Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Mark 2, Mark 2. We are thankful and blessed that you have chosen to join us this morning as we worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ together.

Also welcome to those who are joining us online it is a privilege to worship with you today.

There were a lot of things that happened this week.

One item of note that we as Christians should recognize is this is the 502nd anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.

It is providential that this week is the commemoration of that and that we are where we are in the book of Mark because the two have some important issues in common.

But more on that in a minute.

Mark has been moving us very quickly through the ministry of Jesus.

And so far His ministry hasn’t had many issues.

You could say that everything has been going Jesus’s way.

His preaching has been well received, in fact the crowds have been awed by the authority with which He taught them, even if the point of His teaching has largely been missed.

His preaching has been supported by various healings a few of which we have looked at over the last few weeks.

In fact His ministry is so popular that He couldn’t go anywhere without being mobbed by a crowd.

But this morning’s text is going to start a shift that will progress through out the rest of the Gospel and culminate in the crucifixion.

Mark has been called the Gospel of Conflict and we’re going to start to see the roots of this conflict in our text this morning.

It is funny what a word can do.

The wrong word in your home can start a fire that could take years to put out.

The wrong word or words in public can ruin a reputation.

Here we’re going to find out that the root of the whole conflict between Christ and the religious leaders of His day all surrounded one three letter word and how He and they differed on how it should be handled.

Let’s look at our text now and then we’ll dig a bit more into the root of this conflict and see three different reactions that happened during this incident and how they are still happening today.

It is no secret in our world that sin is the most significant issue that faces mankind.

There are many different religious systems that seek to deal with this overarching human problem.

Although it has no concept of original sin, Hinduism does have a concept of sin and the idea that sins are paid for over the course of successive lives or are “atoned” for by the individual through many different methods - some may require a fine, some are paid for by doing good acts and some are paid for through yoga and meditation.

While it doesn’t have the concept of sin ingrained within it, Buddhism does teach that each individual is responsible for their good or evil deeds and must face the consequences.

Even the secular world has an understanding of sins and what they can mean to a society.

It’s why we have laws to govern our society.

The atheistic regime of China, while denying the existence of a God does acknowledge the need for moral standards to govern their society.

This last week the government of China rolled out their “Outline for Implementing the Moral Construction of Citizens in the New Era.”

This comprehensive document covers everything from defending China’s honor, how to raise the national flag to being civilized eaters in public, sorting garbage and the “full development fo etiquette and courtesy.”

Other nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, have moral police that roam the streets looking for infractions against their national morality.

The thing about each of these systems - and the reason why this being the 502nd anniversary of the start of the Reformation is so important - is that none of them have a viable solution for the forgiveness of sins.

Each one of them place the payment of sins penalties on the individual.

Out text this morning takes a different view of the expiation of sin and I don’t want you to miss this so listen close - that is the most significant point of this text.

It’s found in verse 10.

Jesus is speaking and he says

This is the key point of the whole text - that the Son of Man, a term used by Jesus to refer to Himself, has the authority to forgive sins.

Not to pronounce them forgiven by God, but to actually forgive them.

This statement is the root of the whole conflict that we’re going to find through the rest of this book.

The presumption of Christ in claiming to be able to do what up to that point only God could do is the cause of the conflict that will eventually lead to His final declaration for the forgiveness of sins “It is finished” on a hilltop outside of Jerusalem.

Well that’s the whole point of this passage - that Jesus has the power and the authority and the right as truly man and truly God to forgive sins.

So that’s it, uh, we can wrap up and get to lunch early.

But if we do I think we’re going to miss some other significant information that this text holds for each of us this morning.

You see there are three reactions to Jesus in this text that are instructive for us.

Most of us don’t need convincing that Jesus has the power and the authority to forgive sins.

Although if you’re here today, or you’re watching, and you do need to be convinced of that it is our prayer and hope that you would contact us either after the service here in the worship center or through our website.

But I would venture to say that whether we need convincing or not, we fall into one of three categories of people that we’re going to see in this text today.

We’re either a stretcher-bearer, a skeptic or a sinner.

The stretcher-bearers or those who as the question how far is to far, the skeptics or those who as the question how much is too much and finally the sinner who asks a little bit of a different question - can this really be real?

The Stretcher-bearers - How Far is Too Far?

Mark starts off by telling us that Jesus had returned to Capernaum “after some days”.

He had just been on a somewhat successful speaking tour throughout Galilee but had also had His tour hijacked by the proclamation of a false message by a leper that He had healed.

This resulted in what Mark testifies to in Mark 1:45 that Jesus could no longer openly enter into a town but instead was relegated to the outer regions and the deserted places.

It is likely that even during this return to Capernaum that He had tried to enter the city in secret maybe for some much needed rest after several weeks of ministry.

But as is always the case He is found out and it is reported that He is at home.

This is most likely back at the home of Simon Peter, the location where He had spent time healing many and then had left to begin His tour.

As is always the case in Scripture Jesus presence automatically gathers a crowd.

The business of the town stopped in an instant and everyone flooded to the door of Simon Peter, so much so that the entire home was filled and they were spilling out into the street.

And as is often chronicled for us in Scripture He began the day by teaching them.

This is one more reminder that for Christ in His ministry the priority was always on the preaching of the Word and the miracles that accompanied it were only to support the teaching not to be the main focus.

Now we are presented with the first group of individuals that we will look at this morning.

The stretcher-bearers.

Our English text simply calls them “they”.

This is interesting because there is no such designation for them in the Greek text.

The word is implied in the verb tense that is used and so our translators have even had to supply us with the word they.

The text tells us that they came, carried by four of them, they were not able to get through, they removed and finally that they lowered.

In each case the word they or them had to be supplied.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering what my point is and why am I beating this horse.

The reason is this - throughout Sunday school and for most of our lives we have been taught that these men were all friends and that this is what drove them to bring this man and go through all this effort to get Him to Jesus feet.

But I would submit to you that this does not have to be the case.

These could have simply been four men who, as they were walking to see Jesus, took compassion on this man and carried Him to Christ.

They could have been men who wanted to see the miracle worker in action and so they thought to pick this man up because he was a prime candidate for the healing miracle and so they were hedging their bets that they’d get to witness it.

I think this last one is unlikely because of the effort that they went through to get the man to Jesus feet.

This was not a simple endeavor.

Houses in Capernaum and throughout Galilee all had flat roofs where the occupants could retire at the end of the day and meditate like Peter did in Acts 10, eat food or just rest.

They were generally covered by a latticework of branches or logs and then covered with pitch and mud.

Tiles would be laid on top of this foundation to provide an external living space.

In the parallel account in Luke 5 it literally says that these men “unroofed the roof”.

The men were undeterred by the obvious distraction that their actions would have caused in the teaching environment below as they dug through the roof and lowered this man right in front of Jesus.

They were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get this man in front of Christ - even damage another man’s home and property.

And so we are presented with a question in these men’s actions.

How far is too far?

How far is too far to go to bring someone to Christ?

What is it that you are willing to experience, what obstacles are you willing to climb over to bring someone to Christ?

Now I’m not encouraging you to go rip the roof off a neighbor’s home or to damage property like painting an overpass with Jesus is King message.

But are you willing to risk your reputation?

Your relationships?

How far is too far for you to go in bringing someone to Christ?

And this also plays into why I made so much of an issue over these men being the man’s friend - we don’t have that information.

Even in the parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke we are only told that some men brought this paralytic to Jesus.

We often get caught up in the idea that we have to have a deep, longstanding relationship with someone before we can present them the Gospel - which in our day and age is the equivalent of bringing them to Jesus - and we don’t.

We simply have to have four characteristics.

Through out church history these four men have been given allegorical names - Sympathy, Cooperation, Originality, and Persistence.

They saw a man in a plight that he could not get out of and they had sympathy on him to bring him to Christ.

Do we have the same sort of sympathy for sinners that we come into contact with daily?

Those who are paralyzed by their past or the consequences of choices they’ve made or simply those who are still dead in their sinful state.

Do we have enough sympathy to bring them to Christ?

Charles Spurgeon once said this

Do you want to go to heaven alone?

I fear you will never go there.