Turn with me, if you would, to Luke chapter 5. Luke chapter 5, verses 15 through 26, is where our text is found this morning. Luke chapter 5, starting in verse 15. Hear the word of God. But now even more, the report about him, that is Jesus, went abroad. And great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, Man, your sins are forgiven you. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Rise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. An amazement seized them all and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, we have seen extraordinary things today. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, as we come to your word, We come with a sense of joyful, reverential expectation. It gives us such such joy to know that here we have a word from you. We have not been left in our ignorance or in the darkness of our fallen state as those whose minds have been, a veil has been, has been pulled over our minds so that our spiritual sight is dulled and blinded and God, there's, because of sin in us, there is this There is this ignorance which is in us of you and the things which pertain to your will, to your way. And God, we're without hope in this world, without the light of your word which you have given us. And so this fills us with gratitude and gives us cause for rejoicing. Though we come before you with reverence this morning because we do come before the God who is living and active, and whose word, therefore, speaks to us today. And it thunders in the church with authority and with power. We know that whatever we bring with us here, that we come before a word which is able to pierce to the division of bone and marrow, which can touch our very heart and change us in the most profound ways. Nothing about this morning is ordinary. And nothing about this morning is merely on a natural order, but God, we come before you. You gather with us and your spirit is among us. And God, with angels to witness what takes place here, we know that we draw before you, God. And so we do so with a spirit of reverence and awe. But God, we also come with expectation because we know that Because of the things that we confess about your word and what we know it's capable of and what you're able to do through it, God, we know we need change. We know that we need help. We know that we need to be shaken out of our spiritual lethargy and awaken to the obedience that you call us to as your people. There are others, though, who have gathered here among us who need to be made certain and given assurance of the things that they believe and need to be comforted. And, God, people who need your help in these ways, and we know that you bring this help. And so, God, whether we need to be challenged or comforted, we pray that, or changed, God, we pray that you would come and do this work, and we know that you've promised to work through your words such that nothing that is said or spoken and not one word that goes forth will ever return void without accomplishing your purposes and your work. And so do this we pray in our hearts this morning in our church to get glory for yourself and we pray it all in Christ's name. Amen. Well, the subject of our message this morning is sin. And this is a topic that we began to consider two weeks ago when we were in Luke's gospel last in the account in Luke 5 of the leper who came to Jesus, a man who was full of leprosy. And if you'll remember, the aspect of sin that we considered then was the way in which sin pollutes us. and corrupts us thoroughly. I mean, it's not just as if, the way I like, on a Wednesday night we watched this Bible study on, and this was an issue that was touched on, and the way that the teacher, the preacher who led that study put it was that it's like a drop of cyanide in a glass of water. It may just be in terms of parts per unit of liquid, volume, that it's just a small part, but it will permeate the whole, and it will have this polluting, corrupting, destructive effect upon the whole. And so we stand in need as sinners, as those who have been convinced of the presence, the reality of sin within us. We stand in need of cleansing, and that's exactly what Jesus offers To this man, what he does, he says to this man, be clean. And this is something that not only is Jesus able to do, and the leper recognizes Jesus' power and ability to cleanse, but Jesus is willing to do it. As he reaches out and touches this untouchable, this outsider, this person who is not just a little unclean, but full of uncleanness, and that's with regards to his leprosy, but even with regards to sin, this is a picture of Jesus' willingness to reach out and touch us with compassion. as a Savior who will show mercy and cleanse even those who are not just a little sinful but are full of the uncleanness and the pollution of sin. And so as we think about our need to have our sins dealt with, that is a profoundly important and comforting truth that Jesus will clean us and that we can be cleansed and so forth. It's important, we need this work. But now we come to, as we begin to look at this section, starting in verse 15, this what may even be a more pressing matter, a more important consideration, and that is, we not only need to be cleansed, we need to be forgiven. Because sin not only pollutes us, but that it renders us before God, before his throne of judgment, guilty. And all of us are guilty. We know that we stand condemned. And this is something that Paul goes to great lengths to explain in his letter to the Romans. And so he speaks of in, for example, Romans chapter three, the way in which that all are under sin, and the only thing that's needed to convince a person of their sin is to reflect upon God's law. God's law. If you look at, and this is one of these techniques of evangelism, or this is a method or some kind of useful tool in our evangelism, when we're speaking to people who are proud, and oftentimes those are the people that we speak to, people who are proud. And people may not come across as arrogant, but nevertheless, they're proud because they don't see their sin is so great that it would bring down God's condemnation or His judgment. They think, well, I'm not perfect, but I wouldn't say that I'm thoroughly sinful or guilty of an offense against God or something like that. Now what they need if they're ever to come to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be saved and to receive his mercy is to be first convinced of their sin. And so if you've ever watched these videos that Ray Comfort does, he's sort of man on the street evangelism videos, which I think are great. He's kind of an interesting character. He's a little, I don't know, he's a little goofy in some ways, but you should watch his videos because I like Ray a lot. And his approach is sound, I think, because he begins with asking people, have you ever lied? He'll start off by asking them, are you a basically good person? And everyone says yes. But then he'll say, have you ever lied? Okay, so you're a liar. Have you ever stolen something? Yeah, well then you're a thief. And Jesus says that if you have hated someone in your heart, then you're guilty of the sin of murder. So have you ever hated someone? Well yeah, well you're a murderer. Now how can you tell me that you're a basically good person when by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, murdering, adulterous, you know, on and on, idolater? And so this is what God's word and his law especially, it's how it functions in our life is to first teach us something of God's holy character and help us to understand who God is. But then as a result of that understanding, we come to be convinced of our own sin before him. That's important. But Paul goes on to say not only, for example, in Romans 3.10, none is righteous. And that's that basic self-awareness we need to come to. That we are sinners. But he goes on to speak of our condemnation. He says here that we are, he speaks of our accountability before God in verse 19. That we know, he says, whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. So regardless of whether you know it or not, As we know, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law. And the same is true not only in the civil realm of the laws of our society, but even in terms of God's world and the laws that he has put in place, that ignorance is no excuse. We're all under the law, but the law is given so that we may be brought accountable to God so that we know and sense our failure to obey and keep his law. And through the law comes knowledge of sin, he says in that very next verse, verse 20. In verse 23, he speaks of the universal reality of sin. All have sinned and as a result fall short of the glory of God. And on and on Paul goes, speaking of our sin before him. By the time we get to chapter 8, we see that Paul, he speaks of the reality for believers of the forgiveness that we enjoy as a grace that comes to us through Jesus as there being no condemnation. And the reason why this is so important to grasp is because outside of Christ there is condemnation. There is guilt and there is punishment. It is appointed for man to die, once to die, and after comes judgment, the author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us. And so that's where we stand before God, not only polluted and corrupted and in bad need of the moral and spiritual cleansing that only God can provide, but we are guilty before Him. And what's the use of being cleansed so that we stand presently clean when we're only going to come before Him and receive the verdict of guilty and have to suffer God's judgment and His wrath? And so we need both the cleansing, we need especially the forgiveness that God can and God alone can provide. And so that's really the subject of our message this morning. Not just sin, but the forgiveness of sin. and the power and the authority that Jesus has to bring that forgiveness to bear. I want to begin by looking at verses 18 through 20 at Jesus' pronouncement. And this is striking in many ways, but let's look at verses 18 through 20 again. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, They went up on the roof and let him down with his bed, threw the tiles into the midst before Jesus. So to set the stage and get this picture before us, you have to understand, and I know that you have heard this explanation before in Sunday school or in a sermon, but to understand and kind of get a mental picture, you have to understand the architecture of that day and that part of the world where houses would have a flat roof and oftentimes this roof was used. People would go up to the roof and they would store things there. Sometimes they would go up there at certain times of the year or certain times of the day and spend time on the roof. The roof, the sort of ceiling was supported by wooden cross beams that were then, they would have mats of reeds and there would be mud and stuff. They would create these mats that would sort of function as tiles that would go on the cross beams and create the roof on top of the house. And so there would sometimes be external staircases that would go up to the roof from the outside. So you can see where there's a possibility for those who want to come into the house And this could have been just a personal residence, and Jesus just happens to be in the home of someone and begun to teach. Or this could have been a synagogue. Many places in that ancient world, synagogues didn't have their own building. And there's places in the New Testament where it's mentioned as a notable fact that so-and-so built a synagogue, a meeting place for the synagogue. But as a gathering or as an assembly of God's people in a village, it could have met in just one of the larger homes. Well, regardless, Jesus is teaching there and it's become crowded and so that people can't get in and have access and so these people, they make their way up the external staircase to the roof and they remove one of these tiles so they can look down below and they lower this man, this paralytic, down in the midst of the crowd before Jesus. And so with that in mind, we come to verse 20. When he saw their faith, he said, Man, your sins are forgiven you. And so here we see Jesus' pronouncement, and it's his pronouncement of pardon, of the forgiveness of sins. Now this is striking in several ways, and as we'll see, this actually becomes controversial. That's one of the ways it's striking, is because it's controversial. But first, it's striking just because that this isn't necessarily the reason why they've come. Maybe this paralytic understands that in addition to healing, physical healing, he also needs spiritual healing. He needs forgiveness, a spiritual pardon. Maybe his friends understand that, but maybe they don't. All we know is that they've come and the presenting problem, the need that they see that seems to be urgent and pressing is that this man is paralyzed. He's paralyzed. He has a physical disability. But there is a contrast here between the perceived need of this man by the paralytic himself and by his friends and his actual or ultimate need. But Jesus sees. Jesus knows. Jesus knows also that he's going to heal them. So he's going to address both. And as Christians, we want to address both, which is why we've made this effort yesterday. And we'll try to do even more to make efforts to meet the needs, the real tangible needs of our community. We do that. We gave away food yesterday, some 30 boxes of 16 pound boxes of good quality food to those who came and needed that. and had some very appreciative people come through. Some of them had large families or extended families living in one house and would take two boxes of food. And so there's a need there and as a church our fundamental purpose is not, our basic mission and the reason why we exist is not to fill someone's belly. Although that's something we've done and we know it's important to do, good to do. Our fundamental purpose and our driving ambition and mission as a church is to address a spiritual need. This is the same spiritual need that Jesus here is addressing. I would even say that we're taking our cues from Jesus here. He first addresses the man's actual or ultimate need without neglecting his other needs. Jesus says to his church that the poor you will have with you always. Without discouraging his followers from helping the poor, he reminds them that we shouldn't get in the mindset or sort of adopt the illusion, the delusional, ambition that we can actually do away with poverty. To think that we can actually solve poverty, that's sort of an illusion and we shouldn't think that that is possible because poverty is most commonly connected to sin, mistakes people have made, the way that people suffer as a result of their own sin or someone else's sin. And because sin is not going to be finally dealt with until Christ comes again, therefore he says, the poor you will have with you always. You'll always deal with poverty. And so that's going to be a need. It's a need that Jesus encourages his people to address. It's a need that he himself does not neglect to address. But the priority here is on this man's actual and ultimate need, the deeper need than what the man feels himself to have. Now just before we move on, I want you to think yourself, what is your actual need, your ultimate need? And what are the needs that feel more pressing to you in the moment right now, even as you're sitting here? Maybe you're fully engaged and you're ready to hear from God's Word, but maybe your attention is partially elsewhere. because there are things that are giving you anxiety and they're worrying you, maybe a person, maybe a situation, but there's something that causes you anxiety. There seems to be some other need that you don't know how it's going to resolve in your own life and experience. Well, we all have those needs that feel most pressing and we even, we know that if we go around always putting out the fires in our life, dealing with the needs that seem to be most urgent, then we can neglect more important needs and I'll give you a perfect example of this and that's with raising children. There's always things to be done and there's the weekly things that have due dates and deadlines and you know you've got to do this but there's also just a growing list of the projects that need to be done sooner rather than later and I may not have time to get to them this week or you know I may not be able to but Those things have a tendency to grow and that list expands and you feel like, man, and you can just always, every day, work, work, work and never, as a parent, never spend time with your kids. You can do that in the house and outside the house with your work or with even just household work. But you can do that and you can neglect your children. People do that. It's a real problem. There's songs that have been written about that. I won't sing any of them to you, but you know them. And so we don't want to do that. We want to make sure that even if it means pushing something off, doing something partially not as well as we could do it and putting something off and just saying, you know, I can work to this point. and then I've got to spend time with my kids, that I've got to do that, I need to do this. So we have a category of thinking, we all actually do this, where we know that there comes a time to do the important things. It's built into the fabric of our lives as Christians. There are six days that we have for work, and there's a Sabbath. And although we may feel like, I need to get out of here on Sunday and get going with my work, I've got things to do, but that is a mistake, that's sinful. that God commands, not just to be in church on Sunday, but to take the day, the Sabbath day, as a day of spiritual, physical, but also spiritual rest. Not to give ourselves to work, but to give ourselves to our devotion to God, our worship of Him, our relationship with Him, and to our fellowship with His people. And so, although there are many things that those things will keep until Monday, and we take time to do things that are more ultimate. Well, I wonder, how well do you do this? How well do you make time for ultimate matters versus always doing the thing that seems pressing and is causing you anxiety and worry? And, of course, I want to encourage you to follow that Sabbath principle, literally, to observe the Sabbath, but also just that principle of knowing your limits and knowing what's important to make time for rest and to make time for God's people and God's Word and prayer But at the most fundamental level, the most important foundational level, this most important need is to settle the matter of our standing with God. And if nothing else, if you've not done this, then forget what I said about Sabbath keeping and devotional habits and fellowship among God's people. That may be something that you need to address, the neglect of those things. But if you've not settled the matter of your standing with God, then that is your ultimate need this morning, regardless of what is filling your mind with worry. And if we're to settle that matter and answer the question of our standing with God, then we need to consider several things. One is, have we offended or wronged Him? It's a question you ought to ask yourself, have I offended or wronged? And then sometimes I ask this question about people and people ask this question about me. We can sometimes misunderstand one another and say, well, you know, that person didn't speak to me last week in church. Maybe it was just they got to talking with somebody and it was unintentional. But I wonder, and we think this sometimes, have I done anything to offend them? Have I wronged them in some way? And if you're a good person, if you're a kind, considerate person, then that'll worry you a little bit at some degree. And maybe you'll just usually just let time pass and see if it continues to be a problem, see if they bring it to your attention. But maybe over time you think, man, this person's just been giving me the cold shoulder for months. I'm going to address the issue and ask them, have I done anything to offend you? We may have to do that with people in our own families as well. Well, this is a question we need to ask of God. Have we offended or wronged Him? And the only answer that can be given is to be found in His Word. To answer that question, we have to go to His Word. And of course, as we've already considered in the book of Romans, in chapter 3 and 6 and so forth, that yes, we have offended and wronged God. A second question then would be, can that offense be remedied? Can the fact that we've wronged God be dealt with and overcome so that there is a pardon or a forgiveness? And again, the answer I think even in our passage is found to be yes. At least here, Jesus demonstrates that God can and is willing to pardon sinners. So you think, well, I have wronged God. I am condemned. I have sinned against Him and am guilty before Him. But the good news is there is pardon. There's the possibility of pardon. Another question we ought to ask is, can we know that we are forgiven? Or how can we be forgiven and can we know that we are forgiven? And the answer to that again is yes, we can. And we're going to circle back to that, but it's sufficient to notice here that Jesus makes this pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins. that this is our ultimate need, and if this matter has not been settled in your heart and life, then this ought to arrest your attention and consume your thought with far greater sense of worry and anxiety than anything that's going on in your life that is temporary and material and temporal. Let's move on to the second consideration here, and that is Jesus' prerogative. Jesus makes the pronouncement but there's a question and I'm just going to skip ahead and read that question so that we understand this point and that is in verse 21 the Pharisees they questioned Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? And Jesus perceives their thoughts and he answered them, why do you question your hearts? They questioned. And here's the question. Well, God, He makes the pronouncement that the man's sins are forgiven, but can Jesus actually do this? Does He have the ability to do this? Does He have the authority to do this? Now, as Christians, we just sort of assume these things. We've been taught these for so long, so consistently, we believe them, we confess them, that this may seem to be, you know, an assumption that we can safely make. But it's worth examining the reasons that are given. it gives to our assumptions a foundation. And it takes things that we assume and that we presume and that are sort of unconscious and unspoken, and it brings these things to our conscious awareness with reasons while we can have confidence that yes, God is able and willing. He is capable and authorized to pronounce this forgiveness of sins over us. Does Jesus have the power and authority to settle this matter between us and God? The answer that's given by Luke is to display the way that he gives us this confidence and demonstrates for us that Jesus does have the power and authority. to forgive sins is to display his divine power and prerogative over areas or in ways that are highly visible and recognizable to us so that we'll have confidence in that which is a hidden matter of the heart. And so he does this in verses, look with me at verses 21 through 24. So in response to these questions, Jesus says, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven you or to say rise and walk? So he's not actually suggesting that one or the other is more difficult. He's drawing our attention to the fact that both of these things are impossible. These are impossible. I can't say to you, your sins are forgiven. I can forgive you of your offense against me, but we're talking about your offense against a holy God, and I can't offer you pardon before God. So it's impossible, and only God can do that, which is why they claim that Jesus has blasphemed here. But what Jesus is saying, is it any less difficult for me to say to you, get up and walk? And we're not talking about going through months and months of physical therapy so that someone can walk with help. In a moment with a spoken word, Jesus says, he says, get up and walk, and the man is totally healed. He's got strength. He's got muscles that were formerly wasted away are now strong, and he's able to get up on his two feet. And you just get the impression here. I know it's not stated. But as he leaves glorifying God, you know you see the people that when they do the thing where they kind of jump up and click their heels together? I don't know why I read that. I just imagine that he's doing that as he leaves because he's just, he's rejoicing. It's obvious as he glorifies God, as he goes away rejoicing at what God has done, there's this just sense of how could he not incorporate into his his worship of God, a sort of physical, he's got to have a skip in his step. He's got to have a skip in his step. And so this is the work that Jesus has done, but he's pointing out, is it any less difficult for me to say that? But that you might know. So the issue that's before us is our confidence. It's not the truth of the matter. It's either true or it's not, but it's that we may know that it's true. It's that we might have assurance and confidence that, yes, I fully believe. It's not just a pie-in-the-sky hope that when I see God in glory or in judgment that then I'll know, I'm glad that it turned out Jesus really was who he said he was, but that we can have that confidence now so that we don't wonder what's going to come of us on that last day. And so Jesus does this work, which displays his divine authority and power in a way that we can see, that's manifest, highly visible to us, so that we can know that, although the forgiveness of sin is something that takes place in the hidden heart and is invisible to us, nevertheless, we know that Jesus has that power, that authority, which can forgive sin, and we've seen that power on display here. that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. And he said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And immediately he rose before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home glorifying God. And so Jesus, it's obvious. It's visible, it's highly visible, manifest that Jesus does have this power and authority. And it's a power and authority that comes from God. Back in verses 15 through 17, we see that although the crowds pressed upon him, he had to withdraw to desolate places and pray. And then we see in verse 17 on one of those days where the crowds were pressing upon him. The Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And it says, the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And I think both of these statements are meant to point us to the source of this power and authority. That Jesus is able to heal. He has the power to heal. And this is in connection with his life of prayer, his connection to the Father, that God is blessing him and is working through him to bring this healing. But also, if it is God the Father, by whom and by whose authority and power Jesus heals, then it's likewise by the power and authority of God that he pronounces his forgiveness. And so now we have not only the Jesus willingness to offer this pronouncement of forgiveness, we see his prerogative, his divine prerogative, that Jesus has all of the power and authority of God to do so. So now we have confidence that he's willing, but he's also able. Now let's consider finally Jesus' praise that's given in verses 25 through 26. Immediately he rose up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, went home glorifying God. And amazement sees them all, and they glorify God. And we're filled with awe, saying, we have seen extraordinary things today. It's a picture of worship. Some, among them at least, are praising God. They're worshiping Him. But I want you to see something of the character of this worship. This is especially important in light of what God can do and is willing to do to forgive us of our sins. Many things, many blessings of salvation that God blesses us with, gives to us in Christ, but it's this one especially that ought to elicit this kind of worship. And what kind of worship is that? Well, Luke recounts that amazement seized them all. Amazement seized them. I like the word choice of the translators here of my version of the Bible that it seized them because the Greek word here that lies behind this English translation is ekstasis, which may sound a little bit familiar because it sounds a lot like the English word ecstasy. I'm not talking about the stimulant, which does, you know, have the effect of bringing with it this sort of overpowering and sort of, all controlling of your emotions and overpowering, bring about this sort of overpowering emotion, which is why people take this drug of ecstasy. But the word ecstasy, of course, it's not a word we typically use or use very regularly, but it refers to, in a more general sense, just overpowering emotion. And so the translators choose to indicate that here by saying that it was amazement, but the amazement, it seized them, you see. Now I'm a real, I'm not a very subjective person or a very emotional guy. I'm capable of emotion, okay, but I'm just not a very emotional or overly subjective guy. And it is important to balance. I was looking for an illustration to use here of these characteristics of worship. And what came to mind is a hot air balloon, okay. And I learned when I looked this up, because I was trying to figure out the word for those sandbags that hang off the side of hot air balloons. And I found out that hot air balloons actually don't have sandbags. and that there's a picture in our, we think of them as having sandbags, but if you ever pay attention, they don't have them. Old gas balloons had them, but they don't use those anymore. But anyhow, the idea was that the gas, the helium or whatever, the lighter than air gas that would cause the balloon to rise would be balanced by these sandbags or these ballasts that could be cut And then that would help to stabilize the balloon at the right place in the atmosphere so that it didn't just continue to rise dangerously high indefinitely where it would eventually come down and crash. Well, in our worship, We don't want to always be on the ground. We can be sort of too unemotional, too intellectual, too heady where we are not allowing the truth of God's Word to stir our hearts. But in light of what God's done, how can we? If God has forgiven us of our sins, then we ought to be, at least to a certain degree, overcome with emotion. Emotions, feelings ought to stir in our hearts, affections, and this includes, you know, gratitude, it includes love, comfort, but we ought to be, and to some degree, and sometimes, maybe not constantly or consistently, but there ought to be times in our worship where we feel those emotions stirring within us and even to be overpowered by them. But notice what else is mentioned here. Not just that amazement seized them, but they were filled with awe. And the word there in Greek is phobos. We get the word for phobia, like a fear. almost like a pathological fear, a problematic, irrational fear. But this isn't an irrational fear, it's just a fear, a proper fear. It's the right response to a God who, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews says, that God is a consuming fire. and therefore we approach Him in the spirits of reverence and awe. So we have the joy and the emotion that is produced by the truth of what God has done for us, but there's also the fear that comes with that reverential awe, that wonderment and amazement that kind of causes us to think, I'm standing in the presence of God Almighty. And that causes us, it may give us chills. It may cause us to stop and to reflect. It weighs heavy on us. And there's a need for that, because just as the, apparently the gas, I want to say hot air balloon, but the gas-filled balloon, the passenger balloon, it needs the lighter-than-air gas to cause it to rise so our emotions, our heart, which is capable of that kind of affectation and desire and love, it rises in worship, but it needs to be tethered to a sense of the truth. Otherwise, we'll be carried away into the excesses of charismatic worship, and it's dangerous. But we need to be grounded by the truth of who God is which does produce in us a sense of all. So I think there's almost a sidebar here. There's almost a diversion here we could go into and talk about worship. But I just want to make the point there that this kind of both grounded but also elated worship is proper to those who know they've been forgiven. by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that as a result of, in the context of this kind of worship, notice here what they say in the end, we have seen extraordinary things today. And again, I don't usually say a lot of these Greek words. They're not always very insightful to mention them. But it just happens to be that these words are very helpful to us. That word for extraordinary is paradoxos, where we get the word paradox. And so there we have this something that is extraordinary. It is beyond expectation. It's almost paradoxical. So they're looking at something here that, in other words, part of the reason why they feel such strong emotion being tugged in these different directions of being elated, but also grounded with a sense of God's, a sense of His divine majesty, and they have awe in their hearts, but also love that carries them away in amazement, and there's sort of almost contradictory emotions, is because what has happened has been almost contradictory. Someone has been received by a holy God in spite of their great sin. This is, at the very least, this is beyond expectation, but this is what God does in the gospel. It's what Paul prays in Ephesians 3, verse 20, to him who is able to do, think about this, to him who is able to pardon, to him who is able to forgive us of our sin. Paul says there, he was able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. Beyond expectation, extraordinary the work of God. And so how can we receive this same extraordinary, beyond expectation grace of God, which leads us to rejoice in our hearts in this way? How can we receive it? Notice verse 20. We've passed over it without really a comment, but there it is in verse 20. When he saw their faith, he said, man, your sins are forgiven you. Notice that. When he saw their faith, what must I do to be saved? The Philippian jailer asked the Apostle Paul. And what he told him was not that there's no hope for you because you're outside of the people of Israel or because you have been the one responsible for locking us up and keeping us put away. None of that. to even an outsider, an outcast, a sinful person. Like many of us either are or were, Jesus is willing to pardon. What does Paul say? What must I do to be saved? Paul says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. So we can know. We can know that we are forgiven. And that is, do we have faith in Jesus? And if we have faith in Jesus, if we know that He offers us forgiveness and we trust in Him to forgive us, then we can know. We can have assurance that we have been pardoned. You and I, we need to deal with our sin problem. We need to deal with it if we're outside of Christ because otherwise there's no hope for us in the life that is to come. But even as Christians, we need God's ongoing work as He continues to cleanse us. John says in 1 John that if we confess our sins to Him, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So there's an ongoing need for forgiveness, but did you know there's an ongoing need for that assurance that we have forgiveness with Him? Because otherwise, we'll just be filled with a sense of guilt and trepidation before God. We'll lack assurance. And if we lack assurance, then what's the chances that we're going to come before Him in prayer and walk closely with Him? We're going to avoid Him. So be reminded, believers, this morning that if you have faith in Jesus, then you have the forgiveness of sin. And I hope that that will comfort your heart. But if you're not in Christ, then here is the offer of salvation this morning. that you would put your faith in Jesus and know that your eternity has been settled. The matter of your standing before God has been settled. You are no longer condemned. You've been forgiven. You are welcomed by him and received. He reaches out and touches you, even you, with his compassion, and he receives you as his child. And I pray that you would do that. Let's go to him in prayer. Father God, we thank you that you have revealed to us your salvation. We thank you that we have this confidence to know that there is a hope for sinners like us. As filthy and polluted as our sin has made us and as guilty and condemned as we feel ourselves to be and as we in truth are, there's hope for us. And all that hope is in Christ. We don't even have to know exactly how you do the work or even know everything that you've done, but if our trust is in Jesus, we can receive all of the benefits and blessings of salvation. We pray that you would remind us of this and fill us with such assurance that we would leave from this place like the man who was paralyzed, but then who was made well and given strength and was able to walk and left glorifying you. We would leave with a pep in our step, with a skip and a hop and with your praise on our lips. God, we pray that you would do that work which only you can do in the hearts of those who are even now far from you. and bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and grant them that faith which you promised as a gift, God, that you would give them that faith that they might believe and trust in Jesus for their salvation. We pray all of this in his name and for his glory. Amen.