The Forgiveness of Sins

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Hey, it's good to have you here today. Let's begin with prayer. Lord God, we thank and praise you so much for your goodness and grace. Just the way, Lord Jesus, that you were around people, how you loved them, how you forgave them, how you welcomed them, how you ate with them, how you fellowshiped with them, how you wanted to be with them, how you rejoiced in it and you partied with them. And we thank you for that, Lord Jesus. It shows just how much you really do love us. You want to be around us and you want us. We thank you for that. We pray, Lord God, today that this message sinks in deeply to the core of our being so that we know. We know you deeply. We know you more. And we can be known by you, broken and messed up and fumbling and stumbling along that we are. Lord God, we pray for all the churches in our area, the one church, really, Lord, the one Christian church across the entire globe and in this community, too, in various expressions. And we thank you, Lord, for all our brothers and sisters elsewhere. And we pray your gospel word really gets into them and through them to others, Lord, in this community. We pray for our community and we pray for our nation, Lord, that you bring your healing, your goodness, your grace to us in an amazing way and bring about renewal, Lord, in our hearts and lives and through us to others. All this we pray in Jesus name. Amen. So we are in week 11 of the foundations series, the building blocks of our faith, and we are almost at the end. Next week is our last one. Oh, you know, but it's we're going to end up really well. I think it's on the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. Right. Amen. Can I hear an amen? OK, yeah. And I think it's going to be good. I know it's been a long series and we usually don't go that long, but I think this one's going to be good today and next week as well. This whole creed is just so powerful. And we've talked about how it's our identity. It's who we are and what we are and our allegiances to that and our encouragement to each other that we believe this together. And some days I kind of struggle with believing all of it. I know you go like, what? Yeah, we all have struggles and somebody else can believe with me there. I was a little spunky, right? Yeah. OK, so. But yeah, and we all struggle with this stuff and we need the Holy Spirit. We need each other. We need to be in community. We need to gather together. And I think we're going to see the power of today, the forgiveness of sins in this story. Two stories that I think are really tied together by Mark, the writer of this gospel. Very importantly. So we are in Mark chapter two and you can look up the sermon notes on the Bible app. You can check that out. But we're going to be marked to one through seven. It's a long passage, but you'll see why. One through 17. And when he, that's Jesus, returned to Capernaum, Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home and many were gathered together. So there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. Now, some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, why do you question these things in your hearts, which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven or to say, rise, take up your bed and walk. But that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, we never saw anything like this. He went out again beside the sea and all the crowd was coming to him and he was teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I ...