A. A father and son went fishing one summer day.
1. While they were out in the boat, the boy became curious about the world around him and began asking questions.
2. “Dad,” the boy asked, “how does this boat float?” His father replied, “Don’t rightly know son.”
3. A little later the boy asked, “Dad, how do fish breath underwater?” “Don’t rightly know, son.”
4. A few minutes passed and the boy asked, “Dad, why is the sky blue?” Again his father replied, “Don’t rightly know, son.”
5. Finally, the boy asked his father, “Dad, do you mind my asking you all these questions?”
6. “Of course not, son,” his father said with a smile, “If you don’t ask questions, you never learn nothin’.”
B. Today we are going to look at two of the most confusing things that Jesus ever said to anyone.
1. One of his statements is a question, the other is a warning.
2. The question that he asked the crippled man must have sounded kind of crazy. He asked the crippled man if he wanted to get well.
3. What kind of question is that?
4. But just like that boy in the opening story, if you don’t ask questions, you never learn nothin!
C. I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
1. Last week we started a series where we are exploring the fact that profound, genuine life-change is possible in Jesus Christ.
2. Today I want to establish what may be the fundamental issue that must be addressed if life-change is going to take place – and what is the fundamental issue? The WILL.
3. Let me ask you: Have you ever had a hard time figuring out what somebody really wants?
4. I’m sure you have. Many times we don’t even know what we really want! Right?
5. I’m also sure that we frustrate God much of the time. We say that we want a makeover of the heart, but in reality our heart really isn’t in it.
6. What we must understand is that there is no way, if there is no will.
D. Let’s look closely at the story that John tells about Jesus and the lame man in John 5.
1. We will start in verse 1, Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?” “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.”
2. Let’s stop a moment and explain the lame man’s reply.
3. Your Bible may have a margin note explaining that there is an additional verse in some of the lesser manuscripts.
4. It reads, “From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.”
5. Now we don’t know if that is true or not. Maybe it was a superstition.
6. Maybe the pool was supplied by an underground stream that gurgled once in a while.
7. Or maybe God, in his grace, really did it. After all, there’s got to be a reason that all these people would lay here for years. They must have seen something.
8. At any rate, that’s why the lame man is there laying by the pool and that’s why he answered Jesus the way he did.
E. Let’s continue the story at verse 8, Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’ ” So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 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.”
1. The lame man had been an invalid for 38 years.
2. Think about it. That’s older than a number of people in this room. And the rest of us can’t remember that far back.
3. This man had been lame longer than Jesus has been in a human body walking the earth!
F. When Jesus came up to the man and asked the question it must have been startling. Some might even have viewed it as cruel.
1. Jesus asked a crippled man, “Do you want to get well?”
2. That’s a question that rivals one of my Mom’s all-time favorite questions: “Do you want a spanking?” “Gee, Mom, let me think about that!”
3. The answer to Jesus’ question seems obvious.
4. But in reality, the question isn’t as shallow or obvious as it seems at first glance.
5. Jesus had a reason for asking the question. The question is a direct appeal to the invalid’s will.
6. Jesus wanted to know if his spirit was as paralyzed as his body.
G. In the man’s reply Jesus hears him saying, “Yes, I have the will to get well. I just don’t have the way.
1. “I can’t get to the pool fast enough. I have the desire to be made well, I just don’t have the ability to do so.”
2. Now please understand: Power shortage is never an issue for God.
3. So, Jesus says, “OK, you have the will but lack the way, I can fix that. Get up, take up your mat and walk.”
4. Now notice that Jesus didn’t just tell the man to do something, he gave him the ability to do it.
5. Notice also that the lame man didn’t have to learn to walk.
6. He didn’t have to hold on to someone’s arm and get help to walk.
7. He was able to stand up, hold his mat and walk away from where he had been.
H. But Jesus wasn’t through with him yet.
1. It was no accident that Jesus found him the first time, and he went and found him on purpose the second time.
2. If you think Jesus shocked him with the initial question, you haven’t heard anything yet.
3. In so many words, Jesus said, “I can see that you are well now. I can see that what you said you wanted you received. But you better stop sinning, or what happens next could be worse!”
4. What in the world did Jesus mean by that?
5. One thing we need to realize is that all sickness is indirectly brought about by sin.
6. When Adam and Eve sinned and God cursed the earth and death entered the picture, sickness came with it.
7. So, all sickness is indirectly related to sin, but some sickness is directly related to our own sin.
8. Our personal immoral lifestyles, our anxieties and worries, and the poisons we put in our bodies all can and do lead to sickness.
9. When we live outside of God’s will for us, then sickness is often the result.
I. But the amazing thing is that Jesus knows us so well.
1. And he knows that for some of us, no amount of sickness and suffering will cause us to hate sin enough to let it go.
2. The sad truth is that a lot of people would rather live with their encumbrance then live on God’s terms without it.
3. And so, Jesus has a good reason to ask all of us – “Do you really want to be well?”
4. Do we really want a life makeover, if it means a divine takeover?
5. Do we want to leave where we have been if it means we have to change how we have been?
6. I hope that we all can learn three things today about Jesus and the extreme makeover he offers.
J. First, Jesus wakes “victims” up to their responsibility.
1. I am using the term “victim” with quotation marks, because I don’t think Jesus had much respect for the theology of victim-hood.
2. Notice that this man did what we all do when Jesus asked him if he wanted to get better – he blamed others.
3. “The reason I am who I am is because of others. If it wasn’t for them, then I would be a better person. They are to blame.”
4. The NFL playoffs are going on right now, and professional football is touted as the most popular sport in America.
5. But it is not. The most popular sport in America is the blame game.
6. Everybody plays it. We even have our own version of it in the church.
7. The Christian excuse is…“I’d be a better Christian, but it’s the elders fault I’m not, or it’s the deacons…or the preacher…or better yet, the devil made me do it!” It’s somebody else’s fault, but it’s not my fault!
8. Brothers and sisters, truth is, we don’t need the exorcism of the demons causing our problems, we need repentance and obedience. Amen?
9. Few of us want to look at ourselves and take the responsibility for our sin, and express brokenness and repentance.
10. It’s much easier to blame someone else – God, our parents, our mate or the devil.
11. We need to hear the word of Jesus, who was big on personal responsibility.
12. That’s why one of the words he used the most in his sermons was the word “REPENT.”
13. He preached it everywhere he went – “Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
14. Because of Jesus it is possible for us to live life under the reign of God.
15. He can be our King and we can have new life, but we must repent and submit ourselves to Him.
16. So, the first thing that Jesus does is he wakes us up to our responsibility.
K. Second, Jesus takes on all challenges to changed lives.
1. Words like “impossible” and “unfixable” and “unchangeable” are not in Jesus’ vocabulary.
2. First, Jesus is not challenged by time.
a. We might say, “But I’ve had this problem for 38 years!”
b. He says, “So? You are talking to somebody whose name is ‘I AM’.”
c. Nothing is too old or long to the God who makes all things new.
3. Second, Jesus is not challenged by tradition.
a. We notice that the Jews in this story were not ministers of mercy.
b. This guy has been laying around for 38 years and has not been able to do anything, and the first thing they say to him is – “You can’t carry your mat today!”
c. They would rather experience right protocol than marvel at the power of God.
d. Don’t you think that Jesus knew it was the Sabbath day? He could have just told the man to get up and walk, but he didn’t.
e. Jesus was deliberately challenging their love for tradition over transformation.
f. We certainly don’t want to be a church where a life hasn’t changed in decades, but we make sure we do everything just right!
g. God’s work of transformation is far more important than our traditions.
4. Third, Jesus is not challenged by doubt.
a. Did you notice that the man Jesus healed didn’t even know who Jesus was?
b. He didn’t call on Jesus’ name, never once professed his faith or ask for anything.
c. He was not healed because of his faith, he was healed in spite of it.
d. God is not limited by our expectations of him, but God will not change or limit his expectations of us.
e. God can supply the way, but we must supply the will.
L. Here’s probably the most important thing I’m going to say today: Jesus makes no one well against their will.
1. Jesus changes no one’s life against their will.
2. You can talk with anyone who works with people and they will tell you that you cannot help anyone who does not want to be helped.
3. God’s power never wanes, but our willpower often does.
M. The movie The Shawshank Redemption is a powerful (and very rough) movie that explores the fact that life in prison can either make or break the spirit of a person.
1. An old man named Brooks had been in prison for over 50 years and was about to be paroled.
2. Life outside of prison scared him so much that he grabbed another inmate and put a knife to his throat, thinking that if he killed him then they would have to keep him in prison.
3. His fellow inmates talked him down, and he did no harm to the man.
4. The next scene shows Brooks’ friends sitting on the bleachers in the yard talking about why Brooks did what he did.
5. A man named Red (played by Morgan Freeman), who was older and wiser than the others said, “These walls do funny things to a man. At first you hate them. But then you get used to them. And after enough time passes, you get to a place where you need them.”
6. That what happens to many of us. The hope of life-change becomes the fear of life-change.
7. The heart that needs a makeover comes to depend on what it once feared.
N. As we all know, some people drink too much (or abuse some other substance – nicotine, cocaine, prescription drugs).
1. They aren’t proud of it. All of us have a lot of stress and we all have to find a way to cope with it.
2. Their way is the bottle. Trying to live without that wall, scares them to death.
3. They have come to need that wall. The honest truth is that they don’t want it to go away.
O. Some people have affairs.
1. When it began, it probably was innocent.
2. And the first time it happened, they couldn’t look at themselves in the mirror.
3. The next time it was a little more tolerable. And now they look forward to it.
4. There’s a part of it that feels so bad, and a part that feels so good.
5. The honest truth is, even though the person knows they need to give it up, they don’t want to.
P. There are some people who have been terribly hurt in the past by someone.
1. Maybe it was a parent, a friend, an ex, or even a stranger.
2. What that person did to them was wrong.
3. But what has happened to them has become their identity.
4. They’re the wounded child. They’re the betrayed and victimized party.
5. As much as they don’t like that role, it has become a comfortable wall to live behind.
6. Forgiveness, healing and moving forward are hard things to do, and they cause a lot of fear.
7. They require tearing down the wall, or moving outside of it.
8. And that’s something many people are not be willing to do.
Q. Some people are involved in pornography.
1. Maybe they don’t watch it 8 hours a day, but when they are on the road, or when others aren’t looking, they visit websites they should not, or look at magazines they should not.
2. One the one hand it makes them feel terrible, and they promise never to do it again, but on the other hand they are soon thinking about the next time they can get alone with their computer or magazines.
3. Truth is, they really don’t want to give it up.
R. Some people have a sharp tongue or a quick temper and their family lives on egg shells wondering when the next explosion will take place.
1. The person usually apologizes afterward and promises to do better, but the next explosion comes much too quickly.
2. But the truth is, the person gets their way most of the time because everyone is afraid of them, and the control they have over others feels good.
3. To change and get better means losing their power, and they are not willing to do that.
S. So, Jesus asked that lame man and he asks us a very important question – “Do we really want to get better? He wants to know what we really want. What really is our will?
1. I think it is possible that many of us want to be excused more than we want to change.
2. But I happen to believe that because of the resurrection of Jesus no one has to stay in their own prison.
3. There are no doors that Satan has locked that Jesus cannot open.
4. Where there is a will…He is the way!
T. Let me offer three actions steps we can take if we are tired of the walls we are living behind.
1. First, we can validate his diagnosis – we will stay where we are until we admit where we are and that we are stuck.
2. Second, we can activate our will – This is our responsibility. No one can do it for us. God will not even coerce our will. He will enable our will if we ask him to.
3. Third, we can initiate our walk – we have to show our willingness to walk by picking up our mat. Faith is belief with legs. It is taking a step of obedience in the direction God has given.
U. The main character in The Shawshank Redemption is a prisoner named Andy (played by Timothy Robbins).
1. He had a decision to make – either resign himself to a life behind walls or fight to be free.
2. He made the statement, “I guess it comes down to a single choice. You either get busy living or get busy dying.”
3. We have to decide what we want.
4. Let’s pray for a heart that wants to change, regardless of the cost, regardless of the effort or regardless of the time it will take.
5. Do you want to get well? Really? Remember: Where there’s a will…He is the way!
V. We are going to sing a song of encouragement – will each of us be resolved? (Song “I Am Resolved”)
1. All of us have changes we need to be working on.
2. Some of us have not been willing to make those changes and pay the price that comes with it.
3. Some need to come and give their lives to Christ for the very first time.
4. Others may need a rededication of their lives that can be done privately or publicly.
5. If you need someone to meet with you for prayer and counsel just let us know.
6. I pray that we will be resolved!
Resources:
My original sermon series in 2006 was based on a sermon series by Rick Atchley.
