INTRODUCTION
• Imagine that you have some disability, one from which you have suffered from most of your life, it not all of it.
• You have tried everything and every treatment, as well as some that are off the books.
• You hear about a special pool where you can go to be healed, but there is a catch.
• You have to be the first one in the water once it stirs to be healed.
• Somehow you have been making your way to this unique pool for many years.
• Healing is so close you can almost touch it; however, the relief you sought was just out of reach for you all these years.
• Today we continue our study of the signs of Jesus.
• A sign, as the author of John uses it, is a visible experience of God working through Jesus in the world for our salvation.
• In John 5, we see Jesus enter Jerusalem to attend a feast (v. 1).
• Though the exact site is not certain, the place where this most likely happened has been excavated.
• The place consisted of two large twin pools.
• The entire structure was surrounded by a portico, with one running down the middle of the two pools as well (Craig Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament[Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014], 262).
• People would come there to be healed, believing that the one lowered into the water would be healed (vv. 3–4, 7).
• Out of this multitude of invalids, Jesus approaches one man.
• Today, we will see that the healing of the disabled man shows that God seeks out the lost to save them.
• Let’s begin with John chapter 5, verses 1-7!
John 5:1–7 (CSB)
1 After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades.
3 Within these lay a large number of the disabled—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
5 One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the disabled man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
SERMON
THE SEEKING GOD:
I. Seeks the misguided.
• Ok, we are going to start with Bible Nerd time!
• When you read this passage, you will notice that in many of your bibles, the last part of verse 3 is not there as well as verse 4.
• You may find that verse in the margin or the notes section.
• In the CSV, the passage is in the notes.
• Briefly, here is why.
• The last part of verse 3 and verse 4 is not in the majority of manuscripts or the earliest manuscripts.
• The passages appear in the early second century and the later manuscripts.
• According to the NET Bible, Second Edition Notes:
• The majority of later mss (C3 T ? 078 f1, 13 𝔐) add the following to 5:3: “waiting for the moving of the water. 5:4 For an angel of the Lord went down and stirred up the water at certain times. Whoever first stepped in after the stirring of the water was healed from whatever disease which he suffered.”
• Other mss include only v. 3b (Ac D 33 lat) or v. 4 (A L it).
• Few textual scholars today would accept the authenticity of any portion of vv. 3b–4, for they are not found in the earliest and best witnesses (𝔓66, 75 ? B C* T pc co), they include un-Johannine vocabulary and syntax, several of the mss that include the verses mark them as spurious (with an asterisk or obelisk), and because there is a great amount of textual diversity among the witnesses that do include the verses.
• The present translation follows NA27 in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.
Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible, Second Edition. (Denmark: Thomas Nelson, 2019).
• The NASB 1995 Edition includes the passage listed here with a note that these verses were most likely a later scribal addition in the side column.
John 5:3–4 (NASB95)
3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;
4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.
• The most plausible explanation was that an early scribe knew of the story as to WHY the people would gather around this pool.
• It would be hard to understand why all these lame people were hanging out at this pool without the explanation.
• Giving validity to the premise of the addition is that there must have been some validity to the claim because why else would all these people be making their way to the pool?
• Jesus asks this man if he wants to be well (v. 6).
• It’s an odd question.
• If he has been lying there for thirty-eight years, specifically for healing, you’d think the answer would be “Yes!”
• However, the man’s answer indicates that Jesus was onto something.
• Instead of saying “Yes,” he says, “I can’t. No one will help me” (see v. 7).
• There is a lesson there: when we have been suffering for so long, it is possible that our identity can become wrapped up in that suffering, to the point that we can’t conceive of another reality.
• If that applies to you, please realize that you are more than the suffering you are going through.
• You have a greater identity and purpose.
• This man is desperate to be healed.
• He had been coming to this place for years, maybe decades hoping to be the one who would receive the promised healing, but each time, the opportunity was snatched out of his hands.
• This man is looking for a healing, but his hope is misguided.
• This man is not looking for God; he is not looking for Jesus; he is HOPING for healing by being the first one in the pool.
• This situation is like having severe financial issues, and your solution is to put everything you have into the lottery!
• Where is your misguided hope placed today for whatever is eating at you?
• Where are you looking for your healing and salvation?
• Are you looking for money, fame, substances, or pleasure?
• Are you looking for salvation in your goodness or your moral betterment?
• Jesus seeks this man.
• Out of all those around the pool who needed healing, Jesus sought this man.
• The good news is even when we are not seeking Jesus, He will still seek us.
• As I look back on my life before Jesus, I come to realize He was seeking me my entire life, even when I was not.
• When I finally called out, He was there for me!
• Let’s turn to verses 8-9.
John 5:8–9 (CSB)
8 “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.”
9 Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath,
THE SEEKING GOD:
II. Heals the helpless.
• Here is a man who was looking in the wrong place for healing.
• Now Jesus comes along, Jesus seeks the man out, and He heals Him!
• After the man tells Jesus there is no one to help him get into the water; therefore, he cannot be healed, Jesus offers the man what appears to be a strange answer in verse 8.
• “Get up…” (v. 8). Jesus heals him!
• Who is seeking out whom in this story?
• Does the invalid go looking for Jesus?
• No.
• Did he even know who Jesus was?
• No, he didn’t know who Jesus was.
• We can say that with confidence from verses 11–17.
• There is proof here of God’s love described in John 3:16, a God who has sent his Son to the world to save it—not because the world was seeking God.
• The world did not even know him (John 1:10).
• God did it because “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
• Here also is proof that God’s grace is not an exchange, where we do something, and God then responds.
• This man was helpless; he could not do for himself what he so desperately wanted to happen!
• This man had NO HOPE!
• This man didn’t say he wanted to be healed.
• His response to Jesus’s question was, “I can’t.”
• This man can’t even tell people who healed him.
• God did this because that is just who God is.
• This man received a great gift!
• This gift was something he did not earn; it was a gift!
• Don’t come to Jesus stuffed with prise thinking you will earn or get anything from Him.
• We have to come before Him with humility!
• This man had NOTHING to offer, yet Jesus does something for him!
• Jesus also tells the man to pick up his and walk!
• Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.
• We are also given another tidbit; it was the Sabbath!
• Let’s look at verses 11-17.
John 5:10–17 (CSB)
10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.”
11 He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’
12 “Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked.
13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
15 The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.”
THE SEEKING GOD:
III. Guides the thankless.
• Remember I told you John tells this event happened on the Sabbath!
• Jesus knew what He was doing when HE told the man to CARRY his bed and walk.
• These commands (you could walk no more than 7/8’s of a mile) and you could not do any work on the Sabbath according to the manufactured additions to the Law.
• Jesus knew this would cause some issues.
• Before we dig into that thought, do we see this man thanking Jesus for what He had done for him?
• Wouldn’t you at least get the name of the one who completely healed you?
• This man appears to be thankless.
• Yet Jesus did not take back the healing.
• After the healing, the man has a confrontation with the religious authorities because he is carrying his mat on the Sabbath. They deem this action to be a violation of the Sabbath because THEY considered it work. (5:10).
• The leaders are also thankless!
• Instead of praising God for the healing, all they cared about was their stupid traditions.
• I have seen so many folks not experience joy because they are so wrapped up in what is not essential that they miss out on the joy of the moment.
• If this man was violating God’s Law, you could maybe understand it, but when man puts his law on the same level with God’s law, we become a mess.
• After the religious leaders grill the man, Jesus then encounters the man again and tells him to “sin no more” (v. 14).
• Here is another comforting lesson about God: He cares about both the physical and the spiritual (vv. 14–15) sides of us.
• Jesus heals the man physically and restores a life the majority of people take for granted.
• Then he seeks him out a second time and encourages him to live that life in accordance with God’s will.
• God cares deeply about the whole person: He cares about you if you are ill, and He cares about you if your soul is sick with sin.
• After this second encounter, the man looks for the religious leaders to tell them who healed him.
• The religious leaders began to persecute Jesus in verse 16 because the leaders did not like that Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath.
• Why did the man run back to the leaders to rat out Jesus?
• HE did so because Jesus wanted him to.
• The text does not tell that, but by virtue of the situation, Jesus knew what would happen.
• By healing the man on the Sabbath and telling him to carry his mat, Jesus was drawing an issue between Himself and the religious leaders.
• That situation allowed Him to present His divine claims in the most explicit and most forceful manner possible.
• When Jesus confronts the leaders, we do not know if they spoke their objections or He read their hearts.
• Jesus corrects their false beliefs concerning God and the Sabbath, and He tells them HE is working as His Father (God the Father) is working!
• Jesus is trying to guide the thankless!
CONCLUSION
• The sign here is that God is at work in the world through Jesus, and that work is to seek out the broken and restore them to life, to seek out the lost and make sure they are found and know Jesus’s name (v. 15).
• In doing so, Jesus is merely doing the work of His Father (v. 19).
• And he will carry out this will in the lives of whomsoever He chooses (v. 21).
• In light of verse 7, verse 21 is perhaps the most astonishing aspect of this sign: God will accomplish his mission regardless of what we say or think or do.
• Jesus is unstoppable.
• Not even death can contain him.
› Our Application Point for the day is; God will accomplish his mission regardless of what we say, think, or do.
• Are you willing to let Jesus heal your soul today?
• Or do you want to waste the rest of your life looking in the wrong places for salvation?
