MAIN IDEA: Friends in Christ bring friends to Christ.

FRIENDS IN CHRIST HELP US THROUGH FAITHFULNESS – Faithfulness means to be full of faith. Jesus Himself saw their faith through their actions, and we can too. Actions that are born of faith would simply be called faithfulness (James 2:17). And so the friends took desperate measures to bring the paralyzed man to Jesus. They carried him to Jesus; they persisted when faced with an obstacle; and they “unroofed a roof.” Those are all acts of faithfulness. Jesus does not necessarily ask us to take desperate measures to bring people to Him. He simply asks for our faithfulness.

FRIENDS IN CHRIST HELP US FIND FORGIVENESS – When Jesus saw their faith, surprisingly, He says, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (verse 5). And this is surprising for a couple of reasons. First, it was the faith of the friends that prompts Jesus to forgive the sins of the paralyzed man. The faith of believers can lead people to faith and forgiveness. But also, Jesus did not address the obvious problem right away, but forgave his sins, instead. What that tells us is that (1) Jesus, as the Son of God, has the authority and power to forgive sins, (2) sin is the greatest problem that we have to face in our lives and in this world, and (3) the only solution to the greatest problem of sin is the forgiveness of God (Romans 4:7-8). An additional takeaway related directly to this passage is that friends in Christ help us to find forgiveness in Christ.

FRIENDS IN CHRIST HELP US BEAR WITNESS – This passage gives us a contrast between teachers of the law versus the paralyzed man and his friends. It’s also interesting that no one in this passage says anything except Jesus. Those who were supposed to be the closest to God and thought that they knew God and claimed that they knew God, really didn’t know God. And so it doesn’t take long for them to start plotting to take Jesus’s life. So basically, those teachers of the law and the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders give us a perfect example of how NOT to bear witness to Jesus Christ. In contrast, there is the paralyzed man. This paralyzed man, who was forgiven and then healed, gives us a perfect example of what it means to bear witness to Christ—even though he doesn’t say a single word. The paralyzed man simply did what Jesus told him to do. That’s what bearing witness to Jesus Christ simply means. But if we were to dig deeper into Jesus’s command, He tells the paralyzed man to get up and keep getting up, and also to go and walk and keep going and walking. On the other hand, Jesus tells him that he only needs to pick up his mat one time. When we stumble, we should keep getting up. When we go and walk in faith, we should persevere in going and walking. But when we pick up the mat that we were laying on because were paralyzed by sin, we only need to do that once. Because in Christ, we are forever forgiven of our sins, and we are forever healed of our sins.

DISCUSSION: (For nonbelievers) How have friends helped you in the past? In what ways have you helped your friends? (For believers) Who are people who have helped you come to faith?