Becoming Whole Sermon Notes Week 10

Becoming Whole: A Transformed Life  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Do you want to get well? Do you want to become whole?

Notes
Transcript

Meeting Notes

don’t forget the positive side of getting whole — the freedom, joy, wholeness
through the pain, looks like death, feels like death
there is no resurrection but through death.
But we will do this together.
Victim mentality — vs. victim shaming in our culture.
this is not about blaming the victim
asking the victim — this is not your primary identity.
Make sure you catch people up to where we have been this series
Jesus willingly was the victim of the cross
so he identifies with all who are sinned against
Victim & Victimizer both need the radical grace of God.

Themes:

Jesus is God the only healer
Violation of the ‘rules of religion’ or the ‘rules of the world’
Jesus fits neatly into neither category
Do you want to get well?
Why not?
Identity
Power of Anger
Fear of unknown
The need to Risk trusting God (The necessity of Risk)
and getting up and walking
what if he failed?
Get healing, get becoming whole
through healing & repentance
Identity
We have become used to the ‘limp’ or unaffected by the sin, they simply are a part of us
but they are not!
Only Jesus can heal you.
Not a religious ritual or rule keeping (like keeping the sabbath)
Not some magical experience based on myth (the angels stirring up the water

Proposition

only through risk can we become whole
The necessity of risk for transformation

Texts:

John 5:1-16

John 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

Bethesda means “house of mercy”

John 5:5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

Invalid (Gk. astheneia), in light of v. 7, probably means “paralyzed,” “lame,” or “extremely weak” (the Greek term is the general expression for a “disabled” condition).

He had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, longer than many people in antiquity lived.

Paraplegic
John Contemporary Significance

I say “paraplegics” because in the contemporary idiom, we have to see the healed man as among us. No one uses “paralytic” today for people in a wheelchair. The lecturer had many good ideas, but one feature of his presentation stood out: He himself was in a wheelchair, he too was a paraplegic. Even though I recognize that the thrust of John 5 is aimed at disclosing to us the Christological identity of Jesus, this scholar reminded us that we have to recognize the person whom Jesus touches in these stories.

John Contemporary Significance

Among the many at Bethesda looking for healing that day, Jesus selects a man who is a particularly difficult “case.” He does not reach out to those who are spiritually on the margin but socially “safe.” Instead, he reaches out to someone whose suffering and isolation are beyond measure. I cannot help but think about the ministry of Mother Teresa and her Sisters of Charity in this regard. She is now deceased, but since her death in September 1997, story upon story have swept over us telling us how she touched, embraced, loved, and inspired the poorest in Calcutta’s streets. She told her sisters, “Let the poor eat you up.” Their neediness looks so overwhelming, but this is exactly the place Jesus likes to go.

John 5:6 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?”

John 5:6 KJV 1900
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?
He ‘saw’ the man
He ‘knew’

Knew probably indicates Jesus’ divine knowledge of the man’s situation, similar to Jesus’ knowledge of Nathanael (1:48) and the Samaritan woman (4:18).

John 5:6 ESV
6 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?”
Do you want to ‘become’?
Θέλεις (do you desire/wish) ὑγιὴς (healthy, whole, sound) γενέσθαι; (to become)
ὑγιὴς

A. Secular Greek.

1. Meaning. The group has the sense of “healthy” and then more generally “rational,” “intelligent,” “reliable,” and “whole.”

ὑγιαίνω

① to be in good physical health, be healthy,

② to be sound or free from error, be correct, fig. in the Pastoral Epistles w. ref. to Christian teaching:

ὑγιής, ές

① pert. to being physically well or sound, healthy, sound.

ⓐ of persons

The man

John 1–11 (2) The Healing at Bethesda (5:2–9a)

The man’s response to Jesus’ question, “Do you want to get well?” (v. 6), revealed both his poor understanding of God and his sense of hopelessness. Instead of answering the question, he gave his gloomy testimony and his perception of how God works. The only hope evident in his testimony was his commitment to a myth of a periodic miraculous troubling of the pool, which allegedly brought healing to the first person able to jump in.

John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

The confused man had been caught in the very act of breaking the rules of the rabbis and did not know how to deal with his problem. So he sought for a quick defense by blaming the healer (John 5:11), even though he did not know (note the Johannine theme) who he was (5:13).

John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

The statement of cause and effect in this story, therefore, must be taken as referring to the eschatological correlation between sin and judgment that undoubtedly is the meaning of “something worse” in Jesus’ warning to the paralytic.

Victim/Cynicism/Negativity
John 1–11 (2) The Healing at Bethesda (5:2–9a)

The important thing to notice first is the man’s poor view of God’s grace. Over the long period of time of living with his problem the man had seemingly become convinced that God operated on the basis of “first come, first served.” Another of his problems was that he undoubtedly felt a sense of abandonment because of his helpless condition and his lack of support from others, particularly in times when he thought healing might be possible. He apparently had become negative, as some sick people do, and he was ready to blame others. This attitude did not change after his healing and was likely part of the reason for Jesus’ later warning (5:14).

Holman Bible Handbook Seeking Good Health (5:1–15)

There Jesus passed by the Bethesda pool, where a number of invalids had placed themselves. The waters, when stirred, supposedly had miraculous powers of healing. A man who had been there for thirty-eight years was asked an interesting question by Jesus: “Do you want to get well?” (5:6). Many depended on their condition for financial support given by healthy individuals out of pity. Another possible reason for this question relates to the man’s spirit; many who have experienced prolonged pain or misfortune have surrendered even the will to attempt to overcome their situation in life. When the invalid shared with Jesus his difficulty of getting into the pool for healing, Jesus proclaimed: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (5:8). The man was instantly healed.

Jesus doesn’t correct his bad theology
John 1–11 (2) The Healing at Bethesda (5:2–9a)

In response to the man’s perception of God and of God’s grace, it is interesting that Jesus is not portrayed here as a theological logician or debater. Jesus did not dispute the man’s poor theology or his view of angelic visitation. He simply told him to get up and take his mattress or bedroll (krabbaton) out of that place (5:8). Surely amazed and overjoyed, the man followed Jesus’ orders (5:9a), but that was not the end of the story.

Jesus found him
John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

The Gospel writer, however, makes it clear that in both cases Jesus did not simply leave helpless people to the wolves but “found” them (5:14; 9:35; note the Johannine theme, cf. 1:14–18).

The Jews (religious leaders/opponents of Jesus)
John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

But these Jews were not interested in the man’s joy. The term “the Jews,” when used by the evangelist, defines Jesus’ religious opponents in the Gospel (cf. also 1:19 concerning the Baptizer). The term is not used merely as a racial designation because the man here was also a Jew. The Jews in this story were not interested in the well-being of people but merely in their rules and traditions. They serve the author’s literary art as symbols or flat literary figures representing a certain perspective (namely rigid, doctrinaire, noncaring, religious leaders). These doctrinaire religious figures are the ones who were responsible for the death of Jesus, and this chapter defines their role. All they could see was a man carrying a bedroll and breaking the Sabbath law, defined for us by a later Mishnaic codification (cf. m. Šabb. 7.2, the rule against carrying goods), which was formulated to support their understanding of the Torah principle in Exod 31:12–14.

Go and sin no more
John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

The statement of cause and effect in this story, therefore, must be taken as referring to the eschatological correlation between sin and judgment that undoubtedly is the meaning of “something worse” in Jesus’ warning to the paralytic.

Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 36: John (Second Edition) Dialogue on the Sabbath Work of Jesus (5:9c–18)

As in Mark 2:5 the sin of the paralytic appears to be viewed as of major importance: the “something worse” that could happen to the man would be to finish up in Gehenna. Hoskyns comments: “There is a more serious disease than lameness or paralysis; there is a more serious possibility of judgment, and there is a righteousness that sets men free” (253).

Did the man have saving faith? — do you?
John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

It is doubtful that the man in this story really understood the significance of Jesus. He is clearly unlike the blind man (9:33), who seems to have understood. Here there is no such recognition. Instead, the blaming, self-centered, self-preservation pattern of his former life continued after the healing as he turned from the Healer to investigators (the Jews) and reported Jesus to these authority figures. One implication of the story is that no one should be surprised by the responses of people. Not everyone accepts merciful acts with gratitude (cf. the nine lepers of Luke 17:17–18).

the question for us then is have we been truly transformed?
everywhere in the bible it looks like obedience,
“if you love me you will obey me”
Have you been made whole?
Jesus is God
John 1–11 (3) The Sabbath, the Man’s Defense, and the Rise of Conflict (5:9b–29)

So (a) if God can continue to work positively in creation on the Sabbath and not totally rest, and (b) if one can recognize that the works of Jesus are the works of God, then the question follows: Why are not the works of Jesus on the Sabbath legitimate?

Key to Deep Change:

Are you willing to risk that you may be wrong about your preferred approach to spiritual health, that it may be part of your problem?
First, you will have to risk letting God deal with the pain you and time have buried. At first glance this may not appear to be good news. After all, what no one wants is to feel the throbbing edge of that pain again. Yet God does not want to make you face the hurt of the heart as much as He intends to take you through it until you are healed. This is a risk moment, when you take up your bed and walk. The longer you hold out on this point, the longer you lay by the pool sick.
Second, if you choose to ask Jesus to deliver you from the sin in me and heal you from the hurt of the heart, then you must start by coming to the end of yourself.
You must own your sinful choices to comfort your pain. You must admit to the Father you have no wisdom deep enough, no spiritual strategies sweeping enough, no personal resources thorough enough to free you from the lies of the enemy. The first Beatitude is your benchmark. You indeed are poor in spirit because you have nothing in your arsenal that works. Your best strategies and deepest thoughts have not led you to the life Jesus is giving you. You are stuck because you have believed otherwise. To give up any pretense of knowing how to fix yourself, even by using the ploys that you have dressed up with religious jargon—this is freedom, not failure. To say to God, “I have failed in all I tried,” is the kind of humility to which God responds, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). It’s the stuff that spiritual rest is made of for the believer.
Here is one more critical thing you have to know to get well. You chose your way. You did not deserve the wounds that have caused the hurt in you. But you chose how you would deal with the pain without asking Jesus. Until you own that choice, you can never say “Yes” to the question. Notice I said, “can never” and not, “will never.” I know lots of people who verbally said “Yes” to Jesus’ question. But because they only wanted him to take away their pain, maybe bring judgment on the person who wounded them, they ultimately found they lacked the ability to risk it all with Jesus to get well. Think about the end of the man at the pool’s story. After the healing, Jesus finds him in the temple, probably giving a thanks-for-the-healing sacrifice required by the Law, and tells him, “Stop sinning! Or something worse will happen to you.” Strong words. Jesus is saying that just because you thought you were doing all you could to be healed does not mean you addressed the real issues in your life. So it is for all of us. We may minimize our choice of the sin in me to comfort our hurts and even rationalize our choices.

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But the longer I have been in private practice, the more I have come to realize that the truth is that not everyone really does want to get well. Some people are more comfortable in their known discomfort than they are willing to risk the discomfort of the unknown to get well. Some are afraid of the unknown. Some people come to the pool but they just want to be seen in their sickness.
https://drmichellebengtson.com/do-you-want-to-get-well-5-important-lessons-on-healing/
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