Jesus Can - Week 2 - The CORE - Pastor Michael Ewart
Jesus Can
Week 2 - The CORE
Pastor Michael Ewart
There's a question I love for you to think about quick and that is this: What is your biggest need right now?
And I'll be fascinated to hand around a microphone. And just hear a few people. Tell me what you, what is your biggest need at this moment and I think we'd get a pretty wide variety of answers. I think we'd have people, for example, saying, well, there's this relationship. It's on the rocks. It's not going well. My biggest need is for restoration there.
Might be somebody else. Who would say? I am so unhappy in my job and my biggest need right now is to find that career. That would truly bring satisfaction to my soul because I don't know what it is and I haven't found it.
Might be somebody else. I would say my biggest need right now. Honestly is a few thousand dollars. Uh, I'm in trouble. I've got debts, I've got a payment coming up. They would change my life if I just had a few thousand dollars right now, that would change everything. That's my biggest need.
Other people might say, you know what, my biggest need right now is Health-related. Four yourself or for a loved one.
It's bad. It's not good. I need healing. That's my biggest need at this moment. And as we went around the room, I think we'd get even more variety. Different people saying different things about their current biggest need, what is yours right now? I want you to kind of keep it in your mind.
Now, what I would suggest is that there is another need that maybe you didn't think about immediately. But as I continue to talk today I think it might rise higher and higher might even come to the top. As far as your biggest need and it's actually common to all of us. I would venture to say I'm going to be so bold as to say every single person listening to this. Has this very great need that you maybe just don't quite yet realize.
The problem that we all have, that we all deal with and is a bigger problem than we usually realize is unresolved guilt.
There are things that have happened in your life. There's things that you do, there's a weekly thing, a daily thing that comes to your mind where you have this guilt that you feel. And that guilt is not yet fully resolved and that guilt has consequences for your emotional health, for your mental health, and even for your physical health. Even secular psychologists, who are studying these things are recognizing that unresolved guilt is an enormous problem that is underneath, and at the root of many of our problems, and many of our perceived needs, And it can cause so many issues in our life, it can cause anxiety. Unresolved guilt can lead to depression. It can lead to enormous amounts of stress in your life. It can make it difficult for you to concentrate, it can lead to poor sleep because you're awake at night because of the guilt that you are feeling. It can lead people to self-punishment to enjoying life much less because of the guilt that you feel.
One study found that the average person, I'm not sure exactly how they figured this out, but the average person spends five hours per week feeling guilt.
Feeling guilty five hours a week which surprised me because I would have guessed the numbers higher.
And if we really start to unpack and think about all the ways that we feel guilty, I bet it is more than five hours a week. I mean, we feel guilty about so many things. I kind of brainstormed a list of ways that sometimes I feel guilt, maybe you feel guilt, you feel guilt that you're not spending enough time with your kids. If you're a parent you ever felt that you ever feel guilty. When a friend is in need and you really should have been there for them, but you kind of weren't. You weren't that they needed in the moment.
You ever feel guilty about not getting a present for somebody that you really care about or you got the quick present that you didn't put much thought into and then later you thought that did not reflect how you feel about them. I should, I should have done more, never felt that kind of guilt.
You ever felt guilty about the quality of work that you are doing?
Yeah, I didn't I didn't pour my whole self into this. This wasn't the best solution I could have done better. I bet you felt that. Ever felt guilty about binge watching Netflix?
I may have.
Any guilt about wasting your time watching video after video on TikTok or scrolling the Instagram feed endlessly or spending too much time looking through Facebook. I bet you have.
They feel guilty about how messy your kitchen is. Or your house could have spent more time, cleaning it.
Ever feel guilty about not getting the workout in or not starting that workout regime that you promised you were going to or that one that you said you were going to do on January 1st. And here we are end of February and it's that happening anymore. If you're like most people that's typical but you feel guilty about it.
Ever feel guilty about how much you're eating? About drinking too much? About not eating more healthy?
Have you ever felt guilty about how much you're spending?
Ever feel guilty that you're not saving enough for retirement or the future?
Have you ever felt guilty about harsh words that you've spoken to another person, you wish you could take him back, but they're already out. Have you ever felt guilty about failing to say, encouraging words to a person in a needed moment? You let the opportunity pass you forgot you didn't. You just it? Didn't take the moment to encourage them with the words. They so would have been encouraged by, but you didn't do it.
Have you ever been at home?
Thinking about all the work you have to do at work and you feel guilty, you're not doing it.
Have you ever been at work? And you felt so guilty that all the time you're spending at work and you should be at home. Maybe even on the same day.
If I touched some of the things you feel guilty about, do you think five hours is right? I think it's got to be more than that.
And then there's the big things. I'm just touching on the daily things for the most part there. But then there's that, really big thing, that, that you do that addiction, that you struggle with that thing. You keep going back to again and again. Or that thing that you did. It's complete lapse of moral judgment and character that doesn't even seem like you, happened three decades ago and yet it still comes back to your mind sometimes and you still feel the guilt from it.
And sometimes we keep having recurring guilt for something that's not even that big of a deal you ever had that. So, I mean, I'll tell you something that a situation that I was in that, that I'm experiencing that right now. Don't tell anybody else's between us. So there was, uh, about three or four weeks ago now. There is this post. I don't even know how it came up in my feed. I don't know what I was scrolling or what I was seeing. But I saw this article about personal finance which I just have an interest in. So I skimmed through this article and it just, it was very generic. I genuinely thought somebody put a question into AI and this is what was sped out and then they posted it. Like it was theirs and the advice at the end was not good personal advice for somebody in their personal finances. So I disagreed with the premise, you know, the conclusion as well. So everything I just told you is what I put in a comment, and it was not very kind, it was worded, relatively rudely and then the next day, I get this notification in my email, that there was a response and I realized that I had posted this in LinkedIn. I didn't even pay much attention to what I was posting it in, I just spur of the moment. I posted it and this person had taken the trouble to see who posted it. They went and looked at my account, they saw that. I was a pastor at St, Peter and The CORE and, and they in the comment didn't response called all of that out said. Well, that's, that's nice that our reply like this. With this kind of tone would come from a pastor of a church, a Christian Church who is supposed to be a leader in his community and this is how you would reply to an article that I spent some time on and put some effort into to help people. Thank you. Oh man. My face just immediately turned red. If I don't know where I was, if I was in my office and somebody would had walked by, they would have. Why is Pastor Michael's face red? That's weird. I, my first Instinct, I'll be honest was to defend myself and the type of reply to that like well it's deserved, it was a bad article. But I didn't. And then I noticed that in LinkedIn, you can delete your comment. And so, rather than continuing, the charade, any further, I just deleted the comment, but I'll be honest with you. Um, this has come back into my mind numerous times over the last three or four weeks. And each time I feel embarrassed and I feel like I sure hope none of you saw it because I don't want anybody to find out about it and um, And I'm afraid that somebody did see it and then things less of pastors or the Christian Church that I represented God poorly. And you know, the big scheme of things, it's probably just this one guy that saw it because it's not like he was a famous person even. But the guilt keeps coming back and it's sometimes distracting. I'll suddenly lose focus from what I'm doing and I'll remember that stupid comment. I left.
And I bet you can think of something like that as well. In the big scheme of things, not huge but you feel the guilt from it and it has an impact on your life. Guilt is a big deal. Unresolved guilt is as big to have that removed to have it resolved to have forgiveness. Its huge for you. And perhaps bigger than you realized is it moved up your list a little bit as far as things that you need right now.
So to help us with this unresolved guilt, we're going to take a look today at one of the miracles of Jesus, that I think is fascinating. It's recorded in Matthew's gospel. We're in chapter 9 where we're again each week, we're looking at some of these different miracles of Jesus. Last week, we saw how Jesus called the storm. Today, we're going to see how Jesus heals a paralyzed man. And in each one of these stories, we get a glimpse into the heart of God. We get a glimpse into the identity and character of Jesus and we get new hope, new understanding at a stronger faith and my hope and prayer today, is that today you will rest. You will leave with resolved guilt and you will leave today understanding your forgiveness.
Before you read it just so you're aware. There are churches that believe that the miracles of Jesus that are recorded in the Bible didn't actually happen. There are churches that believe that these are made-up stories intended to convey a spiritual moral or meaning.
And we are a church that believes it's history. And I just think you should know that we believe these things literally happened in real human history and the story we're reading today is about a man who couldn't walk in, then he could and we believe that really did happen. And last week, we believe that Jesus really did stand up, A storm stopped immediately at His powerful word. This is real history and that's why it teaches us, something about the real Jesus. So we're in Matthew chapter 9. Jesus finally start reading 9 verse 1 says this Jesus stepped into a boat. He crossed over, and he came to his own town. So, if you read the end of Matthew chapter 8, you see that Jesus has just healed two demon-possessed men, just says the words, “And the Demons go out into a herd of pigs” and it's a fascinating story. You got to read that one. Um, so he just finishes that it's on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, he gets into a boat and He goes to His own town, which in your mind you might say, oh, Nazareth, right? Nope, that was His hometown when He was growing up, but the people of Nazareth had rejected Him. Jesus' home base of operations during his public ministry, was most of the time, the city, the town of Caperna, it was on the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee and that's the own, His own town that He was returning to here. He's back in Capernaum, again, where He is well, known where everybody has heard about his healings where large crowds would gather around Him. So some men brought to him a paralyzed man lying on a man.
Matthew lacks detail. His accounts are so brief. He doesn't include any of the surrounding circumstances. You just get straight to the point. That was just his writing style. Well, this same miracle was recorded in Mark's gospel and Luke's gospel and those two guys give us a little bit more detail about what's happening here. So when Jesus got to Caperna, He goes into this house and immediately these crowds of people come rushing, in to hear Jesus preach. There, it's standing room only shoulder to shoulder out into the area outside. People outside listening through the windows and a crowd of people. So, these guys, bring their friend, who is paralyzed. Now, think of a stretcher with a guy on each of the Four Corners. Four people carrying a guy on a stretcher to Jesus for healing. But they can't get to Jesus because of this shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. So they look and there's probably an outside staircase that was common in houses back. Then up to the roof, they see that they can get that way. They go up onto the roof, the other gospels tell us this. And they start pulling up, pulling out the tiles, pulling off the roof, making a hole, and I just imagine Jesus preaching. And all of a sudden bits from of the roof and ceiling start falling on his head and people start looking up. And also, this hole is getting bigger and bigger. And then they lower their friend through the hole into the roof. So that he would be right at the feet of Jesus. Because they were looking for a healing. That's some strong faith. They went to great measures to get their friend in front of Jesus because they were completely confident that Jesus would help.
So we might say Matthew, those are fascinating details. Why did you leave all that out? Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't change my story in any way. Why put those extra words in there? Let's get right to the point. Okay. So, Matthew gets right to the point. Some men brought to him a paralyzed man lying on a mat. And when Jesus saw their faith,
And whenever we hear that phrase you're like oh well here comes a good part. Jesus is about to perform a miracle, right? And everybody else would have leaned in. Yes, that's what here comes. Here's a paralyzed, man. We all know what Jesus is gonna do when he saw their faith, he said to the man Take heart, son.
Your sins are forgiven.
To which I imagine. The people in the room crowded start, looking at each other, maybe a little murmur going out around the crowd.
Then Jesus, not noticed. He's paralyzed. What is He? Why is He forgiving his sins? That's, that's take care of the need. The big need the fact that he can't walk
Jesus did. He took care of the big need. He took care of the big thing first. This man was feeling unresolved guilt.
Why am I so confident about that? Well, because first of all, we all do. So he did too.
The second thing is while Jesus addressed it. Therefore, he must have been feeling it. You see in those days if somebody had an illness like this or you know they were paralyzed or blind. The conclusion of the society of that day was they must have done something to tick God off. God's not happy with them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have this long time. Lifelong, whatever is wrong with them, that's because God's judging them. That's because God's mad at them.
And all his life. Can you imagine this paralyzed man hearing this from people? When you, somebody repeats something to you enough times, you start to believe it. That's common with abuse victims. By the way, they start to believe it because the abuser keeps telling them again. And again, these bad things and they start to think it's true. This man would have started to think it was true that he was worthless that he was, um, that he was cursed by God, that God didn't love him and he was, he was believing it.
So Jesus addresses that first because it was the most important thing. Take heart, son. And literally means have courage. I know you're afraid but have courage take heart, son. That's, that's a word that a parent would use to their child, my child, my son, a term of endearment. How close the man Jesus felt to this man knowing how much he was hurting. Jesus pours out His heart to him. Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven. They are released. They are dismissed. They are sent away. Never to come back again. Your debt is forgiven. My son, can you imagine the relief. That, I imagine the man must have felt 100 pounds lighter immediately. To know that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus himself, forgave the guilt and debt of all his sin.
Well, not everybody. Thought this was impressive. The next verse says, at this. Some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, this fellow is blaspheming. They thought this fellow is blaspheming. To blaspheme here means to defame God by claiming some kind of equality with God. They knew perfectly well, that by he, by telling this man that his sins were forgiven. Jesus was claiming some kind of equality with God and therefore, they thought he's defaming God, by claiming some kind of equality with God, by forgiving sin, who is he? Who claims to have such authority. They're thinking all of this knowing their thoughts.
They never had said anything out loud. Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? What you are thinking in your mind is evil? And I know what you're thinking Jesus says.
Then he says this which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or get up and walk which one of those is easier. That's a great thought question, isn't it? What do you think? Which is easier on the one hand to say your sins are forgiven that's pretty easy to say and there's no way to really verify if it happened or not. So that's kind of easy to say but if it's really true then it takes enormous Authority, that Authority of God if it's actually true. So in that sense, it's harder to say, get up and walk. As far as how much Authority and power, it takes less than forgiving sin and yet, the results are immediately evident whether you have that Authority or not, because he's either going to walk or he's not. So, Jesus asked that thought question. And while they're mulling that over in their heads, Jesus takes action. It says, but I want you to know,
That the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins. So he said to the paralyzed man, get up, take your mat, go home.
The man got up. Anyone home? I love how short Matthew describes this amazing miracle. This amazing power from God, this truly an incredible gift Matthew says it in a couple sentences. And by the way, that's typical. Jesus shows Hhis power when he did miracles almost every time. It's instant and it's quick and it's a short word. Jesus doesn't have to pray, incantations over them for 20 minutes and keep on trying to get God to do something for him. He doesn't have to clap his hands together and then places hands on and do that a few more times until finally, the healing takes root. No, he just says a word and instant full complete healing takes place. He did that many so many times just read through Matthew 8 and 9 and look at some of those miracles that you see there to the storm. He says, “be still and it's instantly still. To man with a lifelong skin disease, He says, Be clean.” And the man was instantly clean. To a dead girl. He says, “Get up.” She did, she was alive again. To a deaf and a mute man, a man couldn't speak. He couldn't hear and Jesus says. Be open.” And you can suddenly hear, you can suddenly talk to a demon. He says, “Get out.”
Then it got out.
Into a paralyzed man. He says, “Take up your mat. Go home. And he did.”
The powerful powerful words of Jesus, who has all authority over sickness and disease. And Earthly maladies but also demonstrates and proves the bigger truth. That when he says your sins are forgiven,
Your sins are forgiven. And you do not carry that guilt. Anymore.
So, when the crowd saw this last first, They were filled with all. I bet they were Filled with all that word is closely related to fear. They are truly amazed at the power and authority of Jesus. And
Praised God who had given such authority to man. Their response was almost spontaneous and they almost couldn't control it. Of course, they have to praise God. Because this man was both forgiven. And he was healed.
So can you imagine being in the crowd that day and seeing this with your very own eyes, a man who had to be carried in on a mat and who could stand up and carry it out with him because his legs were strong and truly incredible.
So remember what you're talking about. At the beginning of the message today, we were talking about our own unresolved guilt that. We daily carry around with us and it's a burden. It's this weight that we carry with us every day and hours a day or week. We think about our guilt.
The guilt is Insidious by nature. It's like an alarm that's going off, you're trying to sleep and all of a sudden this alarm goes off and completely distracts you from whatever dream you are having. It's gone. And all you can think about is that alarm going off. That's like guilt in your heart, you might be working on a project and I don't know where this past guilt comes into your head and it's like this alarm you can't ignore. It's distracting you from what you're trying to get done. It challenges your sense of worth and your in your identity or you're that kind of person that would do that kind of thing and it challenges who you really are.
Guilt can make you reluctant to enjoy life. There's this interesting study that was done. Uh, where they made a college student, they had several college students. In this study, they made one group, feel guilty. And the other one they didn't, and then at the end of the study, they didn't tell them what they were really doing. They said after after, after they were done, they said, okay. Now you can pick from one of two Um, Thank you gifts for participating today. And the two, thank you gifts were like a DVD movie. And the other one was like a textbook. Um, the the two are roughly equal value but something that would be beneficial for their schooling. The ones that felt guilty chose the textbook. And the ones that didn't chose the movie.
Guilt can rob you of enjoyment in life because you feel like you're not worthy of doing something enjoyable. You're not worthy of feeling good and therefore, life becomes less enjoyable.
Guilt can lead you to be separated from people from a person. If the person that you wronged. You tend to avoid them even if they're not that mad at you, but you know that what you did was wrong, you might not hang around them anymore because it reminds you of what you did wrong, then it's it tends to separate people.
Guilt can even affect your physical health.
It literally is this burden, this aching in your heart. We heard about that in Psalm 32 earlier, another study, they they had two people, they made one group to feel guilty and the other one not. And then they said, okay, how much do you think you weigh?
That's a totally random unrelated question. How much do you weigh the people who felt guilty and were asked how much they weigh? They inevitably estimated heavier than they really
Because guilt literally makes you feel heavy.
It also makes it harder to do physical activities when you feel guilty, and if all this wasn't bad enough, your guilt is, is telling you something between me and God isn't right? My sin is a barrier between God and me.
And that destablizing too.
So carrying all this, all this guilt is a real and present problem. So what do we do with unresolved guilt?
Don't listen to the secular world. I tried to see what their answer would be. They acknowledge it is every bit is bad. Is what I'm telling you a lot of these studies are secular studies that I'm quoting it's bad? How do we fix it now? Here's the advice that I found practice mindfulness and breathing.
Well, that's helpful.
Distract yourself. Yeah, go binge watch some Netflix. That'll make you feel less guilty.
Not sure how that helps don't beat yourself up about it. Okay, thanks that's good. Remember, Perfection doesn't exist. That will help alleviate your guilt and you will feel less if you just remember, perfection doesn't exist. Basically all of the secular recommendations revolve around this, you need to cultivate your inner lawyer. So that you can practice better self-deception.
And if you can just lie to yourself a little bit better, you will feel the guilt less. And your life will be better.
That's what I found.
Doesn't Jesus have a better solution? Instead of trying to feel better about your guilt, how about we get rid of it? How about it goes away completely?
And that is what God says to you today. The words that Jesus spoke to that paralyzed man. Jesus speaks to you as well. And this is our big takeaway for today. And if you can't guess what it gets filled in the blank, you haven't been listening. But, here we go. Take heart, son. Take heart, daughter. Your sins are forgiven.
Your sins are forgiven? Says who? Jesus. Well, who's he? The Son of God. Prove it. He healed a guy who could walk and calm storms and did a whole lot of other things. Jesus says, your sins are forgiven and this is your greatest need. I hope I've convinced you of that. Your greatest need is to have your sins forgiven and Jesus himself, God's son, declares your sins are forgiven. Yeah, but Pastor Michael, you don't know me very well, you don't know what I've done. What I've done. You don't know my history. You don't know my addiction. You don't know that horrible thing that I did. You would look at me differently. If I told you, but I'm not going to tell you because I don't want you to know you that's great that you for you, tell all these other people there forgiven. But I know that I'm not, because I can feel the weight of my guilt. It's not for me.
You're wrong.
The Forgiveness is for you, too.
Did you do what that paralyzed man did?
You carry this burden of guilt. Where do you take it? Do you recognize that Jesus is the one you take it to?
I think you do, that's why you're here. That's why you're listening online.
You're taking it to Jesus.
Do you trust that He can handle it?
Well, He showed His authority, He showed who He was. I bet you do. But can He really take away that burden that weight off of you? He does. He can. Jesus can. Jesus did.
I want you to imagine the weight Jesus bore on the cross.
You know how heavy your own guilt is just how sometimes it can crush you.
In Jesus, Jesus takes the load off of you and you, and you, and you, and you, and you and you. He takes it off of every single person onto himself. Can you imagine carrying the burden of the sins of the world upon himself? That's why he cried out from the cross, “My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?” The Father, forsook his Son? Because of our sin and guilt and shame because it was taken from our account and placed on Jesus’ account. And He paid your debt in full. How do I know? Because from the cross He said, “It is finished.” Complete, it's done. Your sins are paid for.
You are forgiven take heart, daughter.
Your sins are forgiven. Well, that's, that's a nice sentiment. It's a good thought. I wish it were true. But something acclaimed that big that demands something pretty big as far as a miracle is concerned to convince me that could possibly be true.
Well, Jesus healed a man, but then he did something a whole lot bigger than that. After His death on the cross, what did He do? So in the third day, I'm going to rise. You know what? He did.
If the guy can foretell His death and Resurrection and then pull it off. And that's the guy that says your sins are forgiven. Can you believe it? He did it.
You are relieved of your sin and guilt. It is sent away. It. The debt is paid in full. It is gone. It is not on your account.
Your forgiveness is given and proven by Jesus. Who is the Son of God Himself? He didn't just say it. He also proved it through His death on the cross and through Hhis glorious resurrection.
So there's only one thing left to do, praise Him.
Praise God. It's what the people did right when they saw the miracle. When they were convinced that Jesus had that authority. Ah, they couldn't help it. They had to praise God for this man who had the authority to forgive sins. And He's done it for you, too.
So, praise Hhim.
They knew and appreciate enormity of your guilt and all of it's horrible consequences. When you look at the price that it took to set you free. When you believe that forgiveness truly is yours and I'm telling it is because God said so. And we feel that weight lifted. When you are filled with a certain hope of Eternal life, That this world with all its problems is not the final word. There is a perfect one that has yet to come, Jesus rose. And He is preparing a place for you. That is where you are going when you know and believe that these things are true.
Praise God, it changes everything. It fills you with awe and with praise it compels you to follow Jesus. More closely to listen to Jesus more carefully to yield to Jesus, in everywhere area of your life and submit to Him and to obey Him as much as possible. And every way of your life to thank Him, and to praise Him for the forgiveness, that is already yours and declared complete through the death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are set free, you are healed, doesn't that make you want to run out of here with a little bit of a leap in your step? Maybe dance a little bit.
And for people, when they come and ask you, “Your peace and joy are remarkable. Where does that come from? Let me tell you. Let me tell you about a man named Jesus. Could you maybe tell them the story that you heard today? It's pretty simple one, eight short verses. Tell them about the God who relieves the burden of guilt and says your sins are forgiven with Jesus.
It was Jesus that did it. It was Jesus and he proved it. I couldn't.
You couldn't.
Jesus can. Jesus can.
So put your trust in Him.
