Jesus Forgives

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. We are in week three of this series called Come Follow Me, as we are kind of working through the Gospel of Matthew. And today, well, first of all, we have seen in the first two weeks of this series, we have gone through how revolutionary, how ruthless, and how resurrecting the call of Jesus is on the disciples. And last week, we went as well through how unwilling, unable, and unworthy we are of that call, and yet Jesus still calls us. Today, we will hit three more points about the call of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9. And in this section, 9 verses 1 to 13, what is fascinating, I think, something that hit me this week, is Matthew has a story ahead of time of the healing of the paralytic and immediately his call and aftermath together. And I think there are some links between the two. I think he is telling us something about what the call of Jesus is like in this story. So, we are going to start now in Matthew 9 and read verses 1 to 13. And getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven. And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, This man is blaspheming. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He then said to the paralytic, Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and he went home. When the crowd saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God who had given such authority to men. As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. So, in this section, we're going to look at three points today. Again, kind of an assonance, I guess, or an alliteration. We're going to look at the Jesus Call, and that it is scandalous, it is superior, and it is also salutary. I know, what a word. We'll get to that. But first of all, it's scandalous. Now, you'd think that a healing of a paralytic would be a no-brainer, everybody just applauding and thankful for that. But, the way Jesus does it, and you see the reaction of the scribes, which I said last week are the Bible nerds, they know their scriptures very well, but they don't seem to know the God of the scriptures at the same time. The scribes were present, and they were scandalized because Jesus forgave this paralytic without condition. And, by the way, that's the only way forgiveness actually works. I don't know if you know that. But, if there are any conditions placed on forgiveness to someone, then it's just a transaction, you're making a deal, a negotiation, it's not the forgiveness of God. True forgiveness is always just a straight-out declaration, proclamation. And that's what the scribes complained about. Who is this? Who does he think he is that he can do that by what authority? People hate that kind of direct speech. Yeah, direct speech. I forgive you, or I love you. We'd rather kind of talk about, you know, may you be forgiven. We kind of try to soften it a little. I hope, you know, love is a nice thing, isn't it? We kind of pander around. It's really difficult. The first time someone who loves someone else, like when you're, quote, dating, and you finally, Kevin, when was the first time you said I love you to your lovely wife? I hope it wasn't the wedding day. But it was probably a little scary to admit the fact, isn't it? Do you remember that first time? You almost hedge your bets at times. You're trying to go like, I wonder, how is she going to respond? How is he going to respond? Do I say it? Do I not say it? Do I say it in passing? Hmm, yeah. We hate direct speech because it is so vulnerable to us, but that is exactly, every one of God's promises is direct speech, where he says, I am calling you, I love you, I forgive you. It's very direct. Not this, may you be forgiven, or may things happen. You know, may the road rise up to meet you. Do you know that one? I mean, it's like, that's nothing. That's nothing. But God's promises are always direct speech. And God does what he says. That's what's the amazing thing about it. This words, he forgives sins and...