Sermon

Sermon Title: From Paradox to Doxology

Passage: Luke 5:1–26

Big Idea: Glorify God for the incredible Jesus, who recruits the unworthy, cleanses the unclean, honours the faithful friends and forgives the immovable sinner

1. Recruited: Jesus calls the unworthy to catch people (5:1–11)

2. Cleansed: the willing Lord touches the unclean (5:12–16)

3. Forgiven: Jesus honours faithful friends and forgives the immovable sinner (5:17–26)

What comes to your mind when you think about what an Anglican Church should look like?

For those of us who have been here for a while, we think this is what the Church looks like.

There’s a nice Church building, with some nice people, who sometimes sing nice songs.

The National Church Life Survey from a few years ago tells us that the average Anglican Church in Australia has 47 people.

And I hope you will fill out the new survey when it comes around.

And how about the people inside the Anglican Church?

There are a variety of people inside the Church.

There are some very impressive looking ones, but the majority of us don’t stand out according to the world’s standards.

There are people in the Church who have failed in various ways, whether in their relationships with their families or at work.

We have outcasts who don’t fit in and we have many who feel powerless, especially among those whose first language is not English.

Why do we often see failures, outcasts, and powerless in Churches?

Please open your Bible with me to Luke 5, beginning from verse 1.

We’ll see how Jesus engages with the unworthy, the unclean as well as the immovable paralytic and his friends.

But before we do, let’s pray,

“Father, by your Holy Spirit, please help us to understand your word not only to know them, but to seek your will for us through them and to obey your will once we know it, for we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

1. Recruited: Jesus calls the unworthy to catch people (5:1–11)

Jesus recruits the unworthy.

Last week, we saw how Jesus’ popularity as a teacher and as a healer was growing.

On one occasion, there were so many people who wanted to hear Jesus preach God’s word that he was standing next to the water at Lake Gennesaret.

Lake Gennesaret was another name for Lake of Galilee.

Jesus saw that there were two empty boats nearby.

The fishermen who owned the boats weren’t in the boats; they were washing their nets.

The fishermen had just spent a whole night trying to catch their fish and they were washing their nets to prepare for the next catch.

Since there was such a big crowd coming to hear Jesus, Jesus got into one of the boats, Simon’s boat to be precise, and asked him to push the boat a little further into the lake so that he could speak to the large crowd without being forced into the water.

Jesus sat down and preached from the boat.

The boat became his pulpit, where he preached from, for the day.

After Jesus finished teaching the crowd about the word of God, he told Simon how to fish.

Look with me at verse 4, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

What would you have said if you were Simon?

He might have thought, Jesus might have been good with teaching the Bible, but fishing?

No, fishing was Simon’s thing.

Fishing was his profession.

Simon had made his money by fishing, all the time.

He was supposed to be good at it, but not last night.

Look with me at verse 5, “Master,” Simon replied, “we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing. But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.”

Simon didn’t seem too keen to hear Jesus’ advice.

I’m fairly certain he felt pretty bad about failing to catch a single fish already, even though he worked an all-nighter for this.

He probably wasn’t in the mood to hear from Jesus about fishing.

But Simon, out of his respect for Jesus, decided to give it a try anyway.

And, lo and behold, they caught a lot of fish.

There were so many fish that the nets that they had just cleaned were about to tear apart.

And so he signalled to the fishermen from the other boat to come and help.

They had reached their capacity and probably exceeded it, because the two boats were about to sink.

Peter, the professional fisherman, recognised something incredible, something extraordinary had just happened.

There were no fish only a few hours ago and now there were fish everywhere.

This was not normal.

This was not a coincidence.

This was God at work.

And out of his ignorance, he thought that Jesus was not good enough to tell him about fishing, when it was Peter himself who was not good enough even to be anywhere near Jesus.

It wasn’t that Jesus wasn’t good enough for him; he wasn’t good enough for Jesus.

And so he said, “Go away from me, because I’m a sinful man, Lord!”

Simon Peter recognised that he was so unworthy of Jesus that he told Jesus to get away from him.

And here’s the irony: To come before God, you must first realise that you’re not worthy to come before God.

If you want to come into God’s presence, you must recognise that you have no business being in God’s presence.

He’s too holy for you.

He’s too good for you.

You don’t belong in God’s presence.

I don’t belong in God’s presence.

Like Peter, we’re sinners in the presence of a holy God.

We don’t belong.

Peter recognised that Jesus is the Lord, and not merely a human Master or a Teacher.

It wasn’t just Peter who recognised that what happened was extraordinary; the rest of the fishermen, including Simon’s partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.

Though Peter was right to acknowledge that he had no right to be in the presence of Lord Jesus, Jesus responded with the paradox of grace, in verses 10-11, “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus told Simon.

“From now on you will be catching people.”

Rather than leaving the unworthy Peter, Jesus recruited the unworthy Peter.

Usually employers recruit people who are worthy of the position.

If you have the right qualifications, if you have the right experience, if you have the right attitude, you’ll get the job.

You’d be worthy.

But here, Jesus recruited someone who was unworthy.

Both he and Peter knew that Peter was unworthy.

And yet, Jesus graciously recruited Peter to a new job, not to catch fish, but to catch men.

Jesus wasn’t telling Peter that he would now kidnap people, or that they would catch men who did evil things.

No, Jesus was recruiting Peter to catch people with him by doing what Jesus himself had been doing.

Jesus recruited Peter to proclaim the good news of God, the coming of God’s kingdom.

They would catch people and save them, before they’re lost forever in the sea of destruction.

The message that Jesus gives to Peter and others like him would save unworthy sinners and turn them into saints, made holy by none other than Jesus himself.

Peter and at least some of his fellow fishermen responded to Jesus’ recruitment, left everything, left their boat, and followed Jesus.

You might have heard the saying, ‘Burn your boats’.

It came from the story of the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés who, in 1519, arrived in Mexico and burned his ships on the coast of Mexico.

The result?

His men could only go forward and not turn back.

They could not abandon their mission by going back to their boats.

Peter and his partners might as well have burnt their boats.

They weren’t going back.

But more importantly, they were following a far better captain.

They wouldn’t be catching fish anymore.

They had left everything to follow Jesus to catch people, in order to save them.

Jesus didn’t recruit Peter when Peter was ready.

He didn’t even wait until Peter was happy.

He recruited when Peter recognised that Jesus was Lord.

How about us?

How do we respond when Jesus approaches us?

Do we think that we’re too good for Jesus?

How do we respond when Jesus recruits us?

Would we refuse because we think that we’re not worthy?

Friends, we are not worthy and yet Jesus graciously recruits us.

If you’re not a Christian yet, please don’t make the same mistake as Peter at the beginning, don’t think of yourselves as being too good for Jesus.

And if you’re a Christian already, don’t hesitate to burn your boat and follow Jesus when he recruits you.

Jesus is recruiting you; you should be honoured.

He’s worth everything that you will lose for following him, be it wealth or health, be it family or fame.

If he’s recruiting you, follow him.

2. Cleansed: the willing Lord touches the unclean (5:12–16)

And so, Jesus recruited the unworthy Peter.

Jesus also cleanses the unclean, and he does it with a touch.

Look with me at verse 12, “While he was in one of the towns, a man was there who had leprosy all over him. He saw Jesus, fell facedown, and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

In Jesus’ days, leprosy could’ve covered many different types of skin diseases.

If someone in Jesus’ days was identified to have leprosy, they had to be separated from human contact.

They were outcasts of the society, not by their own choice.

And they had to cry out “Unclean” when they’re fifty paces from another living soul.

The Jewish historian Josephus called the lepers “in no way differing from a corpse”.

Some people even called them the living dead.

This particular leper broke all these customs to come before Jesus.

He came before Jesus with a very specific message: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

He wasn’t doubting Jesus’ ability.

Jesus could certainly heal the man of his leprosy, if he wanted to.

One of my daughter’s friends is turning 18 next week.

What do you get an 18-year-old girl for her birthday?

Any suggestions?

Well, she told my daughter exactly what she wanted: a house!

You can tell her she’s dreaming! (And she was only joking!)

Like my daughter’s friend, the leper who approached Jesus knew exactly what he wanted.

He wanted Jesus to make him clean.

For a very long time, his very identity was that he was unclean.

And he asked Jesus to get rid of his uncleanliness.

He wants to be clean again.

He wants to be able to be with people again.

Everyone who saw him went away; he just wanted to know what it’s like to physically touch another person again.

He knew exactly what he wanted.

However, he also knew that it’s a gift, not a transaction.

Jesus can give the gift of his healing, but would he want to?

Jesus reaches out, touches him and says, “I am willing; be made clean,” and immediately the leprosy leaves him (v.13).

That’s a wonderful example of how we ought to pray, isn’t it?

The leper was super clear on what he wanted to ask of Jesus.

What he asked for was far more ambitious than a house, even a house in Sydney!

He wanted Jesus to heal him, to cleanse him of his leprosy.

Do we pray with such clarity when we pray?

Do we know what we want to ask of God when we come before him?

A lot of times, we pray safe prayers.

Let’s take world peace as an example.

We pray for world peace.

We know that it would be nice to have, but if God doesn’t give world peace straight away, we’re not too worried about it.

If we pray, and we don’t expect God to do anything about it, is that really still prayer?

Do we take our prayers seriously?

If we don’t take our prayers seriously, why should God bother to listen to our prayers?

No, my brothers and sisters, don’t pray safe but vague prayers, but pray like the leper.

Be clear with what you want to ask of God because whatever you ask for in Jesus’ name, God can certainly do it.

But it depends on him.

Does he want to answer your prayer?

Is he willing to answer your prayer?

How do you know whether Jesus is willing to answer your prayer?

Well, know his will.

How do you know his will?

By his word and by praying to him.

God has shown you his will in the Bible.

If you pray for God to humble you as you come before him, will he answer it?

Of course!

It’s clearly his will, written in his word.

And if you’re not sure, like with an important decision or how to respond to his recruitment, pray.

Sometimes God answers my prayers for the Church in ways I never expected; other times he gives me far more than my little faith asked for.

My brothers and sisters, don’t pray vague, safe prayers that you don’t care about.

Instead, pray clear, faithful prayers that you seriously want to see God answer.

Pray prayers according to God’s will.

Jesus gives two commands to the healed leper: tell no one, and show yourself to the priest and make the offering Moses commanded (v.14).

However, the news about Jesus spreads and large crowds would gather to hear Jesus and be healed by Jesus (v.15).

Once again, Jesus had to withdraw to the wilderness to pray (v.16).

Friends, one of the ways we help our members to pray for our Church is 3,2,1,0.

If you would open to our Companion Booklet, you’ll see what the 3,2,1,0 stands for.

3 stands for three questions of our Church with regard to our direction: the Why, the How and the What.

2 stands for the two prayer points.

Friends here are two clear things that we can ask God in prayer for.

Please pray for the Welcome Home – Discover course (4 households) and the Christianity Explored Course.

Originally, I was hoping to have four households coming, and by God’s grace, we have three households in the Discover Course.

But more than that we have many more households doing the Christianity Explored Course in Mandarin.

Praise God!

He’s exceeded my prayer point for this already.

Please continue to pray for the Christmas concert.

We want to see at least 120 people joining us at our Community Christmas Concert.

It won’t be easy.

There will be obstacles.

But don’t let them stop you.

Just as the leper didn’t let the social customs of the day stop him from coming to Jesus, be determined to work as one as we bring the people of Kogarah here to hear the good news of Jesus.

And please don’t rely on yourself.

Trust God first.

Give this to him in prayer.

Before chasing numbers for the Christmas concert, we pray, “Lord, if you are willing,” over each household on our list.

For some of us who are outsiders, who might consider ourselves unclean, hear the good news of Jesus.

Bring your uncleanness and shame to Jesus and pray, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean”.

Our Lord Jesus is not afraid to touch you.

He won’t contaminate himself when he touches you.

Instead, there’s a reverse contamination.

Touching him decontaminates you.

And so, make prayer the engine of your walk with God.

3. Forgiven: Jesus honours faithful friends and forgives the immovable sinner (5:17–26)

The leper broke the customs of the day to approach Jesus.

Another time, a group of friends physically broke the roof of a house to bring their paralysed friend to Jesus.

And Jesus honours the faith of the friends and forgives the man who cannot move himself.

It happened on one of those days with Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there and Jesus had “the power of the Lord” to heal in him (v.17).

A group of guys came and carried their paralysed friend on a stretcher to see Jesus.

When they got to the house they couldn’t go in because there was a crowd blocking their way.

You might have heard of the saying when God closes one door, he opens another.

That might be true in some cases but it’s actually not in the Bible.

What’s in the Bible is this: When the crowd blocks the door, make your own opening through the roof.

Because that’s what these friends did!

They got up on the roof and lowered him through the tiles (v.19).

Listen to what Jesus says at the beginning of verse 20, “Seeing their faith”.

Giving up on Jesus because they couldn’t get in wasn’t faith.

Breaking in and entering through the roof is faith.

Faith trusts in Jesus and would not let anything stop us from coming to Jesus.

The friends had faith in Jesus.

Notice that it was plural – their faith.

It was most probably the friends’ faith as well as the paralysed man’s faith.

Jesus continues, “Man, your sins are forgiven” (v.20).

The scribes ask, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (v.21).

A blasphemy is saying something false about God.

In this case, Jesus is saying that the man’s sins are forgiven when only God alone could forgive sin.

It’s like if someone stole your phone and I told him, ‘It’s OK; all’s forgiven.’

I don’t have the authority to say that because it wasn’t my phone that got stolen but yours.

In the same way, if someone has sinned, it’s ultimately against God.

No one else but God has the right to forgive that person’s sin since it’s the sinner who had sinned against God.

But when Jesus says that the person’s sin is forgiven, he’s saying that the sinner has sinned against him, even though the paralysed man had probably never seen Jesus.

That’s why the Scribes said that Jesus was speaking blasphemies.

He had no right to forgive a sinner’s sin, since he wasn’t God.

Or was He?

Jesus knew what was in their hearts and so he asked them, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?”

Which is easier (v.23)?

Both are easy for God, and for Jesus one is no harder than the other, though only the healing can be seen, while the forgiveness remains hidden.

However, Jesus continues “so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he told the paralysed man, “I tell you, Get up, take your stretcher and go home”.

And the man goes home glorifying God, and everyone who was there was amazed and also glorified God, saying “We have seen remarkable things today” (vv.25–26).

Friends, this is the God whom we’ve come to worship today.

He has done remarkable things and we ought to glorify him.

As I was going through the last verse, I noticed something that I never noticed before.

The word translated as glorify is the Greek word “doxazō;” and the word translated as “remarkable” here is the Greek word “paradoxos”.

It’s where we get the English word “paradox”.

The word paradox means something that doesn’t seem to make sense at the beginning but over time, you realise it does.

It’s a combination of the two words para – against and dox – thinking or belief.

It’s the idea that something is hard to believe.

And that’s what’s been happening throughout today’s passage.

As we follow Jesus, we saw paradoxes that were hard to believe.

We saw Jesus recruiting fishermen who failed to be his catchers of people.

We saw Jesus reverse the very idea of contamination by cleansing the unclean leper with his touch.

Finally we saw faithful friends who broke the roof honoured by Jesus because they believed that Jesus could heal their immovable friend.

Not only did Jesus make the immovable friend walk again, he forgave this friend’s sin, as the Son of Man, who has the authority of God to forgive sins.

All these are incredible things.

All these are paradoxes.

And all these led to doxologies; all these led to praises of God.

Friends, as we come to see these paradoxes of Jesus, they are not there simply for us to marvel; they are there to lead us to worship.

Friends, though we are weak, our God is strong.

If you ask me a few months ago whether we’ll reach our 75-households goal this year, I would probably say it’s going to be extremely difficult.

But God’s been good.

On average, we’ve been getting 3.6 visitors per week.

God is bringing new friends into our Church.

God hasn’t given up on us yet, and neither should we.

When God does send people our way, show the paradox of God’s grace.

Show a genuine and remarkable love and commitment to our Lord that the world could only marvel at.

Show them that unlike the world, our background, our differences, our faults, won’t stop us from loving one another.

Show them that God recruits unworthy people like us to do his marvellous deeds.

Show them the dogged faithfulness of the friends who brought their paralytic friend to Jesus, friends who won’t give up on their helpless friend.

Let them see the gospel by being testimonies of the paradox of grace.

And pray that as they see your paradox of grace, they would themselves bow before Jesus and glorify him.

Just like the paralytic friend whose deepest need was not healing but forgiveness, your deepest need, and my greatest need, too, is to be forgiven.

The same goes with your friend who hasn’t come to Christ yet.

Their greatest need is to be forgiven by God.

By God’s grace, pray for them, and bring them before Jesus, perhaps with the help of a few friends with you.

When one door closes, break the roof.

Don’t stop until your friend receives forgiveness of sins that can only come from Jesus.

Bridge: summarises the talk up until now. Anticipates a climactic finish to the talk

So we have seen the unworthy Peter recruited by Jesus, the leper cleansed by a willing Jesus, a group of friends honoured by Jesus and an immovable man forgiven by Jesus.

Unworthy, unclean, immovable, and one incredible Lord who was willing.

No wonder they glorified God and said, “We have seen remarkable things today” (v.26).

So where does that leave us?

Friends, the reason why we often see failures, outcasts, and powerless in Churches is because Jesus is willing to heal them.

They are often rejected by the world but they are wanted by Christ, they are loved by Christ.

That is the paradox of grace.

Those too proud to see their wretchedness, who think of themselves as above the outcasts in the church are not worthy.

Rather, it’s only when we see our wretchedness, our unworthiness, that we see the beauty of God’s grace.

For that’s what we see at the cross.

At the cross we see the Lord Jesus, who was rejected by his very own, betrayed by his friend, seen as a failure, who alone can forgive, took our uncleanness and our sin on himself, so that unworthy sinners could hear, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The paradox of grace comes first; following him and glorifying God is our response.

Glorify God for the incredible Jesus, who recruits the unworthy, cleanses the unclean, honours the faithful friends and forgives the immovable sinner

Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for your grace on wretched people like us. Forgive us for our pride when we think we’re too good for the Church, too wise to listen to your teaching. Father, cleanse us, take away any sin that muddies our relationship with you. Father, give us the faith of those faithful friends, whose determination made an opening when there was none. Father, we’re not worthy but should you recruit us to be fishers of men, let us burn our boats and follow you. For in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”