Mats to Marathons

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Intro

John is a rich book, full of theology. But what gets me excited about this particular passage is that it completes the miracles that show how a person can be saved.

Water to wine: Salvation through the Word

Healing the nobleman’s son: Salvation through Faith

Healing the invalid at the pool: Salvation through Grace

What is Grace: Means kindness to those that are undeserving.

Read

John 5:1–18 ESV

1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?” 7 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.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” 18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Teach

What’s your Mat?

The pool at Bethesda was a pool that was fed by a natural spring that would periodically “stir up”. It was the natural spring filling the pool.

The sick and the “lame” would gather at this place because they believed that when the pool was filled up, it was an angel stirring the pool and that the first one in the water after the it settled would be healed.

So many people that needed healing would go and just sit by the pool and expect it to work some sort of magic when in reality they need a miracle provided by the grace of God.

God doesn’t work 1 off magic tricks, he performs lasting miracles.

What’s your Marathon?

In verse 14, Jesus told the man to not sin anymore because something worse would happen to him. He began his marathon of trying to live a life free of sin.

Respond