JOHN 5:1-9, 14 John Series: Get a Life in Jesus

Scott Turansky, Senior Pastor October 28, 2018 JOHN 5:1-9, 14 John Series: Get a Life in Jesus [PRAYER] Lord, it s been an exciting morning for me as I ve been part of the set-up team here and hearing about Rich s God moment, and Peter s answer to prayer, and being able to share my challenges with others and others to share with me, and just excitement of meeting new folks today. Lord, it's a privilege. Thank you. I enjoyed worship today and I trust that you ve enjoyed our praises from our hearts as well. Lord, I ask now that you would settle our hearts as we come before you and we open your word. I ask that you would minister to each person that s here. You know specific needs and challenges that each person faces, and I pray that you d touch us, each one, as we come in contact with your word today. I do pray for the children, again, as their teachers are working with them, as the discipleship group meets, that you d bless those young people as they re learning about you. Teach them about what it means to have a biblical worldview. We value those kids. We know that you do. So we re asking for your grace to work in their lives. In Jesus name, amen. We re studying the gospel of John. We re going verse by verse through the book. A few weeks ago my granddaughter was born, Lenna. When I went to visit her at the hospital, I had to park in a parking structure. Now parking structures can be rather challenging, and this is one of those where you kind of have to weave your way in and finally you get in. I was looking for a parking place so I could go in. So I go down the aisle and there s nothing there. I m waiting for people to maneuver and wherever and I m coming around and there s nothing, so I m going to go up to the next level. So I m still looking for a parking place, but this time around, I m seeing the same cars I just saw a minute ago on the sides. Obviously I missed something, so now I m passing by the same cars and I ve got to go all the way around again, wait for other people to get in and out of their places, not finding a place I want till I can get to the next level. One, I m saying you ve got to stop doing this. You got to make the right turn the next time that turn comes about. So I come around and I determined to take a different path to get up to the next level where I could park my car. Now I think there are people today who are circling in their lives, wishing that they could get to the next level of their personal development or their growth or relationships or wherever they are, but they re stuck looking at the same stuff over and over again. I think today s passage in particular will be helpful for you if you re in that place. Where you know you ve got to move to the next level, but you re kind of stuck where you are now. I want you to know that if you re not in that place today, you probably know somebody who is stuck and you need to go to the next level or you will be in that place at some point where you need to move. Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope

So I really think this passage is helpful. Sometimes when we open God s word we find courage to hang in here and do what we need to do or take a new step. Sometimes we find conviction. That conviction that says change is necessary. I need to do something. This isn t working for me. God is prompting us in this area of conviction. Sometimes He gives us perspective. That perspective allows us to see things as He s the King of the world and we re able to grapple with things that we re wrestling with. God does all of those things in our lives. Today s passage is one of those what I call kick-in-the-pants passages. You know where we need sometimes to get off our rocker and get moving. But the neat thing about these kind of kick-inthe-pants passages that we come to is that God doesn t just motivate us with guilt. He motivates us with a vision. A vision for something bigger. God has these grand things that He wants to do in our lives. They re so big that often we don t recognize them. He says to us He s able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or even think. We can t even imagine all that He wants us to do. He s calling us to something bigger. So that s one of the beautiful things about change when it comes to understanding God s word is that sometimes God prompts us or our world prompts us and our life prompts us and we say, I can t live this way anymore. I ve got to move to another place. But God says I ve got something for you. We re going to move to this new place. Now I m excited about this passage today because it s a passage that takes us to something new. Here s a man who s going to be touched by Jesus and something new is going to happen in his life. We re going to take the ideas from the passage, the principles that come out of this passage and we re going to apply them to our own lives and what God might want to do with us as we try to move forward in our own hearts. So I d like you to stand with me as I read this passage in honor of God s word. John 5:1-9. We ll come to verse 14, we ll add it in a bit. You can read it in your own Bible or you can look up at the screen here. First one. Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 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. 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. You may be seated. Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 2

I can imagine the situation in part because it must be a cross between a hospital or a rehab center or a rest home or something where people who have some kind of disability are all there hanging out together. As a pastor sometimes I have the privilege of visiting people in the hospital. When you re walking down the hall of a hospital, the doorways are on the sides with the rooms. You re trying to mind your own business, but the rooms are open and you can see there s two beds to a room and sometimes there s somebody lying there with their leg up in a cast elevated, or there s someone else with oxygen that they re breathing, or someone else in a wheelchair. Sometimes they re babies. Sometimes they re children. Sometimes they re teenagers. Sometimes they re older people. Just all kinds of people and every person has a story. I love visiting people in the hospital because you get to know them a little better. So if you get in the hospital, call me. I d love to come and visit you. That would be interesting to pray for you, certainly for healing, but also to learn more about your situation. I hear all kinds of things. I get to know people. I hear about their history. I hear about their story. In fact every person in that hospital has a story. I don t get to hear all the stories, but it s fascinating even on Sunday morning to hear the stories that people have. Sometimes when I m talking to someone who s in a hospital room and I m getting ready to pray for them and I hear their story, their story often (because they re a Christian) weaves in and around the things that God has done. Because when God touches a person, it changes their story. So at different points in a person s life you can see the story changed and now we re praying for another touch in the heart of this person as they re in the hospital. Well that s what we re looking at today. We re going to look at the story of one man who was touched by Jesus. And when he was touched by Jesus, some really interesting things, valuable things happened to him in his life that we can learn from. Let s go back and look at the beginning of the story just so we understand where we are in the passage. It says Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. There were there Jewish festivals that people went up to Jerusalem for. So it s a holiday time. But as we know, pain and suffering don t take a break during the holidays. In fact I would suggest that many times the depression that often accompanies the pain and suffering that people have increases during the holidays. We re coming up on the holidays, so as you do I just want you to think about the power of Jesus in your own life and the opportunity you may have to touch other people who are struggling with pain, especially during the holidays times. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, and this pool, the name of it is Bethesda. Now in 1956 in an archaeological dig they unearthed this pool. You can see this pool on the north side. This is Jerusalem. We ll be coming back to a map like this or this one as we continue on. But do you see the Sheep Gate on the north of the temple area that you would enter in if you were entering right into the temple mount. North of that is this pool where there s Bethzatha or Bethesda. We re not quite sure. Even in your Bibles here s probably a footnote that they don t know whether the name is Bethzatha or Bethsaida. We don t know for sure. But it s in Aramaic as they name it. So that s where the pool is. The Bible tells us that there were five covered porches around. So it's probably this nice decorative area where all of the disabled people would Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 3

come and they would hang out in this very nice place here just a little bit north of the city of Jerusalem, just outside of the city gate. Notice it says Here a great number of disabled people would come and they would hang out and they would spend time together. There s probably some community, some camaraderie, they would enjoy telling their stories, talking about life. So they re all hanging around in this area. That s the setting of what s going to happen in our story. Do you see that verse 4 there I put a little parenthesis around it. In your Bible it might not even be in the text. It goes directly from verse 3 to verse 5. So I m going to take a little tangent and help you understand why verse 4 is there. One of the statements of integrity of our Bible is that the scholars who have helped us with the translation of God s word have included even a verse like this that doesn t seem to be in some of the other manuscripts. See, there are thousands of manuscripts that are of the New Testament and the Old Testament. And so as they put them together and compare them, there s amazing number of ways that they synchronize together. They re the same. But occasionally you ll find a word that s different or a section or even like this is a whole verse that s different and it doesn t seem to be in the other manuscripts. Let me tell you what probably happened here in this verse is that one of the church fathers or pastors in the very early times wanted people to know the history of this story because there s a custom, a superstition, a tradition that takes place that makes the story make sense. So that s what verse 4 is. Probably the pastor took the scroll and he probably wrote this right on the side of the scroll so that people would know. But then when it got transcribed to the next place, it got included into the text itself. So the scholars, wanting us to know about the integrity of God s word, make a note about this so that we ll understand that. I m going to read it because it gives us some understanding of what s happening in the passage just so we can get the glimpse of the context of the culture of the time. Verse 4 says For an angel of the Lord went down at certain season into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever then was first after the stirring up of the water stepped in, was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. So there was like this superstitious religious kind of belief that the water was rippling, there was an angel and the first person in would get healed. We have some of these kinds of superstitious beliefs today that aren t really found in scripture. There are some people who take an image or an idol or what do you call those little things of St. Christopher? They put them in their car. Little statue. They put a little statue in their car because St. Christopher is known as the saint of safety and travel. So they ll put that there. So that s like a superstition that someone might have today based on religious thought. So they ll put that in their car. That s the kind of things we re talking about here. It s important because of what s going to happen, what the guy s going to say. So you just have to understand that as background that there was this belief that they had that the first person in the water would be the one to be healed. Okay. Put that aside. We ll come back to it in just a moment. Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 4

Verse 5 introduces us to our character, the person in our story. It says One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. Jesus is going to touch him. So the first thing I want to say here is it s never too late. The reason I say that is because sometimes as I work with parents who are helping their children to change, it s pretty common that a parent will say to me, Oh I see I ve made so many mistakes. Is it too late? My teenager s having some trouble now, and whatever. My answer is always the same, It's never too late. Because we re not just doing reward/punishment kind of training. We are actually working with the grace of God. And when God works with someone, He changes people at any age. It's never too late to trust the Lord. It s never too late to watch God work in a person s heart, and, as many of you know, you ve made significant changes because of God s grace in your life and later in life. Here s a guy who s thirty-eight. So if you re thirty-eight and older, I just want you to know it s not too late. You can still make some changes in your life. This particular man, thirty-eight years an invalid. Couldn t walk. Laid around a lot. His normal was we can imagine what it was. Pretty predictable. That in the morning on their way to work his friends would bring him and put him there at the pool so he had someone to talk to and he would be around some other people. Maybe his place was always the same. You guys always like to sit in the same place in church. When I look around you re always in the same place normally and I can find you. This guy probably had his favorite place that he was there under one of the five porches, probably sitting next to Sam and they d talk every once in a while. But sometimes he didn t like Sam, so he d ask him to move to a different place. I don t know. But he has this normal thing that he s doing every day. He d probably become so used to that normal that he couldn t even imagine that something could be different. I think people get there in their lives. That the normal that they re stuck in, the stress that they experience, the painful relationships, the kind of thinking they have about the opinions of other people or whatever, it gets so entrenched that they start to believe that nothing else could happen. I m stuck in this place. It reminds me of the family that moved into a neighborhood next to a church. The sign up around the church said Sunday School. So the boy who was eight years old said, Dad, can I go to their Sunday School? Dad says, Fine. Go to Sunday school. So the boy went to Sunday School. He came home and his dad says to him, So what did you learn at Sunday School? He says, Well I learned about Moses and Pharaoh and about the Israelites escaping the Egyptian army. What happened was they came to the Red Sea and then Moses had all the people build pontoon bridges all the way across the Red Sea. When they got to the other side, the Egyptian army tried to cross the pontoon bridges, so the Israelites blew them up and all the Egyptian army died. And the father said, Is that what they really said? The boy said, No. But if I told you what they really said, you wouldn t believe me. I think that s how people are today. They go I don t think I can think about how God can do something different in my life than where I am right now. I want to suggest God does want to do different things. He wants to move us to that next level. He wants us to take the off-ramps or the Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 5

on-ramps that get us onto that new place where He wants us to be. So here are three statements that Jesus makes to the man. I want to take each of those statements and make a point out of them. Because I think the points provide for us some freedom. I think they encourage us. They allow us to look at our own lives and say, Okay. I think with God s help I can do this. First thing Jesus says to the man is 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? Hmm. Do you want to get well? Why would He ask a sick person if he wants to get well? Wouldn t anybody say, Yes, I want to get well? Well the reality is I think some people find it easier to stay sick than to go through the process of change in order to get well. They get stuck in the process. It is really hard to change. You know you want to overcome this substance abuse or this addiction or this problem of worrying or this negative thinking or this complaining or whatever it is and you go, I want to do that, but maybe I don t want to do that because it means some change. Do you understand what I m saying? Sometimes it s hard. They say, Do you want to get well? and you go, I m not really sure I want to get well. I think that s what He s asking him because the first step that s required for this guy is that he be willing, that getting well requires change. About seven weeks ago, my neck stared hurting. Now I just keep working, doing what I need to do, but the pain starts getting worse and worse. This last week, man It s even hurting me right now. You ve been praying for me this morning and I appreciate that. Now my neck and shoulders are all really tense. So I went to the chiropractor this week and he checked everything out and he said the problem is you re so tense in your shoulders and neck. So when we were through, his determination was that it s probably because I spend so much time working on my computer. Some of you have gone through this already. So you ve changed the way you work so that you could accomplish more. So he suggested that I make some adjustments and that I do some kind of physical therapy at home and some other things like that. Now all of that sounds great, but I m a busy guy. I ve got to get on my computer. I m a busy guy. I don t have time to stick the roller ball behind my back and roll up and down the wall. I ve got all kinds of things to do. I m a busy guy. And so I m studying this and I m feeling this pain in my neck (it's a real pain in the neck) and I m asking myself this question: Do you really want to change? Do you really want to get well? And I m going stop asking the question. So I just think my pain in the neck is minor compared to some of the other challenges I face and that you face. But there s this real important question that we have to start with and that Jesus starts with. Do you want to get well? Sometimes the pain has to get bad enough in our lives where we have a hard time living with ourselves or living in a situation where we say finally, I ve got to do something. I cannot keep living this way. Something needs to change. And then we re ready to make that statement. So the willingness is not just a trite statement. It's not just something we quickly jump over to the next thing. It's probably one of the big things that prompts change. Are you ready to change? is what He s saying. Are you ready to get well? What a great question to ask. I work with young people many times in my office in counseling because they need some help. I regularly ask this question. I say to a young person, Why are you here? Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 6

Well I ve got a problem with anger, or whatever it is. And I say to the young person, Well do you want to get well? And they look at me with the strangest look. As if who are you and why are you asking me that question? I say, Let me tell you a story about Jesus, and I tell them this story about Jesus asking the man the question, Do you want to get well? It s a preliminary question. If we re going to make change in our lives and move to the next level of our personal development, experience what God wants for us, go to this next step, we have to be willing to change. Notice the man s response because he doesn t say yes. He almost has this defensiveness, which I think can take place in our lives. He says Sir, 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. Thus the superstition that we talked about earlier. He says, I don t have any way to get in. If people would help me, I d get well. Don t we do that sometimes? If other people would change, if my boss would be out of here, or my coworkers, or this person in my house, if they would change, I d be fine. If people would help me, then I d be able to go forward. So we tend to offload our challenges and we don t take responsibility for ourselves. We tend to blame the problem on others until it gets to the point where we decide I m going to get well and things are going to change. I find it interesting that he responds that way. He essentially is playing the victim role, which I m just a victim of other people s actions and if they would change I d be fine. So Jesus is going to make a second statement, which transfers responsibility squarely into this man s shoulders. I think that s what He wants to do with us a lot of times. He transfers responsibility to us. Because maybe it is 90% the problem of your spouse. But there s the 10% of your opportunity to change. 10% provides you with power. Victims have no power. They re always offloading. I can t do anything. It s everybody else s fault. But as soon as you take your part of the responsibility, now you have power to change. So Jesus is going to transfer that responsibility to the man with His second statement when He says to the man Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. Now each one of those three things I find to be rather challenging. Think about a guy thirty-eight years he s been stuck in this situation. And it says get up. That itself is complicated. Pick up your mat and walk. Wow. There s always this part that we have responsibility for and that we can make changes in, the part we need to do. And so that s what Jesus is doing. He s placing responsibility on the man. Now I want to talk for a moment here about God s responsibility versus man s responsibility in the change process. I think it's important for us to talk about that or we get off balance here. Because if you just believe it s your responsibility to pick up your mat and walk, then you start thinking, Well I can change anything, and the reality is sometimes you can t just change anything. We have to work where God is working, as we learned last week that God happened to be working in this area. Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 7

I want you to notice that Jesus came to a place where there were a great number of disabled people, verse 3, and only one of them got healed. See, I can t promise you that God is going to heal you of whatever you want to be healed of. But I can promise you that God wants to do something in your heart to move you to the next level of your personal development, even in the midst of the challenge that you re living with. Oh I pray for healing and I ll pray for healing for you if you come and ask me. Because I do believe that God heals today. And it's in those God moments that we see it happens that our faith is encouraged. But God doesn t always heal every person. Sometimes the answer is no. Let me show you a passage, another story of Jesus when He healed someone and the man wanted something and Jesus said no. That s point number two. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. That s what he wanted. I want to go with you. I want to go on the mission trip. I want to go on a ministry trip with you. I want to hang in there with you. Jesus did not let him, but said, Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. Jesus said no. No, you need to go back to your house. You need to go back and minister in your home. You re not going to escape from your home situation. You need to go back into it. Because it s in your home that I want to work. So God gave this man the answer no, but wanted to do something interesting in his life. And notice all the people were amazed. There was a response there. You just got to know that there s God s part in the process of moving to the next level and there s my part. I can t just decide what I want to do or what I want to be. I must tie into God s plan and what He s doing. And when I do, that s when I experience the blessing of God. So be careful. Jesus is transferring responsibility to the man, because there s always our part. God wants to change us, He wants to move us to the next level, but He expects us to respond and do our part. Do you want to get well? If you do, then action is going to be required. That was point number two. Well let s go to the third statement of Jesus. It happens a little bit further in the text. If you re missing the verses in between, I want you to know we talked about those last week and you can go back and listen to the sermon or read them yourself even in the passage and learn about what we talked about in the middle. But Jesus comes upon the man again in the temple area. Notice they were up at the Sheep Gate and now they re down in that temple area. And Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. What is He saying? Well I don t think He s necessarily saying that it was because of sin that he was sick in the first place. I don t think that s necessarily true in the passage. I think what He s saying is hey look, there s another way for you to think about life that s more than just physical Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 8

healing. There s something bigger for you and you need to think about the spiritual ramifications of that as well. So what I think He s saying is how are you going to orient your life? This isn t the first time that Jesus says stop sinning. Remember He said it to the woman caught in adultery. You know when all of the people left because all the accusers were gone. He turns to the woman and He says, Stop sinning. Go and sin no more. Why? Because there s this reality that sin at any point in our lives can cause us to miss the blessing of God and experience negative consequences. So if in my mind I m thinking negatively, it's eventually going to take its toll on my life. If in my mind I m thinking, complaining, or speech is coming out of my mouth that is negative, I m going to have a problem in that area. Or it could have to do with finances or relationships. It could be anything. But the question is, God, can you point to anything in my life you want to change? And this I think is God s bigger call to all of us. That yes, we come to God with our things. Lord, would you fix this and help me with that? And God likes to do all of those things and works through those situations to grow us deeper. But there s something bigger we need to look at and that s the discipleship. That s the following Christ with all of our heart. What does that look like? Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. We were talking about this in our small group this week. One person mentioned a really neat passage or reminder passage that I want to share with you. I think this is probably the greatest danger of someone who s addicted. If you re addicted to something and you get clean, if you re not careful you can fall back into that and worse things would even happen, as some of you are very aware of with yourself or with others. So Mathew 12, Jesus is trying to teach about that idea when He says When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation. So if you work hard to get over some kind of a problem in your life without replacing that with the Holy Spirit and the power of God, then you can easily drift back into that problem in some really destructive ways. That s why it's so important to embrace the Holy Spirit in your heart to allow Him to impact you and change you from the inside out. That when you do make a change in your life, you re able to continue on with that because you have something here and then the bad things, whether they re evil spirits or habits or whatever they may be, don t come rushing into your life. The power of God is strategic. There are three statements that Jesus makes that gives us I think three points that help us in our own lives. I would suggest that some people when they come to this point where they re ready to make some change need to do a reset. Push the rest button and all kinds of things need to change Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 9

in their lives. I know some of you have done that. You come to a place and the Lord really wants to change your life. So you ve evaluated all kinds of different things. I suppose there are others who need an upgrade in some kind of part of their life. Maybe an upgrade in their network of relationships. If you re hanging around people who are negative speaking people all of the time, what s going to happen to you? You re going to start thinking negatively. You re going, I ve got to do something different here. This isn t working. If you hang around people who use a lot of foul language, then pretty soon it starts to affect you. It even starts coming out of your own mouth. You go, What am I doing? I don t want to use that kind of language. The important thing is just to recognize that God wants to take us somewhere. That we are not stagnant going around in circles, seeing the same cars over and over again. He wants to take us to the next level in our lives. That often requires change. Change is not easy and so we first have to be willing. Then we have to take action. But then it has to incorporate more of who we are so it becomes part of our identity. And that s the power of what God wants to do. In Proverbs 3:5-6 Many of you have memorized this verse. It s a life verse for many people. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. That s the idea that I hear that I think Jesus is communicating to this man. This man was different. He was touched. When someone is touched by Jesus, amazing things happen. So I want to pray for each one of us today. I just want to pray that God s going to touch our hearts. He s going to change us. He s going to help us move to this place that we don t even realize. It s this area that we don t even know that we don t know. It s that part out there that God is working and He wants to bring some change into our lives sometimes. Let s just be willing to allow Him to lead us. Allow the Holy Spirit to direct us and guide us toward healing and growth in our lives. Would you stand with me? Let s pray together. [PRAYER] Holy Spirit, we ask that you would convict us of areas in our lives where we need change. Prompt us in our hearts to be willing to respond to you. It s easy, I know, to just get stuck where we are and accept the things around us as normal. Lord, I pray that you would give us a vision for something better, something new. That even in the situations where we are right now you can give us perspective and courage and hope. So Lord, do a deep work in our hearts we ask. Keep our hearts soft toward you. In Jesus name, amen. Scott Turansky - Calvary Chapel Living Hope 10