“The Authority to Heal and Forgive”
(Matthew 9:1-8)
Series: God’s Fulfilled Promise [on screen]
Rev. Matthew C. McCraw, EdD
First Baptist Church, Bartow, Florida
March 24, 2019
The Passage
Matthew 9:1-8
1 So he got into a boat, crossed over, and came to his own town. 2 Just then some men brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Have courage, son, your sins are forgiven.”
3 At this, some of the scribes said to themselves, “He’s blaspheming!”
4 Perceiving their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts? 5 For which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.” 7 So he got up and went home. 8 When the crowds saw this, they were awestruck and gave glory to God, who had given such authority to men.
Introductory Comments:
Illustration: When I was a kid I went to a camp called Camp Joy in Apopka, Florida. As a youth pastor, I also took my youth group there. We were setting up a game of basketball one day with some of the adults and some of the youth. There was an older pastor friend that was there with me named Pastor Barry. He wasn’t the youngest guy there, so some doubted whether he could play basketball. Someone asked me if he could, and I had seen him play before, so I said, “He’s probably the best basketball player here.” Now, that statement didn’t’ mean anything until Barry actually played basketball with us. Once he started playing, everyone realized his basketball skills. I was glad he was on my team.
In Matthew 8 we have seen that Jesus was a healing spree. He has healed many people demonstrating that He has unusual supernatural powers.
Today, we’re going to learn how Jesus is not merely a healer, although that is quite extraordinary. We’re going to learn that Jesus also has the power and authority to forgive sins, and Jesus will prove that He has that power and authority.
Let’s pray together as we journey through this passage.
(Prayer)
We have two simple points today, and the two are tied together so much that we may go back and forth a bit between these two points.
Let’s look at the passage again. I’ll read the whole passage.
Read Matthew 9:1-8
1 So he got into a boat, crossed over, and came to his own town. 2 Just then some men brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Have courage, son, your sins are forgiven.”
3 At this, some of the scribes said to themselves, “He’s blaspheming!”
4 Perceiving their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts? 5 For which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.” 7 So he got up and went home. 8 When the crowds saw this, they were awestruck and gave glory to God, who had given such authority to men.
From this passage, we’ll see clearly that Jesus has authority in two particular areas.
First, . . .
I. Jesus has authority to heal[on screen]
Jesus doesn’t start with this.
It’s just like Jesus to handle this situation the way He does. By doing it the way He does, He will prove His authority to forgive sins and He will magnify the glory of God in the physical healing.
Keep in mind what is happening here. Jesus’ home base is in Capernaum. He left Capernaum to go the other side of the Sea of Galilee to minister in the Decapolis. He had a run in with some demons, some men living in the tombs, and some pigs. Afterwards, He comes back across the Sea of Galilee and comes back to Capernaum, His own town.
His fame has grown and grown and grown to the point that nearly everyone seems to have heard about the power and authority of Jesus, particularly His teaching and healing.
Then we see yet another demonstration of great faith in Jesus’ power.
These men bring a paralyzed man to Jesus on a mat for healing.
They obviously had great faith in Jesus that He could heal, because it’s not easy to carry a human being lying limp. I can barely carry my nine-year-old into the house when he has fallen asleep in the van! These men are carrying a full-grown man, on a stretcher.
Jesus knew that these men had faith, and yet there is no indication that they said anything in particular to demonstrate their faith. The simple act of bringing their friend to Jesus showed that this act involved faith in Jesus.
Jesus responded, “Have courage, son, your sins are forgiven.”
This is an odd response, but Jesus does this on purpose. We’ll talk about this more in a minute.
However, can you think of the thought of the men that brought the man on the stretcher? “We didn’t haul him all this way to have his sins forgiven!”
Can you think of the thought of the paralyzed man? “My sins aren’t the problem, it’s my body!” What the man didn’t know was that his sins were the bigger problem! We’ll get to that in a minute.
We see that the scribes didn’t like this response from Jesus, for sure!
(pause)
Jesus knew that all of this would happen. He was ready for it.
Jesus asked this penetrating, complicated, and revealing question. Look at verse 5:
5 For which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?
You could really answer this question in multiple ways.
In terms of what you can see and verify, it’s much easier to say that your sins are forgiven, because no one actually can prove you wrong.
If you say that someone is healed from paralysis, and yet they are still lying on a mat, then you’ve failed at that one, right? So, to say to be healed is harder.
Yet, forgiveness of sins is a much bigger deal than physical healing. Forgiveness of sins is a greater work. Only God can forgive sins! So, that might be harder, right?
As is often the way of Jesus, He doesn’t answer the question, but He does something amazing.
Jesus says in verse 6, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”
Well, what happened? Look at verses 7 and 8: “7 So he got up and went home. 8 When the crowds saw this, they were awestruck and gave glory to God, who had given such authority to men.”
The set-up for this healing was perfect. The people that were watching this probably thought, “What’s wrong with this guy? We thought that He was able to heal but he’s talking about forgiveness, and then Jesus drops the bomb in the room, by saying, “Get up and go!”
People were awestruck because of what Jesus had done.
However, it wasn’t just because Jesus healed the man. They were also awestruck because they started to realize a little bit more about who Jesus was.
We learn, secondly, in this passage that . . .
II. Jesus has authority to forgive[on screen]
This is the heart of this passage. Jesus sets it up this way. Jesus uses the physical healing to prove His authority to forgive sins.
Jesus says in verse 2, “Have courage, son, your sins are forgiven.”
Then, Jesus perceived the thoughts of the scribes, who were experts in the law. He knew that they thought He was blaspheming, or greatly dishonoring, God. He knew they were thinking that only God could forgive sins. You know what? They were correct! Only God can forgive sins. That’s precisely the point!
Jesus is proving that He is not merely some special healer, He has the authority of God because He is God!
He can forgive sins, which is our greatest need!
The paralyzed man needed to be healed from his paralysis, but he needed Jesus to forgive him of his sins even more.
He didn’t merely need treatment for the symptom, he needed an ultimate cure from the ultimate disease!
Every evil, every sickness, every disease, every heartache, is a result of sin in our world and sin in our hearts.
We need Jesus to help us with sickness, disease, depression, anger, loneliness, paralysis, gluttony, apathy, selfishness, blindness, and deafness. More than all of those things, though, we need Jesus to heal us from the root cause: sin! Sin is the problem, and the greatest miracle in all the world is that we can be forgiven and set free from the curse of sin!
These scribes didn’t think Jesus had any place to forgive sins, so Jesus laid the situation out perfectly to demonstrate who He was.
He was basically saying, “You think it’s harder for me to heal this man, don’t you? If I heal the man, will you then recognize my authority to forgive sins? Watch this: be healed! Stand up! Go home!”
Jesus did something awesome and they were awestruck and gave glory to God. They couldn’t believe that God had given such authority to Jesus, but they saw it with their own eyes, so they glorified God.
God was the one working and God would be the one who would receive the glory.
(pause)
Now, we’ve talked about physical healings a few times in the Gospel of Matthew and some of you might be thinking, “Pastor Matt what is the deal with these healings? Does Jesus still heal today? Does He heal all the time? Should physical healing be our goal?”
I’d like to talk about that for just a moment.
First of all, as I’ve already said, the ultimate thing we need is forgiveness of sins.
More than anything else, we need forgiveness. If you can only have one or the other, you need forgiveness!
What good does it do for you to go into Hell with a perfect body? Better to go to Heaven paralyzed, than to Hell as a perfect physical specimen!
If you have the forgiveness of Jesus, you already have all the promises of Jesus in store for you in Heaven. This life is just a drop in the bucket. Don’t be short-sighted and long for that which is temporary over that which is eternal.
Second, physical healing is promised for those who follow Jesus, but we’re not told precisely when we will receive it.
God may choose to heal you by His power from cancer, or a headache, or paralysis.
He has the power and authority to do that if He so desires, so we go to Him in prayer and ask Him to do so, trusting Him to work as He wills.
However, all of us will one day not only be set free totally from the curse of sin when we get to Heaven with God, but we will also be set free from physical pain and suffering.
Physically, we will be new. That time is sure at some point. God may heal you now on some level, but He will definitely heal you totally in the next life, if you give yourself to Jesus.
Third, we must address why Jesus focused on physical healings so much.
I believe the answer to this is that Jesus wanted to draw people to Himself so that they would begin to see that He had power and authority over everything, not only the physical world, but also the supernatural world, and authority to forgive us of our sins.
Jesus healed to point people to Himself and His power.
Fourth and finally, what about so-called faith healers that are present today, often on television? I want to give your four warnings concerning self-proclaimed faith healers, in the form of questions:
1. Do they focus on themselves or do they focus on Jesus? Healings should point us to Jesus, not to a person.
2. Do they continually seek and glorify money? Jesus warned us about the dangers of money. He never asked for it for healing. Be careful. Many of these false faith healers are all about themselves and all about money.
3. Do they focus on healing more than the Gospel? If they are not preaching forgiveness of sins, run the other way!
4. Are they making a spectacle out of the healing? Jesus worked with great power, but He didn’t do so in order to make a show of it. He didn’t have to conjure up commotion, He worked with real power! Be wary of those that are just seeking to show off.
(pause)
For those of us who are followers of Jesus, God is making us new a little at a time, in His timing until one day we will be completely new when the kingdom of God comes fully.
In a strange twist, Jesus performed the less important task (physical healing) in order to prove His authority to do the more important task (forgiveness of sins).
Concluding Thoughts:
Jesus had power over disease, He had power over the winds and the waves, He had power over demons, and He has power to forgive sins.
He’s the whole package. He’s the real deal.
That takes us to our bottom line:
Bottom Line: Jesus is the realdeal; He can forgivesins and heal. [on screen]
(repeat)
Jesus can do it all. Matthew is pointing us to this. Jesus is not just a man, He’s not just a good teacher, He’s not just a healer, He’s not just the Messiah, He is God, and He has come to earth to save sinners.
He’s the real deal!
We should be changed by this fact. We should be moved!
Challenge yourself this week in the following ways:
Weekly Challenge: [on screen]
- Receive healing from Jesus. [on screen]
Have you gone to Jesus for healing? He can heal you from anything: physical pain, emotional hurt, psychological confusion, spiritual lostness, sinful addiction; Jesus can heal you!
Go to Him for healing.
- Receive forgiveness from Jesus. [on screen]
More than anything else, we need forgiveness from Jesus.
Have you gone to Him for forgiveness? Don’t live under the bondage of sin any longer. Go to Jesus!
- Take others to Jesus. [on screen]
Just as the men in this passage took their friend to Jesus on a stretcher, we should take others to Jesus as well.
When’s the last time that you’ve brought someone to Jesus so that they might receive healing, and more importantly so that they might receive forgiveness?
Closing:
When Jesus does great things in our lives, whether it’s healing, or provision, or salvation, we should give all glory to God. Our hearts should be moved towards Him. We should tell others about His great work!
All the miracles of Jesus are awesome. More than anything else, we need His salvation.
(Three Circles Gospel Presentation)
(Closing Prayer)
Invitation Song – I Surrender All
Benediction:
If you have any sort of spiritual decision that you would like to make, you can contact me or Pastor Richard and we would be glad to talk to you anytime.
Tonight at 5:30 we will gather for our new series: Discovering Church History. Join us at 5:30 as we kick off this series.
Let’s dismiss by singing the Doxology.
(Sing Doxology)
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