Waiting for the Water to be Troubled
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John 4:46-54; 5:1-15
Key Point: Many are waiting beside troubled waters for healing while Jesus is standing amongest us with an offer of healing, but is not acknowledged or seen. Do we believe in troubled waters or in the Healer Jesus, who stands amongest us, waiting and wanting to heal us?
Key Question: Are you waiting by the pool for the water to be troubled or believing in Jesus and accepting His Word and trusting it?
How long will we wait for the water to be troubled, stirred, when the one greater than the angels, is stirring by His Spirit?
What right do we have to ask for signs and wonders when Jesus is the greatest of wonders and has told us to "believe and live"?
One man sought healing by the one he figured had the power to heal his son. One man sought the stirring of water for his healing. Which sought the better? Who was the wiser? The one who sat for thirty-eight years at a pool? Or the one who got up, sought, and walked to Jesus?
Are we waiting by the pool for the water to be troubled or believing in Jesus and accepting His Word and trusting it?
Believe in Him and you shall be saved. Believe in Him and you will be healed. Believe in Him and you shall have. Believe in Him and you shall receive.
And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
Are we waiting for a better offer? Who has a better offer than Jesus that has been fulfilled already today?
The worldly, the religious, wait by the pool for the troubling of the water, staring into the sky, while Jesus is stiring in their midst. Are we staring into the sky waiting for our provision when Jesus is in our midst by the power of His Holy Spirit, waiting for us to believe and obey?
The nobleman upon Jesus' rebuke and correction, went as Jesus told him...believing that his son would live. Jesus was not going to go with him. Jesus can simply say the word and it will be done. Do you believe this? You pray...you ask...He will answer from the King's Court in Heaven.
The nobleman believed Jesus had the power to heal his son. Then he choose to believe the word, the promise of Jesus, that his son would live. Then he believed in the person of Jesus when the servants told him the hour at which his son was made whole...the very time Jesus spoke the words "Go, your son will live".
The paralyzed man had the will to believe that he could be healed, the will to be healed. He simply did not have the opportunity to seize the opportunity to be healed because he had no one to lower him into the pool before another got in first.
Jesus asked him, "Would you like to be made whole?” be made well? Would we like to be made whole, be made well? He wants to see our inititive, our will, to tell him what we want. Do we have the belief in Him to provide?
Jesus will always asks us, "What do we want?". Do I believe in Him for the answer? Or am I waiting for the pool to be stirred by some angel, some human, some procedure, some science, to provide a possible solution?
Where is my belief in Jesus and my obedience to Him? Are we waiting for the miracle instead of simply believing Jesus?
Jesus' rebuke is for people believing in the power instead of in His person...the source of the power to heal, make things happen. People will always be drawn to power and the powerful, but who is he or she that holds such power? Scripture says that in the last days people will be deceived by great signs and wonders, like Jesus had performed during his ministry on earth, but these will not be performed by Jesus, nor give glory to Jesus.
For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
False authority will always perform false signs and wonders to lead one astray from Jesus, His truth, and His authority.
The nobleman learnt the lesson: Jesus is the wonder, the miracle, the sign of God in and to this world. Will I still wait at the pool for the waters to be troubled or believe in and of Jesus?
The people missed Jesus, lying at the pool, because they were focused on their own chosen way, not Him, or His. No one came to Him, no one sought Him. Had they not heard about Him and His miracles? They were not stirred. We are in trouble if we are not stirred by being in the presence of Christ and His Holy Spirit, being before the very throne of God the Father! Are we stirred by being gathered together to worship Christ this morning! If not, why not? What pool am I sitting at? What am I focused on?
Jesus was not angry, but pitied the people that they ignored the mercy and Healer who drew near. What did Jesus do? He choose someone to receive His grace, His mercy, His special intervention, the invalid of 38 years. Not fair you say? He is not bound to give His mercy to everyone. Having proclaimed His grace and mercy to everyone and having been rejected, He has a double right to bless those of His choice.
Why this invalid? He had been there the longest, 38 years of misery. Why not him? He was open, he was ready to be healed, his response says so. John 5:6-7
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
Many rail against the Lord's election, His special choosing, but He has made His healing available to all. Have we choosen to believe, to trust in Him? Have we chosen to receive Him? One's quarrelling is not justified. All have received an open invitation to the banquet. Have we choosen to ignore the invitation?
Jesus asked the man if he desired to be made whole, or well, because he wished to grab his attention. The work of grace is upon a conscious mind, not a senseless one, or a careless one, or an ambivolent one. Jesus points to the Father and draws glory to Himself always.
Jesus brings back a wandering mind with an intentional question, "Do you wish to be made whole?" Of course we do! But will we give glory to the person, and not the power? Will we see the person of Christ? The thing about the crippled man, he did not even know it was Jesus who healed him! He had no clue who Jesus was! When questioned by the teachers as to who told him to pick up his mat and walk, the invalid said, “the man”.
He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” “Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked. But the man who was cured did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
The nobleman knew exactly who Jesus was, he was the man with the power to heal! He sought Him out intentionally because of the power Jesus yielded, but He did not yet believe He was the Messiah. It was not until his servants met him and told him his son was well, and the nobleman asked what time his son was made well, that the nobleman believed in and recognized Jesus as the Messiah. John 4:52-53
He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at seven in the morning the fever left him,” they answered. The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” Then he himself believed, along with his whole household.
It seems with humanity, that we need to experience something to believe it is true or false…whether good or bad. Why is that? Why can we not take someone’s word for it, believe it, and take the corresponding action? Why when you tell a child to not touch, they touch? Is it because we have fallen victim to false words with severe consequences? We have been burnt? Or the belief and teaching that you can only know something for sure if you experience it yourself. Do I really need to bash my hand with a hammer to know that doing so is going to hurt? Do I really need to take life to know that death exists? What is this need and fascination with needed empirical evidence with man? Why can we not just simply take things on or by faith?
It is a result of the fall of man in the Garden. Not only did our relationship with God die that day, but our ability to take things by faith did as well. We got tricked into believing we could be God, and the masters of our own destiny, handling the knowledge of good and evil, truth and non-truth. We can be gods by our own ingenuity. So in order to control our world, we need solid decisions, based on solid facts, so we need solid evidence, that can seemingly only be known through our own experiences. I will not believe unless I experience it. Thomas was a perfect example. He would not believe Jesus was resurrected unless he put his fingers in his nail pierced hands and open side (John 20:25).
The nobleman would not believe Jesus could heal his son unless He came with Him. Jesus taught him otherwise by not going with him, but declaring “Go, your son will live” (John 4:50). Did the son’s healing depend on the nobleman’s faith? Jesus says, “Go” to the nobleman. The nobleman had a choice to make: believe in what Jesus said and go to his son, or refuse and insist that Jesus come along, while the son would probably die. Do you believe what Jesus says, obey what He says, living by faith, or do you need evidence first? Do you need to see the stirring of the pool?
Do I wish to be made whole? Saved from my sin? Overcome my temper, my wandering eye, my ill conceived thoughts and actions? Believe, trust, and obey Christ. Are you ready to let go of sin? That treasured possession inhibiting the rest of your life? Repent, confess, and receive the Lord.
The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
"Rise up and walk!" Jesus commands. Believe and receieve his grace and mercy, and sin no more, or be made doubly worse than before (John 5:14 ).
After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
This was Jesus' warning to the no longer crippled man. Sin can have physical consequences, as well as spiritual and emotional (Gen 2:17; 3:7; 8; 16; 4:8; 6:5; 1 Cor 2:14; Gal 6:1-10). Just something for us to think about - are all humanities health problems a result of this world? Or are some a result of sin? Are some for the glory of God to be worked in one’s life as a witness and testimony to the glory of Christ?
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.
Jesus finds the crippled man at the temple giving glory to God. He had been questioned by the religious authorities as to who told him to carry his mat on the sabbath. The religious authorities ignore the miracle, the grace, the mercy and instead draw attention to the violation of "their rules" - no healing, no work on the Sabbath! What insensitivity! What heartlessness! They would have known this man, judged this man, made light of this man. “I wonder who sinned, this man or his parents?” Seeing this man walking around all of a sudden, would be an embarrasement to themselves, their judgments, and their teachings. Instead of rejoicing in the invalid man’s healing, they condemn him for walking and carrying his mat. How many miracles, signs, and/or wonders of Jesus do we miss because we are busy judging, condemning, and/or rule keeping?
Grace and mercy always has the authority and permission to violate "the rules of men" if it draws one towards God.
The religious will always uphold rules as opposed to the grace and mercy of God. Am I opposed to the grace and mercy of God? Am I jealous of His working? Why? We should be joyful! His grace and mercy is available to all. He stands available, amongest the crowds, to all. What have I chosen to believe in? Whom have I chosen to follow for life? Who or what am I persuing to make me whole? Are we at a pool waiting for the water to be stirred? Or do we see Jesus? Do we seek Him, because He has the power to make us whole? Do we believe His Word to make us whole? Do we believe in Him, because He is God, who can make us whole?
Are we waiting at a pool for the water to be stirred while Jesus waits in our midst for us to believe in His person, power, and promises?