Lord, Please Move Me Out Of This Waiting Line John 5:1–9 (Esp. Vv. 6 & 8); Hebrews 6:10–12

I first preached this message in 2006, five unique variations in five different services. And with each one, I was profoundly blessed by the inexhaustible dimensions through which the same Scripture revealed Christ. One text. One Christ. Multiple perspectives.

This particular message is the “waiting” perspective of the John 5:1-9 narrative, the story of a man who out-waited even Abraham. For thirty-eight long years, he remained in the same position and predicament, waiting for what he so desperately needed: wholeness.

God is our ever-present Help in the time of need. This man at the Pool of Bethesda was broken. But he didn’t need just any help, he needed divine help. For no man could lift him… until Jesus came.

Whether black or white, rich or poor, great or small, young or old, we all need help.

“...waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had...”

Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’

The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’” — John 5:3b–8

Notice that the Bible only said the man had been in that condition for 38 years, but it doesn't say, that he was by the pool for 38. years.

When you've been in a bad situation (a situation that renders you immobile, incapable, hinders your movement and ability to go forward, a situation that not only renders you impotent but also leaves you helpless and incapacitated without help because you are surrounded by impotent, helpless medical decrepit like yourself), for a protracted period of time, chances are, you acquiesce with/to that situation, you become numb to it and so used to the situation that you become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Dysfunctionality becomes normal to you. The psychological debilitation that comes from being oppressed, or being abused or being disadvantaged in a sociological environment can be very traumatizing and subjugating (How you think becomes who you are) that it leaves you paralyzed and fossilized- sometimes without you even knowing it.

Here is the story of a decrepit who needed help with not only his physical condition, but more so his psychological dysfunctionality. Depending on people is bad enough, but when you have to wait again and again for someone to help, it is most gruesome, because waiting is not a position anyone wants to live daily in.

Waiting is not Natural: It is not natural for humans to wait. i.o.w, waiting is not natural to the human flesh. We don’t like to wait. That’s why It takes the supernatural for the natural man to wait. Hebrews 6:12 calls it faith and patience.

“That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” – Hebrews 6:12

A real expectation must be mixed with faith and patience to obtain what God has promised. But waiting is work according to Hebrews 6:12, because Paul infers that lazy, sluggish people don't know how to wait, and can’t wait either, so therefore, follow after those who thru faith and patience waited or are waiting for the promise. It takes Faith to believe in something and it takes patience to wait for what you believe in. This then means that waiting cannot be measured by the external state of a person, but by the psychological and spiritual state of the individual, because laziness is not a physical state of inertia, it is a mental and spiritual state of inertia. Your body can be at rest, but your mind be on a runway to destiny! Conversely, your body can be on a jet cruise but your mind locked down in self-imprisonment.

Hebrews 6:12 acknowledges the human tendency to become sluggish and weary during seasons of delay, hence the call to emulate those who endured with faith.

Sometimes, what we think is a wait may not really be a wait. Someone in an idle and stagnant state may say they are waiting for / on something when in honesty, they’re not. So how do you decipher a real wait from a wishful thinking that thinks it is waiting?

It requires faith and patience – the twin graces that don’t come naturally. You may argue here that as a natural unregenerate man, you have faith and you are a patient person. But no sir, faith and patience are fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural to have faith and patience. You may be an optimistic person, that’s not faith, because faith is not optimism, or positive thinking, faith only comes by the hearing of the word of Christ. You may say you are a patient person, but no sir, you may be a tolerant person but tolerance is not fruit of the Holy Spirit – patience is. Optimism is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit, faith is and it comes by the word of God.