Stirred Up Series

Pastor Tullian Tchividjian talks about losing his car keys at least twice a year. He’s late for a meeting or an appointment and can’t find his car keys.

Does that ever happen to you? I know it happens to me far more times than I care to admit.

He’s certain that either his wife or one of his children had misplaced them, so he frantically runs from room to room assigning blame. “Who was playing with my keys? I put them right here on the counter and now they're gone. They didn't just vanish into thin air! Who picked them up? Where are they? I'm late.”

And right when he’s about ready to order mass executions, he walks into his bedroom one last time to look (huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning), puts his hand in his pocket, and finds his keys. They'd been there the whole time.

Now, who frantically looks for car keys that are in their pocket? Me. That's who and maybe you, too.

Pastor Tchividjian says, “The truth is, we all typically live this way: frantically and frustratingly searching for something we already have. The gospel is God's good news announcement that everything we need we already possess in Christ. Because of Jesus' finished work, Christians already have all of the justification, approval, significance, security, freedom, validation, love, righteousness, and rescue that we desperately long for, and look for in a thousand things infinitely smaller than Jesus… [Unfortunately], we allow our internal voice, one that constantly says, “Do this and live,” to drown out the external voice that shouts, “It is finished!” (Tullian Tchividjian, “God's Word in Two Words,” Christianity Today, 8-29-13; www.PreachingToday.com).

Jesus is God! The Bible says, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). So, in Him, you have everything you need. All you have to do is recognize who He is and believe in Him.

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to John 5, John 5, where Jesus demonstrates who He is and declares His equality with God, the Father.

John 5:1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem (ESV).

This is probably the Passover feast. A year before this, Jesus created quite a stir by driving the merchants and money changers out of the Temple. Now, He is going to stir things up again.

John 5:2-3 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed, [waiting for the moving of the water] (ESV).

At least that’s what many of the early manuscripts include. Notice, verse 4 is missing in some of your Bibles. That’s because it’s missing from some of the earliest manuscripts, but many manuscripts include it, which explains the moving of the water.

John 5:4-6 [For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had]. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight 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?” (ESV)

Now, that’s a strange question to ask. Of course, he wants to be healed, but does he? Some people get comfortable in their situation, especially after 38 years.

John 5:7 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” (ESV).

He wanted to be healed. He just couldn't get to the pool fast enough.

John 5:8-9 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up 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 (ESV).

Jesus is stirring things up again! The Mosaic Law prohibited most work on the Sabbath. It was a day of rest, but the Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day took it to the extreme. They taught that if anyone carried anything from a public place to a private place on the Sabbath, he or she violated the law and deserved death by stoning. Well, Jesus told this man to carry his bed from a public place. It was a clear violation NOT of the Mosaic Law, but of the rules the Jewish leaders added to keep people from breaking the Mosaic law.

John 5:10-16 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 them, “The man who 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, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 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 (ESV).