Awakened to Grace

Chad Roberts: I’m Chad Roberts and you’re listening to Awakened to Grace. You know Awakened to Grace is listener funded and I want to invite you to go to my website awakenedtograce.com, read my bio and how I went blind. And today as I preach the word of God, I do it as a blind pastor. Visit awakenedtograce.com.

Today we are in Mark chapter 2. We are in a small town, Capernaum, and we are in a house, most likely Peter’s house. When all of a sudden as Jesus is teaching, the roof begins to come off. Why? Because four friends have brought their friend who is paralyzed to Jesus.

We're going to learn many lessons today, many principles. We are going to see ourselves either in the crowd who is trying to get a glimpse of Jesus, or in the four men who brought their friends to be healed by Jesus, or in the religious people who judged them for what they did. Many lessons are going to be learned today. I’m so glad you're joining me on this episode of Awakened to Grace.

Let's go to Mark chapter 2. We are going to continue our study this morning as we march toward the end of the spring season. We felt led of the Lord that we are going to dedicate the months of January, February, March, and April toward teaching through the book of Mark. Unless the Holy Spirit shifts us a bit, my plan as of now that I feel led of the Lord in is that we will spend a week. Every week we will go through a chapter.

Last week we were in chapter 1 and we talked about the man with leprosy and how leprosy represented our sin and how he broke protocol, he broke custom, he broke the law, approached Jesus, kneeling before him and said, "If you will, you can make me clean." Our thought last week is while we do not question Christ’s power nor his ability, many of us often question his willingness, just like this leper did. Christ answered some very sweet words to him. Christ said, "I will," and he touched him and made him clean. We saw that just as Christ will touch the leper, Christ also will touch our lives today.

Well, today we're going to meet a very interesting man who the Bible does not give us his name. The Bible does not give us his backstory, we don't know his background. We actually know very little about him, but what we do know is incredibly important. Today we're going to look at a few groups of people.

We're going to see number one the crowd that gathered around Jesus that day out of chapter 2. We're going to see the friends that brought this man to Jesus, there were four friends. And then number three we're going to see the scribes, the Pharisees, the religious folks of this day and how they thought concerning Jesus. I think that we are going to see ourselves in one of these three categories of people. Either you're going to see yourself in the crowd, you're going to see yourself in the four men that carried him to Jesus, or you're going to see yourself in the religious people.

I think all of us will be able to identify with what the Bible calls the paralytic. This man suffered from a paralysis. He was unable to walk, he was paralyzed. Just as we saw last week, just like the man with leprosy represented sin, he represented an inability to come to Jesus. He was blocked by the law. He was blocked by his disease, by his condition. Mark is going to paint a picture for us and we're going to see in the man who is paralyzed our inability to come to Christ on our own.

Some people live as though they can choose to get right with God at any moment they want. Some people say, "Let me enjoy my youth, or let me enjoy my season of life, and then when I retire, I'll get serious about God. When I have a family, I’ll get serious about God. When I begin to raise children, when I get out of college, after I get married, or when I get this next job." There’s always a "but." The point of this man who is a paralytic is that you and I cannot and we do not come to Christ on our own. There is an inability, a lameness, a crippledness, a disability, a handicap that you and I cannot come to God on our own.

I identify with this man like never before. Most of you know that I went completely blind in 2018. I lost sight in my left eye through two failed surgeries in 2017 and I lost complete sight in my right eye in 2018, leaving me 100% blind. People ask me all the time, "Can you see any light at all?" No. I feel like I identify a bit with how this man must have felt when his friends strapped him to a bedding, to a stretcher, and these four men carried him.

I know what it feels like, and some of you with disabilities will identify with this. I know what it’s like to go into a restaurant and feel like all eyes are on me as I try to navigate through. When I first went blind, Sadie and I went to a ministers' banquet at the Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City and I was just really going blind. I could still see just a bit out of the corner of my eye. I remember we went to a very lovely dinner that night and had a great time, and I went to the restroom by myself. I remember for the first time not being able to get out of a room by myself. I couldn't find the door. It took me a long time even to get out, I was so embarrassed.

I know what it is to walk through an auditorium of people and try to walk up here on this platform and feel for the podium and all eyes be on me. I know what it feels like, especially to try to go off the platform. That’s when I really need your prayers, because one misstep and it’s a healing service. I know what it is to have all eyes on you because of a disability. I can imagine how this man felt. I can't imagine what it would have felt like for them to have strapped him on this stretcher and tear out a roof and literally lower him down with all eyes on his handicap and on his disability. It had to have been an incredibly vulnerable and an incredibly embarrassing moment.

Let's go through the story together. Verse number 1, if you'll follow along with me: "And after some days he returned to Capernaum." Now if you write in your Bible, you ought to circle Capernaum right there because this is a big thing. We know that Jesus was raised in Nazareth, but we believe that in later in his adulthood, particularly through his three-year earthly ministry. How do we know Jesus ministered for three years? In the Gospel of John, he records three consecutive passovers. That would tell us that Christ’s earthly ministry, from the time of his baptism to the time of his crucifixion was three passovers, so his earthly ministry was for three years.

It appears from the scriptures that while Christ ministered during these three years, he had moved from Nazareth, his hometown, to Capernaum. You should view Capernaum like this: it was a neighborhood of the North Galilee shore. This became the home base of Jesus' earthly ministry. Capernaum is going to have a major play in the New Testament because most of Jesus' earthly activity was confined to this big neighborhood. It’s where he did most of his recorded miracles. You know what Jesus is going to tell Capernaum in Matthew 11? He’s going to pronounce judgment on them. Because they saw the physical healings of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the salvation, the kingdom of God, and yet they would not repent, Jesus says of Capernaum: it will be more tolerant for Sodom and Gomorrah than for Capernaum. Wow.

So it says he came back to Capernaum and it was reported he was home. That word "home" is interesting here. We know through the scriptures that Jesus never owned a home. For he said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, yet the son of man doesn't have anywhere to lay his head." Jesus never owned a home. The creator of heaven and earth, the Lord of heaven and earth never had a home. Scholars believe that this was Peter’s home. Through our mind’s eye and through that incredible gift of imagination, I want us to put ourselves in Peter’s living room in the pages and the verses of Mark chapter 2. We're going to put ourselves there and we're going to see the story as we've never seen it.

If you remember in chapter 1, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law. We believe this was Peter’s home. We believe Jesus lived with Peter for a while during his earthly ministry and we believe this is his home in Capernaum. Now verse 2, Mark is going to take his paintbrush and he’s going to begin to paint the picture for us: "And a crowd gathered, so much that even at the door there was not room for such a crowd." I remember when I was a kid, I had the opportunity to do mission trips to the former communist bloc of Europe. I had a family friend that took me the summers I was 12 and 13 and I hung around these giants of the faith, these giants of mission work.

I went to Romania and Ukraine and Hungary and Germany and all these places with these giants of the faith. In Romania particularly, communism had only fallen like three or four years prior and I remember even as a kid, it put such a mark on me. They would take me from church to church and village to village and churches we would go to were just overflowing with hungry souls because the grip of communism had been so strong and once it was broken and people were free, oh, they flocked to the house of God. I remember particularly going to one village in Northern Romania right on the Ukraine border called Dorohoi. We drove up to the church and literally there were more people outside the church than what could fit inside.

I remember being a kid and seeing that they had speakers set up and there was just this throng of people all over the place outside listening to God's word. That's what I picture verse 2 was like. Mark doesn't tell us how many were crowded about. It could have been a crowd of 30, it could have been a crowd of 70, it could have been 120, it could have been 500, we don't know. My personal thought is there were probably hundreds. They crowded in and notice in verse number 2, I want you to notice what Mark is careful to tell us. He doesn't tell us how many the crowd is, but notice what Mark does tell us: Christ preached the word to them.

Oh, what an instruction for today's church. I love it when the Holy Spirit moves. There are times we gather in this building and I can feel the wind from another world blow through this place. There are times that during our worship set, God will begin to stir things and all of a sudden prayer breaks out and people spontaneously begin coming forward for prayer and we lay hands on people, we pray over people. There are times that God just takes our little program and throws it out the window and the Holy Spirit moves however he will. Amen. Praise God for it. But let me tell you of all the wind that may blow, of all the water that may stir, of all the things that we love that the Holy Spirit does, let me tell you what is primary at Preaching Christ Church.

Let me tell you what is the primary function of our church. It is the preaching of the word, amen. Because that's what God uses to transform lives. He anoints the preaching of his word and nothing has more primary place than the teaching, the explaining, the expository, the proclaiming, the heralding, the trumpeting, the preaching of God's word. It is primary. Christ preached the word before a miracle ever took place. Christ preached the word. Friends, you and I need to pay attention to that model. God does miracles here. We’ve seen people healed, we've seen people set free, we've seen people repent, we've seen God answer prayers that have blown our minds. Before the miracles take place, the preaching of the word must take place, amen.

Verse number 2, so get in your mind’s eye, there is a crowd all over the place. I think there were hundreds and Christ is preaching the word. Oh, what a preacher he must have been. And now verse 3, how interesting. The Bible says that they brought to him a paralyzed man, a paralytic, someone who was lame, someone who was crippled. They brought him on a stretcher, on a bed, and four men carried him. This is fascinating scripture to me. The Bible doesn't tell us how far they carried him. We don't know if he was in the neighborhood. We don't know if he lived a few doors down. We don't know if they were miles away. We don't know if it took them a day's journey. Scripture doesn't tell us.

Nonetheless, they were faithful to bring their friend. They were whole, they were healthy, but they brought this crippled man, they brought him to Jesus. Remember the crippled man represents us in our sin. Romans chapter 5 verse 6 would be a great scripture for you to note here. Romans chapter 5:6 says that when we were without strength, some translations say when we were weakened. The word picture there is crippled. When we were without strength, when we were in a weakened condition, Christ died for the ungodly. Amen.

So these four men, they bring their friend to Jesus. No doubt they had heard of the miracles, they had heard how Jesus could touch him and they determined, "We're going to get our friend to Jesus." We don't know anything about these four men. One day when I get to heaven I would love to look them up and really learn their backstory. I picture maybe these five guys, maybe they grew up together. Maybe they went to high school together. Maybe they played football together at Jerusalem High. Maybe they were fishing buddies, maybe they hung out all the time and I don't know the backstory but I can't help but to think they were extremely close and they were so diligent that no matter what it took, they were going to get their friend to the Lord Jesus Christ. What exceptional friends they must have been.

Verse 4 is where the story really turns. I don't know if they carried their friend a few streets or a few miles, but their hopes must have been incredibly dashed when they saw the crowd. Their hearts must have sank because the Bible says in verse 4 that they could not even get near Jesus. Can you imagine going to all the effort? Can you imagine showing up at your paralyzed friend's house and maybe he even thought about backing out? Maybe he said, "Guys, I don't know about this." I can tell you as a man with a handicap, as a man with a disability, it is nerve-wracking to go out in public sometimes. I can hear the man getting up that morning and going, "There’s going to be a lot of people there. It’s already going to be hard to get to him. What if he won't touch me? What if he does touch me and it doesn't work? I think I would be more comfortable staying home."

I know that feeling. I imagine his friends go, "Nope, come on, you're going. Strap him in, let's go. We're going to go see Jesus." However long they must have carried him, each on each corner, and they're carrying their friend. Can you imagine what it's going to be when Jesus touches him? He's had compassion on so many, he's pitied so many, he's already touched so many. I know he's going to touch you. Imagine how their hearts sank when they got to the crowd and they couldn't even get near the door. Let's talk about this crowd for a minute. I don't like this crowd. Let me tell you why I don't like this crowd. Number one, because Jesus pronounced judgment on the city.

They saw the greatest miracles of God and yet they wouldn't repent. Even at the end of our text in verse 12, the Bible says that they were amazed, but it never says that they repented. Miracles are not meant to amaze you, they're meant to lead us to repentance. Let me tell you another reason I don't like this crowd. If you and I were on the back rows of this crowd and we were toward the back and we were tiptoeing and straining just to hear Jesus, just to get a glimpse of him, let me ask you a question: if four men brought a paralyzed man on a stretcher, what would you and I do?

I would get out of the way. I would say, "Please, get him to Jesus. See what the master will do. Take him, please, part. Excuse me, make way." Is that not what you would have done? But you know what this selfish crowd did? They never moved. They never got out of the way. This man could not even get near the master because of these people’s selfishness. May I propose that there are some listening today, some of us that, yes, we are Christian in name, we are Christian in the sense we're interested in Jesus, but we're mightily selfish.

Do you know what this crowd became this day? They became a hindrance, they became a roadblock, they became an obstacle to this man getting to Christ. Do you know what Christians who are Christian in name only, Christians who don't live right, they don't live authentic, they don't live genuine, they are fake and phony? Do you know what those Christians are? You're an obstacle. You're in the way of people legitimately coming to Christ. You live a lifestyle that someone says, "If he's a Christian, if she's a Christian, then I'll be just right the way I am." You're an obstacle to people coming to Christ. These people were curious about Christ, but all they wanted to do is hang around the things of God, but they were not going to repent and they were not going to follow Christ.

There's many of you listening in the same boat. You're interested. You like the music. You like the sermons. You like the idea of praying. You like the idea of going to heaven. You like the idea of being called a Christian. But you're not the real thing and your life doesn't proclaim Christ. Do you know what you are, my friend? You're an obstacle to others coming to Christ. Are you just part of the crowd? Are you sitting in the seats today and you're just a crowd? That's it. I would challenge you, get serious about the Lord Jesus Christ. Not serious about religion, serious about Jesus.