Our Greatest Need

It’s good to have everybody here. You almost make me feel bad for breaking this up. Isn’t that kind of a neat thing when people enjoy talking to each other in church? What a problem to have, huh? We’re glad you’re here. We’ve got some guests that are here. And I know it’s good to have Seth and Rachel. They’re friends of Jeremy and Becca and my daughter and my son-in-law, Adam. And so it’s good to have them here.

I want you also to keep in prayer. If someone’s not here, Peter, he’s usually in the wheelchair about right here. Him and Lori got COVID. And so I think they’re going to be okay. They just, you know, they want to be with you today because of that. So I’m happy they felt that way. But good people love this church. They’ve been visiting here. They love you guys more than you can imagine. And so just keep them in your prayers, too.

Let’s go Lord in prayer as we get started. Father, thank you. I just thank you for your church. I thank you for this place. I thank you for the fact that we’ve got a beautiful sanctuary to sit in and listen to your word. And just be around people that we love and we love to talk to. So Father, thank you for that. And the one thing that kind of connects us is you and your spirit that lives within us. So God, our hearts and our minds today, Lord, let my words be your words, not mine. And let it be clear. Change us. Make us different. So when we go out those doors in just a little bit, we’ll be like Jeremy just said. We’ll be missionaries and going out into the mission field. So God, our hearts, in your son’s name we pray. Amen.

You’ve got your Bibles. As Jeremy started last week, a study through the book of Mark. Today we’re going to be in Mark 2, which is the next phase of this study. So we’re going to be looking at Mark 2. We’ll be looking at verses 1 through 12. Wonderful story. It’s one of those stories that you learn. I remember learning this story as a kid in Sunday school. And it’s been with me the whole time. But, you know, one thing I like about the Bible is you can just look at passages all your life. I can preach on a passage 10, 15 times, and I go to it again, and I just go, wow, I didn’t see that those last 15 times. And so that’s what, hopefully, there’ll be something new in it for you today that’ll kind of grab your heart, make you a little different. And so that’s where we’re going to be.

I was reading this week a lot of things, and I came across a story, an old story, by a guy named Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite authors and pastors. And he tells a story of how back in 1968, a flight going from New York was flying, and they were about to land. And it was your typical boring flight. And so everybody’s just kind of just hoping, just wanting to get where they’re going. And all of a sudden, the pilot engages the landing gear, but the landing gears don’t engage. And they can’t be locked in place. And so he gets some orders from the control tower, makes them passes around the airfield. For this reason, we’re going to have to get some foam on that runway, and we’re going to have to get the EMS folks out there, the fire trucks and all those people. And so they’re going to have to be ready for when you do land. But while he’s doing this, he’s, of course, starting to let everybody on the airplane know why they’re circling and really what’s going on. And then they’re giving the instructions to place their heads between their knees, grab their ankles. And you can just start to hear sobbing going on inside the aircraft and people going, why is this happening? And all kinds of things are going on. And just as they’re starting to descend and start to land, this comes across from the pilot. He says, it is my obligation to inform you that if you believe in God, according to the International Aviation Code that was established in Geneva, he says you should commence prayer. So next thing you know, they start to land and they land. And, of course, the plane’s messed up quite a bit, but nobody’s injured and everybody survived the flight. A couple of days later, the airline started to get some phone calls. Can you imagine what they were? What’s this international law from Geneva that if we believe in God, we should commence prayer? And they got it from a number of folks and they only got a two-word response from the airline. No comment. Isn’t that like us? When we need God the most, when we get most desperate, when things happen in our lives that become crisis management, we go to God. When all else fails, we go to God. This is a story, I believe, that kind of points us in that direction.

And so if you’ll follow me, what I want to do today is I break down this scripture. I want to break it down into three acts because I believe that there’s going to be an act one, an act two, and an act three as the curtain opens. And just all of a sudden we’re going to see some things that might be a little new to you, that might make you think a little bit different.

This is act one, verses one through four. And when He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home. And many were gathered together, so there was no longer room, not even near the door. And He was speaking the word to them. And they came bringing to Him a paralytic carried by four men. And being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof that was above Him. And when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.

Let’s just stop and just look at that for just a moment. I want to ask basically four questions. When I think of act one, I think of the word desperation. Now, it’s interesting that Jesus has been here. If you read chapter one, a lot of it that Jeremy went through last week, he talks about how John the Baptist looks to Jesus. This is the one that we’ve been waiting for. But at the end of chapter one, we also see where Jesus starts doing a ton of miracles. I mean, and everybody’s loving it. I mean, He’s, He healed Peter’s mother-in-law. He’s casting out demons. He’s making demons can’t even speak because of who He is. And they know who He is. He even heals a leper. And I want to tell you, you start healing people with leprosy, word gets out. And so the word was getting out to everybody. And so they were around Jesus.

And the Bible even says, and comparing chapter is Luke chapter five. In Luke chapter five, it talks about they were just so crowded around Jesus that Jesus couldn’t even hardly breathe. And the Bible says He had to leave the city and go into the countryside where more people could gather. Plus, it also allowed Him to just visit other places in the area, which is exactly what He does. But He has to get out. And so a lot of people are wanting to see Jesus. They can’t see Jesus. Jesus has gone away and they’re waiting for Him to come home. And all of a sudden He comes home. And as soon as the word gets out that He’s home, guess what happens? Everybody shows up.

My first question is this. How desperate are you to be near Jesus? See, if you want to get the things of Jesus, you’ve got to be near Jesus. You’ve got to be in His word. One reason we come to church is because we want to be near people that know Jesus. We want to be near Jesus here. We want to talk to each other about things of Jesus. If you’re going to get the things of Jesus, you’ve got to be near Jesus. And I think that’s incredibly important. I find it important in the fact that these folks wanted to be near Jesus. And not all of them were from town. Jesus was in the area called Capernaum. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Capernaum. It’s really kind of a neat place. It was Jesus’ headquarters. At that time, it was probably the largest city on the Sea of Galilee. So Jesus goes there. This could have been Peter’s house. It could have been Peter’s mother-in-law’s house. We’re not sure exactly what house it is. But one thing we do, it was still pretty good size, but it was packed. And some of the folks that packed it were the Pharisees. In Luke 5:17, it says this: And on those days as He was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with Him to heal. Now, this is what’s going on right this time. So all the Pharisees in the area, all the scribes in the area, wanted to be bound to Jesus. They had heard that God cast out demons. I want to see that. This guy heals people who couldn’t walk. I want to see that. I want to see, I don’t know if I want to be near it, but I want to at least see from a distance Him do this leprosy thing. So they all show up, and He’s teaching, and He’s in this house. And they probably got the good seats. Can you imagine people? Guys are here. They’re going to take all the good seats. And they probably did. So they’re packed. This place is packed.

Now, you don’t understand who the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious leaders. The Pharisees were probably the teachers and the preachers of the law. These were the guys that would memorize entire sections of scripture. Brilliant guys. The scribes, they’re kind of like the modern day theologians, the religious lawyers of those days. And you can be a Pharisee and be a scribe, but not necessarily. So all these guys are there from all those villages around the day. They’d heard of Jesus. They want to see Him in person. So they’re there because they want to be near Jesus. People want to be near Jesus. Place is packed.

Not only is it packed, I want to ask you this. How desperate are you to hear what Jesus has to say? Notice what Jesus is doing in the place. The Bible says here, and many will gather together, okay. They talked about how He was talking and preaching the word. I want to ask you this. When was the last time you got into the word? I find it interesting that what we want to do is we want to get into the word. Jesus said this in Luke 4. I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to all the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. I think healing was one of His attributes. Healing, though, was a byproduct of who He was. Jesus came to preach the word. He came to preach the good news. You’ve got to hear the good news. The way we hear the good news today is to get into the word.

My problem with our generation today, ladies and gentlemen, is we’re raising a generation that are not readers. Now, Jeremy will tell you he’s a nerd, and he loves to read, and he loves to study. I don’t know if you know this. Just in the last month, he read four books in a month. I’m sure he had to write on them. I’m sure he had to do papers. He had to prepare. He had to get up there. And then for three days, it was like eight to five. Now, I want to tell you this. You need to push him doing these kind of things. And the reason is because the smarter he gets, the better we get. And so it’s interesting, and it’s important that we understand, and we hear the word, and we study the word. You can’t grow as a Christian without knowing the word of God. And these people were hearing it from Jesus.

My question is this. How desperate are you to hear what Jesus has to say? All you’ve got to do is read it. This book has something to say to you, and it has something to say to me. When you read scripture, or you study it, or you have your devotional, one of the first things you ought to do is sit there and say, well, what does that mean to me today? If I stuck Al’s name on here, or I stuck your name on here, how would it read? And then the last thing is this. What lengths will you go to get someone to care, to get someone you care about to Jesus? These four guys, and I want to tell you, this isn’t really the meat of the story, but I want to tell you this is important. It’s important to know that these people love this paralytic so much, we don’t even know his name. But the Bible says here, in this act, that they will do whatever they need to do to get him to Jesus. They get there, and they realize, we’re not getting in that door. We’re not getting in that house. We can’t get anywhere near the outside of the house. But they find their ways to probably to the side of the house. They probably go up some steps, and they’re up on the roof. And then one guy probably has an idea. Why don’t we go through the roof? Imagine that’s your house. And I can tell you how those roofs were made, that they were large beams put together, and then they probably put sticks and straws and different things together. Then they probably put mud on top of that, and then probably tiles on top of that, to the place where not only would it keep out the rain and the wind and keep out the weather and the heat, but you could walk on it, and you could stay up there.

And then they’ve got to figure out, where in the world do we, where is Jesus probably? Because I want to bring it down to Jesus. So where in the room is He? Then they figured that out, and then all of a sudden now they’ve got to dig, probably about a four-by-six-foot hole in the roof. What if that’s your house? And you’re listening to Jesus. And you’ve got to remember, too, Jesus could stop this any time He wants to. He could sit there, okay, guys, I know what you’re trying to do. Let me just go ahead and just heal the guy, and then you all can get off the roof, and I can get on with my teaching. Because I don’t know how you are if when you’re teaching, you’re trying to give some instruction, and someone keeps interrupting you. I mean, think about it.

You know, I always tell preachers, I sit there and tell them, if you can’t preach through babies crying and people getting up and walking and going in the bathroom, I said, then don’t get into this occupation, because that’s going to happen. But let me ask you this. When all of a sudden you’re instructed, imagine me preaching, and all of a sudden someone comes walking down this aisle, so they’ve got to go to the bathroom. Well, I know they’ve got to go, but where does all the attention go? You know, all the attention follows that person right on down and right on out.

Imagine Jesus is preaching. He’s giving the Word. He’s talking about the kingdom of God. People are engaged, and they’re watching Him, and all of a sudden a piece of dirt starts falling on somebody. And then another piece of dirt falls. And then all of a sudden a piece of clay. And then some straw. Then a broken tile. And then the roof opens up. Like I said, Jesus could have stopped this any time He wanted to. Then all of a sudden a pallet comes down with a guy who can’t walk, paralytic. And I’m wondering how that’s walking. I mean, how they’re trying to keep him level and trying to get him on the ground. Then it settles in front of Jesus.

And then the curtain closes. Act 2. Follow me. Starting with verse 5. Verse 9. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak that way? He’s blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier? Say to a paralytic, your sins are forgiven? Or to say, get up. Pick up your pallet. And walk.”

Two opens up. Screen, the curtain goes back. And all of a sudden, we’re back with the paralytic in front of Jesus. And all of a sudden, Jesus does something that probably nobody expects Him to do.

Now, you’re one of these four guys. Okay? You’re the guy that got him up on the roof. First of all, you took him from his home all the way there. You can’t get in. You’re trying again. And you’re frustrated. All of a sudden, you see a way maybe to get up on the roof. Don’t know why that came to your mind. But somebody said, let’s go get up on the roof. See what’s up there. They get up there. And all of a sudden, the guy goes, I got an idea. Let’s put a hole in this guy’s roof. And we’ll drop him down. Then they go through all the… And you don’t know how long that takes. And all of a sudden, they get him down on the ground. First thing out of Jesus’ mouth is what? The Bible says He looks at their faith, which probably is the four guys and the guy who got down. Because it says there. And he does what? Your sins are forgiven. Now, if I’m one of the four guys, you know what’s going through my mind? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not why we brought him. The reason we brought him was for you to heal him. He can’t walk. Neither should say we had to drag him here. We had to pick him up, bring him here. We had to drop him through the roof. Because he can’t do it himself. Neither should say. And the first thing out of Jesus’ mouth is your sins are forgiven. And you’re just kind of going, no, that’s not what I want.

See, I think we act that way. I think we say things like this. Jesus, can you heal my spouse? Jesus, can you heal my kids? Jesus, can you get me out of debt? Jesus, can you find me a place to live? Jesus, can you heal my cancer or any other disease? Lord, can you get me a job? The thing out of Jesus’ mouth is no. Your sins are forgiven. Now, what I ask for, Lord, if I’m going to believe in you, I need a job. Lord, if I’m going to believe in you, I need you to get a hold of my kids. Lord, or my spouse. Lord, look, I need a car. I can’t pay my bills.

See, Jesus’ greatest desire is to meet our greatest need. That’s what He does here. This guy doesn’t ask for it. These four guys up on the roof don’t ask for it. Nobody in the room asks for it. And Jesus looks at him and He says what? He says, and Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, first of all, He goes, looks at him, He says, son, He means something to you. He’s valuable. Son, your sins are forgiven. The reason is, is because what? Our greatest need is the forgiveness of sin.

See, according to rabbinical theology, physical infirmity was a sign of divine displeasure. The reason you got sick is you did something against God. You deserve what you get. Whatever happened. I mean, in fact, one rabbi said this, the greater the sickness, the greater the sinner. Experiencing terrible judgment from God because he was evidently a terrible sinner. I mean, he’s paralyzed. How much more helpless can this guy be? In fact, one rabbi said this. Nobody gets up from their pallet, from their bed, until their sins are forgiven. In fact, they had this kind of thing. They had this kind of thing. God is the one displeased with sin. God is the one punishing the sin with paralysis. God is the only one who can forgive the sin. So in order for this guy to get healed, guess what? God has to take care of his sins. God has to forgive him. That’s how we go.

So what is forgiveness? Well, forgiveness of sin is a religious concept that involves these things. God absolving the sinner from the condemnation of the law, removing the guilt of sin of the sinner’s actual liability, which incurs eternal wrath because of it. It’s God’s promise not to count our sins against us. It’s repentance on our part, turning away from our old life, and faith in Christ. Our forgiveness of those who have sinned against us is a reflection of God’s forgiving our sins.

Let me show you, shall I tell you this? Why does God look at us and says, you need to forgive? But Lord, I don’t want to forgive. You need to forgive. Now, when we forgive, what do we do? We’re saying, I’m not going to hold it against you. The problem is, is even though you say that, and you mean that, and you may do that, you still have not absolved their sin. Because their sin has still been committed. Somebody’s got to do something with that sin. Somebody’s still got to pay for that sin. That’s why when we stand before God, we’ve got to decide, okay, what happens? How do we pay for our sin? And then we look over and we see Jesus, and you say, well, because of Him and what He did. And what happens with that is this.

See, forgiveness is so important. We’re never more like God than when we forgive. See, our forgiveness is always a reflection of His. We are never more like Him than when we forgive. The Christian doctrine of forgiveness is that God has lifted the sentence of condemnation upon Christians for their sins through the death of Jesus, who did it on their behalf and no longer counts him as guilty. Listen to what David says. David Says this in Psalms 32: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.” These beginning words of Psalm 32 by David, who’s talking about when he committed his greatest sin and knows that God can forgive him and what it brings to him. And these guys are reasoning in their hearts and their minds, “He can’t do that.” Because ultimately, yes, people sin against us and people do things to us. But who is the sin ultimately against? It’s always against God, right? And if the sin’s against God, then who can really forgive the sin? Only God.

I mean, it would be like, say somebody does something to Beth. And I find that person, I go, “Well, I forgive you in the way that I can forgive you.” And Beth goes, “They didn’t do it to you, Al. They did it to me.” The only person that can forgive sin is the person who was done against. And ultimately, the only person who can really forgive sin and absolve it is God. And these guys know it. And that’s good theology. I mean, it’s not like these scribes and Pharisees are doing something that’s against the rules. Everything they’re saying is true. Only God can do that.

But Jesus, for the very first time, is doing something that He’s getting some pushback for. So He’s been doing all this healing and everybody’s okay with it. And all of a sudden, in the middle of this home, when this guy gets lowered through the roof and he’s looking there, for the very first time, they’re seeing God, Jesus, do something that only God can do. And Jesus is letting them see it. Because these guys are sitting there going, “This guy can’t do it on his own. This guy’s not good enough to get forgiven. He must have done something extremely bad.”

I came across a video. I want to play for you just real quick about a guy named Marissa Louse. She’s a member at McLean Baptist Church just outside of Washington, D.C. Her pastor is named David Platt. David is the former president of the International Mission Board. He’s now pastoring. But I just want to know about this little gal as she gets baptized. Donnie, if you’ll throw that up.

“We are going to have the opportunity to celebrate baptism. And here’s what I want to remind you of. We talked about this a couple weeks ago when we were talking about baptism. Baptism is a person’s public identification with Christ, the person of Christ, and with the body of Christ. It’s them saying we’re a part of the body. And so in just a second, when these people go down in the water and they come back up, we are going to go nuts. And the reason we are is because we’re celebrating the new life they have in Christ. But I want you to think about everything we’ve just talked about today. As you see these people be baptized, pray for them. And let’s pray that we would be the church for them. So in our affirmation of them, let’s let that be a picture of us saying to them, we’re going to help you grow in Christ. And we need you to help us grow in Christ. And we belong to each other. It’s not just kind of routine, religious kind of motion. This is us celebrating our identification with each other. And that makes just baptism a beautiful celebration. And I think we’re going to start over here. So, Nike, lead us. Welcome, Marissa, to the baptism pool. And she has asked that I read her testimony for her. At one point in my life, I hated going to church because it prevented me from spending quality time with my dad. And I was usually shoved into a corner. This changed when my mom and I found NBC. Soon after, we started attending and met Diane Anderson, the director of access at the time. She was waiting at the front door for another family. But they came in to me and said, can you come back with me? So I asked my mom if I could go with her to help in access that day. Then Diane said, you really don’t need to be in here. And invited me to go to junior high to participate with the rest of the kids my age. I was 13 years old. When NBC started to offer winter camp at Rockbridge, I went because the church made sure that I had someone to go with me to help with my physical needs. That camp was life-changing for me. It was the First time I came into a body of believers and felt accepted. Like they actually wanted me there and with them, having fun, praying, worshiping, and hanging out together. Will Gaskins, the junior high pastor at the time, gave a talk for that first night asking, “Do you know where you will go if you were to die tonight?” And for some reason, the way he asked it really hit me that night. I’d always believed in a higher power, but this was the first time I was offered a relationship with Jesus that was deeply personal. That night, I officially and knowingly gave my life to Jesus. Even though I had been born again, coming back from camp, things did not mean that life got easier. Being in a wheelchair alienated me from my classmates before. So sharing my love for Jesus with them now even more so alienated me more from them because they believed I couldn’t mentally understand salvation. I really didn’t have friends in school, but I had a community of believers at church who loved me and helped me to become more like Christ. I’m being baptized today because I want to obey the commandment Jesus gave to the disciples in Matthew 28:19. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I know God is with me even to the end of the age.”

Based off of that profession of your faith, it is our privilege to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Bearing you in the likeness of His death. Raising you to the newness of life.

Special needs. And if she’s taught me anything, is that everybody is in need of the Savior. Everybody has an opportunity to come and know Jesus in the forgiveness of their sins. And as I looked at it, I can imagine some folks going, “Well, how does she know? I mean, can she understand?” I’m telling you, everybody understands. I’ve seen April witness to those with autism and all kinds of special needs and people come to know Jesus. And I want to tell you this. This is a picture of us. Folks, we’re all broken when it comes to Jesus. We’re all broken. He’s the one that fixes us. He’s the one that comes to us and gives us our greatest need. And what is our greatest need? Our greatest need is the forgiveness of sin.

I’m sure those guys wanted to be healed. I’m sure this guy wanted to be healed. I bet the folks that were there, the scribes and the Pharisees and everybody else in that house and outside the house wanted to see a healing. And Jesus looks in their hearts and He understands and He asks them an incredible question. He looks at them and He goes, “Which is harder or which is easier to sit there and say your sins are forgiven?” And we’re probably going, “Yeah, that’s a lot easier. But you can’t prove that.” I mean, He can go, “Yeah, okay, my sins are forgiven.” How do you, how do you do that? See, our perspective is, our perspective is, no, let me tell you what’s harder. Harder is you saying you can heal this guy because if you can’t, it’s going to be pretty evident in about, about three, four seconds.

So Jesus does something as act three opens up and we restarting with verse 10, “but so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” And Jesus uses His favorite term for Himself that we find in Daniel chapter seven. He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in sight of everyone so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

So Jesus looks at him and He says, “I want to tell you this. Okay. You think that only God can do it? Watch what God’s about to do.” That’s exactly what He’s saying here. And He looks at this guy and He says, “Okay, get up, pick up his pallet, pick it up, take it, walk out of here between all these folks and go home.” We’ve seen desperation versus one through four. We see a desire to, to, for Him to meet our greatest need. And now we’re going to see a declaration that is unbelievable.

Now I want to look at Jesus’s miracle for a second. And if Libyan Finger were here today, she could tell you, Being a pediatric neurosurgeon, she could sit there and tell you, let me tell you how the nerves and the muscles and all those kinds of things work. See, Jesus didn’t look at this guy and said, okay, y’all come by, pick him up, take him home. And in a couple of days, we’ll start to see some of this happen. Make sure he gets to the physical therapist, the occupational therapist, that he gets to a speech, he gets to everybody he needs to get to and, and, and then work with him for about a month. That’s not what happens here.

What happens here is within a few seconds, all of a sudden he’s able to pop up, wake up his bed and walk out of the room. Now let me just share what that, what that kind of entails. Well, that all of a sudden entails, he’s got to have muscle memory of how to walk implanted back in His brain. He has to have physical balance restored. He has to have atrophied muscles instantly regenerated, nerves regenerated and nerve signals refiring that hadn’t refired possibly forever. Damaged spinal tissue healed, muscles and tendons and joints operating instantly and perfectly in order for him to immediately get up and walk out of there. Who does that? The one that is unbelievable to me. I mean, that’s, I mean, the miracle to forgive sin is the ultimate miracle, but He gets that one too.

See the declaration, our first response should be to glorify the Lord. That’s what happens here. When you walk out of here, you should always want to glorify the Lord in here, glorify the Lord when you leave out. We should go home when we’re changed. Go back to the people that you know, tell them what’s going on in your life. But something happens here that we don’t see anywhere else. I don’t think in the New Testament, but it says when we come into the presence of the Lord, everyone’s affected. Look what it says here. And when he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God saying, we have never seen anything like this. Everyone.

It’s the only time place I know in the New Testament where the Pharisees and the scribes, the guys that were ready to take Him down, find whatever He said was wrong. All of a sudden they’re glorifying God too. And I think they’re acknowledging what is going on and, and, and really what the meaning of all of it is about. See, I think there was, there was a lot more Pharisees and scribes that were sitting there seeing Jesus for who He was than sometimes we think. The Bible says that everybody there caught what was going on and exactly what Jesus was saying. And in the midst of it, they glorified God for it. I just find that, I just find that amazing.

People came out of desperation. Desires were not only seen, but desires were met. And then God gets the glory because they declare. Do you do that? You know, when I, when I do, when I do funerals, one of the things that I do is at the end, I always say, you know, if this person could come back, what might they say? I mean, not that they would, I’m in heaven. I’m not sure I won’t come back, but if they could, what might they say? I wonder what this paraplegic would say. If he could kind of come to the Sauldam Baptist Church this morning. I thought about that. So just kind of indulge me for just a moment. And, let me just kind of share with you what I think he might say.

Kind of great to be with you. Pastor Jeremy and Al kind of wanted me to come up here and say a few words about what happened that day, share my experience with you. And I’ve got to tell you, it was pretty amazing. I mean, I walked home and was wondering how I was walking home. I mean, I had feelings I’d never had before, but, but I’ve been in heaven with Jesus for a while now. And I want to tell you that I think I know why He forgave my sins. You know, I didn’t realize it at first, but forgiveness was my biggest need. I just thought how great it would be to walk. But for a long time now, I’ve been with Him in heaven. I want to tell you this. I would have gladly been in that bed all my life to know that my sins were forgiven.

I know this of the two great blessings that He gave me that day. Greatest by far when He forgave my sins. Ladies and gentlemen, there might be somebody right here in this congregation today that needs God’s forgiveness of their sins. Some today may need to put a physical expression to a previous decision and be baptized. When I think of Marissa Laos, she didn’t have to be baptized, but she did. Jesus only gave us two ordinances. He gave us the Lord’s supper to remember what He did on that cross, but He also told us to be baptized. And the reason we’re baptized is because it is, again, as Jeremy would say, it’s a physical expression. It is an outward expression of what has gone on inside of us. He’s not requesting. That’s a command that we outwardly express what He has done for us on the inside and that the Holy Spirit has entered our life and that we’re a new creature in Jesus.

You know, for some of y’all, another physical expression might be joining this church. That’s a physical expression. Why do I need to join church? I show up. They know I’m here. I support them. No, there’s something about walking down an aisle in a place of people that you love and that are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Say, man, I’m with you. I’m with, I want to serve with you. I want to do missions with you. I want to, gosh, I want to work in the kitchen with you. I want to do whatever needs to be done with you. I’m with you. I want you to help me grow and I want to help you grow. That’s why you join the church.

Four guys. It’s not so much about the four guys. Jesus saw their faith. Jesus saw his faith. Jesus knew that inside he wanted something deeper than just being healed of its, of, of, for his legs. Jesus saw his greatest need. Today, He sees your greatest need. What are you going to do about it? Let’s pray.

Father, this morning, we see our greatest need. And our greatest need is You. Our greatest need is because You see inside every one of our hearts. You see every one of our minds. You see what nobody else sees. Nobody else can judge us because they don’t know our hearts and our minds, but You do. You know what we need. Well, we may have done something today that we need forgiveness of, and all we got to do is ask. If we’re a born-again believer, then, Lord, all we need to do is just repent, and You just forgive us. Your word says You throw them from the east to the west, and as that separation is, and You remember them no more. You don’t have to do that. So, Lord, if we need to do something today, if we need to give a physical demonstration of what You’ve done for us, help us to have the courage to do that. If we need to be baptized, we’ll get baptized. If we need to join the church, then we join the church. First of all, if we need to do the most important thing, which is we need to give our life to You, then we’ll be bold enough to do that, and come down front, talk with our pastor, and let him guide us through that. Take us through those steps. Help us to be bold enough to do what we need to do, like these four friends were, like this group was, that they went out glorifying glorifying You. We’ll see things we’ve never seen before. We ask this in Your son’s name. Amen.