Encountering Jesus will challenge us to look past our physical health so that we can deal with our spiritual health...

This week we are looking at an event from history that is recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Luke. Wednesday we looked on as  Jesus responded to a man’s request to be healed from leprosy by miraculously healing the man from leprosy. Jesus then called the man who had been healed from leprosy to follow the commands of the Law in Leviticus to let the Jewish religious leaders know that the Messiah had arrived. Jesus wanted the man to focus on his spiritual health before telling anyone about the miraculous change in his physical health.

And as Jesus continued to travel throughout the cities of northern Israel, Jesus continued to be followed by large crowds. And one day, in the context of these crowds, an event from history occurred that Luke records for us in Luke 5:17:

 One day He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing. And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him. But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus.

Luke tells us that one day, Jesus found Himself in a home in the city of Capernaum teaching. Luke explains that as word spread that Jesus was going to be teaching, the house where Jesus was teaching quickly filled to capacity. And as the crowds cramped into the house, Luke tells us that there were some distinguished guests in attendance at the house.

You see, at this point in Jesus life, word had spread throughout the Jewish nation about Jesus teaching. And word had also spread about Jesus and His miraculous healings. Word had spread from a local priest in northern Israel that Jesus had miraculously healed a man who had been covered in leprosy.  And as word spread about the teaching of Jesus and the miracles of Jesus, the religious leadership of the Jewish people traveled from Jerusalem to northern Israel to check out Jesus.

When Luke explains that the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing, he is letting us know that this event in history is not simply about human teachers comparing themselves with one another. Instead this event from history is going to be about God revealing His miraculous powers through Jesus to these human teachers.

Luke then explains that as word spread around the region that Jesus was teaching in a home in Capernaum, some men who were carrying on a bed a man that had been paralyzed were trying to get to Jesus. These men wanted to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus in hopes that Jesus would miraculously heal him. However, by the time they got to the home where Jesus was, there was no more room. Not only could they not get into the same room with Jesus; these men could not even get into the front door of the home where Jesus was at.

Luke tells us that these men, upon discovering that they could not get their friend into the room where Jesus was at, decided to climb up onto the roof of the home. Then, once on the roof of the home, these men found some rope and lifted their paralyzed friend up onto the roof with them. These men then found some tools and began to tear off the roof of the home in order to create a large enough space to be able to drop their friend down in from of where Jesus was at. Finally, these friends tied their ropes to the four corners of their friend’s stretcher and slowly and carefully let their friend down through the hole in the roof that they made so that he would end up in front of Jesus.

Now can you imagine what that must have looked like? Can you imagine sitting in here this morning with so many people in this room that there was not even room to walk? Can you imagine hearing a ruckus out in the foyer while Jesus is talking as people are trying to wrestle and wedge their way into this room with no success?  Can you imagine listening to Jesus and all of a sudden you hear the sound of footsteps on the roof. Can you imagine trying to listen to Jesus talking as you hear the sound of tools beginning to pound on the roof?

Can you imagine trying to listen to Jesus talking as you see parts of the roof begin to come off? Can you imagine trying to listen to Jesus talking as you see some guys begin to poke their heads through the hole in the roof that they had made to make sure that they were in the right spot? “No not here, we need to move over there. We need to make the hole over there.” Can you imagine trying to listen to Jesus talking as you begin to see a man on a stretcher appear in the hole in the roof? Can you imagine trying to listen to Jesus talking as the man on the stretcher begins to be let down into the middle of the room?

Can you imagine trying to listen to Jesus talking as you hear the grunts and groans of the men who were letting the paralyzed men down through the hole in the roof? “Hey, slow down, we need to go at the same pace so he doesn’t fall off the stretcher. Careful, careful, almost there, just a little further.”

How much faith would you have to have to take off work so you can carry your paralyzed friend to see Jesus?  How much faith would you have to have to not take no for an answer when they told you that you could not get into the home? How much faith would you have to have to climb up on the roof? How much faith would you have to have to tear off the roof of a home that is a total stranger? How much faith would you have to have to let your paralyzed friend down in a stretcher into a room, in spite of the glares that you have received as a result of disturbing Jesus sermon?

If you were the paralyzed man, how much faith would you have to have to ask your friends to take you to see Jesus? If you were the paralyzed man, how much faith would you have to have to allow your friends to put you on a roof? If you were the paralyzed man, how much faith would you have to have to allow your friends to use ropes to drop you down through a hole in the roof? How much faith did this paralyzed man and his friends have in Jesus ability to do the miraculous and physically heal this paralyzed man? Luke then reveals how Jesus responded to the confident trust that these men had in His ability to miraculously heal the man who had been paralyzed in verse 20:

 Seeing their faith, He said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you."

Seeing their confident trust in Him to provide a miraculous physical healing, Jesus bends down, looks into the eyes of the man who was paralyzed and simply says “Friend, your sins are forgiven”. Now I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves in this event from history as the man who has been paralyzed. Let’s take a minute and put ourselves in his shoes.

You asked your friends to bring you to Jesus so that He could miraculously heal you. Your friends have spent an incredible amount of time and effort to get you to Jesus to that you could have the opportunity to be miraculously healed and be able to walk again. And when you finally get past all of the obstacles and get to Jesus, Jesus simply looks at you and says “your sins are forgiven?”

Do you think that that is what the paralyzed man expected to hear? Do you think that that is what his friends expected to hear? I mean if you were the paralyzed man, wouldn’t you be like “well Jesus that sounds great but I was really hoping that you would make me be able to walk again. I was really hoping that you would heal my physical condition. I was really hoping that you would heal me physically, I mean that is why my friends went to all this trouble”.

Now here is the thing: how often can we find ourselves tempted to act just like this paralyzed man and his friends?  How often can we find ourselves focused on what is going on with us physically instead of what is going on with us spiritually? How often can we find ourselves focused on our physical health while ignoring our spiritual health? How often can we find ourselves investing a great deal of time and effort into our physical health while spending virtually no time and effort into our spiritual health?

You see, while the paralyzed man and his friends were focused on their physical health, Jesus was focused on their spiritual health. Luke then reveals for us how the religious leaders in attendance responded to Jesus statement in verse 21:

 The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?"

Luke tells us that as the Jewish religious leaders who were present heard Jesus words, they began to carefully consider and ponder those words. And in their minds, theses religious leaders clearly questioned Jesus words. Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" In other words, these religious leaders began to think to themselves “Who does this guy think he is? I mean this Jesus is denigrating and defaming God with what he is saying.

After all, only God can forgive sins, so surely this man does not think he is God, does he?” However, as these religious leaders carefully consider and pondered Jesus words, they were not prepared for what was going to happen next, as we see in verse 22:

 “But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts?

To which the Jewish religious leaders were probably thinking to themselves “how does he know what we are thinking?” Jesus continues:

“But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,"-- He said to the paralytic-- "I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home."

Now to fully understand what is happening here, we first need to understand what Jesus means when He uses the phrase “the Son of Man” here. When Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man, Jesus is using the phrase to identify Himself with the promised Messiah that was predicted and proclaimed in Daniel 7:13.

While many of us today are not familiar with what Daniel 7:13 said, the Jewish religious leaders who He was speaking to would have been very familiar with Daniel what 7:13 said,. So here is what Daniel, over 500 years before Jesus birth, said about the
Messiah:

"I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. "And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

So when Jesus says that He is the Son of Man, He is telling the Jewish religious leaders, along with the crowds listening, that He was the Messiah that had come from God as God in a bod to usher in the kingdom of Heaven here on earth. Jesus was proclaiming to the Jewish religious leaders and the crowds that had gathered to hear Him teach that, as the Messiah, as God in a bod, He had the power and the authority to deal with the spiritual condition of this man who was paralyzed.

And to make sure that the Jewish religious leaders and the crowds knew that He had the authority to deal with the spiritual condition of the paralyzed man, Jesus commanded the paralyzed man to get up and walk. Jesus commanded the man who had to be carried from his home on a stretcher to Him to pick up his stretcher and return home. Luke then records for us what happened next in verse 25:

Immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

Now can you imagine what that must have looked like? Can you imagine the scene as a man who had been paralyzed suddenly finds the strength in his legs to be able to get up and walk? Can you imagine the scene as his friends watched their friend get up and walk? Do you think that the owner of the house was focused on what happened to the roof of his house at this point?

Luke tells us that the man who had been paralyzed responded to the miraculous activity that had occurred in his life by following Jesus command to pick up his stretcher and to head on home. And as the man who had been paralyzed headed back home with his friends, Luke tells us that he went home glorifying God. Now this phrase, in the language that this letter was originally written in literally means to influence one’s opinion about another so as to enhance the latter’s’ reputation.

As this man and his friends traveled back home, they announced all that Jesus had done for them in a way that enhanced the reputation of God to all who heard what Jesus had done. Luke then concludes this event from history by revealing how those who witnessed Jesus miraculous activity responded to all that they saw and heard in verse 26:

 They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen remarkable things today."

Luks tells us that the crowds who had cramped into the home to hear Jesus teach responded to Jesus miraculous activity in the life of the paralyzed man by being struck with astonishment. In other words, the crowds responded to the miraculous activity that they had witnessed by being in a state of such profound amazement that they were beside themselves.

And as a result of being beside themselves in amazement, Luke tells us that they crowd began glorifying God. The crowds responded to the miraculous activity that they had witnessed by enhancing the reputation of God. Luke also explains that those in the crowd were filled with fear. In other words, the crowd was filled with alarm and fright as a result of what they had seen.

Luke then reveals that the crowd was filled with alarm and fright because of the reality that "We have seen remarkable things today." You see, the crowd recognized that they had witnessed something that was out of the ordinary. The crowd recognized that what had occurred was way beyond their expectations and was wonderful in nature. The crowd recognized that they were witnesses to God’s transformational and miraculous activity in the world through Jesus.

And it is here that we discover a timeless truth that can occur when we encounter Jesus. And that timeless truth is this: Encountering Jesus will challenge us to look past our physical health so that we can deal with our spiritual health. Just as it was for the man who had been covered with leprosy, just as it was for the man who was paralyzed, just as it has been for followers of Jesus throughout history, encountering Jesus will challenge us to look past our physical health so that we can deal with our spiritual health.

 Just as it was for the man who was covered in leprosy, encountering Jesus will challenge us to focus on telling others what Jesus is doing for us spiritually so that those around us can hear about Jesus activity in our lives. Just as it was for the man who was paralyzed, encountering Jesus will challenge us to focus on what is going on with us spiritually instead of simply stopping with what is going on with us physically. Just as it was for the man who was paralyzed, encountering Jesus will challenge us to invest time and effort into our spiritual health instead of stopping and being satisfied with only investing our time and effort with our physical health. And encountering Jesus will challenge us to look past our physical health so that we can deal with our spiritual health because while we may find ourselves focused on our physical health, Jesus is focused on our spiritual health.

So how are you responding to Jesus and His challenge to look past our physical health so that we can focus on our spiritual health? Are you focused on what is going on with you physically instead of what is going on with you spiritually? Are you focused on your physical health while ignoring our spiritual health? Are you investing a great deal of time and effort into our physical health while spending virtually no time and effort into your spiritual health?

Because, as we see from this encounter with Jesus, Encountering Jesus will challenge us to look past our physical health so that we can deal with our spiritual health.