Luke 5:17-26 Sermon for April 12, 2026

Good evening brothers and sisters in the Lord! Let’s all take a moment and make our way to Luke’s Gospel where we will specifically be looking at 5:17-26. I’m going to be reading our passage in full and then I’ll be giving you several takeaways. Some will be repetitive and some will be new, and all will be important for you and I to grasp unto. So, here we go. Luke 5:17-26 On one of those days while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea, and also from Jerusalem. And the Lord’s power to heal was in him. Just then some men came, carrying on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed. They tried to bring him in and set him down before him. Since they could not find a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the roof tiles into the middle of the crowd before Jesus. Seeing their faith he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’ Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, ‘Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied to them, ‘Why are you thinking this in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ – he told the paralyzed man, ‘I tell you: Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.’ Immediately he got up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God. Then everyone was astounded, and they were giving glory to God. And they were filled with awe and said, ‘We have seen incredible things today.’ This is the Word of the Lord. Praise be to God. Now, before we jump into the nitty gritty of our text, it’s helpful to just give you one sentence that completely summarizes the big idea here. It’s this: Christ the divine Son of Man forgives and heals the helpless sinner, proving that our deepest need is sovereign grace, not merely physical restoration. And we’re going to revisit this big idea over and over again multiple times in the gospel of Luke because it’s extremely important that we understand that we are sinners in need of grace first and foremost. If you’ll notice in the text, right in the heart of this miraculous healing picture, there is a phrase that Jesus says and it’s this: Friend, your sins are forgiven. Now, you might be wondering something here: a man, who is paralyzed, is brought to Jesus to obviously be healed, and one might not expect the immediate answer from to be, “Your sins are forgiven.” So, what’s up with this? Jesus is showing the man that his real problem is sin and that He Himself has the divine authority to deal with it. What I don’t want you to walk away with is this idea that the man’s sin CAUSED his paralysis. No, that’s not it at all. Jesus is simply saying that to heal you of something physical and for you to not be healed of something spiritual just isn’t going to cut it. Again, Jesus CAN heal and He does, but His primary mission, as we will see throughout all the gospels, is to come and redeem your soul. But, you might be asking another question perhaps and it’s this: why does Jesus forgive the man of his sins if the man hasn’t asked for forgiveness of his sins specifically? Let me break it down like this: Salvation for this paralyzed man isn’t driven by human eloquence but by divine compassion and sovereign initiative. Grace moves first. The man doesn’t ask. Jesus acts. This passage is a picture that shows us that we don’t come to Christ because we figured it out. We come because He draws us, He calls us, He moves us, and He saves us. Don’t miss the big idea here. We also need to remember that Jesus forgives here to REVEAL His divine identity. It gets the Pharisees asking, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” So, in short, Jesus forgives the man without a verbal request because faith is already present, grace always moves first, and Christ is revealing His divine authority to forgive sins sovereignly and freely. We’ll tap into all of this more in-depth momentarily. Let’s see what we’re taking away this evening from this passage. The first thing that can be deduced from this passage is this very real thing that the Word of God, Christ’s Words, carries irresistible, creative power. He says to get up, take your mat, and to go home. Jesus speaks and it produces obedience. The authority of Jesus transforms this wretched sinner from the inside out. And He does that for you and I. This isn’t some form up pep talk from Jesus. This is authoritative power. Christ’s call creates what it commands. So, let me re-word this: Jesus doesn’t try to make things happen- His word makes them happen. To be a little more deep, Christ’s word accomplishes what it declares because His authority is absolute. Or to put it more youth-friendly, when Jesus says it, it happens- no debate, no delay. And this is why we hold supreme the authoritative, infallible, inspired Word of God. Isaiah 55:11 says, “So my word that comes from my mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.” And we must remember that it says in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Amen. That’s it. When Christ speaks, it’s authoritative, just like His Word right here. The second thing to take away comes directly from the men carrying the paralyzed man to Jesus. This man was utterly incapable of coming to Jesus. He needed help. And since Jesus addresses a deeply spiritual issue this man has, we must emphatically says that, like our spiritual condition, we are spiritually helpless. He cannot come to Christ unless drawn to Him. John 6:44 says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:65 says, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.” John 12:32 says, “As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.” John 10:26-27 says, “But you don’t believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.” Acts 16:14 says, “The Lord opened their heart to respond to what Paul was saying.” In other words, Christ creates the response. You never found Christ. Christ found you. Christ must act first, which is why any true salvation story is truly the biggest miracle one can imagine. Why do you think we sing in Amazing Grace, I once was lost but now am found. I once was blind but now I see. It’s a display of God’s glory! The third thing we can take away is understanding that the miracle of the man being healed physically is the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom and we respond to is all with a sense of awe, reverence, and deep worship. And yet, as almost everything in the Bible does, this foreshadows something greater. What is that something greater? It’s a foretaste of the new creation where Jesus reverses the curse, restores broken bodies wipes away every tear, and makes all things new. It’s a micro glimpse into the macro reality that’s coming. And so while some may be healed today and others not, EVERY believer will be healed both physically and spiritually. Your time will come! To recap this point, let’s think of it this way: the healing is the trailer- eternity is the full movie. It’s but a sample of the full upgrade that Jesus promises. And so any glimpses of any sort of miracle that takes place in your life (marriage restored, cancer goes away, bills somehow paid), we should see those as foreshadowing greater things to come and approach such moments with deep awe, reverence, and worship. The fourth thing that we can take away from this passage is this reality that only God can forgive sins and Jesus is openly declaring that He is, in fact, God. He is Emmanuel. He proves his deity by forgiving sins and then validating that authority through a miracle. In other words, Jesus makes a God-sized claim, then performs a God-sized act to verify it. Jesus declares what only God can declare, then does what only God can do. And the Pharisees know this, which is why they were asking, Who but God can forgive sins? Jesus doesn’t hide who He is. I’m always blown away when people can read the Bible and still not see that Jesus is more than just a good, moral person. They reject His divinity. And to those people I ask them this: If Jesus is a good, moral person and Jesus has made claims that He is the Son of Man and is the One Whom can forgive sins and you’re saying that isn’t so, tell me what makes a liar a good, moral person then? In the words of Josh McDowell or C.S. Lewis, “Jesus is either Liar, Lord, or Lunatic and there really isn’t a fourth option is there?” You can either believe that Jesus is completely gone mad or crazy. Or that He is a complete liar, thereby, he cannot be that good example to quote and follow. Or… Just maybe, Jesus is exactly who He claims to be and you need to make a choice to either accept Him or reject Him and face the consequence. The fifth and final thing I’ll share stems from the determination of the faith that the men and the paralyzed man showed. This is an active trust. This isn’t just mere intellectual assent. This is a saving faith that is persistent, communal, and Christ-centered, which is often foreign to how many American Christians are operating today where they lag in their faith, privatize their faith, and me center their faith. So, let’s rephrase that a bit: real faith keeps going, brings others on the journey, and stays locked in on Jesus in all His glory. Or, saving faith pushes through obstacles, leans on community, and aims straight at Christ. Saving faith perseveres, doesn’t go at it alone, and doesn’t lose sight of Jesus. One would think that this is quite obvious, but it’s not at all what many Christians today are doing. Those men persisted through the obstacles of the crowd. They brought the man as a community. They stayed locked-in on Jesus and they wholeheartedly believe in the sufficiency of Jesus as the only hope they have for any and all problems, both physical and spiritual.