When Faith Meets Frustration | Ryan Kramer

But, hey, we are in week six of a series that we've called That's Crazy, and we've been looking at the miracles of Jesus that are found in Matthew chapter 8 and 9, and just unpacking a little bit about what these miracles, what they mean as far as who Jesus is and what is living in the kingdom of God, what does it look like. And so, if you've got your Bibles, you can begin to make your way to Matthew chapter 9, but as you're doing that, can we give a quick shout out to our Liberty Correctional Campus that is worshiping with us today, and all of those that are watching through the Pando app all across the country, we're honored that you are worshiping with us today. Mount Everest is 29,000 feet above sea level. It's called the roof of the world because it is the tallest mountain on the planet, and every year for Mount Everest, hundreds of hikers begin to come from all over the globe to that one mountain with hopes of being able to climb it. And getting there is not so easy. It's not like just grabbing a plane ticket and lacing up some new hiking boots and going. It takes years of training and tens of thousands of dollars just for the opportunity to be able to spend two months climbing a mountain. On the final stretch, as you begin to climb Everest, the final stretch, around 26,000 feet is a place that's called the death zone, and it gets its name because at that altitude, air becomes so thin that it literally starts deteriorating the human body. It's at that point that it's much harder to breathe. It's at that point that it takes way more effort to do what you would normally be able to do with little effort, and it's at that place, at the death zone, that many climbers decide to turn back. After all the time, after all the investment, they decide to turn back, and they turn back not because they no longer have a dream of reaching the summit of Mount Everest. They turn back because the trip ended up being harder than they expected. You see, when you get to that point, when you get to almost the top of Everest, it's no longer about your ability to climb. At this point, it becomes about your resolve, and I think life can be very similar. I don't know if you've ever noticed that when you face difficult seasons in your life or

difficult circumstances, that it's a whole lot easier to turn back, to quit, than it is to press through. Like researchers actually say that the human brain is wired to respond that way. The brain is wired to look at what is before us, whether it's physically, whether it's emotionally, whether it's spiritually, and to always want to choose the easiest way, not the better way. They give it this phrase, the law of least effort, that our brain is wired to want to do whatever is the easiest. And that's okay. It kind of works out in our life sometimes until you and I decide that we want to start pursuing something that is meaningful. And when we begin to pursue something that is meaningful in our life, and as we begin to experience resistance along the way, because how many know that there is always resistance to get to meaningful? And as we begin to do that in our life, it gets harder, and our brain begins to pose these questions. Is this really worth it? Like am I really supposed to do this? Or maybe, maybe I should just quit. And it's not just true for mountain climbing. It's true in every area of our life. It's true when we decide at the beginning of the year that we want to, we want to start eating right. We want to start working out and getting in better shape. It's the same as true when we're navigating difficulty in our marriage. The same is true when it comes to our job. The same is true with our emotions. The same is true. with whether we're going to keep going through whatever that degree program is for school? And how many know the same is true when it comes to us following Jesus?

That oftentimes there are these thoughts of whether it's worth it and whether we want to keep going. I mean, if you think about it, if you look around the room today, every single person in this room today is carrying a burden. Every single one of us. There's something that is in our life that we're wrestling with, do I take the easier way or do I take the better way? Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's a prayer that hasn't been answered yet, maybe it's a sickness that we're experiencing. It could be a dream that feels like it's just, it's too far out of reach, it could be a calling that seems impossible in your life and somewhere along the way that voice starts whispering, right? It starts whispering, maybe you should turn back. You see, the problem isn't will we hear the voice? The problem is what will we do with it? What will our response be when everything inside of us tells us to turn back? And friend, that is the decision that a paralyzed man and four of his friends face in Matthew chapter 9. A decision that their experience is going to have a huge impact of ultimately what happens in this paralyzed man's life and what we're going to see today is through their experience Jesus shows us something. He shows us three things that if we will, if we'll hold on to them as anchors in our lives that they will help us when we begin to face things that are way harder than we ever expected. Today I've entitled the message, if you're taking notes, When Faith Meets Frustration. Anybody ever been frustrated before in your faith journey? When faith meets frustration. In Matthew chapter 8 and 9, we've been saying if today's kind of your first time in the series that this is the beginning of Jesus' ministry and He's not even called all the twelve disciples yet.

This is how early it is in His ministry. And He has spent a few chapters before 8 and 9, 5 through 7, just talking about what the kingdom of God looks like. And now Matthew chapter 8 and 9, He's now living that out in order to demonstrate and to show us what being a follower of Jesus looks like. And so as He begins to go around the towns and the villages in the area and He's ministering and He's healing people, crowds are beginning to form and they're beginning to form because they're wondering who in the world is this guy? And up to this point in the series, what we've seen is Jesus has demonstrated His authority over disease, over demons, over nature. But this miracle that we're looking at today in Matthew chapter 9 hits different. It hits different because it's not just Jesus stepping in and healing one thing, but we see this like picture of multiple groups of people. And I think Jesus wants to pull a lesson out of each one of their experiences from this moment. So what I want to do today is I want to read this out of Matthew and Matthew really gives us the highlight of the story, but then I want to hop over to Mark chapter 2 because Mark chapter 2 gives us the details, the juicy details of the story. And so we're going to read both of those this morning. So Matthew chapter 9, starting in verse 1, it says, Jesus climbed into a boat and went across the lake to His own town and some people brought to Him a paralyzed man on a mat. And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, be encouraged my child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of the religious law said to themselves, that's blasphemy. Because He thinks He's God, Jesus knew what they were thinking, so He… Asked them, why do you have such evil thoughts in your hearts? Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or stand up and walk? So I'll prove to you that the Son of Man

has authority on earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, stand up, pick up your mat, and go home. And the man jumped up and he went home. So that's Matthew's perspective. Let's switch camera angles just a little bit and let's look at Mark chapter two. Mark chapter two is interesting. I don't know if you are aware of this, but what theologians say is that Mark is the one that actually wrote the gospel, but it is Peter that is sharing his experiences that create the content for the gospel. And so as we begin to read through this, it's under Mark's gospel name, but this is Peter's experience as he shares it with Mark. And here it goes. It says, when Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd. So what did they do? They dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus.

And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven. I wanna stop right here and I wanna point out just a couple things. First, I wanna point out this, that what we want isn't always what we need. That Jesus in this moment recognizes that these four men have brought this paralyzed man there for healing, but Jesus ends up forgiving his sins instead. How many know that the people that we have in our life, they matter? I love this story because you've got four men that are bringing this paralyzed man in before Jesus. And I think about those four men and if this paralyzed man had the wrong four men in his life, right, they would have left him at the door. But because he had the right four people in his life, they did whatever was necessary in order to leave him at Jesus' feet. You see, the people that we have in our life, it matters. And I think the question that we all have to wrestle with is who are those people that are closest to us and are those people dropping us at the door or are they taking us no matter what to the feet of Jesus? I think what's interesting too when you look at this text is the house in which all of these people began to gather, it's commonly understood that that house is actually Peter's house. It's the place last week where his mother-in-law was healed. Now, what's really funny to me

is when you began to connect the dots that this is Peter's experience, right? And not only is it Peter's experience, but it's Peter's house. And then you look over here at verse four and how he describes that they actually went up on top of the roof and dug a hole through the roof. It makes you realize why Matthew didn't say it and Mark did. This is Peter's house. Like Matthew's just talking about the highlights and the experience, but what Peter remembers is less about the paralyzed man. What Peter remembers is the fact that these dudes dug a hole in my roof. And he feels the need to point it out in the text. I think another thing that's interesting with this is it says that phrase in verse five, seeing their faith. Says nothing about hearing their faith. It says seeing their faith. And it reminds me of what James says in his letter, right? That faith without works is what? It's dead. That Jesus doesn't forgive this man because he believed something, Jesus healed this man because they took what they believed and they put it into action. And then this cool little moment happens in verse 6, that some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there, right, I find that interesting that they're dropping their putting the detail, the fact that these religious people are sitting there, I think it says a little bit about their attitude. It says a little bit about their demeanor, that they're sitting there and they thought

to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy, only God can forgive sins. That Jesus, this is scary, verse 8, Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking. Turn to your neighbor and say, Jesus knows what you're thinking right now. He knows, he knows, he knows you're thinking about where you're going to go eat or when this dude's going to shut up and let me go for my day. He knows, he knows. That Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking and so he asked them, why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven or stand up, pick up your mat and walk? And then in verse 10, so I'm going to prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. Verse 11, that Jesus turned to the paralyzed man, he says, stand up, pick up your mat and go home. You know what I find interesting about this story so far is it was his friends that got him saved, it was his critics that got him healed. It was his friends that went out of their way in order to bring them to the feet of Jesus but it was the fact that these critics, that these religious people were saying what they were saying that prompted Jesus to then heal the guy. And I don't know about you but sometimes it's hard for me to thank my critics but how many would say, how many today would thank their critics because God is going to use those people in your life to be able to bring about some things that he wants to do in you and through you. Now verse 12, he says, and the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, walked out through the stunned onlookers, I could only imagine. They were all amazed and praised God exclaiming, we've never seen anything like this before. We've never seen anything like this before. And so what do we do with this story? Well, I think Jesus is pointing out three things and there's more than three in this

story but I think there's three things that I want to, I want to highlight to you today that I think would help all of us when life gets a little harder to help us to be able to keep pressing on. And the first one is this, if you're taking notes, don't quit before the breakthrough. Don't quit before the breakthrough. I want you to think about these four guys for a second. These four guys had high hopes for their friend. Wouldn't you say? I mean high hopes, Jesus is doing his thing and healing all over the place and so Jesus has now come back to Capernaum. So they got high hopes for their friend. I would say their hopes, man, their hopes are through the roof in this moment, right? Oh, come on, come on, I spent a lot of creative effort, a lot of creative effort in that. You get it? Their high hopes were through the roof. Yeah, Ryan, three minutes later I get it. Thank you. But they're hearing what Jesus is doing all over the region and now Jesus is there in their community and so they go and they pick up their friend and they pick up his mat. Four guys, they pick it up and they're walking their way towards where Jesus is and can you imagine they come around the corner and what are they faced with? An obstacle. They're faced with an obstacle because there's so many people that are packed into this house and around this house, shoulder to shoulder, that there's no way that they can possibly get to the front door and so now all of a sudden they're faced with a decision. What are they going to do? Are they going to turn around? Are they going to just leave the dude out like somewhere around the house hoping that somehow finds a way to Jesus or are they going to keep going? They're faced with a decision.

And I think you and I in our life, we are oftentimes faced with the same kind of decision when something tries to get between us and Jesus. We have that same decision of do we keep going or do we go home? I don't know if you've recognized this in your life like I have in mine, but it doesn't take much for us to stop pursuing Jesus. I mean, I think of just the idea of pursuing Jesus at church and how easy it is for us to choose not to come back because maybe somebody didn't say hey to us the week before. I'm going to get real for a second. Or we choose, we get frustrated, we choose not to come back because the last two weeks we came, somebody was sitting in our seat, right? Don't they know that's our seat? Don't they know? Or my personal favorite is when, you know, Sunday morning you open the app or maybe it's Saturday night you open the app and it says, it says chance of rain. We look at that, we look at this chance of rain and it's almost like we look at it like Jim Cantore is doing a Weather Channel show out of our parking lot and we're like, nah, we can't go to church tomorrow, can't go to church tomorrow, we got a chance of rain. Got to watch those sprinkles, got to stay away from those sprinkles. Interesting fun fact, when we were in Washington it was the exact opposite. In Florida and in the South, people go to church when the sun's out, right? When it's raining, we don't go to church. In Washington State, when it's raining, everybody goes to church because it rains all the time. When the sun comes out, because it hardly ever does, nobody's at church. It's the exact opposite. It was the weirdest thing. So, I found myself Saturday night praying, God, please let it rain, please let it rain, you know. But these guys, what I found so interesting about these guys, they refused to allow one obstacle to erase all of the faith that it took for them to get there. I kind of like imagine the conversation kind of going something like this, right?

You got the four guys, one of those guys, his name's Bubba. It's got to be Bubba because that's a common Jewish name back in those days, Bubba. And I could see Bubba's like, well, boys, that dog's not going to hunt, it's not going to hunt, there's too many people, there's too many people at that house. And Jim Bob's like, man, I'm worn, slapped out, it's hot as blue blazes here, can we just come back tomorrow? And then Earl's like, guys, we better shake a leg because that preacher said he's about to close. And then Bubba comes back in and Bubba's like, ah, that just means he's got 45 more minutes to go, no big deal. He's like, by the way, I didn't see any security cameras around the house over there, so I reckon wander if we can get up to those stairs. And then one of the other guys, he's like, let's go, boys, let's go. We didn't come all this way to go back home now and, man, I just, I wonder how many of us face situations like that. I wonder how many times or maybe we're in a place where we've been praying for something for a long time and the temptation, right, the temptation is to quit, is to take the easy way, not the better way. We've been fighting for our marriage. We've been praying for our kids or maybe it's our relationship with Jesus and we've come, we've come so far, but now all of a sudden we're hitting some barriers, some obstacles and the tension, the decision that we're wrestling with is, is do we go back or do we keep going? And friend, I just want to throw out there today that maybe your breakthrough, maybe the thing that you've been praying for, maybe the thing that you've been believing God for, maybe it's not waiting on God to move in your life. Maybe it's waiting on you to not quit. I think the second thing that we see in this text that I think Jesus wants to just help us see today is don't mistake different for wrong. Don't mistake different for wrong because sometimes... Sometimes you and I can be so focused on the miracle

that we want that we miss the miracle that God is doing. See the scribes here in the story, the smart people, the theologians, they hear Jesus tell the paralyzed man that your sins are gonna be forgiven and immediately they're thinking blasphemy. Immediately they're thinking only God can forgive sins and here's what I find interesting about this moment in the story is the problem wasn't what they believed, they were right, only God can forgive sin. The problem was they couldn't recognize the God in flesh that was right in front of them because he was doing something different than how they expected. And we do the same thing sometimes. The same thing, we decide what an answered prayer should look like in our life or we decide who God should use or who God shouldn't use, we decide what a healthy church looks like, we decide what God moving looks like and we make those decisions but when you think about it, when you think about it, when it doesn't happen the way that we expect, what often happens is we begin to assume that whatever is happening is wrong. I mean the scribes didn't reject Jesus because Jesus lacked power, they reject Jesus because Jesus refused to fit

in the box of their expectations. And I just wonder maybe the greatest obstacle today for you seeing God move in your life and through your life, maybe the obstacle isn't a lack of faith but maybe it's expectations, the expectations that you have on God that leave no room for him to move differently than the way in which you expect him to move. And then the third, don't hide your mat. Don't hide your mat. There's one detail in this story that I can't get away from and it's when Jesus heals the man, remember what he says, stand up, right, pick up your mat and go home. And I can't get away from the idea of why is Jesus telling this man to pick up his mat? I mean why not leave it there? Wouldn't that be a cool visual, you know? And you think about the mat anyway, like he's lived on this mat for years if not decades. Like he's ate on it, he's sweat on it, you can imagine the smell of what this mat was. I mean it's perfect for a bonfire, right? It's perfect, it doesn't need any gasoline, any fire starter, you just set a match to it and it's good to go. I mean Jesus, this mat, it represents everything that this guy used to be. It's a daily reminder of everything that he couldn't do in the seasons of all the speculation and the criticism

and the way that people would look at him and treat him but yet Jesus tells him to pick it up and to take it with you, why? I think it's because sometimes God asks us to carry the very thing that he delivers us from. Not as a reminder of the shame that we experienced when we were living on it but as a testimony of his grace, a testimony of what he can do in a person's life. Now you may not know this about the culture of those days but I think it's important to understand that in those days the way that they believed, what they believed about illness and sickness and physical problems is they associated that with condemnation from God. So they looked at you because you were sick or because you were paralyzed as you've done something so wrong in your life or you're such a bad person that God has condemned you with that illness or disease. And so for this man, all of those years or decades, like when everybody in that community would pass by this man, they didn't just look at his disability, they attached a story to it. A story of, man, how bad is this guy, like what did he do in order for God to feel like he had to give him this disease for his entire life. And so knowing that, could you imagine the courage that it would take this man, the courage to stand up and to pick up that nasty old mat and everything that it represented that he wished that he could not be associated with, and he's got to walk past the very people that have looked down on him and criticized him and come up with speculations of why God has condemned him in such a way, he's got to pick up that mat and he's got to walk through them. And it's hard for us to grasp, but those houses were not very big in those days, and so this

is not just like walking through a hallway, but he's, he's bumping up against people every step that he takes, carrying this mat behind and these are people that are looking at him and they're trying to figure stuff out and they're, they're looking at him in weird kind of, of ways and every step he's declaring, I'm no longer who I used to be. All the while dragging who he used to be. And friend, this is what I've learned in my life, that all of us have a mat. All of us have a mat. We have things in our life that we look back on and we have guilt and we have shame and we have, we have a past and maybe it's addiction and maybe it's divorce, maybe it's a bankruptcy, maybe it's some sort of huge failure or a business failure or a diagnosis, or maybe it was a season that you wandered from God. And you and I are natural instinct to suspend so much time and so much energy in our lives trying to hide the mat. Because we want everybody in our circle and everybody that, that knows us to, to think and assume that we've always lived this way and we've always had it together, but friend, what if the very thing that you've been hiding, the very past that's in your life that you don't want anybody to see, what if it's the very thing that God wants to use to help someone else live out their life? Because friend, here's what I've learned, and when you're, when you're willing to carry your mat, this is what you'll discover, is that your greatest ministry always comes from your deepest pain. It always comes from your deepest pain. And that's why the enemy works so hard for us to wear a mask. It's why the enemy works so hard to, to get us to live life and never really open up ourselves to other people and to share the things that maybe we've walked through in our life or maybe the things that we're currently walking through in our life. And what we fail to realize is that when we take the easy way rather than the best way, then it's Satan's opportunity to remove our greatest ministry. That's why Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 4, that he comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others.

Friend, God never wastes a hurt. He never wastes a hurt. The comfort that He gives you is meant to become hope for someone else. And I wonder if that's why He fights us so hard with guilt and shame. Because the more that we feel guilty about our mistakes, the more that we carry shame because of our mistakes. And I wonder if that's why He fights us so hard with guilt and shame. What we've done, the less likely we are to allow God to use it to make an impact, a difference in somebody's life. Friend God wants to, wants to use you and He wants to use your image to be hope for others, not because you're perfect, because we'll never be, but because you're proof. You're proof. Proof that Jesus still transforms lives, heals diseases, sets the captives free. You're proof. As a friend today, don't be ashamed to carry your mat, not as a reminder of your past, but as a testimony of God's grace. Because the miracle didn't end when the man stood up, it continued with every step that he took. Would you bow your head with me this morning? I think, I think what the Lord would have us do in this moment is to just, is to consider who do we identify with the most in this story? Maybe for some of you, you would identify with the, with the friends, right? You've been, been praying, you've been believing, you've been carrying something that is heavy in your life and you're tired. And you're at the crossroads of a decision in your life, do I turn back or do I keep going? Friend, if that's you today, I think Jesus would want to encourage you, don't quit before your breakthrough. Maybe some of you would identify with the scribes, but somewhere along the way, you began to, to decide what, what God should do and what things should look like.

And I think His challenge to you is don't mistake different for wrong. Just because it's different than what you would do or different than what you would expect or what you want doesn't mean that it's wrong. Maybe for you today, you're, you're the healed man with the map that Jesus has brought you so far, but you've been pretending that you don't have a story. Friend, if that's you today, somebody needs to hear what God has brought you through. Somebody needs to know that there's, that there's hope. And lastly, maybe for some of you today, maybe you see yourself more as the paralyzed man. Maybe you see yourself as spiritually paralyzed, that you need to experience the forgiveness of God, and that I don't know how you got here, but the reality is, is Jesus or your friends or whoever has brought you to the feet of Jesus this morning, and your one decision to walk away from being at risk of death. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it. And if you did make sure you subscribe. Also if something spoke to you in a special way, share it with a friend because you never know how it could transform someone's life. If you're interested in checking out our service times, make sure you go to our website at transformTLH.com and we hope to see you at TC on a Sunday. Thanks so much and have a great day. Transcribed by https://otter.ai