In Heart Pursuit -- Pursuing Souls -- Mark 2:1-13

To listen to this message click here
To download this message, right click here and select save target as

Introduction
News Story about man saving family from fire

Describing the Biblical Text
We see Jesus’ ministry growing in impact and popularity.
He is ministering in what was probably his ministry headquarters at Capernaum.
He was teaching and there were people who were trying to get in to see.
Isn’t it funny how the press always seems to be in the way?
That’s a little humor for those with the KJV.

Narrate the Contextual application
Now when we see the gist of the account before us we see something very important.
We see four friends who desired very much to get their friend to Jesus.
They were willing to go to extraordinary means to accomplish their goal.
These men knew that Jesus could change the life of the man who was brought to him and they were willing to take risks, sacrifice, and destroy someone’s roof to get their friend to Jesus.

Life Application (thesis)
When we look at this account from the ministry of Jesus, we can see that the actions of these four men are extremely important.
Are they important to me?
No, not really.
But, they are important to the paralytic on the pallet.
What are we willing to do to see others come to Jesus?
How are we willing to bring people to Jesus?
We must be willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to bring people to Jesus.

SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we consider the kinds of sacrifices that we will make, there are some questions that will guide us along the way.
In most cases, questions represent the unknown but in this case, our questions represent the absolutes that must be considered as we seek to bring people to Jesus.
The first of these absolute questions is does the sacrifice lead to unity of purpose and process.
Let’s take a look at the sacrifices that these men were making.
First of all they were taking their time.
We all know how important time is don’t we?
It is something that we can never get back or never reclaim.
Once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.
Our time is valuable to us though.
We don’t like to see the phone number from work popping up on the caller ID when we are taking a day off.
We don’t like the coach changing practice from Tuesdays to Wednesdays when we have church.

These men sacrificed their strength.
How heavy is a paralytic?
He is as heavy as a man who can’t walk.
It took four of them to get him there.
When the crowd was too much, they did what?
They went up to the roof to continue what they started.
There purpose was clear.
Let’s get our friend to Jesus
We see here four men who were unified behind one purpose.
Their purpose kept them working together and it kept them from wasting time and strength.

Could you imagine this text if they were not unified in their desire to see their friend meet Jesus?
They would have seen the crowd in the house and someone would have been ready to bail.
“Looks like a big crowd, Oh well sorry Levi. Can’t say we didn’t try.”
What else might have happened?
They may have fussed over the way to get Levi to Jesus.
I say we roll on the straw wagon. No Matathias, we carry the Pallet. You’re both wrong, we drag him on a blanket.
I want us to see something else here also.
There was a sense of trust that these men had with each other.
They knew how much they could do with the others involved because they trusted each other.
But you now who had to be the most trusting?
Good old Levi
His life is in the hands of his four friends.
He knew that they would never allow anything harmful to happen to him.

We need to look at our selves in this area.
Can I be trusted to never allow anything harmful to take place in my family or in my church?
Maybe there has been a breech of trust between some of us and it needs to be healed.
I want to tell you honestly that if we do not trust each other as a church, we will never be able to unify behind a purpose or a goal.

I want to tell you about hounds, particularly fox hounds. During the down times when the dogs are not hunting, they are doing one of three things. They are eating or drinking, which is consuming resources. They are sleeping which is accomplishing nothing. They are fighting among themselves. But, once a fox enters the picture the dog go on the chase. There is nothing else the want to do or that will do until the fox is caught.
They become unified in their purpose.
That is the picture of the church that I hope that we can see painted here.
I would like to see us so focused on bringing people to Jesus that we will not allow for any distractions whatsoever and when distraction do come, we will hastily remove them and be about the business of the Lord in this place.

A couple of things then will have to happen.
The first is that we need to clearly understand our purpose here.
We cannot be divided or confused on that point.
It must be more than a statement that we print on our bulletin; it must be an ideal that we are willing to live and see fulfilled.
It must be the one thing that everyone, and that means everyone, strives to see accomplished.
We must be on the same page.
If the Sunday School is in this corner doing its own thing and the WOM’s are in that corner doing their thing and the youth group is in their corner doing their thing and there is no purpose to unite the things that are being done, then we have a lot of activity and very little accomplishment.

When we look at the four men with the paralytic we see action and not activity.
We see accomplishment not collapse.
Let’s look at a second absolute question.
Does the sacrifice lead to extraordinary measures for others?
Sacrifice that does not do anything is not sacrifice.
These men made a sacrifice that pointed to something.
It pointed to their willingness to give of themselves to their friend.
What if Levi was talking to the buds one day and asked them, “You know, I heard that Jesus will be teaching in town later. Could you take me to see him?”
Could you imagine if Jacob said, “Well, Levi, I would love to go see Jesus with you but it will better if I waited until you walk on your own.”
Levi doesn’t need Jacob’s help when he can walk, he needs Jacobs help while he is lame.

It is easy to serve Christ and to serve the church when everything is going well and everything just seems easy.
Sometimes things require a little extra effort though.
When things are not going well, it is easy to say that I’ll be there when we see some improvement in the situation.
But if we really think about that, it makes little sense.
We are needed much more when things are not so smooth.
That’s when our presence can make a real difference.
What if Jesus said, “I’ll be your savior as soon as you can get along without sinning?”
If we could get along without sinning, we wouldn’t need a savior.
But we do need a savior and your church needs your service especially when things are less than ideal.
When we sacrifice and serve, we make our church better.
It’s just like Jesus made is better by His sacrifice on the cross.
That sacrifice provided for us forgiveness for our sins and opened to us a relationship with God.
Would you like to have that relationship today?
Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes.
Repeat this prayer if yo8u desire forgiveness and to have a relationship with God.
Dear Lord, I know that my sins have kept me from knowing you. I need you in my life and I need a relationship with you. Please come into my life as I receive you to be my Lord and Savior. I ask your forgiveness and thank you for dying on the cross for me. You paid for my sins. Thank you for saving me this morning. In your name, Amen

Now, let’s look at our third absolute question.
Does the sacrifice lead to changed lives?
The four men and their extraordinary action of lowering their friend to Jesus changed his life forever.
His sins were forgiven and he was healed and walked away.
How are our ministries changing people’s lives?
Jesus changes lives and heals people’s hurts.
We really do not have that power apart from him.
But, when we are taking people to Him we will see life change regularly.
I remember when faith training was the momentary in program for evangelism.
You were not supposed to tell people that you prayed to receive Christ during your personal testimony.
You were to say, “I had a life changing experience.”
That was to accomplish two things.
The first was that it did not help someone who didn’t know Jesus from pretending by giving a correct answer that he had just heard.
It was also to let people know that Jesus would change their lives.
Nothing changes a life like Jesus.
If we believe that truth, then we need to be bringing people to Jesus and seeing them healed spiritually like our man on the pallet.
Remember Jesus did not make him walk first, he forgave his sins.
As far as anyone is concerned, forgiveness is the greater gift.
It is the gift that we pursue when we are pursuing souls to Jesus.
The paralytic picked up his pallet and walked away.
Jesus picked up our sins and put them away . . . forever.