Becoming Whole Sermon Week 10.1

Welcome/Intro

Today we look at what may be the most important question of the whole series.

It is the question that must be answered before any real change can happen

before we can experience any real transformation.

We are in a series called “Becoming Whole” looking at Biblical Transformation

Bible/Name

We’ll be in John 5:1-18 today

You can go there

My name is Justin

Glad you are with us.

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John 5

Let’s take a look at John 5:1-18

READ John 5:1-18 from CSB

Observations:

John 5:1–2 CSB

1 After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades.

Archeaology has confirmed this site.

What stands out to me about these verses is the specificity of the time and place.

in fact the Church of St. Anne is believed to have been built over this site.

This is Jesus walking in a real time in a real place with real people.

In this particular area of the temple these people would gather.

John 5:3 CSB

3 Within these lay a large number of the disabled—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

The 38 Year Old Paraplegic

There were many disabled there, but one man.

who had been disabled for 38 years.

Think a paraplegic

for 38 years that’s a lifetime

Longer than most people lived in that day

This has been his whole life

unable to enjoy many of the things that you and I take for granted every day

this has become his life, his identity

he goes to the pool of Bethesda and begs for money, food and anything else.

He has had a hard life

And Jesus ‘sees’ him.

One out of the multitude

John 5:6 CSB

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

Jesus ‘knew’ him,

he knew his story

he knew is pain

Jesus goes up to this man and asked him a very odd question.

“Do you want to get well”

Why ask this question?

you would think, the answer is “of course I do.”

But notice the man’s response.

John 5:7 CSB

7 “Sir,” the disabled man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”

The man doesn’t answer the question

He doesn’t say, yes! Of course I do.

What he says reveals what he believes about his identity:

He says, no one is here to help me

No one will put me in, no one will help me

When I try to go, someone always goes down ahead of me

What is the business of water stirred up?

Verse 4 is missing in your bibles.

Some manuscripts insert, wholly or in part, waiting for the moving of the water; 4for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had

This actually speaks to the reliability of the NT b/c there has been this correction.

There was a superstitious belief that whoever was first in would be healed.

now we don’t know if there is any truth to that ever

But this is what the man had put his hopes in

a ‘magical solution’ a myth not based in reality.

This particular method

The man has put his hope in a particular technique or religious ritual

If I just take the five steps to freedom

If i just pray the right prayer

If I just promise to never disobey God again

If I just _______ then I would be healed.

So here’s Jesus, who is God, ready and able to heal this man and he asks him a simple question

but he man does not know Jesus or his power.

He simply answers what he has become his identity

‘there is no one to help me’

‘there is no one who cares about me’

‘I can’t get well’ because of this.

He has come to identify himself as a victim

For 38 years here has been in this condition

He has no real hope of healing or change

He is consigned to his condition.

Get Up and Walk

Then what Jesus says next must have shocked him.

John 5:8-9 “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.” 9 Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk...

Jesus heals him right then and there through the power of his word.

Who knows what that must have felt like

But the man obeys the word of God and gets up and walks away.

His whole life has been changed.

he has been made whole.

He has been given a new identity.

No longer is he the disabled man who can’t do anything.

Now he can walk

His whole world has change.

This is the level of transformation that Jesus longs to do in our lives.

It is a picture of transformation

Jesus intends to heal us

physically, perhaps

Spiritually — absolutely.

The Names we Take

We too have been disabled by the wounds we have recieved

by the sins that we have become addicted to

perhaps for 38 years

perhaps for as long as you can remember.

Maybe you also have adopted an identity that says:

No one will help me

No one cares

I can’t get better

I’ll never get better.

This is what we have been talking about for the last few weeks.

When we don’t heal from our wounds we can become identified by them.

When we can’t repent of our sin we can become identified by them.

I’m a victim

I’m no good. I’m not loved

I’m not worthy.

I’m an addict

I’m a sinner

I a wounded person

I am sinned against.

These are not the names that the Lord Jesus for us.

He has new names, new identities.

No longer are you identified by your sin, nor by your wounds.

You are identified with Christ.

Only Jesus has the power to tell you who you are.

He stands before us and asks this most crucial question:

Do you want to get well?

Why does Jesus ask him this question?

Or in the KJV

John 5:6 (KJV) Wilt thou be made whole?

Literally, “do you desire, wish, to become whole’ to be made well.

Again on the service, we would think, well yes of course we do.

But when we look deeper we see that it is not always that simple, for if it was, wouldn’t more people be ‘well?’

Why might we not want to get well?

It is a question of control, identity and surrender.

It is the same question as why don’t we readily forgive others?

Why do we continue to hang on to our anger? our justifications for how we treat others?

Or why do we keep going back to sin? Why do we keep self sabotaging our growth?

why do we go back to something that is harming us?

The answer?

it is giving us something we think we need

We think we are gaining something by it

something that only God can give us.

Examples:

For the one who refuses to let go of anger, why is that?

Anger makes us powerful, it makes feel like we are in control.

And that’s what we want.

We want to feel like we have some control over our pain

If we are anger, that is something we can continue to choose to do

something about it makes us feel good.

Or to the person addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex?

why do they keep going back?

it’s about control, they can control their comfort, their pain

It is in the soothing nature of sin that they are deceived.

Yet they can’t stop going to it

b/c at some level they are choosing sin over Jesus.

All true change involves risk

The only way that we can change is to do what he man did.

See that jesus is standing before him addressing his heart.

And then acting, responding in faith, that is in trust.

What if the man had refused to attempt to live out Jesus command?

he would have never walked

He would have died the same way that he had lived.

But he had to risk standing up.

What if he had collapsed?

What if he had injured himself more than before?

What if it just didn’t work?

He had to risk in the face of Jesus.

But Jesus is the only one we can really risk with

risk trusting him, his words, his power, his plan for our lives.

And the man experienced God’s power in his life.

He risked and he walked

and his life was never the same.

Jesus is calling to you to risk with him

to risk trusting him.

We are afraid to risk becuase we are afraid to get hurt again.

We prefer the certainty of misery rather than the misery of uncertainty.

But what’s waiting for us is true freedom

the kind of freedom that says even if I get hurt again, it is well with my soul.

I have, in Jesus, the only thing that really matters

This is is true freedom, being able to risk losing and experiencing God’s presence and power in your life if you fail.

The truth is you will get hurt again

in fact the only way that we can grow, the only way that we can know we have grown is to risk getting hurt again.

God has more for us.

A transformed life,

to become whole again

To be changed.

Absolute

Application:

So here is the most important question you have to answer:

Do you want to get well?

Is this what you want at your deepest level?

Are you ready to forsake all identities, all addictions, all anger that you have held on to?

Are you ready to risk your whole self with Jesus?

Wilt though become whole?

Jesus is waiting for you.

He’s calling out to you.

will you walk the path of healing and repentance?

will you do the hard work in order to live free?

The enemy and the world will try to tell you otherwise.

Read the rest of John 5:9b-18.

What happens?

The religious leaders are upset that Jesus didn’t follow their rules.

Jesus healed on the sabbath.

They care not for the man’s wholeness and healing.

They care only for their rules, regulations. The power and procedures and processes they have trusted in .

This is the same thing we do today isn’t it?

We need the latest therapeutic technique, the latest drug of choice, the right prayers, the right rituals, we have to repent perfectly.

No, only Jesus can make us new

All that is required is that we come to Jesus, or rather see that Jesus has come to us.

And we too have to answer this crucial questions that Jesus asks the man.