Lets open our Bibles up to Luke 5 together. I talked about impossibilities and the importance of faith. Were going to look this morning at two examples found in Luke 5, which is the series we are on. Were going through the Gospel of Luke together. The first example is a man with leprosy, a condition that eventually would take his life. Hes an outcast, yet he comes to Jesus and says in Verse 12 (page 1019 of pew Bibles), Lord, if You are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, He said. Be clean! And immediately the leprosy left him. Then the second story in this chapter is about Jesus teaching in a house. There are so many people coming that there is no room. They bring their friend who is paralyzed, and they cant fit into the building. Everywhere they go, the building is full, so they come up with the idea of lowering him from the roof. They climb up on top, and they start to lower him down in front of Jesus. I bet you anything, Jesus stops talking at this point. You cant compete with a crumbling roof. If all the sudden the drywall started coming down here, and somebody is dropping someone through the roof, Im not preaching anymore. Lets see whats going on. So they drop him in front of Jesus, and what will He do? It says in Verse 20, When Jesus saw their faith, He said, Friend, your sins are forgiven, and He healed the man. Well be looking more at some other scriptures in this passage, but I want you to notice something. First of all, theres a common theme, and that is that each one of these men-each one of these people-were proactive in their faith. Faith is not a passive thing. Faith is not sitting on your hands, twiddling your thumbs waiting for God to act. Faith takes initiative. This man took initiative. This man said, Lord, heal me. I have seen people go to the other extreme because there was a segment, or a thing christened them, that people have said, Well, theyre the name-it-claim-its, so theyre treating God like Hes a cosmic vending machine, like He is a genie. You say the words and rub the lamp, and Hell dispense blessings to you. So, I dont want to do that. I know its not about me; its about Him, so I make sure everything I do is about Him-not about me. Ive even heard believers say, Well, I dont pray for myself. I pray for others. I pray for our church. I pray for our country and world, but I really dont pray for myself. Have you heard people say that? I want to say, Why not? Why dont you? How effective can you be if youre struggling with sickness, depression, pain and anxiety? How effective will you be for Christ if youre being oppressed by those things? Think of a soldier who is on the battlefield, and hes wounded. The paramedic comes up to him and says, Let me help you. Let me stop that bleeding. Let me take care of that infection. The soldier says, Oh, no, no, no. Im not thinking of myself right now. Theres a war going on, and I have to be strong to help this guy, this guy, and this guy. The paramedic, if hes smart, says, Thats exactly why I need to help you today. Thats exactly why we need to stop the bleeding, exactly why we need to take care of the infection-bandage the wounds and set the bones, so you can be healed, so you can be strong, so you can be effective, so you can minister. Jesus doesnt rebuke this man. He says, Lord, if youre willing, You can help me. Jesus reached out His hand and scolded the man and said, You selfish man! Shame on you for only thinking of yourself! Jesus doesnt rebuke him. Jesus meets the need. Its an okay thing to pray for personal needs. I know most of us do, but we have a few martyrs out there who we have to talk to for just a moment. Its an okay thing. Now, if youre only praying for yourself, thats a problem, right? If youre only praying for selfish needs, thats a problem; but if you have a legitimate need, God cares about that need. You are well within His will to pray for that. I notice how this faith is persistent. They go after it. Sometimes we see obstacles, and we walk away-not these guys. Thats not what faith does. Faith presses through obstacles. You say, The door is full. Im going to go through the roof. Jesus says in the Book of Matthew 7:7-8 (page 961 of pew Bibles), Ask… Lets turn there. Well come back to Luke, but lets turn there. This is teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Jesus is inviting you. Jesus is challenging you to pursue Him, to persist in faith. If it is true that I ask and seek and knock, the door is open to me, is it also true that if I do not ask, I do not seek, and I do not knock, the door will not be open? You think? Try a little experiment and be so bold. Go to somebodys house after church in the neighborhood, and stand at their front door and see what happens. If you start grumbling and complaining, Better go to Eds house since Ed goes to our church. He might tolerate a little bit more. But if you go there and stand at the front of the door, are you surprised when nobody answers? Do you start grumbling and complaining because nobody is answering the door? You say, Well, of course not. I havent knocked or rang the doorbell. If this were done in a modern translation, Jesus might say, For he who rings the doorbell, the door will be open unto you. If you want the door to open, you have to knock. As ridiculous as that illustration sounds, some of us stand in front of closed doors complaining and grumbling about why the door hasnt opened. The truth of the matter is we havent knocked. Were just expecting, Open Sesame. God knows my needs. Hes going to do it, right? Hes going to open the door. Jesus says, I want you to ask. I want you to seek. I want you to knock. As a parent rewards good behavior and withholds for bad behavior, the Lord does the same thing. In the Book of Mark 6, He comes to His hometown, and the hometown wants nothing to do with Him. It says they knew Him, Isnt this Joseph and Marys son? Dont we know His brothers? Isnt He the son of a carpenter? Who does He think He is doing all these miracles? The Bible says He could not perform many miracles there but healed a few. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Was it that He couldnt do the miracles there or He chose to not perform the miracles there? He chose to not do the miracles there. He chose to withhold blessings. There were people who could have been healed who went home the same way they came because they didnt seek. God will bless when we ask, seek and knock. He will withhold when we dont. I was in Lighthouse Bookstore here when Lindsey was about four, so it was about six years ago. She is normally very good, but on this particular day, she was a little fussy. I gave some reinforcement. I said, If youre good, well pick out a little prize for you to take home with you. So she was pretty good until she saw something else she wanted. She said, I want that, Dad. I said, Okay, then you have to put this back. No, I dont want to put this back. I want that too. I said, Well, you cant have that, too. You can have this or that, but you cant have both this and that. So she started to throw a tantrum there in the store. She started to fuss. I said, If you continue to do this, not only will you not get the new thing you want, but youre not going to get the old thing you wanted. You will get nothing. If you behave yourself like I said, I will keep my promise, and I will buy you one thing. If you continue to act up, you will go home with nothing. She continued to act up, so I took both things out of her hand and put them back. We left the store empty-handed. Sometimes we think God is dumb, that we can fool Him. God is smarter than you and I. It says [in Galatians 6:7, page 1155 of pew Bibles], Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. But God withholds when we dont have faith. Hebrews 11:6 (page 1192) says, …without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. In James 1:6-8, the Word says that when we ask, We must ask in faith and not doubt, for the one who doubts is like the waves tossed back and forth by the sea. Let not that man think he will receive anything from the Lord, being unstable in all of his ways. Hes double-minded. So God withholds from us. Had this man not sought Jesus-had this group of men not made that hole through the roof and let their friend through-he would have died paralyzed. Jesus wants us to ask, to seek, to knock. Notice that when they do this, there is an expectation. Faith has an expectation that an answer is coming. When faith knocks on the door, it expects the door to open. He says, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Do you see the expectation there? Hes anticipating that God is going to do something good in his life. Because I know the nature of God, because I know the character and the faithfulness of God, when I ask, I can ask with an expectation. Ill tell you a puppy story this morning. I havent done any animal stories for awhile. I have a little dog named Penny who likes to play ball. Occasionally, her ball will get under the couch where she cant reach it. Shell try with her snout and then her paw. If its right there, in fact it doesnt have to be in there very far, she knows its impossible to get. So what shell do is shell start going around the couch, looking at it from every different perspective, and then the next phase is she starts to whine (Pastor makes the sound of a dog whining). Sometimes shell do this for quite a while. Then shell finally get around to asking me because she knows I can do the impossible (congregation laughing). I can get balls out from under the couch, which from her perspective is impossible. From her perspective, thats quite a miracle; but from my perspective, its pretty easy. I dont just get up and get it. I wait for her to come and ask me, so she comes over to me, and she asks. God kind of does the same thing. Hell watch us struggle with the problem, look at it from every angle, and try to figure it out. When we cant, we start whimpering, complaining and grumbling. Eventually, we get around to asking, right? Youd think she would just wise up and, as soon as that ball runs under the couch, run likity split to me and go, You know, Im never going to get that. Im going to need your help. Youd think wed get it: when things would come our way, instead of scratching our heads trying to figure this all out, run around, look at it from every angle, grumble and complain, and then we would finally say, Okay, I need help. Youd think that as soon as we get in that situation, wed go, Okay, I need help right away. She asks me and she uses a different language when she comes to me. Shell come to me and look at me and get a little louder, whining like rrrr, rrrr, rrrrr, rrrrr. That means, I cant get the ball. Can you help? When I make eye contact, and as soon as I say, You lost your ball? Do you want me to get your ball? her ears go up, eyes get big, and her tail starts to wag because she knows that Im going to get the ball. If I get up from that chair and start walking toward the couch, as far as shes concerned, that ball is as good as in her mouth. She knows something good is coming her way, so she gets all excited. When you pray, do you get excited? Do you say, Im just excited to hear or see how God is going to answer this prayer? It may not be in the way or when you expect Him to or how, but Hes going to. You get excited. You anticipate. You have expectations that rise in your spirit. Because my dog knows Im able-she knows Im willing, and she knows I can, she gets excited as if that ball were right there. Notice when you act in faith, God rewards. So, youre going to see this man get more than he asks for. God loves to do that. The Word of God says Hes able to exceedingly, abundantly [give] above all that we can ask or think. We tend to put Him in that box that we saw. We tend to have those limitations because we see the world through our perspective, through our natural limitations, but its not the way it is. Look at what happens here in Verse 20, When Jesus saw their faith, He said, Friend, your sins are forgiven. What did he come for? Did he come to have his sins forgiven? Did he come down there, and the words out of his mouth were, Jesus, forgive me for I have sinned? He didnt come for forgiveness; he came for healing, and he got both. He wanted this, and he got this and that. He got it all. God loves to reward our faith. Not only was he healed physically, but he was cleansed from sin. When Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven you, Hes not just simply talking about I forgive you or you forgive me like we did a wrong against one another. Its not that kind of forgiveness. What Jesus is talking about here is removing the guilt of sin. What Jesus is saying here is Im going to cleanse your soul. Now, I can forgive you, or you can forgive me, but I cant cleanse your soul. I can point you in the right direction for Who can, but I cant cleanse your soul. I cant cleanse my soul; how am I going to cleanse your soul? We cant wipe out sin like God can wipe out sin. The Pharisees understand exactly what Jesus is saying because in Verse 21, it says they began thinking to themselves. Notice, they dont ever utter it. They dont say it-they just think it. Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone? Exactly. No one-only God. So, Jesus here is manifesting or asserting who He is. Hes showing that He can forgive sins. Verse 22, Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say: Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk? By the way, this man gets up to walk, and he leaves with a clean soul. You get more than you bargain for when you walk in faith. I got down underneath that couch, and I saw toy-heaven under there. Not only did I get, and this usually happens, I got the ball, but I got a couple other balls and I got that empty Culvers sundae container she likes to chew on. Usually, she likes the stuff she finds more than the stuff you buy. She got that empty two-liter bottle of pop that she loves to chew on and chase. She got that half of a plastic Easter egg from Easter shes been chewing on. She wanted the ball, and she got the whole shebang. She got toy heaven. I started bringing all of this stuff out, and she was like, This is amazing! The two-liter bottle, the Culvers now. Wow, man! Dont be surprised-when you act in faith-if God doesnt give you more than you asked for, more than you bargained for. These men saw things from Gods perspective, not from mans perspective. Mans perspective is if youre paralyzed, youre paralyzed for life. If youre a leper, youre going to die that way. They saw in terms of the natural, just like we do. We tend to think that if you live in the Bible times, you expected miracles, that supernatural was taken for granted because after all, you live in Bible times. These people hadnt seen miracles until Jesus came. Yeah, there were some miracles in the Old Testament. By the time Jesus came, those stories were already hundreds of years old. They hadnt seen any of that. They lived in a natural world. Many of them had secular mindsets-Im talking Jewish people. They had secular mindsets. Practicers of the Law had secular mindsets. We always talk about the Pharisees. Have you ever heard of the Sadducees? The Sadducees believe that this is all there is. There is no heaven; there is no resurrection; there are no spirits; there are no angels. None of that exists. No one expected miracles. The average guy wasnt expecting them. He lived in the real world. Yet, these men had faith, a supernatural faith in a real world, and God is asking us to do the same thing. He is asking us to see through that same lens, to see things from His perspective. He lets us in on that perspective a little bit here when he confronts the Pharisees for their thinking. He says [in Verse 23], Which is easier: to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk? But you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…. He said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home. Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, We have seen remarkable things today. Notice, Jesus doesnt say, Which is harder? If that had been me, I would have said, Which is harder? What do you mean which is easier? Neither one of them is easy. Here are my choices: to cleanse a mans soul by forgiving his sin and removing his guilt; or enabling a paralyzed man to walk. I dont think either of those is too easy. From my perspective, those are both impossible; but from the perspective of Jesus, He said, Which is easier? [Jesus says,] If theyre both easy, which one should I do? Ive already done the one, but just so you know that I can, hell walk too. The fact that he was able to walk validates, substantiates and proves that his sins were forgiven. The fact of what they saw demonstrated and proved that what they could not see was true as well. When we encounter the problems of our lives that just seem to get insurmountable and grow larger and bigger, are we looking from a human perspective or are we looking from Gods perspective? If were looking from our perspective, were going to say, Man, look how big that is compared to me. That is overwhelming to me. I dont see a solution. I dont know what to do. Its getting bigger and larger and more overwhelming in my life. If were looking at it from Gods perspective, wed say, Look how small this is compared to God, how easy this is for God. Do you see the difference? People of faith see the difference when they look from Gods perspective. Which is easier? Let me ask you a question. Is the God of the Bible alive today? Yes. Is Jesus of Nazareth alive today? He is. The grave could not hold him. He is alive. Has He lost any power? No. Does He still care about our needs? Yes, He does. If thats the case, why dont we pray anymore? Why arent we asking more? Why arent we seeking? Why arent we persisting? Why arent we pursuing more? I wanted to take some time this morning to pray and lift up some of these things that are weighing on your soul. Were going to believe God for the impossible this morning. Would you bow your heads with me in prayer? Father, the first thing we want to do this morning is confess. We want to confess to you that sometimes we look from the perspective of man rather than from Your perspective. We look at problems in our lives, and we say, Boy, which one of these is harder? Theyre both hard. Theyre both impossible. Theyre both overwhelming, but You would look at those, and You would say, Which is easier? Forgive us for the times we have put You in a box. Weve not asked. We have not sought. Weve not knocked. In fact, weve been quite passive in our faith, quite nonchalant. Weve stood in front of doors that are not open, and weve grumbled and complained, but we havent knocked. Weve seen problems that are out of our reach, and we circle them and try to figure them out if we can. We grumble and complain and finally get around to praying. Forgive us for that. Thank you for these men who took these spiritual risks, this man who interrupted You as You were walking-the man who interrupted You as You were preaching. You didnt see them as interruptions. You saw them as opportunities to reward faith. There are blessings that we could have, but You have withheld them because we have not learned how to walk in faith; so its my prayer this morning that as we envision, as we see, these obstacles, these problems-be they physical, be they financial, be they relational or emotional, or maybe even something we cant put our fingers on-wed have the confidence to know that You see and Youre aware and we would ask, even now, even today. We would say, God bring healing. God bring deliverance. God bring restoration. God take this weight from me. God, help me to see clearly. I need you. …that we would ask with a confident expectation, knowing Your nature, knowing Your willingness and Your ability to use Your power in our behalf, that we might be a people of faith. I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.