Sermon Tone Analysis

Well, this week becomes 2020 and for all the cliche jokes - let’s see with clearer vision!!!

The reality is, it is hard to see clear when our lenses are tinted by the pain in our life!!!

The worst thing we can do is carry around old baggage!!! Every year holds good and bad, loss and pain, joy and gain!

Will we carry the pain, loss, and baggage into the New Year?

SO, as we have taken the last couple of months to talk about healing for our wounded emotions, our depression, perfectionism, low self esteem, etc.

I want to challenge you this last Sunday of 2019!!!

GOD’S HEALING WAITS FOR YOU!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???

IT’s TIME TO BE HEALED!

You may say, I am not ready yet, or I have been trying, or I am waiting for God to show me something… or I am afraid the healing won’t remain...

God wants to heal your heart, Jesus came to heal your heart (the real meaning of Christmas)and He CAN heal your heart...

Step #3 in our steps for Healing our emotions is CHOOSING TO BE HEALED!

Often, we choose not to because we don’t want to accept responsibility for our part in why we were hurt or how we reacted.

WE MUST to be made complete again!

TURN TO:

It was one of the celebration feasts of the Jews

Jesus goes up to the pool of Bethesda - which means HOUSE OF MERCY

5 porches here for the sick to be protected from the sun (a sad sight)

the gate at the temple was known as the sheep gate - which meant it was where people cleaned their sheep before sacrifice — Not exactly the main entrance

the blind, lame and paralyzed lay at this gate to cast guilt and beg for pity from those going to sacrifice - it was a display of pain hoping for mercy and monetary gifts

there is a great multitude - there are always MANY IN NEED

v 4 - omitted from NLT, but in KJV tells of the “legend” of the pool and why they were there, but you have to wonder how many really did not count or expect to ever be healed… it was perhaps a hope but not an expectation — it reminds me of people running to “GET A WORD FROM AN EVANGELIST” instead of pursuing Christ themselves to hear from the Lord --- seeking the supernatural and allowing their lives to remain crippled in the meantime

Don’t get sidetracked by Angelology as the Lord has given us His Holy Spirit to speak to us these days.

However, there is much to be gleaned from...

1. NEED FOR HEALING

There is a need for people to be healed!

Jesus heals ALL INFIRMITY - in fact His death provided for this in His atonement for our sin!

Healing is healing and infirmity produces the same results whether

Physical crippledness from physical disease

Emotional crippledness from emotional wounds

SPiritual death from spiritual sickness or sin

Jesus carried ALL OF OUR

grief

sorrow

transgression/sin

iniquities

lack of peace

infirmity

TO THE CROSS

Jesus demonstrates that His ability to heal is the same authority to forgive sin and they are essentially the same

God the Father saw the need to send Christ the Son because mankind needed HEALING Physically, SPiritually and EMotionally!

TO BE MADE WHOLE!

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The Greek Words used to describe the people at the pool infer

Blind

Halted (crippled or paralyzed)

Withered (defect/deformity)

IN relation to our EMOTIONAL WOUNDEDNESS we are left with the same emotional symptoms...

BLIND - to what God wants to do for us, in our lives and through us — unable to see His plans

HALTED - Disabled to point of paralyzation — how many have stopped living due to emotional wounds - they are paralyzed from decision making, building relationships, crawled up in a hole.

Withered - a person who is lame in an area of their body so long it has withered and dried up - some may still function in some ways but are totally withered up in other ways

We go to the temple but are they really waiting to be healed or just hoping someone will throw them some pity???

2. EXCUSES THAT MASQUERADE OUR HEART

So how does a person get stuck at a pool for 38 years and never get healed?

If you look at the story, when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed - he never said yes, he just made up the excuse that there is no one to put me in the water...

You would think after 38 years you could inch yourself to the edge of the pool and roll in first!

Perhaps he did not care about being healed, but was comfortable in his sickness and way of life - sheltered by his problems and not wanting to face the change being healed might bring!

His two excuses:

Waiting for the water to be stirred...

A supernatural miracle

Not everyone can receive it

it only happens once in a while

slim chance of being the first in

This excuse sets the mind on something other than God or His plan - waiting for a phenomenon...

It also destroys hope or the chance of ever being healed forcing greater security in the infirmity

People today are not looking to God, but waiting for a messenger of God to come and bring some healing to them, waiting for someone to stir up the waters, bring a magic potion, say some prophetic words or an evangelist proclaiming

ITS YOUR TIME

When in reality the healing is provided for in the atonement of Christ!

Time after time these persons ave watched others experience the hope they have looked for…but missed

Something about that does not agree with Scripture!

THe stirring came and left and I was not touched…so we stay safe in the infirmity of our frail emotions hidden

2. I have no man to put me in the water...

I am friendless - I have no person(s) to help me --- always looking to another person to bring the healing or assistance we need when God has given us the resource to discover His healing!

This puts the pressure on others to be there for my need when the water stirs — everyone else’s fault I am still in my pain

A false hope!

IT allows us to wallow in loneliness and excuse why we cannot receive help from the Lord.

It removes the reality that the CHOICE IS ACTUALLY OURS!!!! JESUS CAME TO HEAL OUR BROKENNESS - WE MUST CHOOSE TO LET HIM

3. WILL YOU BE MADE WHOLE

HEALING AWAITS US!

Christ is our healer and we need to take our eyes off of a supernatural worker of miracles and off of man and put our trust in JESUS and HIS WORD for the steps to be ing healed.

Jesus stood before this man and looked him in the face and said - do you want to be well...

He does not answer, but gives excuses...

He needed to focus on the one who has the power to heal and the desire...

Jesus is confronting many in this room right now--- do you want to be made well???

This question involves RISK!

RISK IN HEALING

we risk several things when we say yes to wanting to be healed

What if it doesn’t happen

I try to get myself up and I fall - then it feels like a big joke being played on us

It feels like someone lifted my hopes to use them for target practice

2. Reclining mat

Like all the other crippled, each had rolled out their reclining mat, sat down and died slowly

If I am lying down - I cannot get hurt anymore than I am right now, but if I stand up I may be hurt again --

We don’t want to risk getting up and getting back in the game of life and having to endure potential pain again

We don’t want to be a target to be tripped or aimed at

If I am healed, I have no excuse to stay reclining and away from life

(we have become weak from not using our “emotional” muscles

WIll we take the RISK in saying YES, will we put our focus on Christ and allow Him to do the work in our lives?

Or will we make up that waiting excuse.

4. ACTIVE FAITH NOT EXCUSES

Jesus commanded this crippled man to action