A Mat and a Bit of Faith

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A Mat and a Bit of Faith

If you looked at snapshots of my growing up years you would find the backgrounds to always be different places, different states, different countries. I was in 11 different elementary schools. Moving around so often made my friendships a mile wide and an inch deep. I honestly didn't want them to be that way. I wanted just a few friends that I could really count on to know me and to know them. I wanted faithful friends that I knew would be at school and we could sit together at lunch and hang out on the weekends. I had some “best friends” but to say that any of those friendships were deep or intimate would be an overstatement. We were in high school, all of us nomads, and all of us knew how to guard our hearts. When you move around as much as I did and the kids I went to school with did, you learn to protect yourself from the hurt of leaving by not letting people really into your heart. You learn to insulate yourself from losing a friend because you know they will only be there for a few years. I learned to have shallow friendships, but my heart was longing for so much more. My heart was longing for someone to really know me. You know what I mean? To know me and to still want to hang out with me. I wanted someone who could know that I felt insecure and be able to encourage me, or to know I was afraid to be able to comfort me. I wanted a true friend.

I know that Jesus was that true friend. He was a comfort and an encouragement. He was my best friend and still is the one who knows me the fullest and still loves me intimately. Let's thank Jesus for being that friend and that lover of our souls, but let's not let that be an excuse for us to say that we don't need to be vulnerable with each other or we don't need to really know each other because Jesus is doing that. I want us as a community to be willing to go to those deep places of relationship much like the guys in the passage we are about to study.

Tonight we are going to focus on Mark 2:1-12

2 1-5 After a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word got around that he was back home. A crowd gathered, jamming the entrance so no one could get in or out. He was teaching the Word. They brought a paraplegic to him, carried by four men. When they weren’t able to get in because of the crowd, they removed part of the roof and lowered the paraplegic on his stretcher. Impressed by their bold belief, Jesus said to the paraplegic, “Son, I forgive your sins.”

6-7 Some religion scholars sitting there started whispering among themselves, “He can’t talk that way! That’s blasphemy! God and only God can forgive sins.”

8-12 Jesus knew right away what they were thinking, and said, “Why are you so skeptical? Which is simpler: to say to the paraplegic, ‘I forgive your sins,’ or say, ‘Get up, take your stretcher, and start walking’? Well, just so it’s clear that I’m the Son of Man am authorized to do either, or both . . .” (he looked now at the paraplegic), “Get up. Pick up your stretcher and go home.” And the man did it—got up, grabbed his stretcher, and walked out, with everyone there watching him. They rubbed their eyes, incredulous—and then praised God, saying, “We’ve never seen anything like this!”

People came to see Jesus. They knew something that folks around us today have lost sight of. They knew that Jesus was worthy. He was worthy of the trip. He was worthy of adoration and devotion. He was worthy of hours of their time and attention. He was amazing. Miraculous. He did things that they had never seen before, or even dreamed of seeing. I want us to get a better glimpse of Jesus. He was beautiful. He was loving, kind. Can you imagine the look on his face as he leans over a hurting Momma, wipes tears from faces, declares love and freedom. Can you imagine the Jesus that little kids just flocked to? Can you imagine this Jesus? Have our hearts become too hard to fathom a Jesus that would be so powerful and tender that these men who carried their friend on his mat would say, forget the crowd. We are going in through the roof. My heart is longing to know that Jesus. My heart is crying out to remember the Jesus who met me, saved me. I have to stop to remember him, to remember what it was like to be lost and broken. I have to do it on purpose, with purpose to say I remember you Lord, when I was an 8th grade girl all caught up in popularity, all broken from rejection and failure. I remember you calling me to stop trying to earn my way to a spot in heaven. I remember how beautiful you were the night you settled into my heart and became my saviour, my friend, you became my Father and brother. I remember that as if it was yesterday. I need to keep remembering who my Jesus is. I need to keep remembering Him because I so easily forget. I get so caught up in the distractions of life that I forget that Jesus is worthy of my time. He is worthy of my passion, my heart, my devotion. Friends, these 4 guys knew something about Jesus that I want to know at the depth of my heart. They knew he was worthy. They knew he was the only one in all the world who could come through for them. He was the only one who could heal their friend. I love these guys. I want to sit down and have coffee with them and let them tell me their story. Can you imagine how it might go? Maybe it was something like this...



We heard that Jesus had come back to Capernaum and we couldn't wait to go and see him. We would have run, we would have been there earlier but we had a buddy with us, and he couldn't walk. We had to carry him. He was not light, in fact I would say he was a heavy load. But man, we were going to bring him to Jesus. We were going to set him at Jesus feet and watch the miracle that we had all hoped for our entire lives. We wanted this for our friend, we wanted it for ourselves. We believed Jesus could and would bring healing to our friend. When we finally arrived to the place Jesus was speaking we were totally bummed out. The crowd beat us to him. They were everywhere. People were craning their necks to get a glimpse of him. Mommas were carrying their sick babies, old men were hunched over trying to get their way into seeing the Rabbi. We wanted to see Jesus, and all we saw was a crowd of folks who wanted to see him as much as we did, who needed him like we did. At first we were discouraged but we knew we could not give up. We were like, we will go through the roof if we have to. And wouldn't you know it, that is exactly what we did. We took our friend over to the house and we hoisted him up onto the roof. My buddies and I began removing roof tiles. We had this nervous excitement. We didn't know what Jesus would say or do. Would we get into trouble? Would people get mad at us for going to the front of the crowd? We didn't care enough to stop our plan. We kept digging. And there it was, light peaking through the tile roof, Jesus's voice getting louder. We were making it through. A few more goes at this and we would have a hole we could be proud of, a hole we could use to lower our friend right at Jesus's feet. Oh man, what would happen next? We didn't know. We held our breathe as we lowered our friend down to Jesus. And then there he was, laying on his mat in front of the man who could change his life forever.



Jesus looked at our friend with love in his eyes. He recognized our friends faith and our faith. He was happy that we believed in him. He declared my friends sins to be forgiven, he called my friend Son. Can you imagine being called Son by this man? He was the Rabbi that cast out demons. He was one who healed the sick. He was like the prophets we read about all our lives, and he looks at my friend, with love in his eyes and declares my friend to be forgiven and to be son. Moments later a discussion begins, he addresses the religious people and asks them which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk. We didn't know. We were not expecting our friend to become some sort of object lesson. Here Jesus was using him as an example, that not only could Jesus bring healing, which he did for my friend, but that he could forgive sins. We looked through that hole in the roof with complete amazement at what was happening under our perched frames. Jesus was schooling the religious academy and my friend was being shown as the one who had faith. I was the one Jesus was rewarding because of my faith. I got to see my friend take up his mat, right there in front of all the important people, and become important. He wasn't just that sinner who laid on his mat helpless anymore. He was a man commended for his faith, forgiven of his sins, and walking around. To be honest with you, when we left there my friend wasn't walking, he was running, he was jumping up and down. We kept telling the story to each other the whole way home, and then the next day, and the next day after that. You just don't get tired of a story like that. We thought we were crazy to lower him through that roof. We were like our parents are going to kill us. Instead, we got life. We got Jesus. He loved us for our faith. He is amazing. You have got to get to know Him.



Can you just imagine the stories these guys would go on to tell about Jesus and about how he healed their friend. I love this story. I love the audacity these 4 men had to remove tiles from the roof and lower their friend to the feet of Jesus. That is what it is all about isn't it. We have this amazing saviour and we live in a world surrounded by so much pain, so many needs, so many lost, so many broken and we can bring them to Jesus. We can present them at the feet of Jesus. But why don't we? Why when a friend tells us she is hurting do we just look at her with pity and we may try to relate for a minute but we just move on to an easier topic. We don't want to go to those uncomfortable places with our friends because it is so much easier to talk about how the kids are doing or work is going or what we are making for dinner. Our relationships remain superficial and we are really not much help to anyone.


The invitation Jesus is giving us is to be like those 4 guys. In order to do that, to be that we need a change of heart. We need to believe Jesus is actually worthy. I think one of our biggest issues is that we don't really believe Jesus to be healer in the first place. We don't think he will come through so we don't bother to address him. We don't go to him on behalf of our friends because we don't really think He is involved. I know what you are saying, how dare you say that? How dare you say that I don't believe Jesus. I know, I have to ask myself the same question. Am I really believing Jesus for my situation? Am I really believing Jesus is as beautiful and worthy as the men in this story believed. Do I really believe He will come through for me. Take a moment to think about what is causing you anxiety right now? What are you worried about? That is a place you are not believing Jesus. You are not trusting His plan for that area of your life. You aren't trusting that He is good and that He is strong. It is a sad reality that the reason we don't bring our friends to Jesus is because we are not convinced Jesus is the answer for them. Sweet sisters, he is the answer for all of us. We have to let him renew our minds to bring us to a place of living out the belief that Jesus is the answer.

The second aspect of this story is also challenging. Our four friends didn't go to Jesus for themselves, they went to bring a friend in need. We don't bring our friends to Jesus because we honestly don't have time for them. I have had many friends come to me with broken hearts and sadly I have dismissed them. I have had to get on about my business instead of stopping to bring them to Jesus. Sure I felt bad about it afterward, but then I forget about it, and keep on being busy. God was asking me to pray for a friend for quite sometime. I knew he wanted me to just wrap my arms around her sweet neck and pray the blessings of God and of healing on my friend. One night she told me she was physically hurting and I knew that God was opening up an opportunity for me to pray for her, instead I gave her a pitying look, a bit of a hug, and went back to enjoying the youth dessert auction. I was bidding on a cake and it was an intense war for the Nothing Bundt Cake that was donated. How could I have missed the mark on that one? In that moment, even though God was leading me to pray for my friend I didn't think that call to prayer was more important that my bundt. Friend, I decided that night that when someone tells me she is hurting, or her kids are a mess, or her heart is a mess, I pray, right there and then I pray the blessings of God on her, because she is worth it. She is important to me, she is beloved of God. I don't want to miss an opportunity to bless her. I don't want to miss a chance to be used in her healing. If I believe Jesus is who the Scriptures say he is, and I believe he is loving and good and healer, then I will pray. If I believe my friend is a sweet joy to God and a called out daughter of the king of kings, created in His very imagine, then you better believe I will pray. If I see that friend who doesn't yet believe but I know she is made in God's very image and is one Jesus loves, then yes, I will pray. We can't miss these opportunities to bless our sisters and brothers with prayer.

What makes going to you for counsel, a shoulder to cry on, or a praise to rejoice in any different than going to a non believer? What makes your friendships with sisters any different than friendships non Christians' share? Sweet sisters, they must be different. My friendships with my sisters in Jesus should not remain at the superficial world of talking Auburn or Alabama football. They need to go deeper than our next recipe or sale at Publix. Our friendships need to be honest, deep, Christ focused. We need to be able to share with one another where we are struggling, where we have failed. We need to be able to rejoice with each other in areas of blessings. I need sisters who will pray for me and will pray the blessings of God over me. I need sisters who can help me study God's word and will share with me what God is doing to transform their own hearts. I need sisters willing to challenge me in areas in which God is bringing growth in my life. We need our friendships to be free of the fear of rejection, bitterness, envy, lies, gossip. We need our friendships in Christ to be always pointing us to the gospel. We need Gospel Friends. I need friends who esteem Jesus and see Him as the answer to my hurting heart, and I need friends who love me enough to take me to His feet. I want to be that friend. I have friendships like that, and I want to go deeper in them. Friends, your sisters in Christ need your heart. You Saviour deserves your heart.