A teacher led her class one day in a study of definitions. She would read a word, the children would respond with the definition. One after another they gave their definitions on words that dealt with personal relationships: uncle, aunt, cousin, neighbor, etc. They were doing so well until they came to one little boy who was the first to hesitate and fumble. The word he was to define was “friend.” Try as he might, he could think of no good way to define this familiar word. Finally he blurted out a child-like definition, “A friend is someone who likes you, even though he knows you.”
How would you define the word “friend”? The dictionary says: a person whom one knows well and is fond of; an intimate associate; a close acquaintance; a person on the same side in a struggle; a supporter, sympathizer, ally. Those definitions may be good, but I kind of like that little boy's desperate one: “A friend is someone who likes you, even though he knows you.”
Maybe his definition won't ever get into the dictionary, but it contains an insight which the dictionary's didn't capture. Doesn't it often happen that the true essence of friendship means that one person continues to “like” the other in spite of his faults and shortcomings? A true friend is “a person who likes us, even though he knows us.”
How true that is of the friendship that exists in the heart of God towards His fallen creatures. He knows us for what we are; still He loves us. Indeed, is there anyone else who knows you better, yet loves you more than God?
The Apostle Paul writes, “God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Ro.5:8). In the same chapter, he goes on to tell us that Christ died for those who were His enemies, for those He knew were ungodly, for those who disobeyed Him. If it is true, as the little boy said, that “a friend is someone who likes us, even though he knows us,” then what a friend we have in Jesus!
May the Holy Spirit graciously guide us in the study of our text to see that this is true. As our Friend He seeks to I. Comfort our troubled hearts; and to II. Help us in all needs. What A Friend We Have in Jesus .
I. He comforts our troubled hearts.
One day Jesus was teaching a houseful of people. Among them were a number of Bible students, known as scribes. They were experts in the law of Moses, and spent much of their time copying them down. They came from towns and villages all over Judea and Galilee to hear Jesus preach.
Just then four men came down the street carrying on a mattress a man who couldn't walk. He was paralyzed and badly crippled. They were coming to Jesus because they believed the He could heal the man.
When they saw that they couldn't get into the house because it was packed with people, they carried their friend up to the flat roof. Digging through the dried mud and straw, they opened a hole large enough for them to let the man down on his bed right in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw how much faith in Him the five of them had, He said to the man in the bed, “Take heart, son; be happy; your sins are forgiven” (Mt.9:2).
Now, dear friends, what is different about that? I'm not talking about the people who were gathered there. I'm not talking about the unusual way of getting a sick person to Jesus. I'm talking about what Jesus said in the presence of the sick man. What's different about it?
I'm sure that all of you have at some time stood at the bedside of a friend or relative who was quite ill. Think back and try to recall the first thing you said to them as they lay in front of you. Did you try to encourage them by saying, “Take heart; your sins are forgiven”?
When a person is very ill, we tend to talk about a lot of other things first, don't we? We talk about the family, we talk about the weather, we talk about how things are going on at work without them, we talk about a lot of matters. And, if they are Christians, we talk about them in their sickness lying in the hands of God. And that is good, especially the last thing as we seek to cheer and encourage our friends. But Jesus goes two steps further and doesn't even make note of the illness or how it is affecting the man. He addressed the man within, in his sin.
No doubt every one who was watching that day expected this Healer of the sick to take care of the man's most obvious physical need. I'll bet if we had been there that day, we very well would have been expecting the same, straining to see how Jesus was going
to work a magical cure in this man's life. But He didn't, at least not at first. Instead, He went much further and said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” And with that He brought the greatest cheer possible by comforting the man's troubled heart. What a Friend Jesus proved to be.
Since the Bible says that Jesus knows what is in a man (Jn.2:25), it would seem that this is the thing that was really troubling the paralytic, his sin, because that's what Jesus addressed. Oh, I'm sure that the man's illness caused him much sorrow. I can't imagine all the anguish, physical and mental, which has to be linked to paralysis. To not have the use of the body's members, to not have the ability to move the arm or write a letter, to not have the ability to walk, to not have the ability to lift your head and feed yourself – I can't imagine the anguish that must cause. Can you? But that wasn't the matter that troubled this man the most; it was his sin. As a true friend Jesus addressed it for his soul's welfare
When the health of the body declines, a concern about the soul often arises. That's especially true the more intense a sickness gets. Disease and injury remind us that life is a journey to the cemetery. No one escapes it. One can try to close his eyes to it or seek to put it out of mind, but the truth of the matter is life is a journey to the cemetery.
Do you remember what Job said about this a few weeks ago in our sermon text? When he was very sick, Job was confronted by this truth and lamented, “Does not man have hard service on earth….Nights of misery have been assigned to me….My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and they soon come to an end….My life is but a breath….As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return” (8:1f).
It is a fact of our existence: life is a journey to the cemetery, for “the wages of sin is death.”
So it is that when the health of the body declines, the conscience stirs us with hard questions about our past: “What about the hurt you caused others over your lifetime? How can you hide that sin of your youth from God? Could God ever take a liar like you into his holy heaven?” And the devil loves all of this for he then prompts us to rehash past transgressions and raises all manner of doubts within us. Many a bedridden patient has poured out his heart about sin.
The sick need a more powerful medicine than the hospitals can give. So, in steps the Physician of our souls, our dearest Friend who knows us, and likes us even though He knows us in our sin, Christ. He promises that His blood covers us. He promises that by His wounds on the cross our souls are healed. He promises that all who believe in Him shall be saved. And this is what Jesus wants to tell us above all other matters: “Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven.”
It is the first thing He wants to tell us, so that He can comfort our troubled hearts. What a Friend We Have in Jesus – all our sins and griefs He bears.
II. He helps us in all needs.
With that assurance comforting his heart, Jesus showed the paralytic more. He showed that He could help him in all his needs. In fact, He must help in every need otherwise there is no hope.
When the scribes heard what Jesus said about forgiveness, they scoffed at His words and refused to believe His authority to do it. That was an amazing contradiction in itself. Here they had already seen Jesus time and time again healing all manner of sick people. They knew He could do that; the evidence was all over the place. But they didn't think that Jesus was God and could forgive sins as well.
Sometimes it seems like we can almost reverse their doubts. We know that Jesus is God and forgives us our sins. But then we begin to doubt that He cares about us enough to help us in all our needs.
To either type of limited thinking Jesus says in our text, “I know what you are thinking. Why do you doubt me? Which is easier to say and do, forgive sins or heal diseases?”
Which is easier, dear friends? In truth it is impossible to call one easier than the other. They each require special power, super human power.
Only God can heal. Oh, medicines, doctors, and procedures are vehicles through which God brings healing. But it is the Lord “who heals all your diseases,” the psalmist writes (103:3).
Only God can pay for sin. “No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him,” another psalmist says (49:7). But it is Christ who is the ransom for all.
Healing or removing sin requires power beyond us. And both must be worked by God. He alone can help us in all need. So then, do you see what Jesus is doing by posing this question? In it our Friend reminds us that we can do nothing for ourselves – nothing. We depend totally on Him.
Can you take your terminally ill soul and with the balm of grace heal it of sin and give it eternal life? No. But Christ can.
Can you take a shriveled hand and, without surgery or therapy, make it whole? No. But Christ can.
Can you take any situation in life and find the complete answer that will make the problem go away? No. But Christ can, for He is the mighty God who can help in every need. He is the merciful Savior who wants to help in every need. And He is the faithful Friend who has helped us in every need of the past, and who invites us to keep on coming to Him for help from our burdens.
We may not know how long our Lord wants us to bear a particular burden. We may not know if He will deliver us from it in this life or the next. But we do know that He loves us even though He knows us. We do know that He died for us to forgive us all sin. We do know that he doesn't want us to give up when the door is blocked but rather to climb up on the roof and cut a hole in it, if need be, to get to Him. In other words, be persistent in faith and in what you ask of Him, confident that your best and truest friend will hear and help.
What a Friend We Have in Jesus. He comforts our troubled hearts and He helps us in all needs. He really does change our lives. God grant us such faith for Jesus' sake. Amen.