I love the story in the Gospel of Mark where the four men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Each one took a corner of the mat he lay on, and they carried him to the house where Jesus was teaching and healing people. When they saw the crowds spilling out the door, they carried their friend up to the roof and dug through the clay structure until they had an opening big enough. Then they used ropes to lower their friend right into the lap of Jesus! Verse 5 says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
Did you catch that? It was upon seeing their faith that Jesus healed their friend.
This Sunday we’ll look at Mark 2:1-12 and I’ll share four principles about the faith of these men that prompted Jesus to heal their friend. It’s the second study in our new series called “Friends for Life.” We began the series on Easter Sunday last weekend. If you missed it or want to review it, you can find it by clicking here. In last week’s lesson, I told you why you needed to build friendships that can build your faith. But friends don’t just build faith in you—they can also help you introduce the faith to nonbelievers you know and love! This Sunday, we’ll look at how to reach others with others.
This is where your Life Group can be very helpful. Hopefully, you’ve found a Life Group and you count the members of that group as friends. Your Life Group can work together with you to bring those you know into a relationship with Jesus. Your Life Group friends can pray for those you’re trying to reach, and they can model Christ for them, and they can seek to answer their questions and objections. It’s often that fruit comes only when evangelism is done within a circle of Christian friends.
So, come this Sunday and let’s learn how to reach others with others! We’ll begin our worship service online and on campus at 10am.
--Tom
Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.