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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

Take Heart!

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May 11, 2025
Matthew 9:1-8
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Forgiveness

The Person of Christ

Faith

Transcript

0:17I love baby dedications. Makes me want have more children. Uh, no not making any announcements. Happy Mother's Day. We're really glad and we're grateful for the mothers that are among us. We're grateful for your faithful prayers and your tireless labors as we seek to plant and water oaks of righteousness here at the North Church. As you re remember, we're going through Matthew, uh, Matthew's gospel and Matthew eight and nine have three sets of three miracles and interspersed are these teachings on discipleship. And so we come to the third miracle in the middle set the second set, and Jesus heals a paralytic.

1:02This is probably a common familiar passage for many, and yet my prayer is that we would have eyes to see Jesus afresh. So join me as I pray. Father in heaven, we long for eyes to see you rightly this morning. We wanna behold the authority and the majesty and the glory of Christ and we wanna love what we see. So come in power by the power of your spirit and enliven our hearts to behold more of Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. Let me begin with a question this morning. What is your greatest need this morning?

2:05Some of you might say it's another cup of coffee because you stayed up late and watched the Timberwolves game. Maybe some of you moms have heard your kids say that their greatest need is I need food, I'm starving. And when you offer them carrot sticks or an apple, they say, I don't need that kind of food. I need Oreos or ice cream. On a more serious note though, we all come in with felt needs, don't we? For some it's related to your job or to your finances. I need a new or I need a better job. I need to check to see if I have the ability to retire, to sell or buy a house or more financial security.

2:44For some it's related to your health, healing for a physical body or a clear diagnosis for what afflicts you. Struggles with depression and anxiety. For some it's relational. Where can I find a good friend? Where can I find a spouse? Will this strained relationship ever get better And and for others it's purpose and direction. What has God put me here for? What am I supposed to do with my life? And in our passage this morning, Jesus reveals our greatest need. And it's something that's often ignored or unseen, and that's the forgiveness of sins. Our passage reveals that the greatest need of the paralytic was not the healing of his paralysis.

3:38And so this passage shows us that we often pay too much attention to what we can see and touch and taste while neglecting our spiritual condition before a holy God. And this happens when God is small and sin is treated lightly. And so this reveals, this miracle reveals that Jesus can heal paralytics. It's a very simple passage at one level this morning. And while it is remarkable, it, it's nothing new. We, we've seen it actually two other times already in Matthew's gospel. Matthew 4 24 says, so Jesus fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought to him the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics and he healed them.

4:27If you remember in Matthew eight, the centurion comes to Jesus and what's wrong with his servant, he's paralyzed. So Jesus has already healed several paralytics. What's new and what's stunning in our passage this morning is that the physical healing is pointing to the greater spiritual reality, the greater spiritual healing that each of us need this morning. And it's pointing to reveal Jesus' identity and his mission. I would put the main point of our passage like this, the forgiveness of sins is man's greatest need. And Jesus greatest accomplishment, the forgiveness of sins is man's greatest need and Jesus' greatest accomplishment.

5:21That's what we're gonna see in this text. What Matthew has been doing is he's showing us that Jesus has authority over leprosy, over paralysis, over sickness, over fevers, over the wind and the sea, even over demonic powers which we saw last week. And Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. So my aim is that we would see this afresh. It would be a travesty for us this morning if we yawned with indifference at this glorious passage. And so our plan is to, to walk through this passage in four parts. The first part is verses one and two, the faith of the paralytic. And what we'll see is that Matthew has sort of an abbreviated account compared to Mark or Luke.

6:12And he leaves out that Jesus was teaching that there was no more room in the house, that his friends lowered the man through the roof. That's all listed in Mark. But then here we come to verse one and getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city. So Jesus leaves the region of the gatherings and he goes to Capernaum. So it's not his city of birth, which is Bethlehem, it's not his boyhood city of Nazareth. But he had made Capernaum his home base where he had lived. Now verse two tells us Matthew jumps right into the drama. And behold some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed.

6:51And so this is not the first time we've seen Jesus healing paralytics. And so we, what we notice is these are really good friends, aren't they? Uh, they bring their friend to Jesus, having heard that he's able to heal those who are suffering from paralysis. Second half of verse two. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart my son, your sins are forgiven. Jesus sees their faith. It's in the plural there. And so it's probably referring to the man and his friends. And so how did Jesus discern faith in them? It was probably when they're tearing off those roof tiles and lowering their friend down, they were determined to come to Jesus just like the leper.

7:36Just like the centurion. They had complete confidence that Jesus could heal their friend. Even to the point of destroying someone's house. The paralytic and his friends exhibited faith in Christ. And throughout the gospels, faith precedes healing and salvation. This was not just faith in words, but it was faith in deed. And what we see that faith precedes the healing of the centurion, of the paralytic, of the hemorrhaging woman of even the two blind men. Later in chapter nine, faith is believing in the identity and the authority of Jesus. Despite not seeing his ability to do those realities, they, they hadn't necessarily seen Jesus heal a paralytic, but they came believing that he could do it.

8:36Now notice Jesus' response it, it's so surprising, he doesn't say, I'm gonna heal your paralysis. He doesn't say at this moment, rise and walk. He doesn't reach out like he did with Peter's mother-in-law and touch his legs and touch his spine. Instead, he says, your sins are forgiven. What Jesus, don't you see this man's greatest need? He's paralyzed. He needs healing. He needs the use of his legs.

9:12This account is not gonna land on us unless we see the depth of depravity that's inherent in each and every single one of us because of sin. This man and his friends think his greatest need and even the crowds that his greatest need is healing from his paralysis. And yet his greatest need is the forgiveness of sins in evangelism. If you tell people God loves you these days, most people will say, well, of course he loves me. I am so lovable. It's quite another thing to convince someone that they are a sinner in need of a savior, that they actually are condemned by the God of heaven and they are under his wrath and they're destined for eternal punishment.

10:06The Bible is clear that everyone is a sinner. In Genesis chapter six, verse five, the Lord saw that every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was evil continually. Or in Psalm 51, David confesses that he was brought forth in iniquity, meaning that he's sinful by nature. When we dedicated these children, we don't think of them as sinless. Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. And sin is more than what we do. It's deep corruption in our nature in Romans that says, none is righteous for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. John one, John one, eight says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

11:03And the truth is not in us. And so what this account is trying to show us is that sin is the horrible condition of all humanity. And Jesus came to address our greatest need. But in this moment, this man felt that his need was, his greatest need was paralysis. He was an outcast. He was dependent on his friends. There was no wheelchair accessibility, no metro mobility to drive him around in their vans. He was helpless and desperate. And he comes to Jesus with this obvious, obvious impairment and Jesus does not heal him. And and so do you just feel the the tension in the room, the awkwardness of the situation is this some sort of cruel joke, Jesus, why don't you heal him?

12:02So the crowds and the scribes are baffled, which leads to our second part. We see the wickedness of the scribes. This is verse three and four, verse three. And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, this man is blaspheming. The scribes are these respected interpreters of the law and they've already taken issue with Jesus teaching. And now, uh, they take issue with Jesus words. Here he dares to elevate himself to the level of God himself. They would've known passages like Leviticus 24 16. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him.

12:41I wonder if these scribes are thinking, where's my stone? Jesus spoke words that only God can speak and he's claiming to do what only God can do. And at one level, the scribes are right. If Jesus is just a normal Israelite man, this would be blasphemy to pronounce a man's sins forgiven. Verse four. But Jesus knowing their thoughts said, why do you think evil in your heart? So Jesus issues a counter charge to these scribes. He supernaturally sees into their minds and hearts. I think this is evidence of his omniscience and he sees that they're full of evil, intent, malice, jealousy, and unbelief.

13:33And so think of it this way, the scribes, when they say this man's blaspheming, they don't have the glory of God and view. They're not trying to uphold the honor of God. What they're trying to do is tear down Jesus because we hate him. It reveals their evil intent towards Jesus. And so I think implicitly in this text, there is a warning here. The scribes reject Jesus. And in so doing, they reject God. They show themselves to be the spiritually paralyzed. Here in this story, the paralyzed man has faith, but these scribes are full of evil intent. They're blinded to the Messiah who is standing right before them in flesh and blood.

14:17And I think this warns us to beware of the faithlessness of the scribes that may be at work in us. Beware of imputing wrong motives to God when he does something we don't understand or that we don't like. When we see something in our life that goes a particular way and we can't fully understand it, and we think, why would you do it this way? God, that we would beware not to say why doesn't God care, but rather to pray, Lord, teach me what you want me to see in this next third part, we see the authority of Jesus verses five and six, I'm gonna read five and six 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.

15:14He then said to the paralytic, rise, pick up your bed and go home. Jesus raises the most interesting question, which is easier. Your sins are forgiven to say that or to say, rise and walk. Well, from our earthly perspective, it's so much easier to say your sins are forgiven because no one can double check your work. Right? It's like math class. You gotta show your work. No one can see whether his sins have been forgiven or not. It's much more difficult from our perspective to heal someone of permanent paralysis because the minute you say those words, people can see did it work or did it not? And yet in reality, forgiving sins is the greater work it, it's the more difficult work.

16:05In fact, it's impossible work in Luke's account of this passage, Luke 5 21. The Pharisees say, who can forgive sins but God alone? And they're right. No one can forgive sins but God. And so Jesus says, which is easier. And then he says, rise, pick up your bed and go home. This is stunning. Jesus does the lesser miracle healing the paralysis in order to reveal and to authenticate and to validate the greater unseen miracle that has just taken place. Jesus proves that he not only has the authority to forgive sins, but that he's God in the flesh, standing right before them. He's declaring sins forgiven and he heals the man's paralysis.

17:06He demonstrates his divine power over sin by healing paralysis. He demonstrates his divine power, his authority over sin by healing this man's paralysis. Notice again, he calls himself the son of man. This again refers to Daniel seven verses 13 and 14. And I think what Jesus does and using calling himself the son of man, is he's concealing his identity and he's also revealing it. It's a little bit like Superman. Uh, Superman and Clark Kent. You know, Clark Kent will put on the glasses and then he'll take 'em off and all of a sudden he's superman. Then he'll put on the glasses again. And in a sense, Jesus I think is doing a little bit of that.

17:50He's revealing his true identity for those who have eyes to see. And then he veils it. Again, I'm just a guy, but he is revealing that he is the one who has been given all authority, glory, honor, and power, like in Daniel seven, that the ancient of gays gives him a dominion. That is an everlasting dominion. So what Jesus does is he disproves scribes accusation of, of blasphemy by healing the man's paralysis. And the paralytic gets way more than he bargained. For I was hoping to come get use of my legs and my spine again, and I got forgiveness of sins. The visible healing proves the invisible healing, the seen reality proves the unseen reality.

18:46So when Jesus first spoke, your sins are forgiven. Just think with me what the people were thinking. How insensitive are you blind Jesus? This man needs use of his legs. Don't you care? And the sad reality is that many in our world think this same way, that when you tell them you can have forgiveness of sins, they're like, great, super. I don't care. What I need is my greatest felt needs met. Uh, I need more bank, uh, more money in my bank account. I I need a spouse. I need these relationships to get fixed. I need this difficulty removed from my life. And yet this re account reveals that the forgiveness of sins is man's greatest need.

19:33And Jesus' greatest accomplishment ever. Let me try to paint the picture in this way for us. Consider this scenario. You get into a near fatal car accident. It's head-on collision. It's 75 miles an hour. Your airbags deploy. Your nose is just bleeding profusely. You're covered in blood. And Jesus comes to the scene as the EMT with perfect insight into your greatest needs. And ba bystanders are looking on, they're, they're surrounding your mangled vehicle and they're seeing the blood spew forth from your nose and they're all thinking, stop the bleeding. Stop the bloody nose. But what does Jesus do?

20:22He reaches out his hand and puts it on your head and he's stopping the intracranial bleeding inside the skull that's around your brain. And then he touches your chest healing the punctured lungs in your ruptured heart from the blunt force trauma. And then he puts it on your side where the seatbelt and the steering wheel caused a laceration to your liver and your spleen and your kidneys. And all of this is unseen to the naked eye. And everyone looking on is quietly criticizing Jesus as they see more and more blood pour forth from your nose. And so Jesus knowing what they're thinking heals the bloody nose.

21:10And what he's saying is, those who have eyes to see will see the greater miracle that has just happened. Those who have eyes to see will see the greater miracle that has happened. Jesus sees the damage done to each and every single one of our lives by sin. Sin destroys our lives. It devours us, it ruins us, it destines us for hell. Keeps us estranged from God. And what Jesus does is he comes and he stops the spiritual hemorrhaging. It's not what the man or his friends expected, but it was indeed their greatest need. And this morning, your greatest need is forgiveness of sins. Though parais afflicted, paralysis, afflicted his body, sin ravaged his soul.

22:13So how do the bystanders respond? We look at verses seven and eight. This is part four, the response of the crowds. And they saw, well, excuse me, and he rose and went home. And when the crowds saw it, they were afraid and they glorified God who had given such authority to men. So the man immediately gets up, goes home. And what a homecoming it must have been. Uh, the the phrasing here is I think to highlight Jesus' authority and the man's obedience, look again, rise and go home. And the man rose and went home. It's to show he's truly healed, not just of his paralysis, but he obeys the Lord Jesus Christ.

23:00He he's truly been healed deep in his soul. And the crowds are afraid that word, afraid could, could mean full of reverence or awe or amazed. It's the kind of sense of like, what did I just see? The kind of rocking on their heels. This type of fear that accompanies reverence and worship. And I think it's to show this is the right response to Jesus' display of his authority. It should be fear. The Bible often says, don't fear, but then fear. Don't fear those who kill the body, but fear. He who has the authority to cast into hell. Don't fear Satan, but fear God be in awe or revere the right authority.

23:48That's the appropriate response of the people of God, is to stand in awe of who Jesus is of his authority. And then it says they glorified God who had given such authority to men. I think that last word, men is a clue that the crowds still don't get it. They still don't get it. Jesus just said, your sins are forgiven. And then the scribes say, no one can say that only God can forgive sins. And then Jesus says, you're right. So I'm gonna heal this man's paralysis to show you that what I just did is forgive his sins. And and Jesus is fully expecting that they can do math. Two plus two equals four.

24:35Like this man said, forgiveness of sins, then he heals paralysis. He's doing what God can only do. This man is God. And yet they conclude this is a man. The lesser miracle proves the greater miracle. And yet the people and the scribes do not have eyes to see that this is the Messiah in their myths. If they had eyes to see, they wouldn't just glorify God. What would they do? They would fall down before Jesus in worship. And then they would say, me too, I need forgiveness of sins. You've healed that man. I don't need healing from paralysis, but oh, I need healing for my sin condition. Jesus. And they would've come to him and the line would've stretched miles because this is the Messiah.

25:33But they missed it. They missed it. They don't have eyes to see that Jesus is indeed the Christ. So how do we apply this text this morning? I wanna draw out three applications for us. The first is that our greatest problem is sin. Our greatest problem this morning, brothers and sisters is our sin. It is your sin. It's not your spouse's sin. It's not your children's sin. It's your sin. And the world hates the idea of sin. The world doesn't hate sin. The world hates the idea of sin. Talking about sin kind of makes me feel bad about myself, kind of ruins my self-esteem, my self image. And so we do away with sin as much as we can.

26:27There's certain groups of churches that'll say, well, let's just talk more about God's love and let's not talk about sin. That's kind of alienating. So I make mistakes. I remember sharing the gospel with someone and they were like, I've never sinned before. And I was like, what? And they're like, I've made lots of mistakes. Never sinned. Okay? We, we, we, we rationalize in a way. I have psychological dysfunctions because of my parents, because of my childhood trauma. Because of my mental illness. I'm a victim of oppression such as racism or sexism or classism. But don't you dare call me a sinner 'cause I'm a really good person.

27:07That's what our world says this morning. They hate the idea of sin. And yet the Bible tells us that we will be judged for our every thought word and action. Matthew 1236, Romans 3 23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We inherited our sin nature from Adam. All creation groans under the weight of sin, sickness and death entered into our world because of sin. The first murder ever recorded in the Bible was because of sin. All that is broken and hostile in our world is a consequence of sin. Every struggle, every element of suffering in our lives is a result of sin at the heart of wars and violence and lying and cheating and pollution and harsh words and stealing and corruption and oppression is sin.

28:13And so this morning, do you see that your greatest problem, your greatest issue this morning is your sin. Do you see and recognize your spiritual paralysis before a holy God this morning? Second application, our greatest need is the forgiveness of sins. Our greatest problem is our sin. Our greatest need is the forgiveness of sins. And if you don't know Jesus as your Savior this morning, your sin stands against you. And so I'm urging you this morning, come to Jesus by faith. You can be like that paralytic, believing that Jesus can do whatever he wants because he has authority to heal and to forgive sins.

29:12And so we're urging you to come and receive forgiveness of sins as you repent of your sins and put your entire faith and trust in Jesus and Jesus alone. And for all those who are trusting Christ this morning, who say, praise God, he forgives sins. Do we have eyes to see that Jesus is the son of man who has been given all authority and power and majesty? And do we come to him afresh and say, oh, in my salvation, I receive forgiveness and I need your healing touch again and again. There are things that I've done this week that I have done out of anger and and, and I'm desperately in need of your forgiveness once again, Lord Jesus.

30:09And and then just hear the testimony of the scriptures as they celebrate the glorious work of Jesus, forgiveness of sins. Even in the Old Testament, it was beginning to foreshadow this, these realities. Psalm 1 0 3, verse 12, as far as the east is from the West so far, does he remove our transgressions from us? How great is the forgiveness of Jesus? Infinitely great. Or Isaiah one 18, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow or Micah seven 18 and 19. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

30:58So when you stand before the heavenly throne and Satan comes with his accusations and says, sinner say, find my sins. They're at the bottom of the ocean. Or Colossians two, 13 and 14, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legals demands this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Jesus has nailed all of our sins to the cross as he was crucified. So Jesus is making all things new this morning. You can be forgiven, every evil thought, every thoughtless deed, every stray word when it's laid bare before God Almighty. We will have no hope except Jesus.

31:46And if we're trusting in him, if we've confessed and repented, he says, take heart, my son or daughter, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. I don't know of better words that we can hear in this life. Third, behold, the authority of Jesus, behold the authority of Jesus. Matthew keeps raising the question as they come down from the mountain. After the sermon on the mountain, sermon from the mountain, he, he keeps asking the question, who is this man? And he keeps trying to show us the crowds. See Jesus as a teacher, maybe as a healer, maybe a prophet. Describes, see Jesus as a blasphemer.

32:39Our world in our world today, there's lots of different ideas about Jesus, aren't there? Deepak Chopra believes Jesus is a spiritual guide or an enlightened mystic or Jordan. Peter sees Jordan Peterson sees Jesus as the archetypal man, a mythical hero worth emulating the latest Hollywood installment of the musical. Jesus Christ superstar will have a black woman playing Jesus. Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, but deny his divinity and sonship in the cross and the resurrection. Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah. Hindus see Jesus as one of many gods, but not the one true God. Our secular culture molds Jesus in our own image.

33:28He can be whatever you want him to be, your spiritual coach, your mentor, your cheerleader. Just take your pick. But Matthew is building a case. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the one whose love is so stunning that lepers come and they find healing. Jesus is the one whose power is so great that even centurions Roman centurion say, just say the word and I believe that it will be done. Jesus is the one whose mercy is so amazing that even before he's asked, he reaches out and he heals. Jesus is the one whose authority is so extensive. He looks out at the wind and the sea and he says, be still. And they obey.

34:22Jesus is the one whose dominion is so great that when he's on the scene, demons come and they fall down and they bow before him and they say, have mercy on us. Jesus is the one who puts all of our enemies on notice this morning. Illness, leprosy, paralysis and fevers. Be clean, demons go, natural disasters be still sin that condemns us to eternal torment and punishment. Jesus declares forgiven. This is the glory and the majesty of Jesus this morning. And the only fitting response is to fall down and worship and then to say, oh Lord, I need your forgiveness. Even now. This morning, the crowds glorify God, which was good, but it was ultimately insufficient.

35:32If they saw rightly, they would come seeking forgiveness for their sins as well. So if the crowds were afraid and they glorified God, how much more should God's people who see the glory of Christ in his word, the full story, the full identity of who he is, where he takes off the glasses, pulls everything off and reveals his stunning glory as the Messiah, as the Christ, as the son of man, as the alpha and as the Omega. How much more should we worship Jesus this morning? The forgiveness of sins is man's greatest need. And it's Jesus' greatest accomplishment and he does it for us. And so this morning, come to Jesus, all who are weary and heavy laden in heavy laden by sin come to Jesus.

36:35All who are weighed down by guilt and shame come to Jesus, all who carry that record of debt that stands against you, come to Jesus. All those whose bones waste away in groaning. Jesus is eager to receive all who will come to him. And he says, take heart, my son. Take heart, my daughter. Your sins are forgiven. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that we can have forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus. And so for all those who are trusting you, oh, wash us clean once again, thank you for the blood of the cross and for those who have yet to trust you, oh, would you make today the day of salvation?

37:29We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Matthew 9:1-8

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