Thursday, October 5, 2017

Mark, Week 7 - Space Takers Not Welcomed

Today marks the seventh week in our study of Mark, and we’re finally entering into the second chapter. Now, when we started this series, we talked about the reason we were studying the Gospel of Mark. That reason is, we are laying the ground work on what we’ll be talking about during the winter months. Namely, the Life aspect of the vision of the church. And that life aspect is based on Jesus’ life. So, we are digging into the life that Jesus lived, so that when we get to the Life aspect this winter, we will be better prepared to understand the full implications of the it all.
While we have been studying Mark, we have covered a lot. And we’re doing this by following the author’s intent. We’re also doing this by returning to ideas that Mark keeps bringing up. A couple of these ideas are: Jesus lives to be an example for us, and Jesus is God. These two ideas will be the ones that speak to what we’re going to be talking about today. 
With the first idea, Jesus lived to be an example for us, we’ve been talking about how everything Jesus does is for our benefit. His actions in this life are to help us understand who he is, his relation to us, and how we are to live our lives. With the second idea, Jesus is God, we have seen on a multitude of occasions how Jesus is revealed to be God. First, it was John’s declaration of him, then it was the Father’s voice from heaven, then his authority over all human illness, and finally the demonic spirit who called him the Holy One of Israel. 
These ideas speak to what we’ll be coving today, because Mark again, is trying to help us understand who Jesus is, and what our response to him should be.

So today we’re going to read from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, starting in verse 1. As we begin Mark 2:1, let me bring us up to speed on where we are. When we last left Jesus, he was roaming the country side, healing people of various diseases, and getting rid of demons who were possessing people. One of the healings that Jesus did was to a man with leprosy. We talked about how this man understood who Jesus was and that this encounter showed us rubber meeting the road of God’s love. See, the verse that is said a lot in the Church is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him, shall not perish but have eternal life.” In the passage of the Jesus healing the man with leprosy, we see the willingness of God to heal the broken and mutilated body of man. Not only does God say he loves humanity, but we see that same God show it. But not only show it, God is willing. Which means that God isn’t about just saying things, he is a God of willful and intentional action.

This brings us to where we are, Jesus making his way back to a place he has been before, to, it seems, recuperate. Let’s read from Mark chapter 2, verse 1.

1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

As we go back into this passage, I want to first ask you the question Jesus asked: Which is easier: to forgive sins, or to heal the paralyzed man? Before you move on make sure you answer this question. And second, as we get into the passage I want to share with you a couple of connections with the Life aspect. The Life aspect of the vision of our church is to point people back to the life that Jesus has for them. Not to the life of a church, or to an organization, or a pastor, or to anything else that isn’t Jesus. This passage has a lot of what that means, and as we return to it, I am going to stop and connect them as we go.

Now, if you’ve been here throughout most of our study you might remember the town of Capernaum. It is where Jesus first revealed his authority over the human body, and the spiritual realm. See, Jesus had healed one of his disciple’s mother-in-law. And it was to her house, that people brought many who were sick to be healed. 
Now, Jesus has returned, most likely to this same lady’s house, and the people are excited. Jesus is back, and the sick people start coming in droves. So much so that they can’t all fit into the house. It’s packed. And I love the fact, that there are some people there just taking up space. You have these teacher’s of the law, who are probably there to quiz Jesus, or to see if there’s anything that they can get him on, but there because of their own need. And we learn that there is a paralyzed man who can’t get to Jesus, because there are people who aren’t interested in Jesus, just taking up room at his feet.

Let’s stop for a moment and make a connection: So many times in church work, we stand in the way of someone needing Jesus. We are guilty of doing the same thing that these teacher’s of the law are doing. We take up needed space, we take up the room of the ones that need Jesus. We stifle Jesus’ work in the lives of others, because we tend to not realize what our role should be. Instead of being the ones sitting there taking up space, we should be the ones at the door ushering the needing in. We should be the ones in the street carrying people to Jesus. Instead we think that we don’t need to do the grunt work, but rather just need to sit at Jesus’ feet, and get and get and get. It’s almost like we feel like Jesus is a magic refrigerator that we need to sit in front of and snack on all day. But that leads us to being lazy and a gluten, where we try to keep Jesus all to ourselves. But what we’re really supposed to do is bring others in front of Jesus, so they can be healed and filled. So, to connect this to the Life aspect is this: We need to make room for people who need Jesus.

Let’s continue back into the passage. We see this crowd of people, some of which, like we talked about, need to get out of there and let the really sick people in. This crowd is so huge that when these men bring their paralyzed friend to the house, it’s too packed to get through. So they take him up to the roof, dig through the clay, leaves, and wood that is there, and bring the paralyzed man to Jesus. Remember how we just said we shouldn’t be people that just take up room? These guys show us who we are supposed to be. People finding any way possible to bring people to Jesus, even if it means wrecking a building. And this is where I say welcome to the Alliance Church. This building gets used, and used well. We have people come in and spill coffee on the floor. We’ve had teens put holes in the walls. We’ve had glass break, lights broken, carpet cut, and the list goes on.
Personally, I would rather see this place burn to the ground if it meant one person would come to know Jesus, than to have a pristine building that saw no one meet the Risen Savior. What is worth destroying so that a person can have eternal life? I think a building is a small sacrifice. In the passage, I don’t know if Peter’s mother-in-law would agree. But we never find that out. But that brings us to our second connection: Buildings are tools to be used, not locations for decoration.

Alright, back to the passage. So the paralyzed man’s friends rip into the roof, and lower the man down right in front of Jesus. Jesus looks, sees the man and the friend’s faith, and he doesn’t heal him, but he says, your sins are forgiven. Now if I was the paralyzed man or one of the friends, the first thought going through my mind would probably be, “Hey thanks for that, but we didn’t do all this for you to get rid of our sin. We want this man to walk!”
But, like we said before, Jesus does everything with purpose and for our benefit, and here is another example of that. Because when he says this, those guys taking up space start to murmur. They start to detract from Jesus, and really if we’re people just taking up space in church, then really that’s all we end up doing. We get mad and we murmur. We get upset at the leader, the building, the whatever it is, because we’re not sold on what God is doing, so we focus on ways to make problems happen. Again, another reason why it’s important for us to not just take up space.

But these men don’t even have to vocalize their disdain for Jesus saying that this man’s sins are forgiven. Jesus knows it. And when these men think, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus is right there to bring their murmuring to light. Now these men make a correct theological question, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” But, as Mark has shown to us on many occasions, Jesus can make this statement, because he is in fact God.

And the way Jesus address this is priceless. Listen to how this plays out, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? Let’s stop right there, and let me ask you that question. What is easier, to tell someone they’re free from sin, or to heal someone? Isn’t it to tell someone they’re free from sin? Because to heal someone, there’s a physical change, and to do it in front of other people means that the physical change has to be seen by others. Whereas, anyone can say your free from sin, because that’s a spiritual reality, and no one has to see a physical change.
And that’s where Jesus takes this. Jesus takes these guys, who are taking up space, and challenges them to witness who he really is. He does this when we says, “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” And this part is classic Jesus. I can just imagine it, Jesus is looking straight into these guys eyes, these space takers, and says I’ll show you who I am and that you are right in saying only God can forgive sins. And then he turns to the paralyzed man and says, “I tell you get up, take your mat and go home.” And bam! The man does it.
In the previous section when Jesus heals the man with leprosy, Jesus kind of plays it coy. He tells the man who got healed, go and present yourself to the priest so that they can see the healing. Here, Jesus takes off the gloves. He looks at these space takers, and says do you want to see who I truly am? I can forgive sins, because I’ll show you something that is physically harder to do. Paralyzed guy, get up and walk yourself home. 

This brings us to our final connection to the Life aspect of the vision of this church: It’s Jesus’, not us, who holds the authority. We can be his agents. People can be healed through us. Amazing miracles can be done through God’s church. But in the end, it is Jesus who holds the authority to both heal and forgive. Our job is to constantly point people to him, and never to ourselves.

And let’s bring this all back to basics. Jesus fixes two problems in this man’s life: the man’s broken body is one, and it’s the most grand in the eyes of the people. It’s the hardest to physically do, and it’s the most public. But this man’s body will fail eventually, and he will die. Jesus’ bigger fix is the man’s eternal state with God. Because even with a fully functional body, this man would still be spending eternity separated from God and in eternal punishment. But, by having his sins forgiven, his eternal life is now in paradise with the God who came down from heaven for that very purpose.

And when Jesus says, which is harder, and I asked you to answer that at the beginning, the reality is, it is the forgiving of sin that is the harder of the two. Because the forgiving of sin that Jesus just spoke, rests on the breaking of Jesus’ body. The healing takes a word, but the forgiveness of sin takes the mutilation and destruction of Jesus’ own body on the cross.

Here is the challenge: Out of the three connections to the Life aspect that we talked about today, which one do you find yourself failing in? Are you someone who struggles with being a space taker, not working in any capacity for the God’s kingdom? Are you someone who struggles with putting the building’s pristine look before the people? Or are you someone that struggles with living under the authority of Jesus? Let’s be honest before God, take an inventory of your life. 
Has it been a life that has done it’s duty for God, and now is just waiting around to be taken to heaven? If it is, then your being a space taker. There’s not one of us that is suppose to be just sitting around. We are to be actively working in whatever area God would have us work. Or, do you have  a high view of the physical things of this life that are used for God’s glory? Are those physical things more important than the souls that are in need of the Gospel? If they are, there’s a problem. We need to be people that use the physical things of this world to point people back to Jesus. But when they become more important than the salvation of a person, they become idols, and should be cast away.
Or maybe, it’s submitting to Jesus. It’s hard to not point to ourselves and want recognition for the hard work we do. But the reality is, it’s not about us, it’s only about Jesus. People don’t need us, because we are frail, they need Jesus who is mighty to save.

Kneel, stand, bow before God and ask him to reveal where you lack. And then put it aside to be better used by him to point people to him.

Now may the Lord who heals both the spirit and the body grant you understanding, so that you might be better used as an ambassador to the lost. Amen.

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