[AI translation] Last Sunday, I just wanted to highlight the teaching of the story of the gut-punched man on the forgiveness of sins. Now I just want to talk about the faith of the four good friends who brought the fifth to Jesus. The effort they made to bring their fellow patient to the Lord was truly touching. He is lying helplessly on a little patch of wicker, perhaps unable to speak, paralysed, in terrible misery, but he has four friends, acquaintances, brothers, who care for him, think about him, do not abandon him, take care of him and go to the best place to help him! These four strangers are eternal examples of true brotherly help. An eternal example of a true Christian church, of a believer who brings to Jesus not only his own troubles, but the troubles of others, of his brother in trouble, and of the world! I feel that here we see a great example of true faith. Here is the report: 'Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the stricken with the palsy...' So Jesus did not see the faith of the gutless, but of those who brought it. It was because of their faith that he performed a miracle, healing the patient. So it is interesting to look at the faith of these four men. Because that is what our faith should be! So let me try to tell you just a few things about the faith of these four friends.1) First of all, they believed in Jesus! They believed that Jesus was the strange one in whom the reality of the invisible and unimaginable God was revealed in an incomprehensible yet tangible way, through whom God's compassionate love was tangible, healing. They came to him with the absolute confidence that he could surely help! They believed that here was Someone whose heart was unconditionally open, wide open to all. Someone to whom anyone can come with any issue! Feel free! With confidence! And from whom no one leaves without listening to him, without taking care of him, without giving him a gift! They believed that Jesus was indeed: a helper, a Saviour. I once said: the earthly centre [power station] of God's heavenly energy! This is the Jesus these four men believed in. You can see from their efforts that this is how these people believed in Jesus! And I would like to emphasize this very much, because I know, I know from experience, that our faith, our faith in God, is a concrete, real, empowering faith, if we believe in God by believing in Jesus! The important thing is not whether we understand, whether we can logically explain to ourselves how the person of God the Father and the person of Jesus the Son relate to each other, because that is a mystery beyond reason anyway; but whether we can believe with childlike confidence that the human person of Jesus is the only real relationship with God for us? He Himself once said: believe in God and believe in me. In other words, believe in God and believe in me. Yes, we do not believe in God in general, in some kind of deity, in the concept of God, but we believe in God who reveals Himself in Jesus! In the God who was made manifest in the person of Jesus, who became for us a divine source of energy in his death and resurrection! And to believe in this Jesus, thus to believe in God, is to be connected with God's helping love. Faith is the medium, the spiritual atmosphere, in which the divine power of Jesus works! Believing is an opportunity for the helping love of Jesus to prevail! Do we believe in God by believing in Jesus Christ?! This is the first. This is the most important!
2) But do not think that everything I have said so far is something abstract and mystical. Don't think that believing in God in this way, believing in Jesus, is something that is out of this world and an attitude that is directed towards the hereafter. It is not! Unfortunately, there is something about faith, faith in God in general, that is not sympathetic in the eyes of many people because it seems so contemplative, so alien to practical life. Well, real faith is something very practical! The example of these four men shows just how. In the prayer we read. So Jesus didn't feel or hear the faith of these people, he saw it! True faith can be seen! Real faith is not hidden somewhere in the mysterious depths of the soul, it is not just an inner delight in God, not a spiritual pleasure, but something that can be seen, that can be seen! From what? Here in the story, from the great, careful effort they made to help a fellow human being in distress. From this! So what does it look like to believe in Jesus? By some concrete act of love!
How much real love there was in these four men! They didn't talk much, they didn't waste time: they simply took that patient and carried him! They must have had all sorts of problems themselves, but they were not concerned about that, they were concerned about a fellow human being! They were putting their own problems before the problems of others. They were filled to the brim with the desire to help someone! As best they could, as best they could. To help! That is where faith becomes visible! That is how worship and philanthropy are connected! In fact, these two: faith and love, are not two, they are one! Because the same thing that is faith towards God is the same thing that is love towards man. True faith can never be known by words, but always by works of love. By standing by someone who is abandoned and forgotten by others, by making sacrifices for someone who cannot reciprocate, by being attracted to someone who repels you with his misery, his trouble, his thorns, his manners. So, to the sick! There are most such people in the world! True faith always finds the one who needs love the most! There are such people around you! You may not even have to leave the house to find them! Perhaps you yourself know very well who it is, or who they are, that you can measure your faith in God by your love for them! Think what you could do for one of these people to feel some of the love they so desperately need! After all, that is why we should be Christians, followers of Jesus! Indeed. In these four men, faith was made visible through love. Is our faith visible?
3) These people came to Jesus by bringing someone else to him. This is always the case: anyone who has ever received something from Jesus wants to do everything so that others may also benefit from Jesus' blessing and help. It is almost the passion of true faith to bring others to Jesus. Because you know from your own experience that Jesus is the one who has the real help for others! How can you bring someone to Jesus? Well, the simplest way: prayer. By praying for him! The greatest gift that a person or a congregation praying for another can receive is that Jesus, in view of our little faith, our weak prayer, turns to such a poor, gut-wrenched brother and helps him. Yes: that promise is spelled out in this story as an example, so let us not get tired of praying for others, for the world. Therefore, begging for others is the best action one can do. Here is where the meaning of the church on this earth becomes apparent, that is, to be a company of friends, a group of friends of benighted humanity, which brings all the troubles and miseries of the world before Christ in faith, with Jesus turning to the world in a helpful way in view of them. I dare say it is the greatest hope for the world that such a supplicating church exists on earth! Let me say here that I do the same for you every day! I also pray sometimes for some of you here among us whose troubles I know. And constantly for the whole congregation. And now let me also say that I am going away for an extended period of time next week. I have received a kind invitation to an evangelistic holiday in Germany, but even if I am away from the congregation for a few weeks, my ministry will not cease for your sake, there will be believing brothers and sisters there with whom I will bring you regularly before Jesus. Whenever you gather for a service or a Bible study, I will be among you in my prayer for you, I will see the face of the congregation with my eyes closed, I will know the problems and the suffering of many of you: I will have time to deepen my prayer for you! Alone and together with others, I will bring you to Jesus, embracing you in the arms of prayer... This is the surest way to reach Jesus: by bringing others to Him. Is there a particular person whom you have invited to Jesus in this way? It is the most sacrificial service a believer can do for the world, for the Church, for his fellow man!
4) Another characteristic of the faith of the four is that it cannot be held back, it overcomes all obstacles. When they see that they cannot reach Jesus because of the multitude, they do not give up the struggle, they do not give up that it is impossible: they climb to the roof, with great difficulty, but with great difficulty. They break through the ceiling, they really break into Jesus with their burdens, but they carry out what they wanted to do anyway. Even today, one of the greatest obstacles to Jesus is the fact that there are people between him and the soul who needs his help. Pious men, minions who would rather repel than attract outsiders. Unpleasant people, burdened with many, many frailties, curious, ignorant believers who block the way of the true seeker. We are all, in fact, part of this crowd around Jesus, guilty of keeping many, many people in need of help from reaching Jesus because of us. I think we should be much less indignant about those who do not find Jesus: our weak faith in the Word and the great contrast between our principles and our lives are holding many people back from seeking Jesus. This is the biggest obstacle today, and we must overcome it at all costs! Ask yourself this question many times: "Am I an obstacle or an obstacle to someone truly coming to know Jesus?" For a believer, there is no middle ground: you are either an instrument or a barrier to others coming to Jesus. If you want to be an instrument, you must overcome all obstacles...
5) And finally, the faith of these four men can even be said to have been humble! Indeed: it is not only their effort that is touching, but also their modesty. They did not want to show off their goodness, their selflessness. It was not important for them to make their name known. They remained anonymous. They did not want to be held to account for the service they rendered. Somehow they felt that what they were doing was natural! They didn't do what they did to be talked about, they didn't imagine that they were now the heroes of the day and what a great deed they had done! Oh how much we can learn from the anonymous nobodies! The most beautiful service is frustrated by vanity! The ulterior motive is to "let the people see"! There is no greater reward for a service of love than the smile that shines from it on the relieved face of a suffering man. He who expects praise, recognition and celebration on top of that, has not done his service well! "Love does not boast, it does not puff itself up, it does not seek its own profit"! True faith always remains modest!
So that was the faith of these four unknown men: trusting in Jesus, visible in love, helping others to Jesus, overcoming all obstacles and modest! How good it would be for us to believe like that! How good that we are all allowed to believe like that!
Amen.
Date: 17 October 1965.