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Speaker 1 00:00:35 Yeah. Chapter two breaks down into four separate episodes where Jesus is engaged with these religious leaders. Now, so far in chapter one, Jesus has, we've seen him starting to do miracles and casting demons, and he's teaching with authority. But now, for the first time in chapter two, we see that he is actually opposed by the religious leaders of his day. They're known here as the, in this cha in this passage as teachers of religious law. And in, in other parts of the chapter, they're talked about the Pharisees. There's two groups that overlap a lot. And um, you know, if you think about it today, one of the things in our culture is what, uh, sociologists call the rise of the nuns. And that doesn't, I don't mean n u n S, that might be an interesting movie, right? The rise of the nuns. Mm-hmm. , see the nun, see, see, uh, mother Superior taking over the world, .

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Speaker 0 00:02:25 Well, yeah, you might be out there listening and thinking, well, that's me. I kind of feel like I need to disaffiliate that you, maybe you found this podcast and you're still listening, giving it a chance. But, but you might be surprised to find that you have more in common with Jesus than you think. Now that, I'm not saying that Jesus was, was all about deconstructing faith. He certainly didn't do that. And I know there's a movement for that right now. And, and that's not a good biblical, godly thing, but Jesus definitely deconstructed toxic faith or toxic religion. And, and so I think people need to recognize the difference. And if you stick with us over these next few weeks, I think you'll see the difference between toxic religion or sort of human religious systems and really the kind of faith that Jesus calls us to. There's really a big difference. And that's why I think Jesus is kind of challenging religion through all of this.

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Speaker 0 00:04:03 Okay. So before we get into the verses for today, and we're gonna be in Mark chapter two verses one through 12. So we have a lot of verses to cover. Ross, I think it's important for us to start by defining what we mean by religion, cuz it's probably a word that means a lot of things to a lot of different people. And we're gonna be spending time talking about it today and over the next few weeks. So let's start with that. What is religion,

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Speaker 2 00:05:45 Yeah. Here's what I think we'll see, um, in this series over the next four weeks about religious systems and what they are. Uh, and some of the negative characteristics are, it, it measures others by external behavior alone. Um, there's this outward conformity to rules, but it masks a hard heart toward God. And so that leads people to be suspicious and and critical towards others that aren't in their circle. We see it all the time. There's, there's people who, who click up and are judgemental, um, towards the people who aren't measuring up, following all the rules, aren't there every week. Um, I'm sure as I'm talking about these, it's already frustrating you in in your mind and in your heart with maybe some of the interactions you've had, um, with people who are spiritually prideful or arrogant. Um, anyway, and, and there's another thing that I was thinking about also is there, there are people that, um, buck up against religious systems, um, because they feel so controlling.

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Speaker 0 00:07:41 Yeah. And I think it's good for people who are listening who are just like, yeah, you're right Eric. That's why I don't go to church. That's why I've deconstructed my faith. Or that's why I, I've left the church altogether. Like, I'm just gonna go over a couple of those things again cuz you know, religions and all of us, whether you feel religious or not, but arrogance, I mean, you can be arrogant even if you don't go to church. Critical, judgmental, like really, people who are pointing fingers at religion or the church are typically judgmental about people who are judgmental. So there, you know, I think we need to recognize, everyone needs to recognize, like we can all, I don't want to like just throw churches under the bus or religion under the bus. We all, we all kind of confined this toxic religion within all of us, can't we?

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Speaker 2 00:09:05 Yeah. And one of the things that I've always learned, um, over the years about organizations in general is there are, there are principles that help, um, organizations like the church, and it's to challenge the process, right? I've always heard that it's a good thing to be able to go to the leaders or go to the top and say, why do we do this? Why do we do it this way? Ask questions and, and drill down deeper on, on clarity of certain issues. And I think, uh, as, as regular members of the church, they ought to be empowered and, and told that that's okay. You should be able to challenge, uh, your church and your leaders every once in a while. Ask hard questions if you don't understand. And it might be a sign that you're a part of a bad religion if you can't challenge it at all.

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Speaker 2 00:10:48 Yeah. Verses one through four says, when Jesus returned to Erum several, 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 they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus.

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Speaker 1 00:11:47 Yeah. So there's the context. The news about Jesus is really spreading fast all throughout the whole area. And so e e every time he shows up, then a crowd gathers. This word of mouth gets around and, and so it makes it really hard to have access to him. So Jesus is staying at, uh, we don't know where he was staying at a friend's house or one of his supporters or whatever. He's at this house, suddenly, boom, everybody shows up, oh Jesus, in town. And so what what Jesus decides to do is to just start, you know, communicating with them the word of God. He start preaching to them. But I wanna, you know, if our listeners to think about, maybe you could paint a picture in your mind about what's going on. You have this house that's just packed, elbow to elbow. These crowds are spilling over in, even to the outside.

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Speaker 0 00:13:25 Now, before we talk about the friends, Eric, this reminds us, anyone who listened last week, this sounds familiar, we're not gonna dive into this too much, but we lo we saw last week the leper and how the leper was a picture of our spiritual condition. So just real quick, I mean, let's not forget that that really is what this guy can represent to all of us as well, right? This picture of our need, our desperate need for Jesus.

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Speaker 2 00:15:08 And then the friends are so excited, um, because they've heard that this man was compassionate and healing people. They just said, we've gotta get our friend. We've gotta get our friend to come hear this message. I wonder if you've ever felt that way. If you're listening to this, I hear people all the time come up to me at church and they'll say, I wish so and so was there to hear this message today. Th this would've been perfect for them. And man, I need to invite my friend or my mom or or my coworker to hear this message. That's what these friends are doing. 2000 years ago, they'd, they'd heard maybe some of this. And, and they're just like, you know, this is the power we need. This is the power that he needs. He's hopeless. This this paralyzed guy. He's, he's hopeless. There's, there's been nothing to help him thus far.

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Speaker 1 00:16:39 Look, I can, I can, when I envision this, you know, this is a, these four friends are carrying this guy on some kind of a cot or you know, some kind of a, of a gurney or something like that. They carry him up to the house and they hear, oh, Jesus in town, he's staying over on Fish Street, whatever. They carry him up there and, uh, they see the crowds and they go, oh no, what are we gonna do? And so they just tell the guy, sorry, not happening today. And they take him back home. No, it's not what they did. They see the obstacle. They say, we gotta find a way. We gotta find a way. Our friend has this huge need. And so they found this creative energetic approach that as a, as a homeowner myself, I'm going, oh my gosh, what did they just do?

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Speaker 0 00:18:42 Okay? So, so here they are. This is where we kind of left people. Cuz some people, some listeners don't even really know. If you don't know the Bible, you don't even know what happens next. So you're probably at the edge of your seat. Maybe you've pulled over on your commute to work and you're like, well, what happened? So here, this guy is lowered in front of Jesus. He's busy, he's preaching. I know how annoyed I get when, when I get disrupted in the middle of a sermon. So how does Jesus respond? What happens? Eric, read verse five. For us,

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Speaker 0 00:19:21 All right, two things. First of all, Ross, I think this is really interesting how this is worded in this passage. What is, why did Jesus, according to the scripture, why did Jesus heal the paralyzed man?

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Speaker 0 00:20:12 Yeah, yeah. Let's think back to what happened in, at the end of the last chapter. If you listen to the last episode, the leper comes and Jesus healed the leper from his leprosy. And I, I wonder how the leper would've responded if Jesus had said this to him, like, your sins are forgiven. The leper would've been like, well, thanks for nothing. I was kind of more worried about the leprosy here, right? So Jesus does something that's surprising, right? On two levels. So number one, he says, your sins are forgiven. We'll talk about that in a second. But really more immediately is he sees the faith of the four friends, which kind of just comes back to this whole zoo. You know, the, the, the picture that we have of these friends, the cinematographer is focused in on these four friends. And Jesus also is focused in on them, not just on the paralyzed man, which is really pretty impressive that he recognized their faith. Now, certainly the paralyzed man I'm sure had faith as well. He wasn't kicking and screaming. Well, I guess he couldn't kick, but he wasn't screaming saying, why are you bringing me here? But Jesus recognizes and acknowledges the faith of the fore friends. Okay, so let's close off, let's close off that, that scene now, Ross, and let's move on to this thing that Jesus says, that your, your sins are forgiven. Cuz now we're starting to shift the focus to Jesus and how he's greater than religion, because now he's gonna really tick off the religious elite,

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Speaker 2 00:22:25 Yeah. So it says, but some of the teachers of the religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy only, only God can forgive sins. And it it, it reminds me of when, you know, the, the guy comes for physical healing, but yet Jesus brings up the sins and it really goes back to again, um, some of the things we've already learned about Jesus coming his mission, what his priority was. His priority was to go and, and to preach the good news, the forgiveness of sins. That's what he's doing. And he and Jesus is so genius. He uses this guy as an example, um, right when he is gonna start challenging religion, he knows that the Pharisees are there. He knows that the scribes are there. He knows that the religious leaders are there. He knows that everybody's sitting there.

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Speaker 2 00:24:17 Like if you've ever been to a club or a high, an elite restaurant or whatever, you go up to the bouncer. And if you're, if you're someone important, if you're on the list, uh, you can get a nice table. I've never been on those lists any anyway by, by the way. But I've, I've wanted to break in the back door. Maybe I've tried it back in the old day, you know, back in my old days, get in the back door of the bar or something when it was packed. But, but that's what's going on. These guys are have a front row seat. They've, they've pushed their way in because they think that they're important and they're wanting to hear, what is this guy teaching? He better be, you know, lifting up the old way. He better be, um, you know, deferring to the law. And, and they're jealous of, of Jesus's following because people everywhere, they're coming from everywhere to listen to 'em, to hear him. And they don't get that, that that same type of following when they, they speak, it's probably more like the people are dragging themselves in, oh, we gotta go hear this message again from the synagogue , you know, but these guys, but Jesus is, is drawing a crowd at people's houses because he's so amazing and it brings up their jealousy. You can hear it in their voice when they're, they're challenging him. Um, this is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.

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Speaker 1 00:25:58 Yeah, that's a great point to try to get into their mind, into their mindset. When they heard this, what are they hearing? Because, you know, in the Old Testament system that they represented, um, there had been, God had, God had set this up. Now this is God's idea. But the way that it was used by them was not God's idea. That, but God had set up the system where to be forgiven of as sinia to bring an offering to the temple and go through a, a whole set of rituals and a whole bunch of steps. And it, you know, and, and you had to follow it down to the letter. And then over time, you know, the Jewish leaders kept adding steps and adding regulations about how it could be done, how it couldn't be done. And so I, I think they're thinking about, wait a minute, Jesus just bypassed the whole religious system. Hmm. Jesus just like kicked the whole religious system to the curb in a way and said, you don't need to go to these ga, the the people who are guarding the religious gate. You don't need to go through them to have access to God or to be blessed by God. You don't need to go. And that, that, to Eric's point, that threatened their control, their, uh, it threatened their position in society, uh, for Jesus to, to bypass the authorized way of doing things.

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Speaker 0 00:28:18 But verse eight says this, Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking. And so we 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. So I will prove to you that the son of man, that's what he called himself, that the son of man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. And then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man in this kind of mic drop moment. And he said, stand up, pick up your mat and go home. Man, this is just so powerful. It gives me chills. Anytime I read this passage,

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Speaker 2 00:29:59 But Christ as the son is in charge of God's entire house. You know, and it goes on to say, we are God's house. If we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ Jesus is being revealed. It's so beautiful that he is, he's greater than the law of Moses. This is going to be challenging to them. I think we're gonna see this later on in some of his other interactions later in the book. Um, but Jesus is certainly greater than the, the, the whole institution that they were, they were in and that they were keeping going, was pointing towards something greater. And that time had come and Jesus was fulfilling that these guys just weren't ready for it yet. So Jesus has gotta show his authority. He's gotta prove it says right there, I will prove to you the son of man has authority to forgive sins by healing a person.

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Speaker 1 00:31:54 Yeah. And let me, let me remind our, our readers based on what something you said, Eric, there, where we're at, what's happening in the Book of Mark. Because if, if you were with us at the very beginning in Mark chapter one, verse one, the emphasis is on the identity of Jesus. This is, you know, this is the good news of Jesus, the, um, the, the Son of God, the, the, the Messiah. And, um, and so a theme throughout the whole gospel of Mark, keep this in mind as we go forward week by week, is Jesus' identity is being revealed. It's being tested. And, and we're gonna see how people respond to that. So will they accept his identity or will they reject it? And will they accept his authority? Will they reject it? And so here we see you, you know, that these religious leaders, um, their observation was correct on one level.

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Speaker 0 00:34:02 Yeah. And it doesn't really, the passage doesn't tell us what happens in the minds of the religious leaders, but we can pretty much guess, right? You, you would, you would think that it would maybe change their minds and you, they would realize Jesus didn't commit blasphemy. And he was, he really did speak an act for God. But, but it, it doesn't, their attitude toward what was happening was wrong, right? The, they, they, I mean, think about it. The here's this guy coming to God through Jesus, he had physical per paralysis. He gets healed. They didn't care about his healing. They didn't care about his forgiveness of sins. The the one, and this is kind of what we're saying, the one thing that they cared about is that Jesus wasn't doing it the right way. What they thought was the right way. So in the, from the bigger picture, again, we think about religion and toxic religion.

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Speaker 0 00:35:53 But we should probably kind of finished here because there's one more thing we need to look at. There's one more verse we left off, and it's the very last verse. And it's just worth noting as we close it. It says, the man jumped up, grabbed his mat. I mean, you could have met, he didn't care about about the Pharisees. He just was like, sweet, I got a two for one today. I got a bogo, I got a, I got forgiveness of sins and I also can walk. Man. He walked out through the stunned onlookers and the the verse says, they were all amazed and praised, God exclaiming, we've never seen anything like this before. And Ross, that's kind of the point, right? That's, that's a good summary statement for the point of this whole passage,

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Speaker 1 00:37:35 There's no other road, there's no other way to get there. Religion can't do it. Only Jesus can do it. And so we just really want, uh, everyone to, to come to him. So let me just bring this home to you. If you've been trying to find God through religion or some kind of religious system like we've been talking about, uh, maybe you've been trying to find the one correct church that's gonna just open the door for you. Or maybe you've been trying to do all the right religious rituals and you're trying to figure out what's the right way to do it. Who has the authority to do that? Maybe you've been, uh, trying to keep what somebody told you were all of God's commandments or even every commandment that you've read in the Bible. Or maybe you're just trying to live this moral, righteous life and you know, you're jumping through hoops and that's the nature of religion. Religion's gonna try to control your access to God, but you don't need religion to open the door to God or to his blessings. You need Jesus. And so today we wanna make sure that you don't confuse those two. This story re reminds us that Jesus is inviting each one of us to come directly to him by faith to meet our needs. We saw the need to be forgiven our sin. We saw other needs as well. That's, that's what we need today.

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