We come in our studies in Matthew to perhaps one of the most well-known recorded miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have in the Gospels. I think most Christians will be able to recall various details of the account as recorded across Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And yet, it is my burden, as it is the scriptures', to ensure that you and I are remembering such accounts for the right reasons, and that they would leave lasting and memorable impact upon us. We don't want to be distracted away from the main thing here.

You see, it might be easy to remember an account like this primarily as a testament to the impressive faith of these friends who, in their desperation to get to Jesus, climbed upon a roof, put a hole in the roof, and lowered their friend down before Jesus. And we think, what faith! What perseverance! Now there is something in that, of course; even Jesus says as much. But if that's all that stands out to us, we are falling far short of what Matthew has as his purpose here in this account.

Once again, it is the context that helps us identify the main point, the main theme here. Remember that in this broader section, Matthew wants us to see who Jesus is and what authority he has. And why? So that we would hear the word about him and might believe and follow him. You see, the signs and miracles performed by Jesus were not parlour tricks designed to wow the masses. They were revelations of his personhood. These were signs with purpose.

Remember, for instance, in John 3, when Nicodemus, that teacher of the law, comes to the Lord Jesus and he says, "Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him."

And so when Jesus performed healings at the beginning of Matthew 8, such as the healing of the leper, Jesus showed who he is with his authority over even diseases and death. Then he showed us his authority over even nature itself with the words "be still" when he calmed the storm on the sea. He showed us his authority over the demonic realm last week as we saw; with a word, he freed these two demon possessed men in the Gentile region.

And now this week, at the beginning of Matthew 9, we want to see Jesus as the one with authority even to forgive sins, the greatest need we have, friends, above all.

So the question for us as we begin is that routine question that we all face at any hearing of the gospel: on what basis are we to be attracted to Christ? Are we going to come to him not simply because he is the divine man with great power and authority, which he has, but are we going to come to him as the only one who can grant to men and women their most pressing need: forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God?

This is exactly what Matthew wants us now to see about the Messiah King as his gospel unfolds.

Four simple headings will carry us along as we go through. First, the paralytic's need. Second, the scribe's complaint. Third, the Son's authority. And fourth, the crowd's amazement.

The Paralytic's Need

First of all, the paralytic's need, verses one to two. Jesus is back in Jewish territory again, in Capernaum, the place where he made his primary base of ministry. And hence, Matthew says "his own city". Mark also tells us that on this particular occasion, the house where Jesus was staying was absolutely packed. Mark 2:2 says: "And many were gathered together so that there was no longer room, not even near the door." A point that Matthew brings out in verse eight where he says, "the crowds."

And so this paralysed man now enters the story. Mark tells us that he is carried by four friends. They want to see Jesus because the crowd prevents them from getting through to him. In their desperation, they obviously find a way of getting the stretcher and this paralysed friend up on the roof. And so they do so and they begin to dismantle the roof of the house as the other gospels tell us.

Now why are they coming to Jesus? That's the important question. On the one hand, it is Jesus' teaching they want to hear; as Mark again puts it, "he was speaking the word to them."

But the reason the paralytic comes with the help of his friends is obvious. They believe the reports about Jesus are true. He is a man with authority even over death, even over disease, even over disabilities. And given the text tells us that Jesus saw their collective faith, we take it that these men are in the process of becoming followers of Christ as their Messiah, or have already become so.

Now notice the surprising thing that Jesus says to this man on a stretcher before him. Jesus says, "Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven."

What a fascinating response. Maybe the man was thinking, lying on a stretcher on the ground, looking up at Jesus, "Forgiveness of sins? I can't even walk. Can we get to the most important thing first? Maybe we can talk about sins after I can at least walk. It's not something I've had the benefit of being able to do for a while (or maybe forever)."

You see, immediately Matthew confronts us with this striking fact, and our prayer is not lost on each one of us this morning. That though Jesus has authority over all these things we have considered in previous messages already, here we strike at the heart of Christ's authority, and that is for us the difference between eternal life and death. It is this greater need we have: forgiveness of sins.

This paralytic before him needs his body healed by the Lord. Yes. And Jesus will do that supernaturally for him in a moment. But there is a deeper need, more significant than you and I have, that is far, far more important than even one's ability to walk or talk or anything else, and that is that our sins be forgiven by God.

You see, often we get this the wrong way around. How often we prioritise the physical over the spiritual in our lives. But friends, the needs of our souls are far more important than all our other needs combined.

The soul must take priority. What even is walking when we have un-atoned for trespasses before a holy and righteous, everlasting God?

You see, as Calvin puts it in his comments here, he says, "Christ teaches this man the priority of his prayers." In other words, the soul must always take prominence even before the body. One must come to Jesus and his gospel with this desire to free oneself through him of sin before anything else. And if you don't understand that, then you don't understand Jesus.

So the point here is that all of us, we all have this great need in our lives, more than we may realise. We need our sins forgiven. Maybe the paralytic thought that what he needed most was first to be able to walk, but Jesus reminds us of the true priority, the state of our soul.

And so says Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15, "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

To illustrate this point, imagine you're in a boat; for example, maybe you are in a small boat, and you're out on a lake, far from sight and far from help. Then you realise there's a hole in the side of your boat, but you're already so far out that you're not going to be able to get back in time. The water is starting to come in. Your feet are now wet, and you're desperately trying to patch up this hole in the boat. Meanwhile, your friend is sitting there not being very helpful. He's watching you frantically try to patch up the hole and he notices that the paint on the inside of the boat is pretty faded and starting to crack and peel. And he tells you, "You should probably repaint it sometime."

What really matters at that moment?

The condition of the paint or whether the boat is going to sink in the next five minutes!

Friends, we must be honest with ourselves and with others in our lives about cracking paint versus holes in boats. The gospel is good news, not because it promises us health, wealth, and success, which it doesn't. The gospel is good news because Jesus is a saviour for sinners who has come that we might be reconciled to God, and that's the big hole in the boat.

Have you this morning come to this great realisation of your profound spiritual needs before God? We are all very aware of our physical ailments, of course, on a daily basis. Many of you are older, and I ask you how your week's been, and you tell me of some physical battle that you're going through, and I don't fully understand yet. I will one day. But that's our outer man that's decaying, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16. And we have ailments. We have problems.

But friends, the hope is; the truth is that you needn't worry about that. When you know Jesus, when you have met and come to know and love and follow the saviour who has forgiven your sins, what else matters but that?

"In him was life," says John, and you see it as true life that he will impart through forgiveness of sins when we come to him in faith and believing that all we really need is found in Christ. But have you come to that realisation yourself this morning?

Our bodies wear out and die, but these are pointers to the saviour. Our physical ailments should be signposts to the one who lived and died for us, that we might have eternal life. Signposts to Christ: are they such for you? How many more hospital or doctor visits will it take until you see that your ultimate need is to know that your great mountain of transgressions are no more because of Jesus? This is why Jesus has come after all.

And notably in Matthew's gospel, this is the first reference to sin on the lips of Christ, confirming his purpose in accordance with what was declared at his birth in Matthew 1:21: "She will bear a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

And here is Christ proclaiming such forgiveness; proclaiming such salvation.

There are a number of applications that stand out on this first point.

The first application would be this: the gospel comes to us with Jesus' own full assurance to all who come to him: "Take courage." Whatever your heart grieves over this morning, whether it's spiritual, physical, or emotional, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who says to us personally, "Take courage," as he does to this man.

It really doesn't matter what earthly state you find yourself in your life if you know that your sins are forgiven. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. When your life expires, which it will; when you are called back to dust, which you will; all that matters is whether your sins were forgiven or not. You might feel as if there's nothing left in the tank. I don't know the state of what you are right now. Maybe you think there's nothing left in the tank. And if someone asks you right now, "How are you doing?" Your honest answer might be, "All I know is that Jesus has forgiven my sins and I'm secure in him." And if you can say this, you can say everything.

The second application is that it is one thing to hear about Jesus, but it is an entirely other thing to really come to him. I must get to Jesus; that's the obvious intent of these four friends with the paralytic. They would not rest until they had Christ. He's all that they wanted.

If you're hearing these words now and you don't yet know Jesus, there must be, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it, "a great mark of urgency", and "nothing half-hearted about coming to Christ". Even if it means scrambling across rooftops, digging holes in roofs: I must have Jesus. The paralytic was not going to walk out of that building without Christ exercising a power that only he had. And it's not in the paralytic to make himself walk, and it's not in man to amend for his own sins; only Jesus can save.

A third application is that there is a reminder here of the seriousness of sins. Christ shows us in just a few words the sorry state of man unaided by God and without intervention. It's not so much that man sins and he becomes a sinner. It is much worse than this: it is that man is a sinner, and because of this he sins. Jesus has come to do away with our sins; to die for us on a cross; to be judged there by the Father in our place. That though our our sins be like scarlet, as we sang, like crimson, we can be made white as snow through him. No longer condemned but forgiven and restored.

So why is it that we have such a high regard for our health? When we are sick, we seek help; we go to the doctor. What about when we learn we are sinners? Do we run to the great physician who can heal the soul? Scripture teaches we must have a scrupulous regard for our sins too.

The Scribe's Complaint

Let's consider, secondly, the scribe's complaint, briefly in verse three. We notice the scribes here; these teachers of the law, part of the elite class among the Jews. They're watching on and they say, "This fellow blasphemes." Now Matthew is very brief here, but in Mark, we see the clear reasoning for their thinking. Mark records in Mark 2:7: "Why does this man speak this way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Their qualm is that Jesus has declared something that only God has authority to do.

Were they wrong? Well, only in one way are they wrong here. In the first case, yes, it is true: only God can forgive sinners. It's his right alone to exercise. As one commentator said, "Since sin is offense against God, only God has the right to declare it cancelled." Their theology was good.

It's the next point they fail on. They fail to discern the true identity of Christ as the incarnate son of God. So they call him a blasphemer.

The Son's Authority

But look next at the third heading: the son's authority from verse four. It's in Jesus' response to the scribes' reasoning in their hearts that we have a third point here. We see the central point that Matthew wishes us to understand about Jesus. And this is the climactic moment in the scene. This is to where the tension has been building.

The paralytic is now on a stretcher in front of Jesus. The crowd is packed in. Perhaps the four friends are still on the roof peering in. What will Jesus say? What will he do? They want to hear what Jesus has to say, for to forgive sins is quite a claim. And now in a triumphal display of the authority that Jesus has, he says in verse six: "But so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins," he said to the paralytic, "Get up, pick up your bed, and go home."

What Jesus does for us here is confirm that his word of forgiveness already spoken is valid. He does possess that authority. He is the God-man. By granting forgiveness of sins to this man, he made a claim to deity. By physically healing him, he proved the validity of what he had done for the man spiritually.

So the clear point then is that Jesus' miracles are not to be read as fanciful stories; rather, they carry real meaning designed to show us who Jesus was.

Jesus said, "Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up and walk?" In other words, "I've just done something for this man which you cannot see, and by the same token of authority that I have to forgive sins, it's this authority I have to raise the paralytic from his stretcher."

Friends, we are to see that Christ's signs were means to validate his person, message, and work. That's the point here.

Now to illustrate it, I want to show you a deeper side to what's happening here in the story and the context. To do that, we need to go back to the Exodus account for a moment.

Matthew is showing us that in Jesus, two strands of authority converge upon one man; two strands of authority upon one man. The first strand of authority is the divine strand of authority. And the second strand is this concept of Christ as the new and better Moses.

Notice the language used by Christ here: "so that you may know." Where have you seen this language before in your Bibles? These things are deliberate. You see, this language recalls the Exodus and the signs that God performed through Moses at the deliverance from Egypt.

Exodus 9:14 says: "For this time I will send all my plagues on you and your servants and your people so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth."

Do you see what we are being shown here about Jesus? Christ, unlike Moses, performs his signs not with a delegated authority like Moses did, but with direct divine authority, for he is God incarnate in flesh. The God who has shepherded and delivered and promised salvation to his people through covenant in ages past has triumphantly created feet for himself to walk among men. That is who Jesus is and who we are to see him as. Just as the Lord said to Moses, to see "that there is no one like me in all the earth."

And so the scribes and the Pharisees in a way, in this story, become like Pharaoh in the exodus, with their hardened hearts against Christ.

Christ has come to lead an exodus as the exodus events symbolised: deliverance from slavery to sin and death through God's provided mediator; through the waters of judgment (symbolised in baptism); into the land of promise where we might serve and worship our Lord without hindrance forever.

There's another level to this exodus connection. Do you remember how many signs that God performed through Moses in the exodus? Ten signs. Ten plagues. Now let's take a tally of this literary block in Matthew's gospel, of Matthew eight to nine. How many signs do you think Christ performs? There's the leper cleansed, the centurion's servant healed, Peter's mother-in-law healed, the storm calmed, the two demoniacs delivered, the paralytic here healed, the woman with the bleeding issue healed, Jairus' daughter raised, two blind men healed, the mute demoniac healed.

Ten signs! All of which reveal to us that Jesus is not only the new and greater Moses, but that in this one man, as Paul says, "the fullness of deity dwelt." That's the point. And why has he come? To save sinners with a mighty and outstretched hand.

Again, I press upon you: where do you stand with Christ this morning and the authority that he bears? He is worthy of our whole lives; worthy of our service; worthy of our tears; worthy of all suffering we must endure in pain as we pilgrimage through this life as strangers and aliens.

Hebrews 3:7-8 says: "Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness." Don't harden your hearts against this Christ this morning.

So the application here is simple: Jesus alone has the authority and power to forgive our sins. Have your sins been forgiven, friend? Are you resting in Christ? Are you a saved person in this building this morning?

Do you know for certain of the salvation that is in Christ for all who will believe?

RC Sproul says here: "There is one who has the authority to forgive them, for he took your sin, he assumed your guilt and paid for it all, and he has the power and authority to forgive you." Hallelujah!

The Crowd's Amazement

Final point: the crowd's amazement, verses seven and eight. It's almost an understated point. "And he got up and went home." That's it. And as we have seen, the most important change that happened to the man this day was actually not his newly granted capacity to walk, but that his sins were forgiven and he'd come to know Jesus. So that what is unseen might be truly known, Christ performed a miraculous healing on the man.

And then we see the crowd's amazement. It says they "were awestruck and they glorified God who had given such authority to men."

So fear and praise go hand in hand here. This word for awestruck (I'm not sure what your translation will have in front of you); this term for awestruck here, the underlying term, indicates fear. So the question we want to answer is whether this awestruck worship was because of the miraculous healing or for the forgiveness of sins. We're not entirely told. It's intentionally a little ambiguous. The thrust seems to be going towards the forgiveness of sins, but we're not exactly sure.

And that's why things hand over to us, don't they? With this tension: what are you amazed at about this account?

Whether the crowd at the time understood what was really happening is inconsequential for the position we find ourselves in right now. If all you see in Christ is the stories of some miracle worker, but you see nothing else, then the truth is you do not see him at all.

To see Christ here is to see the man who unless he forgives me, I have no standing before God and I am under condemnation; the man who unless he raises me by his power, that leaves me paralysed and dead in my sins without hope.

But Jesus has the authority, friends, and he has all of it, and he is lacking in nothing. And he would give many more signs of his authority, and none was greater than that glorious moment when the Son of God was lifted up on that cross to die for sinners. It's the greatest sign and declaration to the whole world that we have a God who forgives sins. But we must come to that cross. We must come to that empty tomb of resurrection.

Have we faith in him this morning?