SEP 24 2017 | John 5:1-7

Sea Change Church · "John 5:1-7" · Harry Wilson · September 24, 2017
John 5:1-7
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

And we have Kayleen to read the scripture. So I'll be reading John 5, 1 through 7. After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, an army called Bethesda, which has five-ruth colonnades. And in these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, Get up and take your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. But he answered to them, The man who has healed me, that man said to me, Take up your bed and walk. They asked him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you are well. Sin no more, and nothing worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this is why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I am working.

All right, well, part of the DNA of the church is Pastor Adam has gone on a pastor's retreat, like Montana or Wyoming, and visiting actually Bryce, one of our kind of missionaries out there. And like Paul trained Timothy and Titus, when the Apostle Paul would leave, they would appoint elders and pastors to help the church thrive. And Pastor Henry, Pastor Harry Henry, is the spirit of the Lord is upon you.

You're gifted, and let me pray for you before you speak. Thank you. Father, Son, and Spirit, you give gifts to men and women when you ascended, gifts of being a pastor, a teacher, to lead people so they are encouraged and mature. We ask that you speak mildly through Harry. Thank you for this. The Youth Sunday, we're already so encouraged, and it's some of the fruit of actually his work and the Spirit's work through him.

So bless him and bless us right now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Joe. I'm glad for Joe's good news that God can speak through babies and kids and adults. There's a chance then, I think, that he might speak through me today if God can speak through a baby. So thanks for that good news, Joe. I appreciate that. It is Youth Sunday, and I'm just so proud.

Like, I'm so proud to have Kayleen reading the scriptures, to have the youth up there rocking out, leading us in worship. I'm just so proud. I know. Yeah. In the words of Conor McGregor, we're not here to take part. We're here to take over. He might be the last person you expected me to quote in church, but it happened. And so we're going to dive into this message today, a message I'm just so excited to preach, called The Audacity of Jesus.

And I want to just re-look at the first verse. We'll go verse 1 through 7. It says, And we'll stop there. One thing to just point out before we dive into some of the meat of this scripture is you'll notice, if you're looking at numbers, that verse 4 is missing. And it's not because the biblical writers couldn't count. It's been this verse 4 was added later on, and it's not in our earliest Greek manuscript.

So just if that confuses you at all, just know that verse 4 was added in as an explanation of what happened, why the waters would get bubbled up and people would get healed. But it's not in the earliest Greek texts. So rightfully so, they've left it out of this translation. So just so we're not too confused. And now looking at the beginning of this scripture, you have Jesus coming into Jerusalem.

And he goes to this pool very specifically. One of the first places he goes. He goes right to this pool. And this pool is a place that's known for being a place of occasional healing. And if it's a place that's known for being somewhat of occasional healing, it's going to be known for what? For sick people. And the scripture says that there's a multitude of sick people in this colonnade.

A multitude of them. And this is where Jesus chooses to go. He doesn't stumble upon it. He doesn't accidentally discover it. He chooses to go to this place. He's drawn to this place where the sick are. And he's going to discover a man. A man he knew would be there. And this man has been there, it says, for 38 years. That's longer than I've been alive.

And it's just a long, long time. And it makes me kind of think of our, sometimes in our Christian lingo, our Christian language, we talk about seasons. Right? We talk about these seasons of suffering or seasons of gratitude or season of hope, seasons of obedience, seasons of patience. We all go through these seasons in our life. But we'd be kind of hard pressed to tell this man that he's just in a season of suffering.

This more feels like chronic suffering. A chronic season. And that's where Jesus is going to go meet this man within his season. That's often where Jesus meets us within whatever we're going through. So he comes and meets him at his mat. And he asks him a question. Do you want to be well? Do you want to be well? And it's just such an interesting question to ask.

Because so often, if I'm thinking about full wellness, spiritual wellness, do I want to be well? I'm not sure the answer is always yes. Sometimes I don't mind a little bit of a spiritual cough. A little spiritual runny nose. I want to be well enough. Well enough to not have my faith and my walk with Christ totally obliterated. I want to be well enough to be able to follow Jesus.

But do I want to be fully well? I'm not so sure. However, I still want to hold on to some of that little secret sin of mine. Some of the, whatever it is that just gives me, that gives me security, that gives me pleasure, that gives me hope. Whatever this little sin is. Do I want to be fully well? And we have to ask ourselves that today. Do we want to be fully well?

Your notes say, do we want to get fully well? Do we desire full wellness or a life of crutch dependence? Do we desire full wellness or a life of crutch dependence? And so Jesus asks him this question. Do you want to be well? And what's interesting is he doesn't say yes. He doesn't say yes. He begins to explain his circumstance. He says, sir, I don't think you understand.

You've got to get to the pool to be well. And I can't get to the pool. And I've been trying to get to the pool. I've been here a long time. And I don't think you quite understand what I'm going through. And I think it's safe to say that Jesus has a lot of compassion for this response. He has a lot of compassion for this response because the very next words out of his mouth are get up.

Get up. Take your mat. Walk. And I think Jesus is overwhelmed with compassion. In fact, there's a word in the Greek. It's called splonknizema. Can we say that together? Splonknizema. Splonknizema. Splonknizema. Yeah, perfect. Splonknizema. And what this means in the Greek is it's talking about your guts, your blood, your bowels. And it's talking about a movement within them of compassion.

It would be how we say that we've been gut-wrenched. You know, that we feel it so strongly. We feel it within our gut and our blood and our bowels. And I'm like, why are you talking about this? I know. And that's how we, and that's how Jesus feels. And this word is used nine times throughout the scripture to say that Jesus feels a movement of compassion within his bowels.

I don't know about you, but when I have a bowel movement, it's hardly a movement of hope and healing. But when this word is used, Jesus automatically, it's you Sunday, you know, you're going to get some of this. So, Jesus, this word is used every single time it's used. Jesus is used to action every time. So, I think it's safe to say his next words are get up.

Jesus is feeling a lot of compassion for this man. In fact, this man is healed by compassion, not qualification. He's healed by compassion, not qualification. And that's important for us to know. Because often, we don't feel good enough to be healed by God. We don't feel good enough to be used by God. We don't feel good enough to be an instrument of God.

But we find it's not about good enough. It's not about qualification. It's not about your resume. It's about God and his power and his compassion. And so, that's how this man is healed. Compassion, not qualification. And so, he says, get up. And this is an audacious command. This is a wild command to tell this man to simply get up. We remember that he's been sick for 38 years.

And as someone who's been sick for 38 years, his whole life has been a roller coaster of hope and disappointment. Right? The day comes where the waters are bubbling just right. And he's thinking, today's the day. He has the right caretakers to get him to the water. Today's the day. He's on his way to the pool. He's going to return to his family. He's going to get to go worship in the temple.

His body's going to get restored. He's on his way to the pool. And somebody steps in before him. Hope and disappointment. That's what has marked his whole life. And Jesus comes on in and simply says, get up. And that's not just, and it's radical. And it would be so easy to simply dismiss Jesus. Because if Jesus is not who he says he is, then this is offensive to this man.

This man who's gone through so much. If Jesus is not who he says he is, this is simply mean. But he is. And so he offers him to get up. But how easy it could be to simply dismiss Jesus because he's offensive. And we find that all over our own culture. And so he says, get up. And what's audacious is, so Jesus gives him this audacious command. And it warrants an audacious response.

And what that would be is the man actually gets up. He actually puts his trust enough to try to rise to his feet. He puts his trust in Jesus, in this stranger in front of him, to actually try to rise to his feet. That is radical for this man to try to do. But it's just enough trust that gives this man full restoration. We have in your notes, it says that trust is the relational transaction that takes place between us and God.

It's the currency for connection. Trust is so important in all of our relationships. But especially with God, trust is everything. Trust is how we communicate with God. It's our relational transaction. In fact, it's an eternal transaction. Because trust is the only thing that can guarantee eternity. Trust in God, putting our little bit of trust, little bit of hope in God, is the only thing that can guarantee us eternity.

It's the only thing. So trust is this important transaction that takes place within all of us. And it's interesting at this church, we talk a lot about the four corners. The first corner being the corner of our heart. And the idea behind that is we give God the corner of our heart and we know he's going to take an eternity. We give God a little bit.

Give him an inch, he'll take an eternity. And so, giving God the corner of our heart, what we realize is that trust takes territories. Trust takes territories in your heart. When we think about what it means to trust in God, when we start to give him a little bit of trust, that'll start to be infectious and take territories within your heart. So where in our life do we need to move from unbelief to belief?

And perhaps a lot of us are sitting in church, we grew up in church. And I've said like, I've prayed that prayer. I've moved from unbelief to belief. Like I show up at church on Sundays, I'm doing it. But there's so many little areas of our life that we need to move from unbelief to belief. We believe that God is good. God has raised Lazarus from the dead.

He raised himself from the dead. He came to die for my sins. He's so good. He's powerful. He's strong. But he's not quite good enough to fix this. He's not quite enough to heal my relationship with my parents. He's not quite good enough to fix my financial situation. I've been in a mess. I've made so many mistakes since I was a kid. And it's just built up.

And he's not quite good enough. Does he know my history? He's not going to be able to do that. We need to move from unbelief to belief. Actually giving God the trust in the areas where we're afraid to believe him. And what's powerful about this scripture is when it says that Jesus comes in to the comp made. It says he knew how long this man had been there.

He knows your story. He knows your hurt. And it breaks his heart. I think this 38 years just broke Jesus' heart. And I know it did because we're going to find later in this scripture that it's the Sabbath. And Jesus, he's not dumb. He knows that him healing this man on the Sabbath is going to cause some tension. He's well aware of that. But he could have waited one more day.

The Sabbath is Saturday. He could have waited until Sunday. And then healed the man. Why not wait and avoid all of the issues? But I don't think knowing this man's story from beginning to end, knowing his 38 years of tribulation, of suffering, he's not prepared to let this man wait one more day. It breaks his heart. He's going to encounter us and it breaks his heart when we suffer.

There's a formula in psychology that they talk about of kind of trying to understand what makes up our day-to-day happiness. And so it's this formula in personality psychology that, and it goes like this, it's H equals S plus V plus C. You're like, what does that mean? Great question. I'm glad you asked. So what it means is happiness equals a set point.

And our set point is a biological set point, something that we are already made up with, plus V, which is representative of our actions, of what we do on a daily basis, plus C, which is our circumstance. And what's interesting in this formula that's supposed to make up kind of general day-to-day happiness is our biological set point makes up about 50% of our day-to-day happiness.

And so the other 40% now is our actions. And now our biological point, it's similar to our weight. Our weight will fluctuate throughout our life. If we don't do anything, though, it's going to always go towards a specific weight. And it's the same thing here. This is our biological set point. And then action is the next 40%, what we're actually doing.

That only leaves 10% for our circumstances. 10% of our happiness is according to our circumstances. Yet we can become obsessed with this 10%. And the question for us is, are we waiting and waiting in these circumstantial waters, waiting for the bubbles to bubble up just right, for all our situations to fall in line, to get out of school, to find our marriage partner, to be able to have enough financial provisions to provide for our family?

Are we waiting for these circumstantial waters to bubble up just right? And then we can move into trusting God. Then we can move into being happy. Then we can move into having a breath of fresh air. We can obsess over this 10%, but it's not about the 10%. It's about that 40%. And that 40% is what can fluctuate our 50%. Does that make sense? And so, looking at verses 13 through 14.

Now, the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. So, what's interesting is he heals this man. He says, get up. And this man gets up. He puts his trust in Jesus. He starts to walk, right? And that's his 40%. He chooses to trust Jesus. He chooses action. He does. He gets up. He walks, and he doesn't even have time to find out the name of the person who healed him.

Because it says that Jesus leaves. And so, when he becomes questioned by Pharisees, he's not able to give a name of the man who healed him. Because it says, Jesus leaves. There was a crowd in the place. And that can kind of be tough for us to swallow when we think about it. Because Jesus walks in. He heals one man specifically. And then he leaves.

But it said that there was a multitude of sick people in the place. There's a multitude. There was a crowd in there. But that's specifically, actually, why he leaves. And this will be explained what Jesus' intentions are a little later in the scripture. But what we do find is that Jesus is not into crowds. He's into individuals. And he's into you.

He's into me. We find that throughout scripture. That Jesus isn't into crowds. So often, he'll be teaching. And a crowd will start to form. And it'll form. And Jesus will keep teaching. But soon enough, he's going to withdraw. He'll go just with his disciples and get on the boat and head out to the water. Or he'll be with multiple individuals, his disciples and others.

And then he'll leave to be by himself to pray. To take that one-on-one transaction between him and God. He's not into crowd. He's not into his own fame. He's into individuals. He's into this relational transaction. He's into you and he's into me. And so Jesus leaves this place. And then he discovers this man in the temple. He doesn't really discover him.

I think he's seeking him out. It says he finds him in the temple. He says, see, you are well. And I love this because it's a beautiful picture of what the Christian life is. It's God offering us an audacious invitation to leave all our hurt, all our brokenness, all our sin behind. To trust in him. To walk with him. And as soon as it happens, that you might be met with some hardship.

As this man is met immediately with confrontation. And then you continue to be sought out after. God continues to seek after your heart. Finds this man in the temple. He seeks him out. And it's met by celebration on the kingdom's part. See, you are well. You are here. You did it. You're walking with me. There's a celebration in that. And I love that in this story.

It's a beautiful picture of what our Christian life is. But on the very next words that Jesus says, he says, sin no more or something worse may happen to you. And we're like, ah, Jesus. Why did you have to bring sin into this? This story was so nice. It was so cute. It was perfect. It was a great story. Jesus comes and he heals this man who's been sick his whole life.

Then he is the confrontation of the Sabbath. Celebrating in the temple. And the story is going great. But he has to bring sin into this. And we can get frustrated by that. Oh, I have to bring sin into this. This was going great. Yet Jesus' next words are sin no more or something worse may happen to you. And we find that his ultimate concern is not physical healing but holiness.

Wholeness between us and God. That's his main concern. That's Jesus' main mission. Though physical healings are important. Physical healings still happen today. But his main concern is holiness. Holiness. And I don't know about you. Holy. The word holy and holiness has always been kind of a difficult word for me. A difficult word. I don't know about you.

But I don't walk around like feeling holy all the time. I don't know about you. Hopefully. I mean, if you do, great. I don't. Definitely. And so it's hard. But the Bible describes us as holy. As saints. And so how do we begin to trust God with that identity? That we are already chosen as holy. And that we can walk in that. And so when Jesus says, leave this life of sin or something worse may happen to you.

I think we can be sure that he's not talking about a physical something worse. Are you motioning? Am I supposed to be using this? We're good? All right. Continue on. I'm getting hand motions. So I don't have my glasses on today. So anyways. But physical holiness. Where was I? Let's check my notes. So. He heals this man. And his main concern is holiness.

And he says that leave your life of sin or something worse may happen to you. And I think we can be sure that he's not talking about a physical something worse. Right? This man's been sick for 38 years. I don't think Jesus is saying a worse illness is going to come upon you. A worse plague is going to come upon you. Something perhaps. But I don't think that's what Jesus is saying.

I think what he's talking about is a spiritual illness. That sin that leads to a spiritual death. Far worse than any long standing physical illness. For Jesus. What's the point of healing this man's body without having an intention with his spirit? So he heals this man and tells him to leave a life of sin. To step in to holiness or something worse may happen.

Because he cares deeper about his soul. Am I cutting in and out? Yes. Are we on? We good? Yeah? Okay. Cool. I like to use my hands. And so I decided to use the headset today. But that's okay. We're back to the mic. So he heals him for the sake of holiness. And then if we look at verse 15 through 16. He's going to make an audacious claim. It says the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus. Because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered him. My father is working until now. And I am working. Jesus claims equality with God. My daddy works on Sundays. You best believe I'm going to work on Sundays. I got way too much to do. There's a new kingdom movement happening. And I'm here to set it free.

I'm here to start it. And you best believe I'm going to be healing people on the Sabbath. He claims this equality with God. And by claiming equality with God. He can give us our own audacious command. Which he does later in John. I want to read one scripture for you. In John 14.12. It says, Jesus says that we will do greater works than he has done.

That's our audacious command. After Jesus leaves this earth. That we will do the same works he does. And even greater things. And I don't think he's necessarily talking about physical greater things. I don't know. Raise your hand if you can walk on water. Zach can. Yeah, right on. Zach. Awesome. That's great. Anyone else? No? Some of the youth can walk on water?

Okay. I don't think he's talking about physical. A physical greater works than he's done. But he's talking about the greatness of the message that we have to preach. Because we preach a slightly different message than Jesus was preaching. We preach that there is a kingdom already came. We preach about a risen Christ. A God that has already defeated sin and death.

So the gospel message that we preach matters. We're not preaching a message of a promised ransom. But a paid ransom. Not a hope for life after death. But a hope that's available now. Today. Not for eternity. Later when we die. So we can be angels in the sky. No. Hope right now. Today. Available today. By doing what? Engaging in this trust transaction with God.

This eternal transaction with God. That's what it means. And so greater works will we do if we begin to trust him. We're not simply bystanders in the metanarrative of God. We're key players. The gospel you preach matters. We're key players. So. What will your response be? When Jesus says get up. When Jesus gives us the command to be audacious. What will your response be?

In the Old Testament. Often when Jesus or God. Same, same. Would call people out by name. Would say Adam. Eve. Cain. Abel. When he would call them by name. The response would be a Hebrew word. Hineni. And this word means here I am. Hineni. Here I am. Here I am. Your will be done. I trust you. So when God asks you. To be audacious. When God tells you to get up.

Can our response be. Hineni. Your will be done. I'll end with this story. We were at camp. With our. With the kiddos. And we went to summer camp. At Forest Home. And they had a. A exercise. That we would do. Where we got to write. Our shame. In the sand. By the lake. And so. We all separated. I separate from my kids. And I start to write out. The shame. In the sand.

And as I'm writing out my shame. I'm amazed. Just by about how bad. My handwriting is. It is. Absolutely terrible. It's always been terrible. But it's even worse. In sand. It was just. It was ugly. Writing the shame. And shame's ugly. And it was worse. In sand. And so I'm writing this. My shame. And it looks terrible. And the next. Step. In the exercise. Was to wipe your shame away.

And instead write. Your will be done. And so. I wiped my shame away. And I started writing. Your will be done. And it. I. I tell you. True story. It. It felt as if. It flowed. From my finger. It. It. It. It. It was not like my handwriting. And when I looked at it. It was. It was. It was. It was written. In a talisus. It was. It looked beautiful. And I was amazed by this.

And so. I. I couldn't believe that God is just showing up in this small way. And so I go back to my group of kids. And we're talking about our experience. And writing our shame in the sand. And I tell them what happened. And four other boys raised their hand and said. I can't believe that. It happened to me too. How amazing that God can show up in these small ways to simply say.

I'm here with you. When we say. And many. Your will be done. And that's my prayer. For us today. Is that when God calls on us. We would say. And many. Your will be done. We would be patient. We would be obedient. Whether we're in a. Chronic season. Or a short one. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. grace. Exactly. Oh, man. in a point. . wow. .