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Jesus Heals Us Spiritually

Scripture: Matthew 9:1-8
Date: January 18, 2026
First Methodist Church Wetumpka

Scripture Reading

Our scriptural lesson this morning comes from the gospel of Matthew, Chapter 9. I'll be reading the first 8 verses of that chapter. And as always, let me encourage you to go home today and read all of the chapter. It has some great answers to some of the questions that we have in life.

Matthew writes:

And getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven."

And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming." But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—he then said to the paralytic—"Rise, pick up your mat, and go home."

And he rose and went home. When the crowd saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Sermon

Now that Jesus is back in Capernaum, large crowds are starting to gather around him again and follow him wherever he goes. Mark tells us that Jesus was preaching the word to them. But this time the audience is just a little different. Luke tells us that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and the scribes have come from all over Galilee, Judea, and even Jerusalem to hear what Jesus is saying.

But these Jewish leaders are not there to encourage Jesus. They have come to make sure he doesn't say or do anything that would contradict their teaching and understanding of the Torah, the Mosaic law. So they're there to catch Jesus and point their fingers at him if he says something that they don't agree with.

Like the account from last Sunday, this story is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This is another example of Jesus healing the sick and the diseased in the Messiah's role as healer. This was clearly prophesied in passages like Isaiah 35:5-6, where it says:

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy."

Jesus' miracles were a testimony to the fact that he was sent by God, and that he was the anticipated Messiah. And the Old Testament helps us to see that there are certain healings that only the Messiah can do, and this is one of those healings.

However, as we talked about last week, Jesus' miracles were not primarily done for crowd effect. Instead, they were primarily done to minister to the humble needs of humble people like Peter's mother-in-law.

But most Jewish people at that time would have preferred much more spectacular signs, like calling down fire from heaven on a legion, or seeing Jesus ascend to his throne, like what Judas Iscariot wanted Jesus to do. But that was never God's plan for salvation.

Dr. Luke also reminds us that the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal. Jesus' ministry involved teaching and preaching and healing, and everywhere that Jesus went, the presence and the power of the Lord was with him throughout his ministry.

If people needed forgiveness of sin to heal them spiritually, the power of the Lord was present to forgive them. If they needed deliverance from demonic oppression, the power of the Lord was there to deliver them. If they needed physical healing, the power of the Lord was present to heal them. It was the power of the Lord working through Jesus that brought complete healing to the people that he encountered in his lifetime.

Four Faithful Friends

But this morning, we're talking about four faithful friends, and how the faith of these friends was not only seen by Jesus, but was the driving force to heal the paralyzed man.

But before we get into our scripture lesson this morning, let's talk about what it means to be a friend. What is a friend?

A friend is someone who knows everything there is to know about you, but still loves you. That's a good definition. I like that. A friend is someone who knows everything about you—everything—and still loves you.

A friend is someone you can count on. They're there for you when you need them most. A friend is someone who will do anything for you. A friend is someone who answers your call at midnight. My brother Steve told me that this week. He said, "I've got friends that if they call me at midnight, I'm going to answer the phone. But they better not abuse it because I may not answer it the second time."

And a friend is someone who is always there for you. In other words, a friend is someone who is walking into your life when everybody else is walking out of your life.

We all need friends like that. Don't we?

Obstacles to Our Faith

But as you know, there are always obstacles to our faith. And it's good to have faithful friends, but sometimes there are obstacles that impede our faithful friends and impede us.

When you have battled an illness for as long as this paralyzed man has battled an illness, perhaps you ask yourself some of these questions:

• Will God heal me?
• Can God heal me?
• Do I believe that God can heal me?
• When will God heal me?
• How will God heal me?

Perhaps the paralyzed man asked some similar questions when he was at a low point in his life, when he was struggling with this disease, when he was struggling with this paralysis, when he was struggling with his faith.

Other obstacles can be the circumstances that surround our life. Think about the circumstances surrounding this event. People had filled a house where Jesus was teaching, and people were surrounding the house. You could not get up to the door. There was no way to get to Jesus.

And then think about this: What if Jesus is too busy? Have you ever thought that? I hope you don't think that. But sometimes we tend to think, or maybe other people tend to think, that Jesus is too busy to care about the little thing that I'm concerned about right now.

But Jesus loves you so much that he cares about every single detail in your life. Nothing is too small for him to care about.

But see, Jesus was teaching and preaching. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he had better things to do.

And what about the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and the scribes? They had strong opinions about people who had infirmities. In those days, a person with an infirmity was thought to have some unrepented sin in their life. You remember the parable from John 9 when the disciples asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

And what about the naysayers in this man's life? Do you have any naysayers in your life? Some of us do. Some of us may not even know we've got naysayers in our lives. People that don't believe in the power of God to heal. I know people in my life that don't believe that God can heal. Or they don't believe this man was worthy to be healed.

His friends and family were powerless to help him. The doctors couldn't help him. He couldn't help himself. He was probably an outcast to some degree because he was physically disabled, so he couldn't go into the temple, even if he could make it to Jerusalem. He was helpless and infirm.

Friends Do the Unexpected

Well, let's get back to his four faithful friends.

These friends could have given up and gone back home when they saw the crowd, and nobody would have blamed them if they had. But there was something special about these friends because they did something unexpected.

Friends do that, don't they? Friends do things that are unexpected. They call to check on you to see how you're doing, why you've been missing so much church. They call to make sure that you're on the mend. They call to make sure that you remember your appointment. They come by to check on you and sit down with you and break bread with you and drink coffee with you. They text you to check in on you.

I texted my friend up in Birmingham yesterday. And this is what he replied. He said, "Thanks for checking on me. I was just thinking about you two minutes ago." Isn't that great? We all need friends like that.

Here we have four faithful friends who are working together to get their friend to Jesus. These friends were not going to be denied. They were going to do whatever it took to get their friend to Jesus. They saw all the obstacles, and yet they figured out a way around them.

They went to the top of the house and they started digging through the ceiling. I love that. And I can just hear one of them right now, whatever he was digging a hole with in the roof, going, "Don't worry, Josiah, we're going to get you to see Jesus in just a minute."

It showed their love for their friend. And their faith in the power of Jesus to heal. They believed Jesus could heal their friend. So they were going to get their friend to Jesus.

Do you have a friend right now who needs Jesus' help? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get your friend to Jesus?

Imagine Being Lowered Before Jesus

I want you to think about this for a second. Can you imagine sitting in this sanctuary listening to Jesus teach? What a day that would be. And we were just gathered in here, and Jesus was teaching us.

Imagine the crowd that would be here. Not only this sanctuary—it would be filled to capacity—but the chapel downstairs, and Wesley Hall, and the family life center, and the education building would be filled. You couldn't get in these buildings. People would be gathering on the streets, trying to hear what Jesus is saying, what Jesus is teaching.

And then all of a sudden, pieces of the ceiling begin to fall on top of your head and there's an opening. And if you've been a member of this church for longer than ten years, you're going, "Oh, no, Lord, not again."

But then you see daylight breaking through and a person is being lowered down in front of Jesus.

Now, imagine that you're the paralyzed man for a moment. And you're being lowered down before Jesus, and as you're being lowered down, you begin to see his face. You begin to hear his voice. How do you feel? Hopeful, right? You haven't been able to walk or care for yourself in years. And now perhaps Jesus will heal you and set you free from this prison that you've been in.

But then Jesus announces to the man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

How do you react to that? Are you grateful? Or do you say, "Wait a minute, Lord. Don't you see me? I can't walk. I can't use my arms. Don't you see me lying here on this bed? Don't you see my condition?"

We Are Spiritual Beings

Too often we focus on the physical, which is temporary, and not on the spiritual, which is eternal.

French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience," meaning our true essence is spiritual.

Jesus tells Nicodemus, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit." We were made by God as spiritual beings. Remember what God told Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart."

Every one of us has a soul, and our soul is eternal.

Tammy and I watched the movie the other night—Heaven Is for Real. Has anybody ever seen that movie? It's a great movie. It's a true story about a little boy and his family. This little boy is sick and he's having surgery, and he's not doing well on the surgical table. And his father's in the chapel crying out to God, and his mother's in the waiting room calling everybody she knows and asking them to pray for her son.

And the little boy, while he's still on the operating table, he goes to heaven and he sees things. He sees his mother on the phone. He sees his father yelling at God. That's how he says it.

And then when he wakes up and he starts telling his mom and dad about all the things that he saw in heaven, all the people he met—he tells them about meeting his other sister. A sister that his mother had lost in a miscarriage. And she had never told her son or other daughter about this.

And so his parents started believing that what he said was true, and so his father, who was a preacher, started telling the congregation about what his son had been sharing. And of course, there were some skeptics in the congregation—not in this congregation—but like, "We don't know about all the things you're saying. It sounds too far-fetched for us to believe that he didn't die, and yet you say he went to heaven."

And the father asked this—he just makes this profound statement. He says, "What if heaven is for real? What if it is real? Shouldn't that change the way that we're living our life?"

We are spiritual beings. Our souls are eternal. Shouldn't that change the way that we're living our life? Because it matters how we live our life here—it determines where we're going to spend eternity.

Paralyzed by Sin

Spiritually speaking, there are a lot of people who are paralyzed by sin in their life. We are trapped in evil and sinful habits. We have habituated our lives to this sin. We're not living for Jesus a life that is true. We can't quit sinning on our own any more than we can quit breathing.

And this is not the only trap that keeps us imprisoned. Fear and doubt and pride and ignorance and uncertainty and skepticism bind us. These are things that we cannot defeat on our own—not on our own wit or our own cleverness, not by our own strength of will, or by gutting it out. Like the paralyzed man, we can't beat it on our own.

We can only be set free by Jesus.

If you need to be delivered from a spiritual oppression, Jesus has the power to save you. He has the power to heal you. If you need to be delivered from a physical oppression, Jesus has the power to heal you.

Paul writes in Romans 8—listen to this:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death."

If you don't hear anything else I say this morning, hear this:

• If you are in Christ Jesus, then you have been set free from your past.
• If you are in Christ Jesus, then you have been set free from the power of sin over your life.
• If you have been set free, then you are free from the sting of death.

And the Spirit of the Lord has given you new life—eternal life that you can start living and enjoying right now.

Jesus Declares His Authority

Now, after Jesus forgives the sins of this paralyzed man, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and the scribes began to grumble, saying, "Only God can forgive sins. Who does Jesus think he is? God? This is blasphemy."

But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking, has the authority to forgive sin because he is God. And Jesus is declaring his own authority—that this man is now reconciled with God. All because Jesus saw the faith of his four faithful friends.

Jesus forgave the man, and Jesus healed the man, and the man got up and went home. Jesus' authority is absolute in his life, and Jesus' authority is absolute in your life and mine.

And it's no wonder that the crowds were amazed. Think about the crowds who would come to see and hear Jesus. Most of them didn't even get close enough to see his face or hear his voice. But they would have heard or possibly seen the commotion on top of the roof. And they might have known the paralyzed man or one of his four friends.

And from the street, they possibly saw the man being lowered down in front of Jesus, but they definitely saw him walk out. That's why they were afraid—because they see this paralyzed man walk out with his mat, and he's on the way home.

Because through Jesus, the grace and the power of God was made manifest like never before, and so they rejoiced. After the man was healed, almost everyone praised God. Everyone except the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and the scribes—they were mad because Jesus forgave this man's sins.

Faith That Can Be Seen

Now think of Jesus as every eye is on him, waiting to see what he will say or do. Verse 4 says that Jesus saw their faith. Oh, that we would all have the faith that can be seen!

When Jesus sees the faith of these four faithful friends, he grants forgiveness immediately to the paralyzed man. Jesus does the one thing that is needed most—he forgives the man of his sin.

The forgiveness that comes by faith is what is needed most in our life. Of all our problems, the spiritual ones should have the highest priority and should be taken care of first. Our salvation depends on God's forgiveness.

Yes, Jesus does heal the man of his physical problems. That was necessary, but it was secondary. Jesus healed the man to prove that he had the power to forgive sins. The visible healing was proof that the invisible forgiveness had actually taken place.

That's why Jesus, knowing the thoughts of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, says to them, "So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—and then I love this—he turns away from them and faces the man who is paralyzed: "Rise, pick up your bed, and go home."

Rise, Pick Up Your Bed, and Go Home

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law and the scribes have been denying Jesus from the very beginning. But he had never given up on them. He continued to reach out to them, even when they were denying him.

And what that tells me is he hasn't given up on you. Even though you may have denied him in the past, he hasn't given up on you. You can come to him today, and he'll forgive you of your sins and restore your life.

Perhaps Jesus is asking you to get up. Just like he told this man—get up. Take up and move forward.

Maybe that's what Jesus is telling us today: to get up from this disability that we're lying in, and to take up the duties and obligations of a normal life, and then move forward into the Christian life where God wants us to be faithful followers of him. And Jesus can give you the strength to do that this morning.

What Has You Disabled Today?

So what has you disabled this morning?

• Anger?
• Unforgiveness?
• Disappointment?
• Pride?
• Sadness?
• Depression?
• Grief?
• Anxiety?

And what duties and obligations does the Lord want you to take up this morning?

• Sharing the gospel with your family, and your friends, and your co-workers
• Witnessing to your faith about what God has done in your life
• Serving God and serving each other in the capacity of the church

You know, you can become a member of a church, but you don't really connect with that church until you start serving—serving God and serving each other. That's when you really start making those personal connections with other people, when you're walking and working side by side with someone else.

And what can Jesus do for you this morning to help you move forward in your life?

Listen, if you will come to Jesus with even the faith of a mustard seed, the unexpected and the remarkable will still happen in your life.

Are you in need of spiritual healing today? Are you tired of living a life paralyzed by sin? Jesus can forgive you and restore your life today. Jesus is ready to forgive you if you're ready to exercise your faith.

That's what those four friends did. They exercised their faith and took their friend to Jesus. And Jesus changed his life forever.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray this morning.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your forgiveness. We thank you for the faith that you instill in our lives, that you impart into our lives.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you can help us to get up from the disabilities that we tend to lie in sometimes, that you can help us to take up the things that will help us to live a life that's pleasing to you.

And we thank you, Lord, that you can help us to move forward in this life and not be restrained anymore, not be imprisoned any longer, but to be free and to serve you with joyful obedience.

Lord, I pray that you will continue to move mightily in our lives in these days. Give us the words to say when we come across people who are struggling. Lord, help us to always be ready to take our friends, our loved ones, and those we meet to Jesus.

And we pray all this in Jesus' holy name. Amen.

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