The Gospel Of John Chapter Five
In our study of the Gospel of John I’ve been giving you “take aways.”
A take away is the thought that I wanted to remain with you,
The principle I wanted you to put into practice,
A reminder of the message.
Jesus is God,
Jesus chose you,
Do Whatever He Says,
Clean House,
Be in the Kingdom,
Welcome the Light.
Gush.
Hopefully you can recall the truth that is to impact your life from each of those
“take aways.”
Today’s take away is this: Want to Get Well
I want you to view a little more extended clip today.
We’ll start at John Chapter 4 verse 27—
Jesus says his food is to do the will of the Father.
Disciples nourish their lives through obedience.
There’s a revival in Samaria
And Jesus will heal the son of a royal official.
Jesus, dare I say, complains,
That people need to see miraculous signs in order to
believe.
But for disciples Believing is seeing.
Then we will watch chapter five come to life for us.
Pay closest attention to Jesus healing the man at the pool.
That’s where we’ll focus today.
Roll Video.
My son told me the other day,
Dad---there are no stupid questions,
But there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
Don’t you like questions with easy answers?
I do.
Some questions are easy,
But their answers are hard.
Why? Is easy to ask,
But hard to answer.
Jesus asks an easy question.
Do you want to get well?
The answer may not be so easy.
In order to want to get well you first must realize that you’re not well.
It’s easy if you have the flu and someone asks you if you want to get well.
No, I like being achy, coughing, sinus ear-achy and nauseous.
If you’re sick, a normal sane person, wants to get well.
“A sick healthy person wants to be healthy”
But what happens if you don’t know you are not well?
Do you want to get well, --gosh I didn’t know I was sick.
That’s why preachers make such a big deal about sin.
A lot of times we want a list of do’s and don’ts.
So if we keep the rules we know that we are not bad evil sinners.
But the scripture tells us at the start we were in trouble.
Romans 3:22-23 & 6:23 (NIV)
“There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” “the wages of sin is death…”
People say—I don’t want to hear how bad I am,
Christianity is all about how bad I am.
But we know that Christianity is so much more than discovering that we are sick
with sin.
By the way, instead of a list of do’s and don’ts.
I like to define sin as anything that messes up relationships.
If it messes up my relationship with God,
IF it messes up my relationship with Others,
IF it messes up me being a good steward,
IF it messes up my relationship with myself—
It’s sin.
So that’s the bad news,
The good news is this:
1 Timothy 1:15 (NIV)
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst.
Preachers talk about sin to get sinners to realize that they are sick unto spiritual
death, to wake them to their disease,
in order to tell them about Jesus so they can get well.
Do you want to get well?
Got to know that you’re sick, before you want to get well.
Most of us here today have come to the place in our spiritual journey where we
have accepted that fact that we were sick with sin.
Believed that Jesus is the only one who can make us well,
And have committed ourselves to following Jesus prescription
for being well.
When faith comes to you,
God reconciles your estranged relationship with Him,
The original sin problem is taken care of,
The sins you have committed are forgiven,
And you start learning how to be holy.
You go out of the gross sin business.
But what about the subtle sin sicknesses?
Could we be sick and not know it?
1 Corinthians 10:12 (NIV)
“…if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!”
Sin is sneaky and sometimes you don’t even know that something what you are
doing or not doing is messing up those four important relationships of your
life.
Here’s one that just slapped me in the face and I’m still chewing on it because it’s
giving me indigestion.
I want to rationalize and conceptualize and find a better interpretation
of something I read.
A fellow by the name of Jim Hampton is commenting on stewardship.
Stewardship is one of those relationships that we need to have right to live
life to the full.
A Right relationship to the earth is all about how well you
manage the material blessings God has entrusted you
with.
Jim is addressing an issue concerning stewardship from a passage in Isaiah
and uses the founder of the Wesleyan Holiness movement John
Wesley to help drive his point home.
“Wesley defined wealth as anything beyond the bare necessities of survival,
Food, clothing, and shelter.
Everything else, according to Wesley , was for the care of those who
needed it most. …
Wesley so strongly believed in the idea that God had entrusted His financial
resources into our care that he believed that if we used those resources for
ourselves instead of others, we were robbing God.
For Wesley, it was an act of worship, for if we were worshiping only God,
then our use of God’s resources would always be for others.”
(Hampton, Everyday Saint, pg 77)
I began to identify with the rich young ruler of Matthew Chapter 19
Matthew 19:17-22 (NIV)
Jesus replied. … If you want to enter life, obey the
commandments."
"Which ones?" the man inquired.
Jesus replied, "'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do
not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor
as yourself.' "
"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions
and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow
me."
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great
wealth.
I thought Hampton is just a radical extremist twisting the words of my theological
hero John Wesley to make a point.
After all there were no references to Wesley’s original work.
Isn’t it rather extreme to think that after you pay your rent, buy your food, and pay
for enough clothes to get by,
everything else you earned would be for those in need?
Break out the tums.
God obviously wants me to live a prosperous life or
why would I have been born in America?
I mean I tithe, I give 10% of my income to the work of the Church.
I give offerings out of the abundance that I have.
Surely that’s what’s required.
I need two cars, and a big screen TV and cable and a cell phone.
I need a lot of clothes because the weather is always changing.
I need nice vacations and going to a movie at $10 bucks a pop.
I need a 80gig touch screen ipod.
Am I sick?
Could there be an area in your life that you have glossed over,
Not considered, rationalized, justified and are in reality just plain
Subtly sin sick but don’t realize it?
All the while wondering why you’re not living your life to the
full?
James 1:22-24 (MSG)
Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
Do you want to get well?
It’s an easy question to ask but sometimes not so easy to answer.
For instance what happens if you don’t want to get well?
I’ve run into people who don’t want to get well.
Oh they may say they want to get well but they don’t do anything to get
well.
I think I ran into such a person this morning in my bathroom.
“That guy in the mirror needs to get more exercise.”
What are some reason why a person wouldn’t want to get well?
1. They like the sick lifestyle they have chosen.
2. They don’t want the responsibility of taking care of themselves.
3. They have defined themselves by their illness
4. They are afraid of a new tomorrow
Bottom line a person doesn’t want to get well because they don’t want to change.
Comfort zone and status quo sometimes can be a big hindrance to living your life
to the full.
There are a lot of people who say “I can’t” what they really mean is “I won’t.”
I am thinking about a “T” shirt that reads: “Please Don’t Stretch.”
I don’t want to try anything new,
I don’t want to learn anything new,
I like it just the way it is.
I could never do that.
Even if I am miserable, at least I know what to expect.
I used this little saying a lot when I was in the Navy—
The United States Navy, Two Hundred years of tradition,
Unmarred by progress.
I’ve run into people who boast 20 years experience on their resumes,
But what they really need to report is one year experience repeated 20 times.
What happens to a person who doesn’t want to get well is the same thing
that is happening to the left over refried beans in the church
refrigerator from the Pryor Farewell Pot Luck,
They mold and eventually are thrown out.
At one point they were good for something,
Now all they are is a science experiment.
There is no way you can be a Christian and not change.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT)
And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
More and more means continually.
Continually changed—from wherever you are in your spiritual journey
moving towards totally conformity to his glorious image.
If you are not changing there is a reason for it.
My guess is that there is a subtle sin sickness that is keeping
you from becoming well.
Do you want to get well?
Its the Sabbath, the day of resting from all work
There is this invalid at Bethzatha
You know that pool by the Sheep Gate.
He’s so crippled up he can’t walk
Jesus is walking by and sees this guy.
So Jesus asks the easy question—
Do you want to get well?
The easy answer is yes or no,
But this guy says his situation is hopeless.
Jesus tells him, stand up and walk.
And that’s exactly what the man does.
I guess the guy wanted to get well,
Or he would have told Jesus to take a hike.
The guy didn’t ask Jesus to help him,
Jesus just asked—Do you want to get well?
I think our God, is so compassionate,
So rich in mercy, so desirous to meet our needs,
That all we have to do is want to get well,
And then do what He tells us.
I talk a lot about process and recovery.
I often say things take time.
30 days to break a bad habit and
90 days to create a new one.
Maybe I’ve forgotten to tell you that there are also instantaneous transformations.
Changes that occur in a blink of an eye,
The old is gone the new has come.
No longer the person you were,
But the person you are becoming.
A miracle, healed in a moment of obedience from some sin sickness.
Do you want to get well?
Could it be that just the desire to be well invites the opportunity to be
become well?
Could it be that the desire invites the opportunity and obedience proves the
desire of your heart and with that proof God gives you your hearts
desire?
Do you want to get well?
Could it be that even if you don’t know you’re sick,
Just the attitude and the desire to stay well invites the Holy Spirit to
show you were you are not?
That God uses your desire to live your life to the full as an opportunity
for a reality check?
That you might see the truth about your subtle sin sickness, and in seeing the truth, be set free?
Do you want to get well?
Could it be that all that needs to happen for you to embrace change is to
want to?
That all those “I can’ts” might transform into “I can” just because you are
willing to want to.
God is more interested in you being well than you are.
My definition of well is right relationships.
You may be blessed with a physical healing,
But even Paul had to contend with his throne in the flesh.
You may be blessed with prosperity,
But Jesus did even have a place to call home.
Well means well with your soul.
Well means living your life to the full.
Well means a right relationship with God, Self, Others and the
Earth.
God wants you well.
1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
Here’s your take away—
Want what God wants.
Want to get well.
The desire invites the miracle that makes you well.