God The Son Series

INTRODUCTION

• Have you ever been criticized for doing something good, something that helped another person?

• Maybe what you did for someone else was life-changing, yet there was someone or a group of someones who just had to put their two cents in.

• If you have ever faced criticism for doing something good, today’s event will hit home with you.

• Today we will dig into another time when Jesus faced criticism.

• The song “Jesus Christ” by the secular band Brand New has some hauntingly insightful lyrics that resonate with the criticism Jesus faced in the passage for today.

• The songwriter describes the second coming of Jesus and expresses his fear that he’s too much of a deceiver and sinner to follow Jesus: “But I’m scared I’ll get scared, and I swear I’ll try to nail you back up.”

• Later, he says, “We’ve all got wood and nails” (Jesse Lacey, 2006).

• It isn’t a song about hating Jesus but rather about how our go-to instinct is to react to Jesus or others in a hostile, fearful way.

• In the story we’re looking at today, Jesus does something good, but the reaction to this good miracle is hostility.

• As we examine the event today, we will look at some things behind the scenes when folks decide to go down the path of negativity.

• In the text, we will notice that once again. Jesus puts Himself in a position where He knows He will be at odds with the religious leaders.

• Today, we will be in John 5:1-18; let’s turn to the passage.

John 5:1–8 (NET 2nd ed.)

1 After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways.

3 A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways.

5 Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?”

7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.”

8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

SERMON

I. The backdrop.

• On the Sabbath, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for a festival and sees this man on the way that catches His attention.

• For thirty-eight years, a man has been unable to walk.

• This man is carried to the pool of Bethesda, where he lies every day, for years on end, hoping to be lowered into the water and healed at the moment when it seems like an angel is present (5:7).

• We already talked about this passage in March concerning the angel and the stirring of the waters and how whatever happened, people felt like healing took place when the waters moved.

• Here is a man for 38 years had been lame.

• There were no government or special programs to help a person in this situation.

• The only perceived hope this man had was that somehow, somehow, he would be the first in the water when they moved.

• We also see from the text that this man was not the only person holding on to the hope of being the first in the water.

• Verse three tells us that several people were sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed, lying in the hallways hoping to be the one who was healed.

• As verse ten will reveal, it happened to be the Sabbath when Jesus entered the area.

• Of all the people who were around the pool and in the hallways, I wonder why of all the people, Jesus chose this person to engage.

• Have you ever been in a place where you saw a great number of people who were sick and dying?

• Or have you seen the commercials for organizations like Compassion International?

• Child after child who is living without much hope, does it move you?

• In the backdrop of this scene, we will learn that not only are there people who need healing, but there are healthy people, and the religious leaders are also present.

• I wonder if any healthy people and religious leaders were moved by the scene, or were they so used to the scene that it no longer moved them?

• As Jesus walked among those in need, He noticed this particular person.

• I do not know why He took note of this one person, but Jesus does.