Text: Mark 2:1-12

What stands between you and the Lord Jesus Christ? To what lengths will you go in order to get to the Saviour? What risks will you take? What sacrifices are you willing to make? Is there anything in this life that is more important? What is it that stands between you and the Lord Jesus Christ? Desperate situations require desperate tactics. Paul said, "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." The four men that brought the one sick of the palsy were determined.

I. They had a cause;

· Do you want God's best, or will you settle for less?

· Before David faced Goliath he asked, "Is there not a cause?"

II. They had compassion;

· 1Jn.3:17

· Jude 22-23

III. They considered the cost;

· Luke 14:28-33

· Are you willing to give up everything?

IV. They made a choice;

· Joshua 24:15, "...choose you this day whom ye will serve;"

V. They took a chance;

· You take a chance when you climb up on the roof, it requires faith in the one that made you.

VI. They had confidence;

· Heb.11:6, "For without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

VI. They knew He had the cure;

· Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter and dealt directly with the root of the problem, not just the outward symptom.

Jer.17:9 tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Are you willing to root out anything that stands between you and God? Just how determined are you? Paul said in Php.3:10, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death". How desperate are you?