God Likes To Work When Nothing Else Will

JOHN 5:1-9 “GOD LIKES TO WORK WHEN NOTHING ELSE WILL”

A) How does God feel when people hurt? Does He care or is He unconcerned?

* Jesus is in Jerusalem for a feast and goes by the sheep market where there’s a pool.

* The pool has five porches that overlooks the body of water.

* It’s a monument of wealth and prosperity, but its residents are people of sickness and disease.

B) It’s called Bethesda! * It could be called SRMC … It could be called a nursing home …

* It could be the homeless huddled beneath an overpass … It could be RLCC …

* It could be any collection of hurting people.

C) Picture a battleground with wounded bodies all over the place and you see Bethesda!

* Imagine a nursing home overcrowded and understaffed and you see the pool.

* Jesus goes to the pool … Can you picture it? … Jesus walking among the suffering.

* What is He thinking? * When an infected hand touches His ankle, what does He do?

D) When a wrinkled hand extends for alms, how does Jesus respond?

* As Jesus walks near the pool, stepping carefully between the beggars and the blind and the halt

and withered invalids, He walked up to this one man who had been paralyzed for 38 years.

* Jesus asked him a question, “Wilt thou be made whole?” * The man replied, “Sir, I have no …”

E) In v.8 Jesus gave a command and in v.9, the man obeyed and was healed!

* The man didn’t know he was healed until he obeyed the command of the Lord.

* Jesus didn’t pronounce a “word of healing,” He merely commanded the man to act.

* In the act the man was to show his faith … If he believed, he would arise and walk … If he

didn’t believe, he would simply continue to lie there and continue on just as he had always done.

F) No man has to continue on and on through life just as he always been … Enslaved to the

sin and corruption and desperate needs of the world!

* He can experience the healing power of Jesus Christ … The power to change his life and make

him into a new man. * All he has to do is one simple thing …….

* Believe the Word of Jesus Christ enough to obey, doing exactly what Jesus says to do.

G) It’s a clear fact … If we believe Him, we obey Him!

* If we don’t believe Him, we don’t obey Him. * Jesus gave a command … The man believed …

* When he believed, he obeyed and when he obeyed, he was healed!

* God likes to work when nothing else will! * LET’S LOOK AT SOME OTHERS …….

(1) MARK 5:25-34 – THE WOMAN WITH THE ISSUE OF BLOOD! * This woman was sick!

A) She had a blood disease and had it for twelve years … She suffered very much!

* For a Jewish woman, nothing could be worse … No part of her life was left unaffected!

* Sexually, she couldn’t touch her husband … Maternally, she couldn’t bear children …

B) Domestically, anything she touched was considered unclean (dishes, floors, clothes, etc)!

* Spiritually, she was not allowed in the Temple (Lev. 15:19-33).

* She had sought help from many doctors and she spent all she had for a cure.

* Instead of getting better, she got worse … She is hopeless …….

C) She is down to her last prayer and on this day, she’s about to pray it!

* By the time she gets to Jesus, He’s surrounded by people.

* He’s on His way to help the daughter of Jairus, the most important man in the community.

* What are the odds that He will interrupt an urgent mission with a high official to help the likes

of her … But what are the odds that she will survive if she doesn’t take a chance?

D) Fewer still … So she takes a chance … “If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.”

* Risky decision … To touch Him she will have to touch people.

* If one recognizes her, it’s hello rebuke, goodbye cure … But what choices does she have?

* She has no money, no friends, no solutions … All she has is a crazy hunch that Jesus can help

and a high hope that He will.

E) So here she goes through the crowd and she gets close to Jesus!

* She reaches out and touches the hem of His garment, and immediately (v.29) …….

* Two things happened when this woman touched Christ that never happened nowhere else in the