This is a message from the ministry of Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. For more information about our church, please visit calvarysb.com. Please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 2. If you didn't bring a Bible, then look it up on your phone, or look over the shoulder of somebody next to you, because we've got such an amazing text in front of us here this morning.
Mark, Chapter 2. And so with you there, let me begin. right here at verse 1. And again, he entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house. Immediately, many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door.
And he preached the word to them. Well, with this begins one of the most wonderful stories in the entire gospel records about the life of Jesus. And you'll see what I mean before we get to the end of it.
But I just want you to say, when I call this a story, I mean it is a story. It's a marvelous story. But I don't mean to take away from the idea that this really happened.
This is a historical account. It's a story, but it's not just a story. It's a true story about what Jesus did at a particular time and place to change everything for one individual man and impact a great crowd of people. See, first you've got to set the scene. As we saw last week with Pastor Tommy's message at the end of the Gospel of Mark chapter 1, Jesus has been making quite a stir in the whole region of Galilee.
He's been healing, he's been teaching, he's been preaching, he's been making his way, and there's been an enormous response, thousands, maybe more, responding to the message of Jesus there in the region of Galilee. Therefore, we're not surprised in Mark chapter 2, verse 1, where it says, again, he entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house, so he's there at a particular house in Capernaum, and then it says, immediately, interestingly, everything in the Gospel of Mark seems to happen immediately, from one thing to another. Immediately, many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door.
What a remarkable scene. Now, I don't know how big this house was. But probably it was the biggest house they could find that they could meet together in. And there they are. Jesus is there to preach.
And the place is absolutely packed. Now we know something about the construction of ancient homes. And from that we know that this probably wasn't a super large house. But however big it was, man it was packed.
You know I've heard stories of churches being that packed in times of revival. I remember hearing a story from the Welsh revival of 1904. And in the Welsh revival, there was a man named Evan Roberts who was remarkably used of God in that Welsh revival. And by the way, the Welsh revival is basically if you took an area about the population of maybe Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and San Luis Obispo County, you put those together in population, and in six months, more than 100,000 people were converted.
It was just a remarkable outpouring of God's Spirit. Now, nevertheless, in that time... They describe a church meeting where Evan Roberts just appeared at that church one day to preach. And the whole church was so crowded with people that the only way he could make his way up to the platform to speak was that he literally had to walk upon the shoulders of men standing in the aisles. And then he crawled over the pulpit to come behind it and preach.
Listen, when churches are that crowded, it's revival. And this is the kind of scene. that was at this particular home in Capernaum.
So Jesus is there to preach. The place is absolutely packed. You can picture that scene in your mind.
Don't miss the last phrase of verse two. And he preached the word to them. This is a repeated emphasis of Mark throughout his gospel.
The preaching ministry of Jesus. Now, we are often impressed, maybe even enthralled, with the miracle-working ministry of Jesus. And we should be. It was spectacular.
Nobody demonstrated the power of God on earth quite like Jesus Christ. So it's good and proper for us to be impressed by the miracle working ministry of Jesus. But don't make the mistake.
Jesus was not a miracle worker who occasionally preached. He was a preacher who also did mighty works of power. He came to do this work of preaching, and that's what he was doing.
Now look at verse 3. Then they came to him Bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. So do you have the scene? There's four men carrying a paralytic.
I picture the man being on something we would call a stretcher. Right? There's a man at each corner they're carrying. They come to the room, and what do these men say?
They say, we want our friend healed. He's paralyzed. How can we get him healed? Bring him to Jesus. And who knows what Jesus might do.
Jesus has been healing a lot of people. Maybe he healed my friend. So they come, and they come to the front door of the house, and can they get in? It's impossible. They can't get in.
So what do they do? Look at verse 4. It says, and when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
Listen, I've had some sermons interrupted in colorful ways. This has never happened to me. I've never seen the roof start to be taken apart and then lowered down on ropes in front of me, a stretcher with a paralyzed man. And you can imagine what this scene was like.
First of all, this happened with a good deal of noise. we know in the ancient world, just from the way that homes were constructed, it was very common to have something like a balcony or a patio, rooftop kind of thing. That wasn't unusual.
And because of that, it wasn't unusual to have stair access on the exterior of the house up to the roof. That's not unusual. So they carry the man up the stairs.
They go and they say, how can we give him to Jesus? I know, let's take apart the roof. In those days, it was a very common construction to just sort of put wood rafters to a house. house, and then you just put tiles on top of the wood.
Matter of fact, in Luke's account, it says that they took away the tiles. So they're taking away the tiles, deconstructing the roof. And can you imagine that if you're listening to Jesus in this thing? You're not doing that quietly.
I'm sure they're talking to each other. And can you imagine the maneuvering to get this man into place and to start lowering down on ropes? And can you imagine the crowd watching the guy go down?
Listen, this wasn't like a Mission Impossible movie where everything happens real smooth. There's fits and jerks and the stretcher leans a certain way because one guy's too low and the crowd gasps. He's gonna fall, but he doesn't fall. What an amazing scene.
He gets lowered down by fits and starts right in front of Jesus. And I don't know about you, but when I picture this scene, don't you picture a huge smile on Jesus's face? He's like, this is amazing. Just I've never had a sermon interrupted this way before. I can't wait to see what God is going to do in and through this.
Now... The French had a lot of determination. They lower him down in front of Jesus. Then Jesus is going to do something remarkable in verse 5. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, well, stop right there.
When Jesus saw their faith, he didn't see his faith. In other words, the faith of the paralyzed man. That wasn't the faith Jesus saw. We don't know if that paralyzed man had any faith.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. There's no reference made to his faith. But what there is reference made to is the faith of the four friends who lowered him down.
And you better believe that took a lot of faith. They believed so passionately that this man's life would be changed when he came into contact with Jesus Christ that they said, we're gonna do everything we can to bring this man before Jesus. And when they brought him before Jesus, They believed he was going to get healed.
I'll tell you one reason why. Because it was a lot easier to lower the man down than it would be to bring him back up again. They said, we're sure hoping he walks out of here.
Jesus healed this man. So they lowered him down. Jesus saw that kind of faith. We just need to bring our friend before Jesus. You could see their faith by what they did.
Now, of course, there's a point of application here. I'll just mention it now. We'll talk about it a little bit more later.
But don't you have friends, people in your life that you know need Jesus? And isn't this sort of a refreshing of our faith to believe what Jesus can do in their life? In any regard, they lowered, and then Jesus saw their faith.
Now look at verse six, excuse me, verse five. Jesus saw their faith. He said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven you. Now, what a strange thing for Jesus to say. Son, first of all, I love that opening.
I don't remember, I really should look it up, but I really don't remember many places in the Gospels where Jesus called people son. I can remember one place where Jesus called a woman daughter. It was the woman with an issue of blood who touched the hem of his garment.
Jesus turned around and in that marvelous but awkward conversation that Jesus had with her, he said, daughter. Your faith has made you whole. What a term of endearment from Jesus to that woman. Here, Jesus addresses this man as son. How that paralyzed man's heart must have swelled up with a sense of love and acceptance as soon as he heard that first word from Jesus'lips, son.
In other words, hey, crazy man, get out of here. Don't you see I'm trying to preach a sermon? How dare you interrupt me in this way?
No, it was endearment and love. son was the first word he said to him. But then notice the next phrase, son, your sins are forgiven you.
What a strange thing for Jesus to say. Now, I can imagine how everybody reacted to this. I imagine the paralyzed man, this is what he's thinking.
He's thinking, you know what, for as long as I've been paralyzed, everybody's thought it's because I'm some particular kind of sinner. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what everybody thinks. Everybody looks at me and they say, see it's sin in your life. If you really loved God, if you really were an obedient follower of God, things in your life would be a lot easier.
There's still a lot of that thinking around today, isn't there? And so they look at me and my affliction, they say, sinner. And the paralyzed man thinks, Jesus says my sins are forgiven. What a refreshment right there. Now I can imagine the friends up top on the roof, they're saying, No, that's not his problem.
We brought him to you because he can't walk. Do something about that. I want you to notice something. Jesus first spoke to this man's greatest need.
Now, I know that's hard for us to understand because when somebody is physically afflicted and being paralyzed, unable to walk, Brothers and sisters, that is an affliction. Our heart would go out to anybody in that condition. And it's hard for us to think that a worse situation is for somebody to have their sins unforgiven before God.
But in the big picture, it's really true. I know it was hard for the man to believe and it's hard for us to believe, but there are things worse than not being in good health. And sometimes we need to believe that just because God says it.
We can make an analogy to your physical body. Did you know, and you know this in your physical body, that you can feel just fine, and yet there's real problems in your body. People get that diagnosis all the time. They get diagnosed with a terrible disease, a scary disease. But I feel great.
You can't go just by what you feel. Sometimes the doctor has to tell you the truth about your condition and you have to believe the doctor even though you don't feel it at the moment. Well it's that way with the sin problem in our life. I understand when sometimes the preacher or we read the Bible and it tells us about our sin problem we feel like I don't feel like that's a problem.
I mean usually we feel that way because we compare ourselves with other people and it doesn't matter how bad you are you can always think of somebody worse. yeah, look, I know I don't got it all together, but I'm not them. It's very easy to do.
But listen, I'm just here to tell you, you can have a sin problem and you're not aware of it. You need to let Dr. Jesus, the physician of your soul, speak to you about your sin problem. And so Jesus says, your sins are forgiven you. And the paralyzed man hears it one way, the friends hear it another way, the crowd that's gathered together, I imagine them saying, This is exciting. I can't wait to see what happens next.
But then there was one group of people in the crowd. Look at their reaction. The religious leaders who were there sitting and listening to Jesus, they thought this, this is way out of bounds.
This Jesus of Nazareth, he can't say that. And in the first recorded opposition to Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, look at what happens in verse 6. And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?
Let me tell you something about these religious leaders. Let me tell you three things that they did right, and then one thing that they did wrong that colored all the things that they did right. Here's three things that these religious leaders did right.
Number one, they were checking out Jesus of Nazareth. Nothing wrong with that. Look, there's some hot shot, huge popular preacher going all around Galilee, teaching who knows what.
It's entirely appropriate for the religious authorities to say, hey, let's get some guys there and listen to this guy and see if he's right on or not. If he's dangerous, we need to do something about this. Nothing wrong with them saying, let's check this out. The second thing that was good about them is it says, did you notice the phrase?
They were reasoning in their hearts as they heard Jesus speak. I hope you reason in your heart as you hear the preaching here at Calvary Chapel. I hope your mind just isn't in neutral. I hope you're not playing a game on your phone right now.
All right, eyes on me. Come on, everybody. I hope you're just not distracted and off and on, thinking about all the things you could do or should do. I hope you're engaged with the Word.
I hope you're thinking about what the preacher's saying. I think, well, how might this connect with other scriptures? How might this connect with my life?
What does this change about my prayer life? It's good to reason in your heart to be an active listener to the message. That's a good thing.
And here's the third thing that they did good. They correctly analyzed the situation theologically when Jesus said, your sins are forgiven you. They said, hey, wait a minute, only God can forgive sins.
That's completely true. Only God can forgive sins. Now, it's true that if I sin against you, you can forgive me.
But here's the issue. When I sin against you, I have actually sinned against you and God. And when you forgive me for my sin against you, which I hope that you would, when you forgive me for that sin, that's wonderful, but it still means that I need to have it right with God. There is an important and significant dimension of forgiveness that belongs to God alone.
And friends, this is a very important point for us to understand. Ultimately, only God can forgive sins. If we talked about sin being like a problem that maybe you can't see or feel or diagnose, but it's still real, only God can deal with our sin problem. That's very important to remember, because folks, compensating good deeds do not forgive our sins. Here's an experiment.
The next time you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, and you're going too fast, look, you're not going to be a jerk about it. You know you were speeding, it pulled you over, this or that. Okay, officer, I was doing 80, 83 miles an hour, whatever it is.
Try this. Just tell the policeman or the highway patrolman about all the times you didn't speed. See how far that gets you. Compensating good works don't take away our sins. Wishful thinking doesn't forgive our sins.
Good intentions don't forgive our sins. Time doesn't forgive our sins. Forgetfulness doesn't forget our sins.
You know, as we get a little bit older, sometimes we can't forget all the bad stuff we did when we were younger. That doesn't take away the need of those sins to be dealt with before God. Success doesn't take... away our sins.
You cannot forgive your own sins. We must go to Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. You say, well, David, how do you do that? The Bible makes a promise. It says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
You need to come. And in light of what Jesus did on the cross, ask Jesus to forgive your sins. I like a prayer that's read in some more formal churches. And it's a prayer of confession. Let me read this to you, and I just want you to remember this prayer as an example.
I'm not saying you have to pray this prayer wrote, but it's an example of how you can pray for forgiveness. Ready? Most merciful God.
We confess that we have sinned against you in thought and in word, in deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us that we may delight in you.
in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name. Amen. You come to God with that heart and Jesus forgives your sins. But you can't forgive your own sins, your forgetfulness, time, all those other things.
That doesn't deal with it. Only God can forgive sins. Now, I said that the religious leaders did three things right.
The first thing right was that they were checking Jesus out and they had every right to do that. The second thing that was right was that they reasoned in their hearts, they were thinking, they were engaged through the message. The third thing that they did right was they correctly analyzed the situation that only God can forgive sins.
But we all recognize that there was something so adversarial, so hypercritical in the approach of the religious leaders that it poisoned all those three good things. So they weren't coming with an open heart just to say, okay, I'm willing to, who is this guy? I want to look at it fresh.
Instead, they came with a predetermined thing in their heart. They were looking at Jesus sideways as soon as they walked into the room. And their corrupt hearts poisoned the three good things that they did. And it put them in an adversarial position. Now, when you make yourself an adversary of Jesus, you're going to lose.
Look at what happens here in verse 8. But immediately. When Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, he said to them, why do you reason about these things in your heart? Stop right there before we get into verse 8. Shouldn't have that changed them right there?
Whoa, he's got us. This man has a power by the Holy Spirit of God to know what's in our hearts. What's going on with this? Jesus is doing something amazing here. Maybe we need to reconsider our preconceived notions about him.
What's going on with this? Now look into verse 8. Jesus continues and says this. Excuse me, we're into verse 9 now. He says, which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you, or to say, arise, take up your bed, and walk? Now that's a very interesting question in verse 9. Which is easier?
Well, I could give you two answers to that question. I could give you the spiritual answer. The spiritual answer is, is that it's easier for the man to be healed than for his sins to be forgiven.
Do you know what was involved with that man's sins being forgiven? Jesus Christ had to go to the cross. Jesus Christ had to pour out his blood as a sacrifice. Jesus Christ had to take upon himself the sins of the world to purchase the forgiveness that would be granted to that man and to everybody. That was costly.
That was a huge thing. In relation to that, healing a lame man is almost nothing. Spiritually speaking, it's much more difficult to forgive sins than to heal a paralyzed man.
But physically speaking, speaking by what we can see and touch and feel, it's a much more difficult thing to heal the man's paralysis. Why? Because you can immediately tell what happens.
When your sins are forgiven, There's not a light on your forehead that changes from red to green. But that would be awesome if that's the way it was. I can just imagine praying for somebody, you know, who wants to receive Christ.
And I'm like, no, you're not there yet. Keep praying, man. You're not there yet. You're not there yet.
And they're like, yes, yes, you got it. But it doesn't happen like that. This work of forgiveness of sins, it's real, but it's spiritual.
And it can't be seen by the human eye. The effects of being forgiven can be seen, but those take a little while to be evident. At that moment, nobody could see whether or not the man's sin were forgiven, but they could see whether or not he could walk.
So in that sense, it was a much more difficult thing. So Jesus says, well, let's get the difficult work, either way you slice it, and the easier work out of the way. Let me read verse nine again, which is easier to say to the paralytic.
Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, arise, take up your bed and walk, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. The first thing I want you to notice is that Jesus made a dramatic announcement right there in verse 10. That the Son of Man has power on earth. earth to forgive sins. Jesus wanted it crystal clear to those religious leaders.
I have the power and authority to forgive this man's sins. I'm not just telling you that his sins are forgiven by God. I have the power to forgive his sins.
Do you realize what he was telling the religious leaders at that moment? Jesus couldn't have said it any more clearly. I am God, which was like a hand grenade in their hearts.
He's God. How can he say such a thing? Jesus, as if Jesus said, you accuse me of blasphemy because I claim to be God. Let me tell you something.
I am God. Friends, this is an astounding thing about the Christian faith. I want you to never stop being amazed about this. We talk about it a lot, so sometimes it loses its power to us, but don't ever stop being amazed at the fact that we believe that a man who looked like other men was more than a man, he was God.
And that Jesus Christ is God, and he walked this earth, and he laid down his life. And why does he have the power to forgive sins? Not only because he's God, but because he paid the price. He was, to use a biblical phrase, he was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Just like a lamb was sacrificed for the atonement of sins, so Jesus was the perfect sacrifice on the cross.
Our sins aren't forgiven because God just says, okay, now I'll be nice. You know, I was the mean God before, now I'm the nice God. No.
Our sins are forgiven because God says, I paid the price. And here's the price. My own life, I'm going to give it to you at the cross.
Oh, forgiveness for that paralyzed man was free. And for you and I, it's free. But it's not cheap. It cost Jesus everything.
All of that is tied up in that marvelous phrase. The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. And then Jesus said to the paralytic, I say to you. arise, take up your bed and go to your house. Now, if I was watching this, I would pause it right there.
Can you imagine the tension in the room when Jesus said that? I mean, it's almost difficult to describe. The religious leaders were tense because Jesus challenged them and he said, I'm going to demonstrate to you. that I am the Son of God.
The paralyzed man was tense. Don't you think he was? Oh, my stars, what's going to happen right now?
I don't know. Is it really going to work? Is Jesus really going to heal me? The owner of the house was tense because he's thinking, how much is it going to cost to repair that roof?
What's going on with the roof anyway? The four friends were tense. And I mean literally they were tense. Their muscles were cramping up. They're like, Jesus, just heal the guy or don't heal him.
We're losing it up here. And then especially you would say that the only one not tense there was Jesus himself. The crowd senses all the tension from all the other characters, but when the crowd looked at Jesus, he's there smiling. He's there at perfect peace. I'm glad Jesus was at perfect peace there because imagine if Jesus would have failed.
The paralyzed man struggles to get up and nothing happens. The crowd cheers him up, come on, try harder! And he struggles to get up again. And you can imagine the stretcher tilts a funny way and he falls off.
And the crowd gasps. And everybody's completely silent. The crowd slowly leaves the house. Those religious leaders, they smile and they say, he can't heal or forgive. The four men pull up an empty stretcher and they look more dejected and embarrassed than ever.
And that homeowner, he looks at his roof and he goes, this was for nothing. No, but Jesus did not fail. Jesus can never fail.
What happens? Again, verse 10, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, verse 11, I say to you as arise, take up your bed and go to your house.
Verse 12, immediately he arose, took up his bed and went out in the presence of them all so that they were all amazed and glorified God saying, we never saw anything like this. What a tremendous resolution of the story. And how did this happen? Look, physically, I can't explain it to you. I can't explain it to you where muscles that were atrophied, perhaps nerves that were severed, bones that were broken.
I don't know what the specific cause of this man's paralysis was, but whatever is wrong, he put forth effort. Nobody mistake it. Jesus didn't like levitate him off the stretcher and put him on his feet. He had to put forth energy.
He had to say, I believe that I'm healed, and I'm going to try to put strength in legs that haven't felt that strength. in years. I'm going to try to move something that hasn't moved in a decade or more. Jesus says, I'm healed. I'm going to try to act like it.
And as he did that, the power of Jesus met him and he stood up and he took up that stretcher. And I don't know how this happened. This is like the second miracle here. I don't know how it happened, but that room that was so crowded that nobody could get in, it parts like the Red Sea.
And the guy walks right down the middle aisle and he walks out. everybody is amazed. No wonder that they were amazed.
That man was both forgiven and healed. I wonder, I wonder when he walked out, what was he saying? I can walk or I'm forgiven. I can walk or I'm forgiven.
I don't know, maybe he was saying both. I hope so. The friends were relieved and notice this, the faith of those friends was vindicated.
The friends who took the energy and the initiative and the trouble to do something as crazy as that, to bring somebody to Jesus, their faith was vindicated. The religious leaders, they folded their arms a little more tightly across their chest and they said, this man Jesus is a real problem. We got to do something about this. The homeowner, he said, don't worry about the roof, I got it. And the crowd, was amazed.
What a beautiful, beautiful account. Now, do you like to see yourself in the Bible story? I like to do that. Ooh, I want to see myself in the Bible.
Where am I in the Bible story? I want to act like it's real. It's not just 2,000 years ago. Where am I in the Bible story? Well, put yourself in this Bible story.
But let me tell you from the beginning, you're not Jesus, all right? Jesus is Jesus. You're not Jesus. You need to come to Jesus. You need to receive what Jesus gives.
So take that off the table right now. You're not Jesus. You're not the one with the authority to forgive sins. So in this story, we're going to let Jesus be Jesus.
But how about us? Well, maybe the person you are most like in this is the man who was paralyzed. You have problems in your life. And one of those problems, even your greatest problem, even if you do not feel it, is your sin problem.
And again, I'm perfectly willing to understand and communicate. You don't feel like that's your biggest problem, but there's something telling you, even right now, by the Holy Spirit, you know what, this is my problem. I haven't made this right with God.
I haven't humbly confessed my sins. I haven't received the forgiveness. that Jesus went to the cross to purchase for me. Here's what you need to hear. Come to Jesus and Jesus will forgive your sin.
Absolutely he will. Or maybe you're like a second person in the story. Maybe you are most like the religious leaders.
You know what you've done? You have talked yourself into an excessive skepticism about the Christian faith. Look, I'm not telling you to come to the Christian faith unthinkingly.
No, it's okay for you to reason in your heart about these things, but you know the difference between reasoning your heart in a good way and doing it with a mind that is somewhat poisoned by preconceived notions and prejudices. And God's word to you is don't be like those religious leaders. You're demanding that Jesus play by your rules.
Today, Jesus challenges your skepticism. And he says, do not end up like these religious leaders. Open your heart to me, Jesus says.
And then the third person you might be most like in the story. You be, you might be, I should say, most like the men who lowered their paralyzed friend down to Jesus. You are believing God for miracles in the life of friends or people that you love. And you know what? You are tired of holding the ropes.
Jesus sees you. He commends your faith. But don't you see that Jesus would say, don't let go of that rope until I answer. I know you think it may be unnecessary, this conversation I'm having. Jesus would say, just as much as the four friends up there thought, Jesus, why are you talking all this stuff about forgiveness and this?
Why don't you just get to the point and either forgive him or not forgive him or heal him or not heal him? Jesus says, no, no. Hold on.
I know it's a strain. I know maybe your arms are cramping. But don't let go of the rope.
Jesus sees your faith. And in due time, I believe he'll honor it. The paralyzed man, the religious leaders, the four friends. Jesus had something to say to each and every one of them.
But I want you to know in just a moment, I'm going to pray. And in the midst of my prayer, I'm going to give a very simple invitation. If anybody here wants to give their life to Jesus Christ. What I've spoken about today about faith in your life, you say, no, I need this. I know that I may have other problems like the paralyzed man, but I need to fundamentally be made right with God.
I need the forgiveness of sins. If that's stirring around in your heart right now, let me tell you, it's not because of the preacher. It's because the Holy Spirit of God is speaking to your heart right now, and he invites you to respond. He's not going to make you respond in a manipulative way, but he's calling you. He's inviting you.
If that's you this morning, I'm just going to give you up to a very simply respond right where you're sitting. and to do a very simple thing to express your faith in Jesus Christ. I'm going to pray and give that invitation right now as the worship team comes up.
Father in heaven, first of all, Lord, we want to thank you for the wonder of your word. Lord, it's such a beautiful thing for us to transport ourselves back to these amazing accounts in the Bible, to feel as it were that we were right there in the room with Jesus. and to see our Savior, Jesus Christ, triumph again and again. But Jesus, we're the ones who come to you with need. Lord, maybe we're the ones needy because we need to be made right with you, like the paralyzed man.
Lord, maybe we're the ones who are needy because we're just judging things too harshly and we have an excessive skepticism to you. Lord, maybe... We're the ones, we need our arms strengthened as we hold the rope for our friends.
Lord, I pray wherever anybody is across this room, that Jesus, you draw near and meet us all. But Lord, I particularly want to pray for those who know this morning, I need to be put in right relationship with God, and I know it can only be done by Jesus who died on the cross for me. If that's you this morning and you want to confess your sins and surrender your life to Jesus Christ, either for the first time or we're in a recommitment because you've fallen so far away from a prior commitment that you just know you need to do it again. If that's you here this morning, just all you need to do, raise your hand where you're at. I'll see it.
I'll pray for you and it'll be your expression of faith. God bless you back there. God bless you and you. God bless you and you.
God bless you too. You over there to my right. Bless you.
Bless you all over the room. Bless you. God bless you. Father, I pray for every hand that's raised right now.
By the way, if you want to raise your hand while I'm praying this, go right ahead. But Lord, I pray for every hand that's raised right now. And I pray, Jesus, that you would come and meet them in your power and authority and that you would show them great grace. that you would grant, Lord, as we trust in you, as we confess our sins and open and bear our heart before you, that you would forgive our sins and that you would grant us new life in Jesus Christ.
Lord, pour that out upon everybody who responds to you now here this morning, as they reach out to you in faith. Do it, Lord, by your power and glory. We pray in Jesus'name.
Amen. This is a message from the ministry of Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. For more information about our church, please visit calvarysb.com.