John Message 25. The PRIORITY. John 5:1-14. Wednesday, July 5, 2023. R. Ryan Ruckman

I. The SHEEP Gate - 1-5. Jesus is looking for lost sheep!

The FEAST - 1. Three times each year, the Jews were commanded to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

2. The FALSEHOOD - 2-4

Sheep gate: Sacrificial sheep entered here to water. John 10:7 - “Verily, verily, I say to you, I Am the door of the sheep.” Rev. Jesus is the “Sheep Gate.”

The phenomenon of intermittent “troubling of the water” which overflows from a natural spring.

Multitude - many “lost sheep.”

3. The FUTILITY - 5. Disabled for 38 years - a man who had no hope of being healed. Have you ever faced a hopeless situation? Nothing is hopeless with Jesus!

II. Jesus SEES a “certain man” - 6-13. Jesus sees our suffering.

(Not just physical seeing, but to see with perception. He knew “the man had been disabled a long time” - NET. He chose this guy out of the whole multitude.)

This was the man the Father healed. Why? The “Equality with God Discourse” is the result - that’s why.

The CONVERSATION - 6-7. “No man” - none to help - Jn. 8. “Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man” - Ps. 60:11; 108:12.

“Wilt thou” - to have in mind, intend implying active volition and purpose.

The COMMAND - 8-9. Matt. 9:6: Jesus “Seeing their faith...” But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.

There is nothing about faith, trust, or confidence in God in this healing.

The CONDEMNATION - 10-13. He did not know who healed him; clearly, he was healed outside of exercising a trusting faith in Christ; his healing was a sovereign act of God.

The SABBATH - seventh day of creation; the day the LORD rested - Gen. 2:1-3 & Ex. 20:8-11. By Jesus’s time, Sabbath laws were formidable because “they embellished the biblical idea of a day of rest” and “observing it properly was equivalent to fulfilling all the commandments” and “a person who profanes the Sabbath publically was to be treated as an idolator” - JPSGJT. One author wrote, “It was difficult for Jews to get any rest on the seventh day because they were so busy making sure they didn’t do any work” - Mk. Com. Bruce B. With so many Sabbath laws, the religious leaders had made themselves lords of the Sabbath - Mk. Com. Bruce B. While walking through a field, you couldn’t pluck heads of grain to eat along the way - Matt. 12:1-8; healing on the Sabbath was forbidden - Matt. 12:10. A “Sabbath day’s journey” could only be 1,000 yds. However, Jesus challenged His accusers: don’t you loose your ox or donkey and lead it water on the Sabbath? - Lk. 13:15. He corrected them by saying, “it is lawful to do good in the Sabbath” - Matt. 12:12, & “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” - Mk. 2:28.

The SUPERNATURAL - 11. “He who made me well...”

The SUPERFICIAL - 12-13. “Contemptuous expression” - ATR. No heart for the miracle or rejoicing with the man! Ole fuddy duddies! Don’t be one. Learn how to rejoice in the work the Lord is doing.