What Do You Really Want God To Do? Series

A man was driving along a road one day when he saw a three-legged chicken. He was amazed enough to drive along side it for a while, and as he was driving, he noticed the chicken was running at 20 mph.

“WOW Pretty fast chicken,” he thought, “I wonder just how fast it can run.” So he sped up, and the chicken did too!

They were now moving along the road at 30 mph!

The man in the car sped up again, to his surprise the chicken was still running ahead of him at 50 mph!

Suddenly, the chicken turned off the road and ran down a long driveway leading to a farmhouse. The man followed the chicken to the house and saw a man in the farmyard with dozens of three-legged chickens.

The man in the car called out to the farmer, “How did you get all these three-legged chickens?”

The farmer replied, “I breed ’em. Ya see, it’s me, my wife and my son living here and we all like to eat the chicken leg. Since a chicken only has two legs, I started breeding this three-legged variety so we could all eat our favorite piece.”

“That’s amazing!” said the driver “How do they taste?”

The farmer replied “I don’t know, they run so fast none of us can catch ’em!”

I think a lot of us today are like that amazed driver who spotted the 3 legged chicken when it comes to healing.

We are amazed by the stories we hear from Scripture and perhaps hear about or read about modern day stories of healing.

We say WOW!

Perhaps some of us, like the idea of God healing, read about it, prayed about it, but like the farmer we have not tasted healing.

Because of our experiences, we can be skeptical - this is a three legged chicken

Because of our experiences, we can be skeptical when it comes to healing services or healing prayer.

If someone is healed - we may even try to rationalize it away.

Like the story of the child coming home from Sunday School to tell his father about Moses at the Red Sea.

He described how the Israelites had put down pontoon bridges for their jeeps to cross on.

Then, as Pharaoh approached and his army came over the bridges, they were dynamited and the whole Egyptian army sank in one fell swoop.

The father calmly asked the excited son if that was really the way it happened. Child’s response was, “No, but if I told you what they really said at church, you sure wouldn’t believe it.”

Maybe that’s how some of us would respond, we just can’t accept it can happen the way the Bible says it can happen.

Perhaps Jesus when he was around could do it, but to duplicate it today...

Let me be clear Jesus can heal today.

Whatever situation, circumstance, trial, problem, illness, relationship issue, or problem you have,

or another member of your family has,

or a friend has – Jesus can make a difference today.

He can heal and restore –

he can make the broken whole, the sick well,

Jesus can still heal us today.

This morning, my desire is for you to hear God’s voice, to feel him ministering to your need, to know the wholeness and restoration that only he can bring to your life.

Let’s get into the word: John 5:1-15 (NIV)

1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here 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.. 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When 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.”

8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”