GOD OF THE UNEXPECTED
John 5:1-9, 14-15
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. David, a second-grader, was bumped while getting on the school bus & suffered a two-inch cut on his cheek.
2. At recess he collided with another boy and two of his teeth were knocked loose. At noon, while sliding on ice, he fell and broke his wrist.
3. Later at the hospital, his father noticed David was clutching a quarter in his good hand. "I found it on the ground when I fell," David said. "This is the first quarter I ever found. This sure is my lucky day."
B. TEXT
5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2 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. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 “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.” 8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. 14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. [NIV with footnote included]
C. THESIS
1. The Pool of Bethesda has been excavated and found to be trapezoidal, 165-220 feet X 315 foot long, divided by a central partition. The four sides and partition had columns -- thus John's "five porticoes." There were stairways at the corners that allowed descent into the pools (Raymond Brown, John, V. 1, p. 207).
2. The Sheep Gate is the one through which sacrificial animals were brought to the Temple. It's exceedingly significant that Bethesda "(house of) Mercy" was by the "Sheep" (Gate is not in the Greek). It’s only in Christ that the poor sinner can find Mercy.
3. We're going to look tonight at a hopeless situation, how Jesus passed by, and how the man got set for a miracle.
4. The title of this message is "God of the Unexpected."
I. A HOPELESS SITUATION
A. HARDLY A MORE HELPLESS CASE IN THE BIBLE
1. LONG DURATION. 38 years -- half of a long lifetime.
2. This is the second longest recorded affliction healed by Christ. The longest was the man born blind, who was over 40 years old!
3. FALSE HOPE. There was constantly the possibility of healing. It might happen at any moment. He must not sleep or leave; he must be constantly alert, ready to jump. Can you imagine anything so frustrating or draining?
4. NO MAN TO HELP ME. Abandoned, friendless. They’d given up on him having a chance.
5. ROBBED OF HEALING. "Another gets in ahead of me." No mercy, only selfishness. Dog-eat-dog world. Every man for himself.
B. IS A PICTURE OF THE WORLD
1. Hoping/searching for a way out.
2. ILLUSTRATION: Importance of Hope
a. In his book Winning Life's Toughest Battles, psychologist Julius Siegel wrote about the 25,000 American soldiers who were held by the Japanese in POW camps during World War II.
b. "Forced to exist under inhumane conditions, many of them died. Others, however, survived and eventually returned home. The survivors were different in one major respect: they confidently expected to be released someday."
c. "As described by Robbins Readers in Holding On to Hope, ‘They talked about the kinds of homes they would have, the jobs they would choose, and the kind of person they would marry. They drew pictures of their dreams and studied subjects related to the kind of career they would pursue.’"
d. Researchers have found that a hopeful attitude can improve the immune system -- the body's defense against toxins and disease.
3. People look to everyone else but the One who can really help them -- Jesus.
C. CAME FROM FAR & WAITED LONG
If only men were as anxious about their souls as they are about their bodies!
II. JESUS PASSES THAT WAY
A. AN UNUSUAL VISIT
1. This pool is no tourist spot. You don't go to a garbage dump, slum, or emphysema ward while on vacation. This pool was similar to a hospital.
2. When Jesus came to Jerusalem, He didn't visit the palaces, but the hospitals.
3. Foreknowledge. He knew and considered how long he’d lain in that condition! Take courage! God knows how long you've suffered!
B. COMPASSION OF JESUS
1. Out of all the multitude, Christ chose this one. The most helpless and hopeless of all attracts Christ's attention.
2. JESUS ALWAYS SURPRISES US!
a. We’re SHOCKED HE CARES ABOUT US! David said, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Ps. 8:3-4. Wow! How true!
b. SHOCKED HE HAS PLANS FOR US! He is so awesome, compassionate, kind, and loving. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jer. 29:11. Sweet!
c. SHOCKED BECAUSE GOD DOESN’T HAVE THE LIMITATIONS we perceive as limiting our options.
3. As a result, we’re BLINDSIDED BY LOVE! As David says, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities” Ps. 103:10.
a. Instead, He loves us.
b. He cares about our insignificant lives.
c. He plans wonderful things for us.
C. UNEXPECTED QUESTION
"Will you be made whole?"
1. "Whole" implies spiritual, as well as physical healing, was needed. This was verified when Jesus told him, "Sin no more, lest...." Evidently his sickness was the result of a sinful lifestyle.
2. A Crazy Question.
a. Would you like $1 million? Sure! That would be a silly question if coming from us, because we don't have $1 million.
b. But not for Jesus: He has the resources. He could do it!
III. GOT SET FOR A MIRACLE
A. HE DID HIS PART
1. He got where God was Moving -- near to where God was "stirring the waters" (revival).
2. Are we doing everything we can to facilitate revival? Are we praying, seeking, worshiping, drawing near?
3. God sovereignly sends revivals from time to time. The world is groaning/hoping for help/revival.
4. But Jesus doesn't have to wait for Revival -- He is Revival!
5. Determination and instant obedience. He tried to be the first one in the pool. DIVINE & HUMAN EFFORT ARE NECESSARY FOR A MIRACLE.
B. HIS FORTUNES REVERSED
1. Lange’s Commentary states that this feast that brought Jesus to Jerusalem was the Feast of Purim, the feast of the ‘Reversed Lot.’
2. This Feast was related to Queen Esther, Mordecai, and Haman -- who cast lots for the destruction of the Jews. But God, in His providential power, reversed what seemed to be decreed!
3. And here at the Pool, Jesus again reversed what seemed to be decreed, and changed this lame man's fortunes from forlorn to fantastic. Praise God!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: BATHED IN PRAYER
1. Audrey Mullen had a praying grandmother who taught her daughter the power of prayer and indirectly influenced her life from the very day she was born.
2. Audrey was born at home, about six weeks premature because of her mother’s poor health. “She developed toxemia before I was born and I only weighed 3 pounds at birth.”
3. The doctor told my Dad, “She will never live until morning.” My grandmother took over and God gave her the wisdom to make an improvised incubator out of a shoebox and hot water bottles. That shoebox was my bed for a good while after birth.
4. At the age of two, I contracted a viral infection of the immune system, called erysipelas that threatened to take my life. The doctors told them to “take the baby home and just try to keep her as comfortable as possible. We have done all that we can do.”
5. With tears in her eyes, my Mom said, “I had never made a bargain with God before, but I found a secret place of prayer and told God that if He would let me keep my little girl, I would raise her to serve Him.”
6. God kept his part of that bargain and the disease abated and I not only lived, but also grew up to become a preacher’s wife and spent the next 50 plus years serving God with my preacher husband. How I praise God for a praying Mother and grandmother. Audrey Mullen
B. THE CALL
1. You say, like the man:
a. "But I've tried to get a miracle from God; I've been at the right location..."
b. "God stirred the waters, others have gotten touched, but not me. I've been bypassed!"
2. But Jesus message to you tonight is still, "Arise! Take up your mat and go home!"
3. Prayer for the sick. Anoint with oil.
4. Song -- "He was wounded, for my transgressions."
IS JESUS HEALING TODAY?
Matthew 10:1 "And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease."
Mark 3:15 "And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils:"
Mark 16:18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
Matthew 4:23 "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people."
Matthew 8:3 "And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."
Acts 5:16; There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.
Acts 9:34 "And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed. And he arose immediately."
Acts 28:8 "And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him."
