We all have temporary problems and terminal problems – are you willing to let Jesus’ power into yours to transform your world? What would that look like?? Today, Kent is going to unpack a surprising way this idea could change your life. Jump in with us in Sections 42 of the Gospel Harmonies @ https://www.harmonychurch.cc/tracking-jesus-timeline/. IT’S EASY TO GIVE at Harmony, text any amount to (859) 459-0316 to get started (or give online @ my.harmonychurch.cc/give ).
John 5:1-15
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.
Archaeologists have uncovered this pool in Jerusalem. It’s one of the big bummers about my trip, we were unable to visit this pool so I’ve only seen it online and in pictures – but it’s actually two pools – one to the north and one to the south, These colonnades were like covered porches…
3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
ILLUSTRATION:
You guys love the price is right? Remember that show – it’s what I’d watch when I stayed home sick from school… “come on down, your up next on the Price is right!”
well, I promised I’d tell you where there were weird or contradictory things in the passages I preach on. This is one of those. did anyone notice there isn’t actually a verse 4 here? There’s just a note… The note is that some of our later copies of the greek manuscripts – specifically the ones that the King James version used, had a verse about Angels coming down and stirring the water, and the first one into the pool won and got healed. It was a little like the first-century version of price is right! “come on down, you’re next to get healed!”
The problem is, this verse isn’t in our earliest greek manuscripts – what scholars think happened is that someone who was copying the manuscripts put a note about a legend of why these people are by the pool – which by the way means house of mercy and later was a site of pagan healing. The thought is this copyist makes the note and as people are copying, eventually, it gets moved into the main text as part of the verse. We are able to know that what we have is a solid representation of the actual written new testament because we compare all the versions and are able to see what is in all of them and was obviously the original material…
So, here’s the question.
Jesus is walking around, he’s obviously inquiring about how long everyone has been there or been sick, and he only chooses one. Why does Jesus pick this guy over anyone else?
B
Because what’s interesting is John tells us there were a lot of disabled people there – but Jesus only heals one that we know of, why?
b
A quick word on healing…
Lots of Christians are really caught up on healing, and it’s an important thing – it’s actually a sign of God moving
I want you to realize, anyone Jesus healed eventually got worse again…
b
Did you hear that? healing is a temporary relief from a terminal problem.
Listen, I can’t prove it, but I think Jesus has been asking around who has been there for the longest, who has been waiting. Because
I think Jesus wants to find the person who is barely holding on to hope so He can change their world!
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
Do you remember how Jesus started this interaction?
Jesus asked him, “do you want to get well?”
– what a weird question
I asked my kids if this was a dumb question – they were like, “yup!” I asked them, then why do you think He asks it…
What if Jesus asks him if he wants to get better because Jesus wants him to ask himself, “do I REALLY?”
Because this guy’s answer is one of having kind of given up
His answer is full of the victim mentality, “I don’t have anyone to help me get in, so everyone else beats me”
This guy wants to be healed, but he doesn’t ever see it happening.
Jesus doesn’t see the obstacles, Jesus only sees opportunity
And in that holy moment, Heaven takes over earth, and muscles that had atrophied have blood course them. Power imbues his bones with strength. The very life that turned dust into a man fills the man’s body and he gets up and walks. He listens to Jesus and picks up his mat.
Listen, It happens to be a Sabbath – I think Jesus is maybe picking a fight here. Because the Jewish people believed one of the ultimate sins was to break the Sabbath by working, and their tradition says – even to this day – to carry something on the Sabbath is work if you move it from one domain – place – to another.
And so this man, whom Jesus heals will walk, carrying His mat and the leaders will see him and they will say, start to question him about Jesus.
He doesn’t know Jesus’ name even to give to them…
But he’s shook…
we pick back up in vs. 14
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
There’s just two verses here, but it’s really powerful stuff…
This man is at the temple…
I’m telling you, for 38 years, this man hasn’t been able to walk into the temple. He’s probably sat out front begging, but he’s never been able to step onto the premises. I picture him walking around and in his mind marveling over everything, feeling a little like a fish out of water – like he’s a fraud. I picture him jumping up and clicking his heels kind of thing. Then he sees Jesu again…
Jesus comes up to this man and says, “you are healed again, stop sinning or something worse may happen to you…”
b
What could be worse than 38 years of looking at people’s feet and being passed over?
Jesus isn’t making a statement about, “if you sin, bad stuff will happen to you in this life, if you don’t, good things will happen to you.”’
Jesus is making a statement about this man’s ultimate problem.
b
The life this man has lived must change if he wants to inherit eternal life.
Jesus will make other statements like this – “fall on this rock and it will break you, if it falls on you it will crush you.” “Why do you fear men who can only take away your life, fear God who can destroy both your body and your soul in hell”
Jesus is saying, let this temporary solution lead you to terminate your old way of life.
b
Stop sinning!
b
Do you know how you do that?
b
The only way to conquer sin is through a life surrendered to Jesus
b
It is a day-to-day, moment-by-moment reliance on the goodness and power of Jesus, the same power that healed this man, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available for freedom from your sin
CLOSING:
When I was young, I did this thing called a pamper pull. You had to climb up on this telephone pole and stand on top of this little box and then jump out to a trapeze bar about 5 feet away and try and grab onto it. I climbed up and was shaking the whole time. I got on top of the pole and could feel it swaying beneath me. Everyone was yelling for me to jump. Finally, I took a deep breath, bent down, and jumped. I was soaring through the air like an eagle, my hands hit the bar, and I thought, “it’s going to work,” my fingers wrapped around the bar and then physics took over. My weight pulled me down and my fingers slipped off the bar. and I fell to my death 🙂 well, almost, I didn’t die because there was this safety rope on me, it caught me and rescued me.
Look, so many of you sit in here and you are barely holding on. You are this guy, you’ve been sitting under the crushing weight of your life for a long time. Your relationships are in a mess, your finances are terrible, and your way of life has led you to crush others, or be crushed yourself and it just hasn’t worked. I’m telling you, you don’t have to leap and have it be a terminal problem for you.
Jesus’ power is still available right here and right now for you. He can rescue you from the predicament you’re in. He can restore you, He can free you from the power of sin in your life.
He OVERCAME death – He took our terminal problem and replaced it with triumph!
What if today you placed your whole hope in Jesus, your whole trust in Him?
I’m not sure what happened to this guy – I know he went and turned Jesus into the religious leaders – my worry is he took what Jesus gave him for the temporary problem and ignored Him for the terminal problem.. Don’t be that guy!
