Sons and Daughters of Christ

I'm glad to be with you all. Those of you who came to the marriage conference this weekend, you've got to be tired of hearing me talk by now. Those of you who didn't come to the marriage conference and still call yourself a Christian—we had a good time. My little light will stay on. We were talking about marriage, emotional, relational dynamics, and all of that. I love doing that. I love teaching about parenting or marriage or growth or relationships. That's my job. And I really enjoy being a psychologist.

My greatest joy, though, is so often when I travel and do conferences—I'm given the privilege to speak in this capacity, to bring God's heart to my brothers and sisters, my fellow believers. Psychology is my job. This is my love. So I'm very grateful to James and Jeff in the session for giving me this trust, for giving me this opportunity to speak in this capacity.

Our weekend was sort of about the dynamics of family and marriage. So I thought it'd be appropriate to maintain that theme for our sermon this morning. And if you're a Christian, that's actually an easy thing to do. Because if you're a Christian, you're not just doing religion here. You're part of a family. You're someone's child. You're a child of God himself. He calls us his sons and his daughters. We're family. His family. That's where we're going this morning.

I don't have a lot of application. This is not going to be a practical sermon with five points for doing x, y, z better. We did that this weekend. All I want to do with y'all this morning is reflect on who you are to your God and to your Savior. I want to just reflect with you on his heart for you, his heart for us. I want us to worship. I want us to take joy in who he is.

I read the book of Mark a lot. I love Mark. It speaks my language. I'm not sure exactly why. I think it's because Mark was like Peter's head disciple, and so there's a sense in which you could say the book of Mark is the gospel—the collection of Peter's stories about Jesus. And who doesn't like Peter, right? And I'm really struck by the Christ that I find in Mark. He's aggressive and loving and alive and active, and even funny sometimes in this book.

So I'm going to look at two stories with y'all this morning from the book of Mark. Two stories that reflect one another. Two stories that reflect his heart for us. And these two stories are going to reflect words of family. In both of these stories, we're going to see someone who is helpless and desperate like we are sometimes. And in these stories, we're going to see Christ's loving heart for them and the way in which he gathers them into his arms.

Let's read the stories. Mark 2:1-12:

And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was in a home. And many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And men came bringing with 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 this? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 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, '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 that." — Mark 2:1-12

Mark 5:24:

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all she had. But rather than getting better, she got worse. And she had heard reports about Jesus. And she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment for she said, "If I touch even his garments, I'll be made well."

And immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out of him, immediately turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And the disciples said, "You see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" But Jesus looked around to see who had done it. And the woman, knowing what had happened, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. — Mark 5:24

And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease." — Mark 5:34

Truly, our help is in the name of the Lord. This is how he speaks to us.

As you all might remember, on a couple of occasions when I've been here and preached to y'all, I don't do heavy theology and biblical exegesis and stuff from the pulpit. I'm not a theologian. I'm just a Jake leg psychologist. I like to tell Bible stories. I basically haven't graduated much past the felt board Sunday school thing. Those are awesome there, right?

So I want to look at some Bible stories this morning with you and listen for the family that Jesus invites us to.

The Man Lowered Through the Roof

In the first story, he's in his hometown. At some point, Jesus and his family moved from Nazareth to Capernaum. And contrary to what he says about a prophet not being welcome in his own town, he's being mobbed at this place. He's in someone's house and he's preaching to them, and all the people are crowding around the door. They're packed in the house—wall to wall people. They're overwhelming it to go hear Jesus.

Which, by the way, has always been intriguing to me. Do you ever think it's interesting that Christ, who's the most holy, righteous person who ever walked the planet—God incarnate himself—was impossibly attractive to the people who were broken and sinful? In fact, the only people who were repelled by him were the people who thought they were righteous and had it all together. That's always intrigued me. What was it about him that drew the people who were usually repelled by religion? Can we be like that? Maybe that's another sermon.

But anyway, he's preaching, and suddenly the whole sermon is interrupted by banging and clattering and what my grandmother would have called commotion. Someone is literally taking the ceiling—the roof—apart. Now, this is more or less radical depending on whom you read, like what commentaries. Some commenters say that Hebrew roofs had sort of a thatched awning, kind of a mat of straws, like a sunroof that you could pull back. And that's no fun at all.

The truth is, though, that most commentators believe that these guys were literally digging through the plaster ceiling. In fact, the Greek verb that's used here implies aggressive demolition. Now, that's what I'm talking about. The story is getting good.

I imagine as this happens, everyone, including Jesus, stops what they're doing and starts to look up. The preaching stops, of course. It'd be like if somebody started rappelling from these lights here during my spellbinding sermon. You wouldn't be listening to me. It'd be, "What's going on up there?" So they did what we would all do—everything stops. And then these faces appear in the hole looking down, amid the debris. And if that weren't surprising enough, then they start lowering a man's body down through the ceiling with ropes. Crazy stuff.

But what catches Jesus's attention here is not the hole in the ceiling or the trapeze act. We're told that what he sees is their faith. The text says, "And when he saw their faith."

What Is Faith?

You're going to hear the word faith a couple of different times in our stories here this morning. What is faith? I know it's a religious word. We use it a lot as believers. But what is it like psychologically, spiritually? What is the mechanism of faith in a human heart? How does that work? What does it mean?

If only we had a certified licensed mental health professional here, we could ask him. Wouldn't that be nice? I'll tell you: technically speaking, what faith is—if you look at it in terms of human functioning—faith is a phenomenon we would call a bonding capacity in humans. In other words, it is an act that the heart does that ties us to something or someone else. Faith is what is going to tie these people to Jesus. Faith is what ties us to another person. Kind of like love. Love is similar. Love is a bonding capacity. Love is what connects you with your fiancée. You love her. Now you're not marrying love. You're not in love with love. Love is just the capacity that ties you to them. That's what faith is. Faith is the heart response that ties us to Jesus. That's why he likes it so much. It's the thing that makes my heart vulnerable and dependent on him.

So as they lower this man down with ropes in faith, seeking healing—paralyzed, unable to walk—and in response to their faith, Jesus leans down and he says to the man:

"Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now, every time I've ever heard the story told or preached, and I've been going to church and Sunday school for sixty-three and a half years, I've heard it told this way.

I tell people I had a drug problem as a child. I was drugged to Sunday school, drugged to church. So we get used to these stories. Every time I've heard the story preached, somebody says something like this: "Now, here's a lesson we can all learn. We want Jesus to fix our infirmities and solve our problems and make it all better. This man wanted his legs healed, but we don't understand what the real problem is. The real problem is you need your sins forgiven, and Jesus knows what the real problem is." Almost as if this guy and us are going to be disappointed if he doesn't leave walking upright because that's what we really want. But Jesus knows what we really want.

That's what I've always heard preached, and I thought certainly that is valid in so many ways. But I'm reading the story one day and something stops me. I think, what if that's not the story? There are so many unusual things about it that got me to thinking. Let me throw out a little bit different possibility of why Jesus does this. What if this man was not disappointed in what Jesus said? What if Jesus knew exactly what this man needed to hear?

Think about it. This guy was a paralytic in the ancient Near East. How long did those guys expect to live? Charles Spurgeon, in speaking about this passage, even says, "Perhaps the reason these men were in such a hurry to get their friend to Jesus was possibly because he was possibly close to death." Think like Sherlock Holmes with me here. They could've waited outside till after the sermon. They could've talked to him tomorrow. This is Jesus' hometown—Capernaum. They knew his hangouts. So what's the rush? Why dig a hole in somebody's roof? They feel this urgency. They climb, dig a hole, get this guy to Jesus now. You do the math, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It's sort of like EMT paramedics busting in to get this guy and take him to the hospital. Except they're taking him inside the hospital. I wonder if this man and his friends weren't worried about his death. There's this urgency there.

So let me ask you: what would you need? Who would you be feeling? Do you ever think about your death? Does it ever scare you? To think about meeting God? Like the idea of eternity? I don't know how secure you are in your faith, but I get scared sometimes. If I died right now, I wake up in the middle of the night and I have this feeling like, am I really his? Like, would he really welcome me? Am I really forgiven? Am I safe in him?

I have a client who died recently of cancer, and I walked through that cancer with her in therapy for years. We talked about this a lot. Then a couple years ago when I heard that she had died, I wasn't with her when she died, but I knew her so well and I thought, I wonder if what I—I almost don't have to wonder. I almost know exactly what she was experiencing. We talked about it so much.

But do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with those feelings? If I died right now, am I really his? Am I really saved? So what will you feel on your deathbed? In other words, here's my point: what if Jesus knew exactly what this man needed to hear?

Jesus Addresses the Real Fear

And actually, the Matthew version of the story shows that Jesus begins his interaction with the paralytic man by comforting him. He says, "Take heart." He says, "Don't be afraid." Jesus knows this guy is afraid. This man has just met his maker. So what does Jesus say to him?

Jesus says, son. Son, your sins are forgiven.

What would you give at those times where you feel most insecure in your faith or vulnerable about whether God loves you or wondering about your eternal salvation or even feeling like death might be imminent? What would you give to have Jesus kneel down at your side and put his hand on your shoulder and call you son and tell you, you don't need to be afraid. Your sins are forgiven.

I wonder if Jesus knew exactly what this man needed. And I wonder if Jesus didn't answer this man's primary question—and all of our primary questions in the middle of the night. Jesus, do you love me? Do you want me? And in answer, Jesus calls him son. He calls us son. He says to all of us who trust in him: Yes, you are paralyzed. Yes, you are dying as we speak. You try and you try and you try and you fail and you're afraid. But don't be afraid. I call you son. Get to know the family to which you belong. He calls us son. We're family now.

The next little bit's a bit of a throwaway in the sermon, but I can't resist it. The thing that happens next in the story gives us a little glimpse actually into the subjective experience of what it was like to be Jesus. I wonder about these things. I'm a therapist, right? What did it feel like to be Jesus? Isn't that what a therapist would think?

So throw me a bone, right? I asked this kind of stuff. The scribes are there and they become very disturbed by this interaction with the whole forgiving of sins thing, knowing correctly that only God has the authority to forgive sins. Jesus hears their hearts and he's going to respond to them in a minute with a demonstration of his power. But first, he gives us this little glimpse into what it's like to be him.

He says to them, "Which do you think is easier to say to the paralytic: your sins are forgiven, or to rise, take up your bed and walk? Which is easier?"

Do you ever think that some things were harder or easier for Jesus? I mean, we all know that experience, right? Like it's easy to make scrambled eggs, it's hard to make eggs Benedict, right? It's easy to play tennis at the club. It's hard to play Djokovic at the US Open. Alright? We have that sense.

And for Jesus, it's easy to heal paralytic legs. That's easy. It's hard to forgive sins. The cost is deeply hard. Calling us sons will come at a huge cost to him. And apparently, he knew it. And apparently, he thought about it. And apparently, he anticipated it. And he knew it was going to be hard. This is the person that we relate to. He is a person. He is alive. He hurts. He's gotten sad and he gave his life for you and it was hard. Calling you sons. It's hard.

The Woman with the Hemorrhage

Let's look at our next story. In Mark 5, Jesus is again very occupied. This time by one of the guys who's usually one of the guys who's on his case. Jairus is a ruler of the synagogue and these are usually the guys like we just heard from the scribes who are mumbling behind Jesus's back. But this one asked Jesus for help. His daughter, Jairus's daughter is deathly ill. He implores Christ to come to heal her and Jesus consents. He's on his way. He begins his trip to Jairus's house and the throngs of people follow along. You know, "Hey, Jesus is going to Jairus's house to heal his daughter. Let's go. Let's take the day off." Apparently, these people had real flexible working hours.

Now, as they go, there's this mob pressing in on all sides. But suddenly, as we watch, the camera angle backs up. We see Jesus in the mob walking toward Jairus's house and into scene we see this one anonymous woman in the crowd start to move into focus. And I literally mean anonymous. In the sense that you'll notice in both of these stories, the paralytic man and this woman, neither one of these people are given names. They don't have names. Jesus is the only person who names them.

Another thing that we learn about this woman is that she has some form of hemorrhaging, a blood flow, an internal blood flow that has not stopped for twelve years. And even if you read this account in Luke by Luke the doctor, even the doctor Luke admits that she had spent all her money on doctors and they hadn't helped her. They even made it worse.

Now, one of the things we can deduce from this is this has been a very lonely twelve years for this woman because the kind of blood flow that she had wasn't just a physical ailment, it also made her ceremonially unclean according to the law. And it meant anybody who touched her would likewise be ceremonially unclean. She could not approach the tabernacle. She had to take Passover a month later. There was even implication of judgment, of death, on someone who remained unclean like this. She could not touch another person or be touched and hasn't been for twelve years. She was deeply alone because she was unclean.

But we're told that she's heard about Jesus. And you can imagine the plan she starts to concoct. "I'm unclean. I can't have direct contact with anybody, much less this holy teacher. I'm untouchable. But perhaps if I'm sneaky, perhaps if I come up behind him, real quiet like, and not even touch him—I'm just going to touch the hem of his garment and then get away."

Imagine the gimbaled elevated track angle camera as it follows through the crowd and you see this woman moving into focus, looking around carefully as she's approaching Jesus. She doesn't want the disciples to bust her. But she's moving forward with her hand outstretched, getting closer to Jesus, reaching out to touch the fringe of his garment. And at last her hand closes on the fabric and she can feel it in her hand, dirty and rough.

And then suddenly she feels something else. Something she hasn't felt in twelve years. The bleeding stops. She feels it. And Jesus feels it. We're told he can literally feel the power leave him. It's another glimpse into Jesus's experience. But he feels the power move through him and he stops and he asks a question. A question I assume he knows the answer to.

He asked, "Who touched me?"

Now, why does he do this? He turns around and asks, "Who touched me?"

He asked a question. Why is he asking a question? I mean, he's reading the scribes' minds three chapters ago. He knows who touched him. Why does he ask? To get to know her. He asked because he wants to touch this woman. He wants to encounter this woman. This untouchable woman. This woman who has no name. He does not want her to get away with her sneaky little plan. Jesus says, no. I want to see you. I want to touch you. I want you to be engaged by me. And all of a sudden she's busted and the crowd stops and everybody's looking around, who did touch him? Like those times in elementary school when some kid makes a rude noise and the teacher rolls around and goes, who did that? You know, it was never me. Anyway, even the disciples think this is ridiculous. Their response to Jesus—I mean, there's this mob ahead in the same direction. There's shoulders and elbows and people stepping on one another's sandals and the disciples are almost like, look, Jesus, let it go. I mean, there's a thousand people here. Who touched you? But Jesus stands his ground. He says, who touched me?

And this woman, realizing that she's outed, she's busted, comes forward, terrified. For a woman to even speak publicly in their culture was scandalous, much less an unclean woman like this speaking to the great teacher. But we're told that she tells Jesus the whole truth. That's Mark's word: the whole truth. I love that. She tells him her story. She tells him, it was me. I have had this unclean bleeding for twelve years and I've spent all my money and I've looked everywhere but you. I'm chronically unclean. But I thought maybe if I just touched your garment that you would be able to heal me where others have not, and then I could sneak away again.

And what does Jesus say? Jesus says to her, "Daughter. Daughter, your faith has made you well." He calls her daughter, and the Greek word here literally means this filial, tender, familial, affectionate term. It almost means like baby girl. She has no name. She is untouched for twelve years. She is alone. She does not even feel like she can personally approach Jesus, much less tolerate a face-to-face encounter with him. But Jesus has other plans. He seeks her out because he wants personal, because he wants family, because he wants his daughter.

This is our salvation, and this is our family, and this is us again. In the first story, we are paralyzed, and we are unable, and we are helpless, and we are afraid. And in this story, we are unclean, and we feel unworthy, and we are alone.

The Poetic Reversal

If you are unclean like me, there's a beautifully poetic twist to what happens with this woman and Jesus. Why? Because within the Old Testament law, if someone who is clean ever touches someone who is unclean, what happens? The clean gets sullied. The clean is now unclean. Now you're both unclean and you're both off to the tabernacle for all this ceremonial cleansing. But in this story, when the unclean touches the clean—clean is not sullied—the unclean is cleansed. It's backwards.

So what happens when you bring your dirtiness to Christ? Even if you feel like it's too much for him, even those things you want to hide, those secrets, those things you don't even want to imagine him seeing you do, that thing, or treating that person that way—afraid that your uncleanness will drive him away, that it'll sully him. This story reminds us and comforts us that when we touch Christ and he touches us, he doesn't start to look like us. We start to look like him. And my friends, everything starts to look like him.

Why Jesus Heals

Let's take this one step bigger. What does Jesus spend—pop quiz—why does he spend so much time in the New Testament healing people? You ever think about that? I said I grew up in church, drove to Sunday school, drove to church. I'm used to these stories. I'm used to Jesus. What does Jesus do? He heals people, right? But why? Why is that so often what he does? Is it to demonstrate his divinity? Well, partially. Mark 2:10 tells us that. But to do that, he could have made the sky purple or, you know, made animals talk like Balaam's ass. Right? Why heal people? Why feed five thousand? Why cast out demons? Why these things?

I'll tell you what I think. We got any other English lit majors in the crowd besides me? There's a phenomenon in English lit called foreshadowing. You know the term. It's where something early in the story pre-echoes something big that's going to happen later on. Right? Foreshadowing. So the guy is going to die later on. He walks through a graveyard and the church bell rings and he feels a chill up his spine. Oh, foreshadowing. Okay.

Well, Jesus heals as foreshadowing. But not as a foreshadowing of death, but a foreshadowing of life. See, Jesus didn't just come into the world to save you from the penalty of your sins. That's true, but if that's where you stop, you're thinking too small. Alright? Jesus came into a world in which God made perfect ages before.

A world in which he walked in the cool of the day with his sons and his daughters and they were naked and not ashamed. It was safe and there was no hiding and there was realness and there was intimacy and it was a world in which no one was hurt and no one died and no one was paralyzed and no one had sickness. And sin destroyed that.

And Jesus the redeemer—whose promise from the third chapter of the Bible on—came not just to make everything right between us and God, but to make everything right. Jesus' ultimate goal here is not just to teach the gospel or to heal this disease. Jesus' ultimate goal is that he is bringing in a new family. He is bringing a new hope. He calls it the kingdom of God. And it's where we're headed and it's why he came. To create a place where finally there is no more sickness and no more death and no more divorces and no more job loss and no more being misunderstood by your spouse and your family.

The healing in the gospel is foreshadowing of that new world. The kingdom of God.

Thy kingdom come. — Matthew 6:10

After all, he doesn't just heal these people here in Mark. He calls them son and he calls them daughters. Healing ain't the point.

A Little Bit of Faith

So think about your life and your struggles and your sin and the ways you fail and maybe you're hopeless and maybe you've tried everything and maybe you've prayed for deliverance and maybe you've sinned big. Maybe you've got big secret sin nobody knows. You haven't been seen and touched. You're alone for twelve years. Maybe you're unclean. But maybe you have just a little bit of faith. You know that thing that ties us to Jesus? Maybe just a little. Maybe so little that you can't even come face to face with him. Maybe so little you gotta have your friends bring you with ropes.

But you're able to say, "Lord, I'm not able but you are able and I cannot reach for you because I know that you can. And I make myself vulnerable to you that you will."

Maybe you just have a little faith. Well, he will whirl around to find you. And he will not just heal you or save you, he will call you his son. He will call you his daughter. And he tells us to call him Father—Abba in fact. Because this is family, y'all. Where the broken are mended and the fearful are comforted and the untouchable are gathered in the arms with a father and a son and a spirit and lots and lots and lots and lots of sons and daughters calling him Abba together forever.

Why? Because you have not received a spirit of slavery that leads to fear. You have received a spirit of adoption as sons whereby we cry, "Abba, Father."

Welcome to the family. Amen.