Text: Matthew 9:1–8
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
Take Heart! Your Sins Are Forgiven
This morning, we will see two very important developments in the ministry of Jesus:
First, we will see even further into the extent of Jesus’ authority. So far, the Lord has demonstrated his authority over nature, over human illness, and over the powers and principalities. Now, he will show his authority over sin itself—the divine prerogative to forgive sin.
Second, we will see the first rumblings of opposition from Jesus’ greatest opponents, the Jewish religious leaders. Their opposition—a whisper here in Matthew 9—will grow to a crescendo by the end of the gospel, where these Jewish leaders will find themselves crying out to Pilate in chapter 27, “His blood be on us, and on our children!” calling down a blood curse on their own heads, desperate to rid themselves of this Christ—and we will see the first hints of what is at the root of their opposition to Christ.
Look with me, then, at Matthew 9:1. This is the Word of the Living God:
“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 went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”
-Matthew 9:1–8
Thus ends the reading of God’s Word. May he write it on our hearts by faith.
Authority to Forgive
Look again at verses 1 and 2,
“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.”
-Matthew 9:1
Here Matthew records an account which we see from different angles in both Mark and Luke’s gospels, and as is the case several times, Matthew significantly shortens his retelling in comparison to the parallels. Both Mark and Luke record that Jesus had been teaching in a house, and the crowds had been so great, that the friends of the paralytic couldn’t get him in to set him before Jesus. So they actually carried him onto the roof, dug through the roofing material, and lowered him down before Jesus.
This may seem desperate, but think of what this man and his friends must have been going through. As a paralytic, this man likely couldn’t have held a job, relying instead on the charity of friends and family. His affliction is one that still can’t be healed today, in most cases, but one which would have been 10x harder to bear in that time than ours.
As with the leper in the previous passage, here is a man whose affliction has cut him off in a very practical way from normal human experience. How would you be married and care for a wife and provide for children in his state? You could’t. How could you participate in worship the way a normal man would? You couldn’t. And he has virtually no hope of change apart from miraculous intervention.
So his friends have likely been involved in feeding and caring for him, probably for some time, maybe even years. They clearly loved him, clearly would go to great lengths to see him healed.
And so, at great effort, they get him to Jesus. They must have been elated. Now this man—this man whose reputation must have been spreading—a man who could heal the sick and lame, who could cast out demons and clam storms—surely this man would be able to help their friend! But, verse 2,
“And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.’”
-Matthew 9:2
Why forgiveness and not healing?
So ask the question that th paralytic must be asking: Why forgiveness and not healing? Be honest: Do you think there would have been some element of disappointment in this man and his friends upon hearing Jesus’ pronouncement, some level of letdown and confusion? “Thank you, Jesus, but this man is paralyzed! He needs healing, not forgiveness!”
Why does Jesus forgive rather than heal? Clearly Jesus has compassion on the man. This greeting he gives him is a warm, strong greeting: “Take heart, my son!” So it is not for lack of compassion, or regard, or interest in the man.
To The Root
Here’s what I want you to see: When Jesus forgives before he heals, he is like a physician who refuses to merely treat symptoms, insisting on destroying the root disease afflicting the patient, and not its mere symptoms. Giving someone a Tylenol might make their headache go away, but if they have a brain tumor causing the headaches, you’d better take care of that first.
I’m not saying that this man’s paralysis was directly because of some specific sin of his own; we have no reason to draw that conclusion from the text. But as surely as if it had been, this man was paralyzed because of sin.
Our bodies break down and die; our flesh grows cancer cells; our sight fails; our joints swell—all of it, every affliction and illness and calamity—because of sin. Sin is the mother of all suffering. And so Jesus, demonstrating his authority over the very root of all that ails us, reaches in and takes hold of it by the root: “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”
Remember at the very beginning of the sermon, I told you that Jesus has already demonstrated his authority over nature, over illness, and over the powers and principalities. And all of that is, of course, glorious. It shows us just who were are dealing with in this Christ—the Son of Man. The one from Daniel’s vision. The one with all authority and a dominion.
And all of that is, of course, awesome. But think with me for a moment: Would the coming of such a one as that be good news for sinners? It would only be good news if—if and only if!—that same Lord came with grace and forgiveness for sinners. If he comes in power, but not in grace, he can come only to destroy his enemies, not welcome sons. So what are we seeing in this act of forgiveness? Nothing less than the greatest grace that the Lord can offer: The grace of reconciliation with God by the forgiveness of sin.
To put it another way, two things happen in this story for the paralytic: His sins are forgiven him, and he is healed. Which is the greater grace? No question, the forgiveness is a greater grace than the healing. Without the forgiveness, the healing is a fresh battery in a flashlight on the edge of an eternal night—a temporary comfort, but nothing more.
The Grace of Forgiveness
Now, before we move on, meditate on this for a moment with me, on what it means to be be forgiven—meditate on the glory of this fact, that Christ came to clear sin. If we understand this glory, then we will understand why what I just said is true, why forgiveness is a grace which far outstrips bodily healing, even from an affliction like the one this man had.
We see the glory of Christ’s forgiving grace clearly when we understand what it is that sin and guilt does to us, and therefore what it is to have it taken away.
Guilt crushes. Grace frees.
Guilt is a crushing weight. It is a dry rot in the bones. Guilt is a faintness in the blood. Consider David’s lament and plea after his sin with Bathsheba in Psalm 51,
“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.-Psalm 51
Some of you are there, and I mean right now. Some of you feel the crushing weight of guilt right now. Some of you are trying desperately to hide it, to justify it, to wish it away, to ignore it long enough to hopefully forget it, to blame it on someone else.
Some of you are trying to pay for your sin by doing enough good things, by being nice to people you’ve wronged. And you know just how futile all of those efforts are. But you know that you can’t get rid of it like that. You need to get under the only shelter that is available for the weight of your sin: The shelter of God’s forgiveness in Christ. You need to get to the point where you can sing out Psalm 32 with joy:
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.”-Psalm 32:1–7
The glory of Christ is the glory of the sin-forgiving, debt-clearing Lord of mercy. The Lord forgives with a word here—because he intends to pay the debt that this man owed in blood, in his own blood, by the end of his ministry. He knew that he would take this man’s record of wrongdoing to his cross, to be nailed there, and left there, and finished there. He knew that he would go into the grave of death, and rise from that grave, and leave death there so that this man could have resurrection and life. He knows that he is himself the resurrection and the life.
So listen: He will not turn you away. If you will confess your sin, the Father says that he will be faithful and just to forgive you your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Stop hiding it. Stop it.
You are not alone in this room. We are with you, because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You have nothing to hide and nothing to prove in this room. If you will just confess, we will join you with shouts of praise. You won’t find people looking down their noses at you; you will rather find brothers embracing you. Be clean.
Sin is like bone rot, bone cancer, eating you from the inside out. This is why we include the weekly confession of sin and assurance of pardon in our liturgy. Having assurance that your sin is forgiven you is one of the most empowering results of the gospel’s work. Keeping short accounts is essential to our freedom in Christ. It is essential that you hear the voice of Christ, week after week, saying to you as he did to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son! Your sins are forgiven.”
Heading for a Blood Curse
But now, this pronouncement of grace did not go out from Jesus’ mouth without causing a ripple of opposition. Look back at the text with me, verse 3:
“And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”
-Matthew 9:3
Blasphemy is anything that diminishes or assaults God’s majesty—especially anything that seems to lower God to our level, or raise us to his. So the scribes are incensed, because they believe that Jesus is taking authority which doesn’t rightly belong to him—after all, against whom do we ultimately sin when we sin? God. And so therefore who can forgive that sin but God? They are only half right. Verse 4,
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 went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”
-Matthew 9:4–8
Here is the issue: Jesus has claimed authority to forgive, but unlike his authority to command storms and cleanse lepers and cast out demons, his exercise of this authority is not visibly apparent. You can’t see sin being forgiven. You can’t see this authority. It is possible to say the words, “Your sins are forgiven,” and have that statement be nothing but nonsense. And so what Jesus does is to demonstrate his invisible authority to forgive by way of his visible authority to heal.
A Den of Glory Thieves
And as with the last two miraculous signs, Matthew records the reaction of the people: They were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
This reaction actually helps us to see the roots of the scribes and Pharisees’ opposition to the Lord Jesus peeking out. The Apostle John names it in his gospel in John 12:43, where he says that the root issue with the Jewish authorities was that they loved the glory that comes from men more than the glory that comes from God.
They were jealous of Jesus, because they thought that Jesus was stealing something that belonged to them: The people. They loved being worshiped and seen and loved and respected—and here comes this teacher who is not one of their students, a son of a carpenter, gathering the masses. This becomes so obvious by the end of Matthew’s gospel that we will see even Pilate recognize their motive, when, in chapter 27:18, we’re told that Pilate knew that they had delivered Jesus up to be crucified out of envy.
They hated Jesus, because they wanted power and renown and glory from men. So they viewed Jesus as a rival, not a help. What a warning to us! Pride will do that to you: It will make you feel threatened by anyone else who does good, as if they are stealing from you.
And so rather than believing the Lord, coming to him for cleansing, and receiving him as their Messiah and King, they set themselves against his Kingdom—because they had their own kingdoms to build. They would not believe in Christ, because they thought that people ought to believe in them.
Do You Believe?
So that brings us to a final question I’d like to leave us all with this morning—a question this story ought to provoke in us. The question is simply, “Do you believe?”
Specifically, do you believe that you are a sinner, and that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sin—your sin? The Pharisees didn’t think they needed cleansing. They thought that they kept the Law—ostentatiously “obeying” the minutia whilst neglecting the weighty matters of justice and mercy. Do you believe that you are without hope without grace?
And when you confess that—when you say, “Yes, I am a sinner. I need grace. Father, forgive me,” do you then believe him when he says, “Clean!” Do you believe him when he says, “Take heart, my son! Your sins are forgiven you”?
I ask, because one of the most pernicious ways we spit in the face of God’s glory—blasphemously, an attack on the heart of his glory—is by refusing to believe that we are forgiven when he says we are. I say that this is pernicious, because it can even feel very spiritual, very humble to do so. It feels as if you are taking your sin very seriously when you continue to carry around the weight of guilt for it.
But to do so, to do so after the Lord has said, “Your sins are forgiven you,” is to claim an authority above the Son of Man’s authority. It is to say, “No, I will not be clean. I haven’t done enough.” Blasphemy! You are forgiven if he says you are forgiven! What more can you do than what he has done?
So some of you need to confess your sin and receive God’s grace, and others of you need to glorify God today by letting go of the guilt that you have been carrying around for sin of which you have repented, confessed, and been cleansed by the blood of Christ.
Remember what Christ has done. Christ has fulfilled the Law—every jot and tittle of it. Every point, down to the minutia—these he did, and did them without neglecting the weightiest matters either. And Christ has born the curse of sin on his cross. Christ has died and been buried—buried so that your sin and guilt might be buried there in the ground. And Christ has risen, so that you could rise to new life with him—you and not the sin that was buried with him.
And so the invitation of this text is plain to all of us: Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.