Four Friends and Jesus

Hi, my name is Bill Starr and my wife Cindy and I have been Members at Living Hope for the past 5 years. We have three grown daughters, all of whom are married and three grandchildren. I currently serve as a 4th grade boys shepherd at 9:30 and as a teacher with the 3 year olds at 11:00.

At the beginning of Scott’s message yesterday he was discussing how we look at our faith and the fact that we often treat God as a cosmic bell hop who exists to meet our needs and grant our wishes. I believe that if most of us listened to several days of our prayers we would find that much of our prayer time is spent presenting a “to do” list to God and then following up to see what the hold up is on getting our requests answered. The scriptures present a very different picture of what our interaction with God should be. God is worthy of our worship and our service. As we consider what He has done for us in sending His son Jesus to earth to take on flesh, live a sinless life and then be offered as the final sacrifice for sin, how can we have any response other than thankfulness and gratitude? When my heart struggles to evoke this type of response, I have learned to go back and consider again what God has done through Christ on my behalf. As you read the Psalms look how often the Psalmist reflects on how God has acted in the past and this makes him worship and it gives him hope for the future.

The four friends of the paralytic put their faith into action. What did they know about Jesus? Perhaps not very much, but they did know that Jesus had healed people of various afflictions. They believed that He could heal their friend and they took steps to make it happen. Scott noted their perseverance – the room was full, the way was blocked. They did not give up but became creative and found a way to get their friend face to face with the Savior.

Notice that Jesus deals one on one with the paralytic. The friends have done their part; they have brought their friend to the Messiah. Do you think the paralytic was surprised when Jesus said “Son your sins are forgiven”? Jesus got right to the ultimate core issue – the sin problem. Notice also how the paralytic did exactly what Jesus told him to – take up your mat and go home. This is a great example of simple obedience.

Scott closed the sermon by mentioning that the man came in on a mat and he went home carrying the mat. To Scott’s point this morning, my guess is that the man shared the “good news” of his encounter with Jesus with everyone he met. When we encounter Jesus our lives are no less changed than this man’s. We experience a heart change. This heart change should be as evident to those around us as the change in the paralytic was to those who saw him walk out of the room carrying the very mat he had been carried in on.

God is good

Bill