Changing Focus
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Barriers to Deliverance
Barriers to Deliverance
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
We have been given five senses
Touch
Taste
See
Smell
Hear
These senses help us to interact with the natural world
We rely on them
We just expect them to work
Our Senses are limited
9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
We need something else
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Sometimes what God wants to do in our life doesn’t make sense
Sometimes what God wants to do in our life doesn’t make sense
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
How can a people of prayer make a difference.
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Deliverance held up by our senses
What we see
6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Deliverance held up by our senses
What we see
What we feel
32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Deliverance held up by our senses
What we see
What we feel
What we fear
3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?
4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.
Deliverance held up by our senses
What we see
What we feel
What we fear
What we remember
18 Remember ye not the former things, Neither consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing; Now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, And rivers in the desert.
God wants to give us a new focus
God wants to give us a new focus
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
The People of God
++Were having a feast
++They were in a place of celebration
Celebrations was a regular part of Jewish life
Celebrations was a regular part of Jewish life
Jewish feast included the feast of
Dedication
First fruits
Tabernacles
Trumpets
Unleavened Bread
Weeks
While the people of God celebrated
A great multitude were sick
Impotent
Blind
Halt
Withered
They were waiting for the water to move
They were waiting for the water to move
There was a man
Sick a long time (38 years)
A witness to the recovery of others
Dependent on outside help
Always to late
12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: But when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
It is one thing to be a person that is sick another to be a sick person.
God never planned for sickness to be permanent
God never planned for sickness to be permanent
I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her
commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there.
fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there.
rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there.
public school system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there.
democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there.
++“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
22 Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
Our focus has been on the wrong thing
Our focus has been on the wrong thing
Everything has our attention
Sickness
Injustice
Hopelessness
Poverty
Offenses
God is ready to move
God is ready to move
We must change our focus
We must change our focus
8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
We must see Jesus as he is
We must see Jesus as he is
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
The man was waiting for water on the outside.
God is workin on a well on the inside.