I preached last Sunday morning from Mark 2 at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. The story of the man sick of the palsy and the four men who brought him to Jesus by tearing apart the roof of the house that Jesus was in is one of the most exciting and important miracles of the Bible. This event has many lessons: the biggest problem in life is not physical but spiritual, the power of Christ to forgive sin, the power of Christ to heal, etc. I would like to focus this post on the 4 men that brought the man that was sick of the palsy to Jesus.
Now, you are probably looking at the title of the post and thinking that I am going to write a long post about how the fourth man in this story could not have been Lazarus; you are mistaken. I chose this name because I really love the song "My Name is Lazarus" (here is a link if you've never heard the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJMFSsf2G6A), also I chose the title because I personally thought it was witty (I hope you do as well). Let me make a few observations about these four men today:
No one knows anything about these four men. We do not know their names, we do not know their occupations, we do not know how they all met and became friends. There is really only one thing that we know about these four men and that is that they were determined to get their friend to Jesus. In fact, this whole story would not have been possible hadn't it been for these four men. Let me ask you something today: how determined are you to get your friends to Jesus?
I hate crowds! I will do anything possible to avoid being in a crowd of people. One time my wife took me out for Black Friday shopping and I still haven't forgiven her! I can imagine these four men looking at the huge crowd surrounding Jesus. The crowd was so bad that they couldn't even get into the house. Honestly, I may have given up. These men could have said, "Oh well, we tried!" and went back home. But these men were creative and what did they decide to do? Tear the roof off the house! Now, I don't think I would have been creative enough to think about doing that. But these men were so determined to get their friend to Jesus that they were not concerned about the obstacles, they did not fear the bumps in the road, they would get there friend to Jesus no matter what it took. Such a convicting thought for us modern day Christians who are too afraid to even speak the name of Christ to our friends and loved ones.
The other thing I see about these men today is found in verse 5. It says that when he saw their faith he forgave the sins of the sick of the palsy. Now, I need to be careful with this point. Jesus did not forgive this mans sins because of the faith of his four friends, but when he saw their faith. This man was forgiven of his sins the same way every other person is, by believing and accepting Jesus Christ, but there is still a correlation between the faith of the four and the forgiveness of this mans sin. Here it is: If these men had not had the faith to bring their friend to Jesus, this man would not have had his sins forgiven or his palsy healed. There are thousands, even millions, of people in this world who are starving for the truth. These people are not just in the far corners of our planet, they live in your neighborhood, they work next to you every day, they live in your family. But the only way that they can learn about the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is by you showing them the way. I believe this passage makes it very clear that when we have enough faith to bring people to Jesus, people will get saved. No, it may not be the first person you witness to, it may not be the second, but if you are tenacious and determined to bring people to the Saviour I believe that God will reward that faith and that people WILL get saved.
Here is the catcher: we have to go! No one is going to get saved by us keeping our mouths shut. We must proclaim the Gospel of Jesus. One question for you to ponder on and I'm done: What have you done lately to bring your friends and loved ones to Jesus?
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