We Only Need Jesus

Tonight’s message is going to be a very simple one. And it’s the one thing that I hope the youth have learned and I hope that it is one thing, if nothing else, that you all know as well. Tonight, we are going to see that all we need as a source of security, purpose, and hop is found in Jesus Christ.

To illustrate this idea, I want us to look at one of Jesus’ healings. And Jesus healed a variety of people in a variety of ways. He’s healed a blind man by rubbing mud on his eyes. He’s healed a woman of bleeding by her just touching the hem of his robe. He’s even healed a centurion’s servant without even being anywhere close to him!

But the healing I want to look at tonight may seem like a pretty simple one by comparison. It is when Jesus heals a paralyzed man by the pool called Bethesda. And you may or may not be familiar with this particular healing, but it’s found in the Gospel of John 5:1-8. And in this particular healing we’ll see that this man had all his hope bound in this pool, when in reality, all he needed to do was look towards Christ to be healed. And by looking at this passage tonight I hope that we’ll see that Jesus Christ is our source of hope.

Read John 5:1-9

So, this passage starts out, for lack of a better term, innocently enough. It tells us that after they had spent some time in Samaria doing ministry, Jesus and His followers were now returning to Jerusalem for some festival. John doesn’t specify which festival it was so it could have been the Passover or maybe the Feast of the Tabernacles. I’m not really sure. But it was something in which Jesus and his disciples felt it important to be in Jerusalem for.

And as they were coming in, they made their way by the Sheep gate (which is one of the gates into the city) and there, near this particular gate, was a pool called Bethesda which was surrounded by five covered colonnades (or your can picture five covered porches essentially).

And what is significant about this pool comes in the next couple verses. And if you look at your bible, depending on the translation it may or may not have verse 4 in there. That is because some of the earliest manuscripts we have did not include this verse, so some translations lave it out while some leave it in. But the point is that whether this was in the original text or not, this is what people most likely believed about the pool at Bethesda.

But in verse 3 and 4 we read, “In these (in the five colonnades) lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.” (NASB)

So, all of these sick, afflicted, and disabled people would camp out around this pool day and night with the belief that an angel would come and stir the water. And the belief was that if you were the first person in the water after it began to stir, then whatever affliction you had would be miraculously healed!

And whether or not these people were actually healed, I’d argue, doesn’t matter. What does matter is that these people THOUGHT they would be healed by getting in this water first and these people placed their whole hope in that belief. Can you imagine how hopeless a feeling that must be? Sitting there, anxiously waiting for the water to stir and when it finally does, someone else is a bit quicker and gets in there first. But they sat there, still hoping that this water was going to be the source of their healing. But then a big event happened. Jesus stepped by the pool.

And after setting up the bigger picture of what this pool of Bethesda meant to these people, John narrows in on one man and his interaction with Jesus. Verse 5 tells us that “One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.” So, this man had been paralyzed for almost 40 years and the next passage, which we won’t get to tonight, implies that he was paralyzed since he was a small boy. So, he had most likely lived his entire life with this awful sense of hopelessness and eventually found himself by this pool, that became his only sense of hope.

And in verse 6 we see that Jesus spots this man and knows that he has been on the side of this pool the longest. So, Jesus walks up to this paralyzed man and asks him kind of a funny question. He goes to this man, who has been paralyzed for the better part of 40 and who has been staying by the side of this pool for the longest amount of time anxiously waiting for healing, and Jesus asks him “Do you want to be healed?”

And you think that this man’s answer would be an obvious and emphatic “YES!” but look at how he answered. This man replied by saying, “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.” The man tells Jesus, “Of course I want to be healed, that’s why I am by this pool obviously. But whenever the water is stirred and I try to go in, someone steps in before me since I have no one to carry me into the water!”

See, this man’s problem wasn’t a lack of wanting to be healed, he had spent his life sitting by this pool in hopes of it! This man’s problem and his sense of utter hopelessness stemmed from the fact that his focus was entirely on this pool so much so that he missed God right in front of him! Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed, and this man’s focus was still on getting to the water!

And I wish I could show you guys here because it is an excellent visual for this passage, but if you have time this week, I highly recommend looking up a show called “The Chosen”. It’s a multi season show about Jesus and his disciples and in season 2 you see this passage take place.

And I love it because in this scene, you can see this man’s utter despair written on the actors face. And the whole conversation he has with Jesus, he is constantly giving glances over to the pool to see if it is being stirred. And when Jesus askes if he wants to be healed, he lights up. Not because he recognizes who Jesus is, but because he thinks that Jesus will carry him into the water. And you can just see all of this in how the actors portray the scene, so again I highly recommend that you look “the Chosen” up.

And at first it might sound ridiculous that this man had Jesus sitting right there in front of him but still thought this pool was going to heal him. His problem was that after years of sitting by this pool, he began to believe that it was the only thing that might heal him. He was so focused on thinking that there was only one way to be able to walk again and in his mind it was this pool called Bethesda.

And guys, we are no different. We get focused on thinking that there is only one way for our problems to be fixed. We think that the only way to feel secure in life is by getting more money. Or we think that the only way to find purpose in our lives is by having a good job. Or we’re hurting and we think that the only way to carry on is to numb the pain for even just a day with drugs or alcohol. And this man though that the only way to get healed was by getting in the water.

What we so often don’t realize is that the answer to security isn’t money, it’s knowing Jesus. And the answer to a purpose for your life isn’t found in your job, it’s found in knowing Jesus. And the answer to our hurting isn’t numbing the pain, it’s the healing found in Jesus Christ! And for this man, the answer to his desire for healing wasn’t found in this pool or it’s water, his source of healing is Jesus!

And I believe that Jesus and this man had a bit more of a conversation between “Do you want to be healed?” and verse 8. But all that we know is Jesus looked at this man, who hadn’t walked in almost 40 years, and said “Get up, take up your ben, and walk.” Jesus didn’t carry this man into the water or make him do any ritual. He simply said, “Get up!”

And our passage for tonight closes at verse 9 where John tells us, “And at once the man was healed, and he took up his ben and walked.” Jesus told this man “you don’t need this pool; all you need is me!” And this man was healed! He immediately responded with faith. Once he realized who Jesus was, he didn’t argue or say that he couldn’t. Jesus told him to get up and he said “okay!” And he got up!

Guys, the reality is that we’re all hurting. We may not be paralyzed like the man in our passage, but we are all carrying weight and we are all hurting and in need of healing. Don’t be so focused on whatever you think will give you healing and comfort that you miss the healing that Jesus so wants to give to you. The healing that this man was waiting his life for could only be found in Jesus Christ, and the healing that you so badly need is only found in Jesus too. So come and trust in the Lord today, turn your life over into His hands, and experience His wonderful love, mercy, and healing that he so desires to give to those who trust in him. Don’t be so focused on the pool waiting for it to stir that you miss Jesus right in front of you.