Have you ever wanted something from God—really wanted it—only to find out later He gave you something even better? Sometimes we come to Jesus asking for help with pain, stress, or hard circumstances. And He cares about all of that. But today’s story from the Gospel of Mark shows us something deeper. It shows us that Jesus doesn’t just fix what’s broken on the outside—He goes after what’s broken on the inside. That’s why I’ve titled this sermon “The Greater Miracle.” Because there’s one kind of healing that can change your life, but another kind of healing that can change your eternity.
If you’re new here today—or if you’ve been sitting in church your whole life—I want you to hear this loud and clear: Your biggest problem isn’t your body, your finances, or your circumstances; It’s your sin. And Jesus came to deal with that first.
Some people need help to get to Jesus (v. 1–4)
Jesus has come home to Capernaum, and the word spread like wildfire through the dusty streets. “He’s back! The teacher who heals is back!” Soon, every square inch of that little house is packed tighter than sardines in a can. Have you ever been in a really crowded place? People are shoulder-to-shoulder inside, spilling out the doorway, craning their necks from the street just to catch a glimpse of the Lord.
Somewhere across town, four friends are looking at their paralyzed companion lying helplessly on his mat. This man can’t walk, can’t run, can’t even crawl to Jesus. His body is broken, and his spirit is likely crushed under the weight of hopelessness. But he has friends who refuse to give up on him.
These four friends grab the corners of that mat and start carrying their paralyzed friend through the streets. When they arrive and see the impossible crowd, do they turn around? Absolutely not! They’re thinking, “If we can’t go through the front door, we’ll make our own door!”
Mark 2:4 NASB Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.
Up on the roof they go, tools in hand, tearing through clay tiles and wooden beams. Imagine that kind of determination. What do you think the people inside heard when the roof started coming apart? The debris is falling on the crowd below. The faces, shocked, are looking up as sunlight streams through the growing hole. The owner is wondering if his home owners insurance will cover the cost of his new reroofing project.
The average friend who means well but isn’t about to break a sweat would be like… “Welp, sorry bro, maybe next time. Let’s try the online service.” But these guys are varsity friends. They’re facing a mob of religious tire-kickers and no elevator so they start digging through the roof. They go full-blown Mission: Impossible and the dust starts flying. That is what you do when your best friend is in bad shape. Who cares about asbestos? This guy’s friends turn him into a human chandelier in the middle of a sermon. They didn’t wait for a miracle; they made space for one. That’s what real faith looks like. It rips roofs off.
The truth is that many people will never reach Jesus unless someone else brings them. Recent studies suggest that 60-70% of Christians came to Christ through family or friends. That paralyzed man had willing hands and faithful hearts to carry him. In our broken world, we must be those hands for others who cannot come to Christ alone.
As the dust settles and all eyes lock on this man dangling from the ceiling, you’d expect Jesus to say something like, “Rise up and walk.” That’s why they brought him, right? But Jesus doesn’t say that. Instead, He looks at the man—and then through the man—straight to the heart. And the first words out of His mouth are completely unexpected:
Mark 2:5 NASB And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Everyone’s thinking about legs; Jesus is thinking about the soul. Because while everyone else is focused on what’s broken on the outside, Jesus is aiming at what’s broken on the inside.
Our sin is a bigger problem than not being able to walk (v. 5–7)
Imagine if you scraped your knee really badly and ran crying to your mom, but instead of getting a band-aid, she started cleaning your room. Your knee is bleeding, and she starts organizing your closet. That’s how everyone must have felt. This man can’t walk, so why is Jesus talking about sin?
The truth that Jesus is picking up on and which we often miss is that we want relief more than we want redemption. We want our circumstances fixed more than we want our souls saved. Like a patient who goes to the doctor with a painful rash, demanding stronger ointment, but the doctor insists on running blood tests because he suspects diabetes. We get frustrated—”Doctor, just give me the cream! I don’t care about my blood sugar—my skin itches!” But the wise physician knows that treating the rash won’t cure what’s really killing us.
This paralyzed man’s real problem wasn’t his legs—it was his heart. His greatest need wasn’t mobility, it was forgiveness. Jesus refuses to settle for treating symptoms when He can cure the disease. Physical healing lasts for decades at best, but spiritual healing lasts for eternity.
The other night I received a pie tray full of chocolate pudding right in my face as a reward for the girls winning the offering contest. Remember how filthy I was? How gross my shirt looked? Chocolate was dripping everywhere. When I was covered in all that mess nobody wanted to get close to me. I needed to be cleaned up before I could hug anyone or shake hands. Even after I wiped off what I could see I still felt the stickiness on my face. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower.
Sin is like that, only worst. It makes us filthy before God, not just on the outside where people can see, but deep down in our hearts. When I was covered in pudding everyone was laughing and pointing and having a great time. But when God looks at our sin, He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t think it’s cute or funny. You see, chocolate pudding is just messy – but sin is evil. When we lie, when we’re selfish, when we disobey, we’re not just getting dirty—we’re rebelling against the God who made us and loves us. It’s like spitting in the face of someone who’s been nothing but good to you.
And the scary part is that chocolate pudding only got on my outside. But sin goes all the way through us—into our thoughts, our hearts, our desires. It’s not just that we do bad things sometimes. The Bible says we ARE sinful people. We can’t scrub it off like I scrubbed off pudding.
When God, who is perfectly holy and pure, looks at our sin, it’s not like looking at chocolate mess—it’s like looking at poison that’s killing us. It’s rebellion that breaks His heart. It’s evil that deserves punishment. No wonder the Bible says ‘the wages of sin is death.’ And just like I couldn’t clean myself up with my dirty shirt, we can’t clean up our sin by trying to be good. We need someone else to make us completely clean.
But look at what happens next.
Mark 2:6-7 NASB But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?”
The scribes were religious experts who knew their stuff and they are absolutely furious. They know that only God can forgive sins. So when Jesus claims to forgive this man, He’s either committing the worst blasphemy imaginable, or He’s claiming to be God Himself.
Think about it: if your friend hurt you, I can’t forgive him on your behalf. Only you can do that. But sin isn’t just breaking rules—sin is rebellion against God Himself. Every lie, every act of selfishness, every moment of pride is ultimately an offense against our holy Creator. So when Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven,” He’s claiming divine authority.
The scribes are thinking, “Who does this carpenter think He is? This is outrageous! This is blasphemy!” They’re absolutely right about one thing—if Jesus is just a man, this is the worst kind of blasphemy. But if Jesus is God in human flesh, then this moment changes everything.
The paralyzed man came seeking healing for his body. The scribes came seeking reasons to condemn. But Jesus came seeking something far greater—to heal what’s really broken and to reveal who He really is. Because the same voice that can forgive sins is the same voice that spoke the universe into existence.
The forgiveness Jesus offers is the greatest gift (v. 8–12)
Jesus knows exactly what the scribes are thinking. He always does. While they’re whispering accusations in their hearts, He’s about to blow their minds with a demonstration of His divine power that will leave no room for doubt.
Mark 2:8-9 NASB Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? 9 “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’?
Now that’s a brilliant question that cuts right to the heart of the matter. Think about it—which IS easier to say? “Your sins are forgiven” or “Get up and walk”? Well, anyone can SAY “your sins are forgiven.” I could walk up to you right now and declare your sins forgiven. You might think I’m crazy, but you can’t prove I’m wrong because forgiveness is invisible. It’s a spiritual reality you can’t measure with a stethoscope or see on an X-ray. But if I tell a paralyzed man to get up and walk, and he stays right there on his mat, everyone knows I’m a fraud.
So in one sense, it’s much easier to claim you can forgive sins because nobody can immediately prove you’re lying. But Jesus is about to demonstrate that He’s not just making empty claims. He’s about to prove His authority to do the invisible miracle by performing the visible one.
Mark 2:10-12 NASB “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”–He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” 12 And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”
The man who hasn’t walked in years suddenly springs to his feet like he’s been doing CrossFit his whole life. He rolls up his mat, probably with the biggest grin you’ve ever seen, and walks out of that house while everyone’s jaw is on the floor. But here’s what Jesus wants us to understand: the physical healing was just the proof of the spiritual healing. It was like showing your work on a math problem. The walking was the evidence, but the forgiveness was the miracle that really mattered.
Imagine if you could have any superpower. Would you choose the ability to heal broken bones or the power to heal broken hearts? Would you rather fix what’s wrong with people’s bodies or fix what’s wrong with their souls? Jesus chose to demonstrate both, but He made it clear which one mattered most.
That man’s paralyzed legs were a temporary problem. Even if he lived to be 100 years old, those healed legs would eventually wear out. His knees would get creaky, his back would get sore, and one day his body would give out completely. Every physical healing, no matter how miraculous, is only temporary. But when Jesus forgave his sins, that was forever.
Parents, we spend so much time and energy trying to fix our children’s temporary problems while often ignoring their eternal ones. We rush them to the doctor for every sniffle but rarely examine the condition of their souls. We hire tutors for their grades but neglect their need for spiritual instruction. We’ll drive hours every weekend for a traveling sports league but forget that their deepest need isn’t performance or trophies. We buy them everything they want for their happiness but fail to introduce them to the only One who can give them lasting joy.
Your greatest need—whether you’re eight or eighty—is not physical, relational, or financial. Your greatest need is to be made right with the God who created you. Because the day is coming when even the strongest body will fail, when even the closest relationships will end, when even the biggest bank account won’t matter. But your soul is eternal.
The scribes were right about one thing: only God can forgive sins. What they failed to recognize was that God was standing right there in front of them, wearing human skin, offering the very thing they said was impossible. Jesus didn’t just claim to forgive sins—He proved He had the authority to do it by demonstrating His power over the physical realm.
This is why the Gospel is such good news. The same Jesus who commanded paralyzed legs to walk can command dead souls to live. The same voice that said “Rise up and walk” says to every sinner, “Your sins are forgiven.” And just as surely as that man walked out of the house on his own two feet, everyone who trusts in Jesus walks out of spiritual death into eternal life. The crowd was amazed by the walking. But the real miracle—the greater miracle—was the forgiving. Because physical healing gets you through this life, but spiritual healing gets you through eternity.
Conclusion
The One who forgives is the One who would later be nailed down so that you could walk free. That is the only way He could possibly forgive us. He didn’t just speak forgiveness—He purchased it with His blood. The forgiveness Jesus offered that man wasn’t cheap. It wasn’t swept under the rug. It was costly. Because for Jesus to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” He had to know that He would be the one to pay for them.
On the cross, Jesus was treated as if He were the liar, the rebel, the selfish one—the one covered in our guilt. Though He was perfectly pure, He was punished in our place. Every drop of wrath we deserved was poured out on Him. And as He hung there, suffering in agony, He wasn’t just dying a criminal’s death—He was satisfying divine justice, carrying our sin, and opening the way for us to be made clean.
And three days later, He rose. The tomb was empty, and so was the debt. The resurrection was God’s declaration to the world: “Payment received. Sacrifice accepted.” The Son of Man who forgave sins and raised a paralyzed man is the same risen Savior who offers eternal life today.
Have you come to Jesus for help—or have you come to Him for forgiveness? Don’t walk away with working legs but a condemned soul. Come to the One who can make you clean. Come to the One who gave His life and conquered death to bring you home.
