very well. Get up and walk. Okay, now you see him walking, walking around the man you knew to be lame. Now what will you do with my statement? Your sins are forgiven. This becomes the nagging open question of Jesus's rhetorical reply. And yet friends, this is what it impresses upon us if we are going to hear these words well for ourselves. I don't know about you, but I would presume to assume that at least once or twice in your life as a Christian, you have been tempted as I have been. Not merely to ask for, to use the frame of our passage, not merely to ask for the healing rather than the forgiveness. But if I were completely honest, in a bald and open way before the scrutiny and eyes of the Lord, I would have to admit that I felt my pain so badly. For the thing that gnawed at me at that time that I would have to say, I almost preferred in the moment, healing to anything else. And that is something this passage confronts us with. We are not too hard to please. We are too easy to please. That's a way of speaking that comes from the opening salvo of C.S. Lewis's remarkable sermon, The Weight of Glory, very familiar lines. Listen to them in light of Matthew 9. If we consider the unblushing promises of reward, and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can't imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. Friends, we are far too easily pleased and perhaps we're inclined to imagine that the nature of our spiritual struggle is that we are asking for so much when in fact the Lord is calling us to be contented with far less. When Matthew 9 suggests the opposite, we are asking for so little and are preoccupied idolatrously with so little, so meager an inheritance that we don't even imagine, don't dare to ask and to rejoice over the thing beyond all things in this life. The Jesus who is our life. We so severely underestimate the depth and scope of our need for forgiveness because we forgive ourselves so flippantly and easily over every transgression. We are so easy on ourselves we forget just how different the Holy God of Israel is from us. That we therefore think too little of forgiveness as grace. And because we think too little of forgiving grace, we think far too much of the other things God can give. And we think far too much of the things that occupy all of our attention in this life. Isn't it the case sometimes that we are tempted to say, but if only the Lord would do this, then I would know he loves me. If only he would do that, then I would know he is faithful. If only he would hear my plea about her or him, then I would know he is God. When he has already in his gospel, made the grandest of declarations and revealed the infinite depths of his loving and good character when he has already demonstrated his love for us in the gift of his very self through his son. And in him has spoken the word above all words, that he is your God and you are his people. And yet here we are fumbling about making God to measure up against mud pies in the dirt when he has given us an inheritance in the heavenlies and the richness of his fellowship. And yet, isn't it wonderful when despite our being too easily pleased, he is pleased to do for us what he did for this man? and that is to heal anyway. When we ask so little of the God who is and gives so much, instead of only rebuking and correcting us and turning away in parental frustration, he stoops low and yet again puts food on our plate and drink in our glass and air in our lungs, gives us rest on our pillow, a job to go to, a spouse to love, a child to care for, a neighbor to befriend, an arm and a leg that works, and a Bible to read, and a church to worship with. All the while we are acting as we sometimes do, friends, as stubborn toddlers. Sure, we know what is best, but like the most faithful and wise of parents, He does not allow our smallness of imagination to be the measure of his generosity. He gives because he loves to give. He delights to give good gifts in his children. And we would hear this passage well, if in every gift he gives, we would think not merely of the gift, but of the blessing it is to belong to such a giver. If with every healing he does give, we are led to worship the God who is life itself. If with every provision on our plate and in our cup, we would rejoice before the one who is the bread of life and the wine of his people. Friends, let us never fall prey to this common and easy temptation to be content with so much less. than the God who gives him very self to us. And in giving himself to us has given us life forever, which includes every good thing we enjoy from his hand, but goes infinitely beyond it. Let us not seek mere happiness, safety, and tranquility. Let us seek God himself and rejoice in the gospel, which is the good news he has given us nothing less than himself. And in doing so, he has given us perhaps not what we always want, but he has given us what we truly, truly need. So friends, what's the most amazing thing Jesus could do for you today, tonight? What's the most amazing thing he could do for you? If it is anything less than give himself to you, perhaps we need again to hear Matthew chapter nine. and rejoice in the many other things he gives, but give glory to the one who is himself the gift and praise him for it. Let us pray. Oh, heavenly father and gracious God, how thankful we are that in your generous ways, you who are life itself have given us life and in a myriad of forms and expressions, Teach us to perceive your generous hand in all things, to seek the things we need in this life, but to seek you above all, to seek first the things of the kingdom of heaven, and then to rejoice as all these other things are added to us. And we ask this in the name of the one who is gift and giver, Jesus Christ. Amen.