2022-03-20 ST. PAUL’S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHA congregation of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
Notes
Transcript
ST. PAUL’S
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
A congregation of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
SUNDAY 20th March 2022
THIS MORNING’S PRAISE AND WORSHIP
Call to Worship (from Psalm 126)
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Then our mouths were filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us.
Let us rejoice and give thanks!
HYMN - The Lords my shepherd - Note when the words on the screen are pink that is sung by the ladies. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eIQQayhpak&t=12s
Call to Confession Bruce: this prayer onscreen please.
Jesus calls us to enter the joy of discipleship,
the joy of following in his way.
But sin clings closely,
and we struggle to respond fully to Christ’s invitation.
Let us seek God’s forgiveness
so that we may know more deeply the joy God intends.
Prayer of Confession Bruce: this prayer onscreen please.
God of perfect love,
you continually bring forth life,
transforming sadness to joy,
and despair to hope
We are weak, but you are strong.
Our ways are flawed, but your ways are true.
We are seldom right, but you are never wrong.
Forgive us, redeem us, transform us.
Take away the sin that burdens us,
and restore us to the people you would have us be,
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
Declaration of Forgiveness Bruce: this prayer onscreen please.
Relentlessly, God seeks us out.
With abundant grace and boundless mercy, God seeks us out.
This is good news! In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!
CHORUS - Change my heart O God -
Affirmation of Faith (from a Brief Statement of Faith) Bruce: this affirmation onscreen please.
We trust in Jesus Christ, Fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel. Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition, Jesus was crucified, suffering the depths of human pain and giving his life for the sins of the world. God raised this Jesus from the dead, vindicating his sinless life, breaking the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to life eternal. With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
CHORUS 28 When I feel the touch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_RZqgCuEFs
Prayer for Illumination
Gracious God, illumine these words by your Spirit that we might hear what you would have us hear and be who you would us be
for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Amen.
Sermon - The healing at Bethesda
1 After these things 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, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes.
3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;
4 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.
5 A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”
7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.”
9 Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.
Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
10 So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.”
11 But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’ ”
12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk’?”
13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
15 The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”
John 5:1-9
The cure of the impotent man.
The scene changes once more to Jerusalem. Jesus finds himself once more in the focus of controversy.
I. THE TIME OF THIS MIRACLE. "After these things there was a feast of the Jews." It is generally believed that this was the Feast of Purim. PURIM (פּוּרִים, purim). A Jewish festival commemorating the deliverance of the Jews in Persia from Haman’s plot against them (Esth 9:26–32).
1. It was not one of the three great feasts.
2. It was a feast in which the Jews gave presents to one another. Jesus would signalize it by a deed of miraculous gracious healing.
II. THE SCENE OF THE MIRACLE. "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches." This was a thermal, intermittent spring, such as are still to be found at Jerusalem, possessing rare curative properties in cases of disease. "The blind, the Lame, the withered," gathered round it, seeking shelter in the 5 porches while they were awaiting "the moving of the waters."
III. THE CASE OF THE IMPOTENT MAN.
1. He had been afflicted will impotence in his limbs for thirty eight years .
2. We do not know why he was in this predicament.
3. He had no strength to enable him to plunge into the bubbling springs as they arose with healing power.
4. He had no money to hire a carrier.
5. The bystanders, whether sick or not, had no mercy or sympathy for him.
6. Yet he came from day to day in the hope of a cure.
IV. OUR LORD’S COMPASSION FOR HIM.
John 5:6 “6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?””
1. The question was designed to shake off the long apathy of years, and revive the hopes of the afflicted man.
2. It was designed to withdraw his mind from the Bethesda waters, and bring him into contact with the Saviour himself.
V. THE ACTUAL CURE. "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk."
1. The command was accompanied by the exercise of Divine power on Christ’s part, and of faith on the part of the impotent man.
2. The impotent man walked in the joy of his recovered power.
3. The miracle was done on the sabbath day. It was a deed of mercy, and therefore suitable to the day.
4. The miracle was one not to be disbelieved, as this man had been long known to resort to the Bethesda springs in search of cure.
5. Today Yes even today, Jesus can and does cure people miraculously. In fact Jesus answers all kinds of request’s, miraculously. I know because I have experienced them. Again and again.
Notices
Collection
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
CHORUS 54 - Like a woman at the well = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N4lz2wjqo4
Charge and Blessing
Let us go from this place trusting that God is with us and for us
in every place.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the
companionship of the Holy Spirit be with you and abide with you
this day and forevermore. Amen.
Congregation: Now Unto Him – Pg 1 Chorus Book