Class Lesson October 9, 2011

Hey Gang,


We began a 5 week series last Sunday entitled, "It's a Miracle!" Our study is about some of the miracles of Jesus and what they reveal about who He is and what He desires to do in us and through us.

Jesus' Miracles, what do they mean?

What are some causes of and treatment options for physical paralysis? How else might people be paralyzed other than physically? What are treatment options for emotional or spiritual paralysis? What is the relationship between sickness and sin?

 
Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sin, and He desires that all people experience His forgiveness and grace. Our experience of forgiveness of our sins should motivate us to share the message of God’s forgiveness and grace with others.

Jesus was teaching in a house crowded with people who wanted to hear Him and see Him perform some miracle. Some men brought a helpless man hoping for Jesus' healing of the man's paralysis. They could not carry him through the crowd, so they took him up onto the flat roof of the house. They dug a hole through the roof and lowered the paralytic man on a pallet through the roof. Jesus praised their faith and forgave the man's sins. The Pharisees who were present thought this was blasphemy. Jesus then healed the man, thus meeting his greatest spiritual need and his physical need. After calling Levi to be a disciple, Jesus ate with publicans and sinners. Scribes and Pharisees criticized Jesus. He explained that He was like a doctor who had come to save the sick. 

I. SHOW YOUR FAITH – LUKE 5:17-20

The Son of Man Forgives and Heals

17 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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 Seeing their faith He said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you."



What miracle was performed? Would everyone say this was a miracle? Why? How is forgiveness of sins an amazing miracle to you?





What do you find significant about the men lowering their friend right down in the middle of the crowd?

II. RECEIVE HIS FORGIVENESS – LUKE 5:21-26

21 Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason: "Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 22 But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied to them, "Why are you reasoning this in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? 24 But so 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, pick up your stretcher, and go home." 25 Immediately he got up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God. 26 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!"



What truth did the scribes and Pharisee declare about Jesus? Which of the two options Jesus presented to the Pharisees would you have said was easier to do?





How do you reconcile this physical miracle with the cold hard fact that many followers of Christ remain in wheelchairs?



What do you think the faith of this paralyzed man had been like up to this point? Would he have encouraged his friends as well as they encouraged him? Why might it require great faith to be a representative of Christ’s forgiveness at home?





Go back to those four friends on the roof. What do you think they were feeling? Do you think it was okay with them that they were never mentioned again? What’s the lesson in that for us?



III. LIVE WELL FORGIVEN – LUKE 5:29-32  

Dining with Sinners

29 Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for Him at his house. Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were guests with them. 30 But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to His disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" 31 Jesus replied to them, "The healthy don't need a doctor, but the sick do. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

We read here that after the healing of the paralyzed man, Jesus went out and called a tax collector named Levi to follow Him. This despised yet wealthy man left everything behind in response to that call. What miracle of healing occurred in Levi?





This is a lesson about miracles – what’s the miracle here? How can we take part in this kind of miracle?



How can we follow Jesus’ example of associating with society’s and religion’s out casts without compromising Christian values?




How does the miracle of forgiveness give people the ability to get up, pick up their responsibilities, and go home? Once we have been forgiven and delivered from paralysis, what responsibilities do we have in our homes and out in the world?

Hope everyone has had a blessed week as we continue in this series of the miracles of Jesus. 

See you on Sunday!

In His Love,

David & Susan