Current Series: Reckless
Title: “Reckless Love”
The Word: Mark 2:1-12, Colossians 3:23-24
Main Thought: God's love for the world is to be shown through Me. Now.
Message Explanation: Have you ever heard someone say, “I cannot wait to grow up!” “I want my license, or graduate!” It seems that there are never happy in any stage of life they are in. The normal response to life is to be selfish right? It is the opposite of LOVE. We can all be selfish can’t we? Tonight we are going to look at RECKLESS LOVE to others.
Reckless series verse: "Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity." 1 Timothy 4:12.
What would your life and my life look like if we had unshakable, unstoppable faith in God? We are going to look at a story of friends who truly had faith in God enough that they brought their friend to Jesus.
Jesus was early in his ministry and was seeing many people want to follow His ministry. He was in a house, many think it was Peter’s house. Jesus was taking a special time to stay there. People were cramming into the house! When Jesus is PRESENT people will come out!
Mark 2:1-3: “When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. 2 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, 3 four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat.
The paralyzed man was more than likely a quadriplegic, a severe condition. In biblical times people didn’t know how to help them. Many times people viewed others with deformities as sinners. The friends were PASSIONATE about helping their friend get to Jesus.
Mark 2:4: 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.
Notice how Jesus responds to their faith:
Mark 2:5: “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus responds to their faith! Because of the evidence of their faith, He healed the friend. But some people were skeptical:
Mark 2:6-12: But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, 7 “What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” 8 Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? 9 Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’? 10 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, 11 “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” 12 And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before!”
How do we have reckless love?
1. Get rid of excuses to love people (v. 3-4)
The four men cared about their friend. It is easy to come up with excuses for why something WON’T happen right? The paralytics friends had enough faith that they took drastic measures to get to Jesus. Notice what James says about our faith: "Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." James 2:17
2. Show Love by your actions (v. 5)
Jesus “saw their faith.” Faith is moving from knowing to doing. Knowledge VS. Understanding. It is the difference between FACTS and TRUST. It goes from impersonal to personal.
Hebrews 11:6: "Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God"
4 Characters in this story: Who do you identify with in this story?
One of the friends
The skeptics
The Paralytic
The Crowd
3. Give Love without expecting it in return (8-12)
Colossians 3:23-24 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” The four men refused to give up hope for their friend! Who in your life have you given up on today? It is never too late if they are still breathing.
We need to reach OUT to the world and not get so focused upon ourselves here at church. What you and I do with our life REVEALS our love.
Element of Fun: We played a middle school game with trivia from different movies and tv shows. It was a fun and interactive game! We also showed a video to create tension during the message called, "Mr. and Mrs. Selfish!"
Mr. and Mrs. Selfish from Source Student Ministries on Vimeo.
A video illustration of selfishness to help set up the message for reckless love and service to God in week 3 of the "Reckless" series!
Music: The Time has Come, Your Voice is Hope, Amazing Grace (My chains are gone), Set a Fire.
Favorite Moment: A high school student began a relationship with Christ! Also, it was great hearing about small groups growing closer to each other and spending time praying for their friends.
What’s Next: We finish the last week of our series, “Reckless!” as we talk about reckless faith!