SPEAKER_01: So Luke chapter five.
SPEAKER_01: On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Keneseret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
SPEAKER_01: Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
SPEAKER_01: And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
SPEAKER_01: And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.
SPEAKER_01: But at your word I will let down the nets.
SPEAKER_01: And when they had done this they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.
SPEAKER_01: They signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.
SPEAKER_01: But when Simon Peter saw it he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
SPEAKER_01: For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: From now on you will be catching men.
SPEAKER_01: And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
SPEAKER_01: While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean.
SPEAKER_01: And immediately the leprosy left him, and he charged him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.
SPEAKER_01: But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities.
SPEAKER_01: But he would he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
SPEAKER_01: On one of these 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.
SPEAKER_01: And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: They went up on the roof and led him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And when he saw their faith, he said, Man, your sins are forgiven you.
SPEAKER_01: And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, Who is this who speaks blasphemies?
SPEAKER_01: Who can forgive sins but God alone?
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, Why do you question in your hearts?
SPEAKER_01: Which is easier?
SPEAKER_01: To say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Rise and walk.
SPEAKER_01: But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the man who is paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.
SPEAKER_01: And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God.
SPEAKER_01: An amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen extraordinary things today.
SPEAKER_01: After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me, and leaving everything he rose and followed him.
SPEAKER_01: And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors, and others reclining at table with them.
SPEAKER_01: And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at the disciple at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answered them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
SPEAKER_01: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
SPEAKER_01: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: What have you come to do with us?
SPEAKER_02: I know who you are, the holy one of God.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean that Jesus is holy?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we tend to think of holy people as those who are removed, though you think of kind of maybe like like monks in a monastery.
SPEAKER_02: You think of people who are just meditating all day, they just zend out a little bit, that that's what holy means.
SPEAKER_02: Or in the West, uh holy can be a little bit of a derogatory term, a teasing term for Christians.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that person thinks that he's holier than thou, or she's holier than thou.
SPEAKER_02: Is that or you know, oh, you're just one of those those holy Jews because you've identified as a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean for Jesus to be holy?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the picture of Jesus painted for us in chapter five is quite different to the ones that we expect a holy person to act like.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just remove himself and zen out.
SPEAKER_02: He comes close.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just sit judgmentally above people, he actually transforms them, calls them out of themselves.
SPEAKER_02: And in Luke chapter four, or sorry, chapter five, there are three miracles that kind of demonstrate what it means for Jesus to be holy.
SPEAKER_02: Chapter four, in the reading that we didn't look at last week, Jesus is actually rejected.
SPEAKER_02: He's rejected by the people who know him best.
SPEAKER_02: He goes back to his hometown, and his hometown says, Well, why don't you perform some miracles for us?
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Well, actually, the only miracles that I'm going to perform are for the outsiders.
SPEAKER_02: And they get a little bit miffed at that.
SPEAKER_02: And the reason why they get miffed at that is because they want a domesticated God.
SPEAKER_02: They want a God who will do things for them, meet their needs, uh, perform services.
SPEAKER_02: Do you treat God like that?
SPEAKER_02: Do you treat your God like that?
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we can approach God like a divine vending machine in the sky.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we give our devotion, we come on a Sunday morning, we pray our prayers, and maybe even go to community group.
SPEAKER_02: But all we're doing is putting our little faith coin in the slot and hoping that actually he will give us the thing that our hearts truly desire.
SPEAKER_02: If your God is like that, then your God is not the holy God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: The one who is far above and transcendent.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just come to uh to give us what we want, he comes to meet our deepest needs.
SPEAKER_02: He can't be domesticated.
SPEAKER_02: Remember the conversation that the uh the Pevensey children have in uh in the Chronicles of Narnia, in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, where Lucy says to Mr.
SPEAKER_02: and Mrs.
SPEAKER_02: Beaver, who are talking about Aslan the Lion, she gets scared and she says, Well, is he is he a safe lion?
SPEAKER_02: Is he is he is he a tame lion?
SPEAKER_02: And Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Beaver goes, Safe?
SPEAKER_02: He's not safe, but he is good.
SPEAKER_02: In Luke chapter 5, in the three miracles that we're going to look at, we see a Jesus who is not safe.
SPEAKER_02: This is not divine vending machine, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: But he is good, and he is worth following because in his holiness he does three things in each of these miracles.
SPEAKER_02: He captures and he captivates Peter, transforms his life, renews his purpose.
SPEAKER_02: With the leper, cleanses him, with the paralyzed man, he changes him from the inside out, he meets his deepest need.
SPEAKER_02: So that's what we're going to look at.
SPEAKER_02: First, Jesus is demonstrating a holiness that captures or captivates, if you prefer that.
SPEAKER_02: And here we're looking at verses 1 to 11.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first miracle.
SPEAKER_02: So do you have it open in front of you if you can, or if you look it up on your on your phone?
SPEAKER_02: And Luke begins in verse 1 by noting that there was a large crowd that were coming out to hear Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: They were pressing in on him, Luke says, to do what?
SPEAKER_02: To hear the word of God.
SPEAKER_02: And he was standing by the lake of Gennesareth.
SPEAKER_02: The crowd were hungry.
SPEAKER_02: They wanted to get to know who Jesus was more.
SPEAKER_02: And so, in order to do that, they wanted to hear the word of God.
SPEAKER_02: They wanted to hear Jesus teach them what God says.
SPEAKER_02: So, if you're exploring Jesus, you're working out what Jesus is all about, what it means to follow Him, whether Christianity is true, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_02: Press in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to be eager to find out.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm gonna read on ahead, see how it all pans out.
SPEAKER_02: Press in to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the crowd is doing.
SPEAKER_02: And he's teaching them, and they're kind of pressing against the shore.
SPEAKER_02: And so, in order to kind of get another room, he jumps into a boat owned by a guy called Simon.
SPEAKER_02: And at the end of his teaching time, he tells to Simon, who was a fisherman by trade, to put out for a catch.
SPEAKER_02: Now, Luke tells us that the fishermen around about they were washing their nets.
SPEAKER_02: You can kind of imagine them, they're dying kind of scrubbing off the barnacles and the kelp and things like that, and all the kind of slimy crud that comes up from the lake.
SPEAKER_02: They're washing their nets and they're kind of they've got half an ear on Jesus and they're listening by their washing their nets.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because it's daytime and you don't fish in the daytime.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because the sun's up and fish actually aren't all that stupid.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they they tend to come to the surface when they can't be seen.
SPEAKER_02: So nighttime, dusk, uh, or dawn.
SPEAKER_02: So it's the middle of the day, and Jesus says, put out for a catch, which sounds a little bit odd in Simon's ears.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why he responds and says, Well, actually, we've we've fished all day, or we fished all night rather, and we didn't catch anything, so we're unlikely to catch now in the middle of the day.
SPEAKER_02: This command doesn't make sense, and yet, Peter's response, sorry, give it away.
SPEAKER_02: Simon's response, he'll become Peter, right?
SPEAKER_02: Simon's response is yet at your word.
SPEAKER_02: So it's like, this thing that you're asking of me doesn't make any sense, but you're the one that's asking it, and so I'm going to obey.
SPEAKER_02: Pause.
SPEAKER_02: Is that the nature of your discipleship?
SPEAKER_02: Because every now and again, just every now and again, Jesus will ask of you things that to your rational mind don't make any sense.
SPEAKER_02: He'll ask of you things that you think, well, I don't know why I would do that.
SPEAKER_02: That seems so counterintuitive to the plan that I had for my life.
SPEAKER_02: And so you're gonna go, well, I can't possibly see a reason, Jesus, why you would ask me to do this.
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm gonna conclude that there isn't a reason and just ignore you.
SPEAKER_02: Or you're gonna be like Simon and go, I've labored all night, Lord, and the nets are empty, but at your word, how many large catches of fish do we let go passing us by because we don't listen to the voice of Jesus when it's counterintuitive?
SPEAKER_02: Worth thinking about, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Simon obeys, and what happens?
SPEAKER_02: The boat's swamped by this catch.
SPEAKER_02: The nets are full to bursting, they're beginning to break.
SPEAKER_02: So much so that other boats, the other fishermen, need to come sprinting across the surf to try and help get these fish all into the boat, and then the boat begins to sink because it's so there's so many.
SPEAKER_02: The next curiosity is Simon's response.
SPEAKER_02: Look at it with me in verse eight.
SPEAKER_02: But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Simon's just landed the catch of his life by Jesus' help.
SPEAKER_02: He has more fish to sell at the market than he knows what to do with.
SPEAKER_02: He's just landed a huge payday.
SPEAKER_02: Why does Simon respond like this?
SPEAKER_02: Why does Simon not just say, awesome, Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_02: Same time next week.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: He falls on his knees and says, get away from me.
SPEAKER_02: Prime a sinful man.
SPEAKER_02: Oh Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It's curious, actually, isn't it, that he's changed the term that he addresses Jesus with.
SPEAKER_02: It was master just a few verses earlier.
SPEAKER_02: And now it's Lord.
SPEAKER_02: He's giving us a hint, I think, to what's just happened.
SPEAKER_02: Imagine for a second that you walked into a room and sitting before you was the most beautiful person you could possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_02: You got that you got that celebrity in your mind who is just, to your mind, flawless.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Flawless as a great skin, just beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: You walk in and they're sitting there.
SPEAKER_02: Tell me how you feel.
SPEAKER_02: You don't think gosh, I'm looking great today.
SPEAKER_02: So glad that I I went to the gym.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: You don't think how wonderful you look, you become suddenly aware of all of your flaws.
SPEAKER_02: You become suddenly aware of all of the marks and the spots and the wrinkles.
SPEAKER_02: The fact that actually you didn't go to the gym as much as you should have this last week, and that they are far superior to you.
SPEAKER_02: You feel that kind of that internal earthquake.
SPEAKER_02: Or think of the the smartest person you've ever met.
SPEAKER_02: Or the smartest person you can think of, the kind of the Stephen Hawking-esque celebrity intelligentsia, right?
SPEAKER_02: Super intelligent.
SPEAKER_02: You walk into a room and they're sitting there.
SPEAKER_02: How do you feel?
SPEAKER_02: You become suddenly aware of how dumb you are.
SPEAKER_02: You start checking everything that you're saying because you think, oh, that's just gonna come out all wrong, and I'm just gonna look like an idiot in front of this person who is so smart.
SPEAKER_02: They're so intelligent.
SPEAKER_02: And so again, you have this kind of personal earthquake, this self-quake in your identity, in your soul.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's happening to Simon.
SPEAKER_02: He hasn't just seen overwhelming beauty, he hasn't just seen overwhelming intelligence, he hasn't just seen overwhelming power, he's encountered overwhelming holiness, the transcendent otherness that only God is, and it's shaking his core.
SPEAKER_02: This is what happens to people when they encounter God in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: You might remember uh the prophet Isaiah.
SPEAKER_02: The prophet Isaiah has this vision of God in the temple, where he walks into the temple one day and he says, I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lifted up.
SPEAKER_02: There are angels surrounding him, there's smoke and incense and cries of holy, holy, holy, the train of the robe of the Lord is filling the whole temple.
SPEAKER_02: And what's what's Isaiah's response?
SPEAKER_02: It's Isaiah's response to go.
SPEAKER_02: I just felt a real kind of peace.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Isaiah's response is woe to me, for I am done, I am ruined, I am a man of unclean lips, and I have dwelled among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_02: He thinks I'm toast.
SPEAKER_02: That's what happens when we encounter God.
SPEAKER_02: What's happening in Luke 5 is Isaiah 6 in a boat.
SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing.
SPEAKER_02: He is Simon has come face to face, he has suddenly realized with stunning perfection, transcendent otherness, utter holiness.
SPEAKER_02: And it makes him aware of his sin.
SPEAKER_02: Same way that transcendent beauty makes us aware of our flaws, our uglinesses, transcendent intelligence makes us aware of our limitations, transcendent holiness makes us aware of our sin.
SPEAKER_02: Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.
SPEAKER_02: He is confronted by his own unworthiness.
SPEAKER_02: This is how you know that you have truly encountered God.
SPEAKER_02: If you've become face to face with the God of the Bible, if you've become face to face with the true Jesus, you become aware of your own failings, you become aware of your sin.
SPEAKER_02: You feel it.
SPEAKER_02: But look what happens.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus doesn't go anywhere.
SPEAKER_02: Simon confesses his sin and Jesus goes, oh, I had no idea you were so sinful.
SPEAKER_02: Actually, yeah, if you could stay away, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_02: No, it doesn't go anywhere.
SPEAKER_02: What does he say to him?
SPEAKER_02: He says, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_02: The holiness of God in Jesus is mingled with compassion.
SPEAKER_02: It's mingled with mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_02: It is a holiness that says, Yes, I am pure and you are not, but do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_02: For I have come near to transform and to change you.
SPEAKER_02: And it's what he does for Peter.
SPEAKER_02: He completely reshapes Peter's purpose.
SPEAKER_02: Peter was a fisherman and he's been caught forever in the Messiah's net.
SPEAKER_02: And now he's going to fish for man.
SPEAKER_02: His calling and purpose in life have been utterly transformed by an encounter with the Holy One of God.
SPEAKER_02: That is what Jesus' holiness does.
SPEAKER_02: Has he transformed your purpose?
SPEAKER_02: Thinking, how can I follow the Holy One of God?
SPEAKER_02: Having captivated, captured in his net.
SPEAKER_02: And what does he have for me?
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, second miracle, it is a holiness that cleanses.
SPEAKER_02: Here we're in verses 12 to 16.
SPEAKER_02: And as we begin this, we're saying that the Old Testament part of the Bible, kind of first two-thirds of the Bible, had spelled out a whole bunch of different stipulations about where a person was considered clean or unclean.
SPEAKER_02: And you could be made unclean if you came in contact with something that was unclean, if you touched something that was unclean, a dead body, or a pig, or someone with leprosy.
SPEAKER_02: If you were unclean, therefore, that meant the people avoided you.
SPEAKER_02: You couldn't be part of the community.
SPEAKER_02: Lepers had to announce that they were coming close.
SPEAKER_02: But it was even worse than that.
SPEAKER_02: Not only could they not come close to the community, to other people, they were alienated from the worship of God.
SPEAKER_02: They couldn't come near to the temple.
SPEAKER_02: They had no access to God.
SPEAKER_02: They were shunned and excluded by Him.
SPEAKER_02: Such was their impurity.
SPEAKER_02: They could not come close to God and worship because His holiness would break out against such uncleanness.
SPEAKER_02: And here in this miracle, we have a man who is made unclean by leprosy, a skin condition that made him an outsider, cut off from others and from God.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, I know you could do it.
SPEAKER_02: But is Jesus going to be willing to?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, this teacher who is garnering a following and a reputation?
SPEAKER_02: Is he going to go, oh, get away?
SPEAKER_02: I've got other towns to go to go to.
SPEAKER_02: I've got other people to see, and you're going to defile me.
SPEAKER_02: Is he going to be willing?
SPEAKER_02: Will he not want to get contaminated and shun this man?
SPEAKER_02: The leprous man doesn't know, but he has to find out.
SPEAKER_02: Now look what happens.
SPEAKER_02: We've seen it before.
SPEAKER_02: We saw it if we were to read Luke chapter 4.
SPEAKER_02: He's casting out deals, just commanding them, saying, come out.
SPEAKER_02: You know, he's not kind of like you know, signing the cross and things on that.
SPEAKER_02: So saying, get out.
SPEAKER_02: He can heal by a word, right?
SPEAKER_02: But that's not what he does here.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just speak to the man.
SPEAKER_02: What does he do?
SPEAKER_02: He touches him.
SPEAKER_02: Do you get do you see how beautiful that is?
SPEAKER_02: He touches him.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember?
SPEAKER_02: Oh see, we're all from different countries and we all had the COVID restrictions were different for different people.
SPEAKER_02: But for lots of us, it was several months before we got to hug a loved one.
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember seeing your mom or dad, sibling, friend, and hugging them for the first time?
SPEAKER_02: I remember standing on my doorstep and my mum and my stepdad coming to visit and hugging my mum.
SPEAKER_02: My mom's only wee, she only comes up to here, right?
SPEAKER_02: Just a little little hobbitess.
SPEAKER_02: And just kind of pulling her close.
SPEAKER_02: It was wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: It was really moving.
SPEAKER_02: It was moving for her.
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm great.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm an only child.
SPEAKER_02: Can't you tell?
SPEAKER_02: Now imagine this man.
SPEAKER_02: We're not told by Luke how long he's had leprosy.
SPEAKER_02: But imagine that it's more than weeks.
SPEAKER_02: More than months.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's years.
SPEAKER_02: Without any sort of physical contact.
SPEAKER_02: Without so much as a handshake.
SPEAKER_02: Never mind a hug.
SPEAKER_02: No warmth, no affection.
SPEAKER_02: Shunned.
SPEAKER_02: Avoided.
SPEAKER_02: Ridiculed.
SPEAKER_02: People whispering about what he could have done to deserve such punishment.
SPEAKER_02: Closest family avoiding him.
SPEAKER_02: Did he have a wife?
SPEAKER_02: Did he have kids?
SPEAKER_02: Did he have parents?
SPEAKER_02: We're not told.
SPEAKER_02: But here's a man who is ostracized from community, and the first human touch he feels comes from the Holy One of God.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it wonderful to think of people who have gone through suffering and limitations in their life and yet follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Somebody who is who has been blind their entire life but loves the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I love to think that actually the first person that their new eyes will see will be the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The first voice that the deaf will hear will be the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: There's something remarkable about that, isn't there?
SPEAKER_02: This man felt the touch of the Holy One of God.
SPEAKER_02: And what did it do to him?
SPEAKER_02: Immediately, Luke tells us.
SPEAKER_02: The leprosy left him.
SPEAKER_02: For any other person, touching this man would have made them unclean.
SPEAKER_02: Not so with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: He is so overwhelmingly holy that it overwhelms all of the uncleanness that this man could possess.
SPEAKER_02: This leprous man showed on his outside the problem that each of us has on the inside.
SPEAKER_02: Our shame cuts us off.
SPEAKER_02: Our shame cuts us off from others and it cuts us off from God.
SPEAKER_02: The guilt of our sin makes us run and hide from others.
SPEAKER_02: And makes us run and hide from God.
SPEAKER_02: It always has done.
SPEAKER_02: It started in the garden.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is not so repulsed by our sin.
SPEAKER_02: There is no place that he cannot touch, and that his holy cleansing touch cannot overwhelm.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you have done, bring it to him.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you are ashamed of, come to him and say, if you are willing and hear the words, the beautiful words of reassurance, I am willing, be clean.
SPEAKER_02: Far greater than this man's physical healing was his spiritual restoration.
SPEAKER_02: And so Jesus tells him, He says, Go to the priest in the temple and show him that you've been cleansed and offer the sacrifice necessary.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' cleansing touch brings him back into the community of faith.
SPEAKER_02: People confess their sins and open up about the shame and the guilt that they carry and then find themselves outside of the community of faith when actually they should have been gathered up in and say, Come, be clean.
SPEAKER_02: Go to the temple, go go back into worship, back into community, be reconciled, not just with your family and your friends, but reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_02: That's the promise of the holy one.
SPEAKER_02: He brings us back into fellowship, not just with one another, as glorious as that is, but with our God who is holy.
SPEAKER_02: How?
SPEAKER_02: And that's what the last miracle confirms.
SPEAKER_02: That the Holy One can do what no other can do, and that is to forgive sin and transform us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_02: So let's move to the final miracle.
SPEAKER_02: It is a holiness from Jesus that transforms us.
SPEAKER_02: We're in verses 17 through to 26.
SPEAKER_02: The final miracle, perhaps a familiar story, involves a paralyzed man and his mates.
SPEAKER_02: He's there, he's lying on a mat rug like this, probably not as crooked as this one.
SPEAKER_02: I really want to get.
SPEAKER_02: Is anybody you probably can't even see the rug, but my my little kind of OCD is just freaking out right now?
SPEAKER_02: So I'm just going to, oh, shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Have I just okay?
SPEAKER_02: You can still hear me.
SPEAKER_02: Don't touch anything.
SPEAKER_02: So the man's lying on the mat, and his friends are each at a corner, and they've got to get him to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: But everybody else is there.
SPEAKER_02: There's no space to get him.
SPEAKER_02: So what do they do?
SPEAKER_02: Well, they go up on the outside steps, as there was in those ancient houses, up onto the roof, and they begin to kind of tear off roof tiles and hay and straw and make a hole big enough to lower the guy down in the middle.
SPEAKER_02: And in the house, you know, not moving over or giving any room, are the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_02: Standard.
SPEAKER_02: They're listening to Jesus speak and they're trying to figure him out, probably trying to catch him out as well.
SPEAKER_02: And Luke tells us very explicitly that on Jesus was the power to heal.
SPEAKER_02: He was anointed that day, right?
SPEAKER_02: There was unction in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The Spirit was at work to heal.
SPEAKER_02: So the man is lowered down.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus looks at the man, looks at his friends appearing through the hole, and he sees their faith, and he says, Man, your sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: Well is that what they expected?
SPEAKER_02: Is that what the paralyzed guy wanted?
SPEAKER_02: Didn't that just sound like a like a platitude?
SPEAKER_02: Like a sentimental blessing?
SPEAKER_02: What's going on?
SPEAKER_02: Did he run out of Holy Spirit power?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Luke says he didn't.
SPEAKER_02: Is this what the man was hoping for?
SPEAKER_02: Is this what his friends were hoping for?
SPEAKER_02: Is this why they racked another guy's house?
SPEAKER_02: Didn't get his name.
SPEAKER_02: How different.
SPEAKER_02: How different is our perspective on the situations and circumstances that we find ourselves in than Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We cry out, Lord, change my circumstances, heal my body, improve my life, give me this thing that my heart is longing for.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus says, My priority is your soul.
SPEAKER_02: My priority is your heart, not just your heart's desire.
SPEAKER_02: So fickle are you.
SPEAKER_02: It needs transforming.
SPEAKER_02: It's the thing that needs healing.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus insists that our greatest need is not a change of circumstance, but a change of heart.
SPEAKER_02: He insists that our greatest need is not to have all that we've ever dreamed, but to have our sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: Do you believe that?
SPEAKER_02: The religious leaders are shocked at this pronouncement.
SPEAKER_02: How does he have the authority to forgive sins?
SPEAKER_02: Only God can do that.
SPEAKER_02: Why do they think that way?
SPEAKER_02: Imagine for a second that let's see, let's pick on some, let's pick on some people.
SPEAKER_02: I can see you in the light.
SPEAKER_02: So Will's there, he's like kind of half a dozen rows back.
SPEAKER_02: And he's sitting beside David, right?
SPEAKER_02: And just after the sermon finishes, Will stands up and he punches David square in the mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Imagine it, it might happen.
SPEAKER_02: The day is young, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's touch and go up there.
SPEAKER_02: I can see, I can you can feel the tension, right?
SPEAKER_02: So Will gets up and he punches David square in the mouth.
SPEAKER_02: And I go up and I say, Will, I forgive you.
SPEAKER_02: What would be wrong about that?
SPEAKER_02: What would be wrong for me to go up, but David there kind of dabbing his nose, yeah, the blood to stop, because you know there's got some plight behind the punch when Will hits you, right?
SPEAKER_02: Going after Will and saying, hey, no problem.
SPEAKER_02: I forgive you.
SPEAKER_02: What's wrong?
SPEAKER_02: Why would that be unjust?
SPEAKER_02: Because I wasn't the one that got punched.
SPEAKER_02: It's for David to say, Will, I forgive you.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he's the one that's been wronged.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, hold on, what's going on here now with Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: When he says, Man, your sins are forgiven you, the Pharisees understand that that's a claim to divinity because they understand that God is the one who is ultimately offended by our sin.
SPEAKER_02: That he is the one who is ultimately wronged, and so only he has the power to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: This is something that another David, not that one, but David in the Old Testament, understood when he wrote Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 51 is a psalm that David writes, after his adulterous affair that results in a murder, so he sleeps with Bathsheba, who's married to Uriah, has Uriah bumped off and killed, corrupts the Israeli army to do it, and is then brought to conviction of his sin, and then writes in Psalm 51, verse 4, Against you, O Lord, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
SPEAKER_02: And you can think.
SPEAKER_02: That ultimately all our sin is an offense against God, and that's why we need God to forgive it.
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees understand that.
SPEAKER_02: Do you?
SPEAKER_02: They know exactly what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_02: This is a huge claim.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus knows that they're questioning in their mind.
SPEAKER_02: And so he says to them, what's easier to say?
SPEAKER_02: You're forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: Or rise, get up, and walk.
SPEAKER_02: On the face of it, it's far easier just to say you're forgiven as a kind of just a form of words, just as a platitude.
SPEAKER_02: But does Jesus have the legitimate authority to put away all of our past failings in order to prove that he does the humanly harder thing, he does the humanly impossible thing, and he says to the man, Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.
SPEAKER_02: And what happens?
SPEAKER_02: Immediately the man got up and he went home.
SPEAKER_02: In the Old Testament, holiness stayed in the temple, and sinners came trembling.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus, holiness walks into the room, and sinners walk out transformed.
SPEAKER_02: What has changed?
SPEAKER_02: It's not that God has changed.
SPEAKER_02: I think it's that the sacrifice has changed.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is the holy one of God because he is also the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_02: He is the one who will die for the paralyzed man's sin and who has died for your sin, so that you might be forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: He touches the leper because he knows that one day all sin and shame and uncleanness, he will bear it all in himself for us.
SPEAKER_02: He can forgive and heal the paralytic because he will die for his sin and for ours.
SPEAKER_02: So the cross shows us the holiness of God, put on full display, as the Holy One of God dies to transform sinners, to make them clean, to call them to a new life and to follow him with renewed purpose.
SPEAKER_02: This is the holiness that each one of us needs.
SPEAKER_02: Not some zendite monk, not some moral superiority, but a purity that reshapes our entire life, that reorients the direction of our life.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know it?
SPEAKER_02: Has the Lord Jesus come and cleansed you of your sin and renewed your life and said, Come follow me?
SPEAKER_02: The man left, glorifying God because he had met the Holy One.
SPEAKER_02: And that had changed him from the inside out.
SPEAKER_02: Peter is captured, captivated by a holiness that exposes his sin and then says, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus shows him grace.
SPEAKER_02: The leper is cleansed by a holiness that cannot be repelled by shame and a grace that restores him to life.
SPEAKER_02: The paralyzed man is transformed by a holiness that confronts his deepest need and grace that forgives it.
SPEAKER_02: Luke wants us to see that these are not three versions of Jesus, but a full rounded picture of the Holy One coming close.
SPEAKER_02: The same holiness that exposes our sin is the holiness that heals us from it, the same grace that welcomes us back into community is the grace that changes us and transforms us.
SPEAKER_02: The question that Luke leaves us with is not what kind of miracle do I need in my life, but will you let the Holy One come close?
SPEAKER_02: And change ye.
SPEAKER_02: No one in this chapter keeps Jesus at a safe distance and remains the same.
SPEAKER_02: So don't run from his holiness.
SPEAKER_02: Don't try and clean yourself up first.
SPEAKER_02: And don't settle for a safe, domesticated Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Come to him as you are and let his holy grace infuse your life and do what only he can do.
SPEAKER_02: Transform you, cleanse you, renew your purpose, and call you to follow him.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, we praise you that you are the Holy One of God, that you are the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_02: May we know your transforming, your forgiving, your cleansing today.
SPEAKER_02: In your precious name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.