John 5:6-9 (ESV), The Healing at the Pool”

DATE: 11.02.25 (Sunday)

TIME: 6:00 - 8:00 PM

LOCATION: 1677 Delaware Crossing, Independence, KY 41051

AUDIENCE: 6th - 12th Grade Students

STAGE 1 - ANNOUNCEMENTS

MISSION PLUG:

* Be praying for a possible missions trip that could be happening in July

Taking a handful of people to Malaysia to help a church put on a missions conference and they need help

There are a lot of details regarding the trip that are being ironed out, but if you are a junior, senior, or leader… I would ask that you begin to pray for the trip and ask God if he would want you to go on the trip…

There is an application for those who would be interested…

With all this in mind - please PRAY with me for the potential trip to and people who live in Malaysia

FRIENDSGIVING

Friendsgiving is rapidly approaching

It is on 11/23 (Sunday)… we will have fun games… possibly a pumpkin carving contest (if there are still pumpkins available)

If not we will do a Turkey Bowl where you roll a turkey at bowling pins - very exciting

There will be worship and a short message/challenge… then we hang out and have a blast

STAGE #2 - WORSHIP

At this time… I am going to ask that you students stand as we approach our time of worship

Would you please pray with me… 3….2….1… initiate prayer

PRAYER:

“Father in heaven… I want to thank you for another week that we get to gather together… to open up your Word… for another week of your love, grace, forgiveness, and mercy… especially when we miss it… when we fail to see it… not because its not there… but because we get so consumed with the the here and now that we miss what matters most - which is you…

Oh Lord… would you please… step into this room and fill us with your Spirit and allow us to worship your glorious name… may our public and private life proclaim that you are our Lord and Savior through Christ Jesus!

It is in your Sons Name - Jesus Christ - who defeated death and sin and was raised to life.. in whom we place our faith, trust and hope in… that we pray these things AMEN…

STAGE #3 - STUDENT VERSE & PRAYER

Student: Malachi Murphy

Passage: Romans 8:38-39

Romans 8:38–39 ESV

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

STAGE #4 - INTRO & WARM-UP NT PASSAGE

INTRO:

WU PASSAGE:

Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

PIERCING = “To Pass Into or Through; often by Overcoming Resistance”

WHAT! I hope you didn't miss what Hebrews 4:12 is saying… It is saying that God’s Word is alive… its active… and that it is capable of piercing and passing through and overcoming Resistance…

The question then becomes… What the Resistance that God’s Word has to overcome?

HAHA! God’s Word is so sharp that it can cut through and pierce through your pride, sin, world view, actions, thoughts, motives, and even your very soul…

THIS is why I LOVE GODS WORD… it pierces and cuts through my pride to allow me to see, feel, experience, and remove the areas of my life that are saturated with sin…

God’s Word knows me… my tendencies… my thoughts… and God uses hisWord to cut away the clay and to form me into and more like the image of his Son - Jesus Christ…

I HOPE YOU NOTICED that GOD uses the Word PIERCING… SHARP than any double-edge SWORD… for a reason… WHY?

Because the PROCESS of becoming more like CHRIST is PAINFUL…

YET… The PAIN always has a PURPOSE… and the PURPOSE always shapes your PERSPECTIVE to see… the PASSION and PLAN that God has for you…

In other words… the PAIN of the PIERCE that comes from God’s Word changing your life… always has a purpose… that mean to change your perspective… to see just how compassionate and loving God is towards you…

EXAMPLE - POTTERY EXAMPLE

When a Potter chips away at the lumps and edges of clay… that would not be a pleasant experience for the Pot that the Potter is creating…

Yet… the POT undergoes being shaped, formed, and placed in a furnace where it undergoes extreme heat to be refined and made into a completely new creation… The pot would never be beautiful it wasn't for the Potter willing to pierce clay and POT

QUESTION: When God’s Word pierces into your life… do you view it as an act of love and compassion because he loves you enough to not allow you to stay in your sinful ways and habits… or do you vie it as if God just wants to make life difficult and hard for? Do you view it as just something else you have to work on and dont have time for it? Do you view it as Christianity should be easy… not painful… so it must not be from God?

Do you view the pain of being pierced as an act of LOVE and COMPASSION? Or as an ACT of PUNISHMENT?

***EXAMPLE - OPEN HEART SURGERY***

If I had a blockage of one of my arteries that leads to my heart… I would need open heart surgery…

I would need that blockage to be removed to ensure that I do not have a HEART ATTACK and DIE…

But… that OPEN HEART SURGERY would REQUIRE a DOCTOR (a specialist who knows my heart far better than I) to cut an incision in order to get to the blocked artery…

That would be painful to experience that surgery… I would need to recover… I would need time to heal… yet I would be healthy and my life saved… because the doctor (the one who knew how to treat my heart better than anyone) was willing to pierce me…

It is no different than God… he knows your heart… he knows the incision and cuts that need to be made… so that you do not die and become a Christian Casualty…

TRANISTION - MAIN PASSAGE - JOHN 5:6-9 (ESV)

With allowing God’s Word to cut and change us… even to the depths of our souls… let us look at our main passage for the evening - John 5:6-9

John 5:6–9 ESV

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

CONTEXT:

This man was sitting next to and near a pool. The Pool was called Bethesda…

Bethesda in Hebrew means = “House of Outpouring”

In verses 3-4 we are told that a multitude (many) invalids (blind, lame, and paralyzed) would be next to the pool.

It would not be uncommon for individuals with infirmities (a physical weakness) to gather at this pool because would have been red with minerals and thought to have some medical value…

This is why this man that Jesus encounters was sitting by/near the pool…

This man had been an invalid for 38 years (verse 5) and had been laying by the pool for a long time…

It is important to note… that the people in that community would have seen this man…. Day after day… night after night… for 38 years they would have witnessed this mans disease and would have known without a doubt that he was truly impaired…

In verses 6 Jesus asks the man a very interesting question…

He asks… “Do you want to be healed”?

PAUSE

When I thought about this question… I was really humored and intrigued by it…

For why would the man not want to be healed?

Why would he decide to remain in his current diseased… sick… helpless state?

This leads me to point #1…

POINT #1: The QUESTION is NOT, “Can Jesus HEAL me”? The QUESTION is, “Do you WANT to be HEALED”?

QUESTION: DO you want to be healed by Jesus Christ? or have you become attached to the den that your sin has created?

In other words, do you even want to be forgiven of your sin? Do you even want to experience the healing that Jesus provides? Or have you not even really thought about whether or not you need to be healed… you feel and seem just fine…

Or maybe you think… the sickness… disease… sin that you have and have carried with you for a long time… can not be healed… there is no way to be healed of it or from it… To believe that Christ can heal you from your crippling disease seems impossible…

Maybe your thinking… I have tried to receive healing… I just can’t get in the pool… I just can not do the thing that will heal me… If I could just get in the pool… if I could just do this or that then I would be fine and healed…

When in reality… it is not something you do that saves you… healing does not come from hard work it comes from the pierce hands of your savior - Jesus Christ…

DO YOU WANT TO BE HEALED?

OR HAS DOES THE THOUGHT OF BEING HEALED SEEM IMPOSSIBLE?

***I think some of the enemies greatest tactics are***

A: Trying to get you to truly believe that your sin and circumstances are out Christs Healing Reach

B: That you have everything you need… your healthy… not so bad… you might need a high five from the his healing hands… but you don’t actually think you need a full healing

PAUSE

Look at the man’s response to Jesus’ question:

He says in verse 7… “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me”.

This man is saying there is no one who can help me… none…

Imagine being so helpless that you believe that there is no hope…

Some of you… may actually be able to relate to this man… I know I can…

There has been sin, circumstances, and situations where I have looked at my life and thought… there is no one who can help me… I do not see any HOPE or help coming my way…

But this is why I LOVE JESUS… because in verse 8 he says to the man, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk. Verse 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked”.

*A man who has had a disease for 38 years… is healed… restored… and forever changed…

*Encountering Christ changes you for Eternity

*The hurting, helpless, and hopeless… encounters the healer - CHRIST

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At this time I am going to ask the Worship Team to head back up on stage…

I want to leave you with HOPE…

I really do sense that the enemy and this world has made it difficult for you to see HOPE…

So many of you are hurting…

So many of you do not feel like you can be healed of your sin… pain… shame…

So many of you do not even feel worthy to be healed…

Some you do not know you need to be healed….

I want to you leave you all with 4 verses that talk about how God heals and restores us:

Exodus 15:26 ESV

saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”

Psalm 103:2–3 ESV

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,

Jeremiah 30:17 ESV

For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’

Psalm 147:3 ESV

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Please pray with me…

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CALL TO ACTION: TELL the WORLD about how you were HEALED