Do You Want To Be Healed?
Download MP3Open your Bibles to John chapter 5. I think I completely destroyed my voice singing that last song. I I blame you all. John chapter 5. We'll begin reading in verse 1.
Joel Brooks:After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has 5 roofed colonnades. And these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. 1 man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. 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?' The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.
Joel Brooks:And while I am going, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, get up, Take up your bed and walk.' And at once, the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. 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.' But he answered them, the man who healed me, that man said to me, take up your bed and walk. They asked him, 'Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk?' Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
Joel Brooks: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.' The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, my Father is working until now, and I am working. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Amen. Pray with me. Our Father, we ask that you would honor the reading of your word, that right now through your spirit, you would open up dull minds, calloused hearts to receive this word from you. Lord, we are gathered here in order that we might hear from you, we might receive life. So in this moment, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Tonight, we're going to look at another healing story of Jesus. Last week, we looked how Jesus healed a little boy that was on the verge of death.
Joel Brooks:Tonight, we're gonna look at how Jesus healed an older man who has been paralyzed for 38 years. There is a lot in this story. I'm not exactly sure how far we will go. If you read through the commentaries, they're gonna spend a lot of their time focusing in on the issues maybe regarding the Sabbath, or how Jesus broke the Sabbath seemingly, how He's working on the Sabbath. Commentaries will focus on the power of Jesus, or perhaps the identity of Jesus being equal with his father.
Joel Brooks:And these are all good things to spend time on. We are going to spend time on those things, But but I don't want you to miss what I see as the dominant main point here in this text. And that is this, our Lord Jesus is moved in compassion, moved with compassion towards sinful, hurting people. I don't want us to just fly by that. We need to see that here in the text, that Jesus is drawn towards those who were broken, those who are needy, neglected, those who are forgotten.
Joel Brooks:Because Jesus doesn't forget these people. He pursues these people. He has compassion, and by compassion, I mean He has moved in His inner being, the bowels of his being. He has moved towards showing pity and love towards people like this. This would have been a very crowded time in the city.
Joel Brooks:The streets would have been absolutely packed. There would have been a festive mood permeating the city. There would have, there would have been some parties, some festivities. People have been going to all the cool cafes. The new hip restaurants would've been flooded as people are celebrating.
Joel Brooks:But instead of going to those places, Jesus goes to a place where he knows the hurting will be gathered. He goes to Bethesda. He is actively, tirelessly looking for hurting people. This is how He pursues us, and this is how we as a church need to pursue others. Look with me at verse 2.
Joel Brooks:It says, now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has 5 roofed colonnades. And these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. And now the reason that all of these invalids were there is because there was a legend surrounding this pool that an angel would come and stir up the waters, and the first person or maybe the first people to get into that pool while the waters would stir would be healed. And we don't know if this legend had any basis in fact or not. We don't know if it was, if it was an angel or if there was, you know, a hot spring coming up that stirred the water.
Joel Brooks:It really doesn't matter because what matters is the people believe this. The people came to this pool in order to be healed. And this place was packed. Multitudes came here. This place was flooded with the blind and the lame and the paralyzed.
Joel Brooks:And this happened every day so much so that they actually built 5 colonnades, 5 shaded colonnades, just to provide some kind of shelter from the sun for all of those paralyzed who would just be laying there baking in it otherwise. So this was a well known place for the hurting to gather, and it's here that Jesus is drawn. He leaves behind all the festivities in order to go to these wounded people. He even leaves behind His disciples. We don't know where they are, if they're participating in the festivities or what they're doing, but he leaves them behind and he comes alone to such a place.
Joel Brooks:And so before we look at anything else in this passage, I want you to see this clearly, that the heart of Jesus is to have compassion on those whose life is full of sorrow and suffering. And if the church doesn't get this, we don't understand who Jesus is. Jesus, when he gets there, he looks out at the multitude of people, and he's he's scanning the crowd just looking. And finally, his eyes rest on one person, A man who has been paralyzed for 38 years. 38 years is longer than most of you have been alive.
Joel Brooks:It's a long time. 38 years of completely being dependent upon family or friends to feed you, clothe you, cook for you, carry you where you need to go, 38 years of likely not having any control over your bladder or your bowels, having to be changed like one would change a baby. 38 years of having to beg for everything you have. 38 years of stares from people. Or worse than stares, people acting like they don't see you and just walking by.
Joel Brooks:But Jesus sees this person, notices this person. We read in verse 6 that Jesus sees this man, and he knew that he had already been there a long time, and I love that. Jesus sees us and he knows us in our hurt. We are not absent from his mind. And he moves in compassion towards us.
Joel Brooks:Jesus doesn't say that this person has been there for a long time. He is thinking this person has been there for too long of a time, and it is time to do something about it. He quietly walks up to this man, and he asked him, do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed? Now I'm reading this, and honestly, the first thing that came to mind was that is the dumbest question I think I have ever heard.
Joel Brooks:And then I started thinking, I just said Jesus just said the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So something needs to change in my my paradigm. Jesus isn't being dumb here. And He's not just trying to make conversation with this person, you know, like just talking about the weather or talking about sports, and they're just trying to get a little entry point to the guy's life. That's not what he's doing.
Joel Brooks:This is a real question. And I don't think the answer is as obvious as we at first think. You only ask a question like this, do you want to be healed, if there's the possibility that the answer might be no. At least the possibility it might be no, which raises the question, why would anyone in this condition not want to be healed? Well, one of the best answers I've read to this question comes from a book that my wife has been trying to get me to read for years.
Joel Brooks:It's called The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan, which is all about sabbath rest. And I've preached on Sabbath rest multiple times at this church, and every time I finish preaching, my wife comes up to me with this book and says, You know, you really should read this book. I'm not sure what she's saying, when she gives me a book to read after I just preached, but Lauren was gone this weekend and so I knew she wouldn't catch me doing it, so I brought out the book. And I read. And lo and behold, as I was reading this book, it had a section answering this question.
Joel Brooks:Buchanan says this. It's the most natural thing to befriend your sickness, even after long association to depend upon it. Imagine any of the people Jesus heals, their entire lives, their physical lives for sure, but also their emotional and intellectual and relational lives, all have taken shape around their injuries or diseases. That man at the pool of Bethesda, whom Jesus first asks if he wants to get well, for instance, He's been there for 38 years. His entire existence has narrowed down to the daily drama of His lifelong suffering.
Joel Brooks:38 years of monotony. 38 years of futility. 38 years of self pity. 38 years of poisonous envy and secret pride. 38 years of never being able to work, travel, make love, cook, care for children, or fix an ox cart.
Joel Brooks:38 years of life without options. 38 years of life without any obligations. He carries burdens, yes, but one he has never carried is the weight of another's expectations. Not everyone wants to be healed. Some people have lived so long in their miserable condition that they can't imagine life any other way.
Joel Brooks:They both hate their misery, yet they are scared of losing it. They they they can't accept anything different. And so Jesus asked people like this, says, Do you want to be healed? And it's not a rhetorical question. And the man responds to Jesus' question in verse 7 by saying, Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up.
Joel Brooks:And while I am going, another steps down before me. So notice he doesn't answer Jesus's question by saying, yes, of course I would like to be healed. No, instead, you can almost hear the bitterness in his voice as he makes excuses. Well, nobody will carry me down to the pool. And then if I try to get down to the pool, people step over me, they push me out of the way, and they get to the pool in front of me.
Joel Brooks:Now, we don't know if this has been happening for a long time or not. We don't know if he could have been coming for 38 years. John tells us that when Jesus saw me, he knew he had been there for a long time, and in all of that time that he has been coming and the same thing has been happening day after day, never once has He ever reached the water, yet He keeps doing the same thing. Every day trying the same thing, thinking maybe somehow this day might be different. I believe that John recorded this story here for us because he wants all of us to see, have a mental picture of our condition apart from Jesus saving us.
Joel Brooks:We are a broken people who look to false hopes, false saviors, false ideas of what Sabbath rest looks like, and yet we are convinced that maybe tomorrow will be different. We're convinced we can still fix this, and we try the same things every day, and yet it never works. Every day, we feel the futility of our efforts, and yet we do it over and over. And when it doesn't work, what we do is we begin to blame others. We begin to resent others, resent their seemingly happy lives, their happy marriages, their perfect kids, their fulfilling work, their self assurance, all of their friendships, and the glowing words people say about them.
Joel Brooks:We resent those things. And Jesus comes to us and he asks, do you want to be healed of that? Do you want to be healed of that? Do you? Or do you really want to be healed of that?
Joel Brooks:This is a piercing question. Because if you wanna be healed from that, you're gonna have to let go of all of this you've been clinging to for so long, and you're gonna have to get an entire new identity. And I know that this is harder than it seems, because often sickness becomes that familiar friend we can't get rid of. Hear me on this. No one needs or has to have restoration.
Joel Brooks:You can get by without being restored. Alright? Some of you are doing that. You've likely learned how to cope. Restoration is gonna be a shock to your system.
Joel Brooks:And so Jesus asked, Do you really want to be healed? Some of you might be harboring a grudge or refusing to forgive somebody. Perhaps it's your spouse. And because of this, you are miserable. And Jesus comes to you and says, Would you like to be healed of this?
Joel Brooks:And you respond, I mean, my husband can only think about himself. Jesus says, Yes, but do you want to be healed from this? Well, my husband never thinks about the consequences of his actions and how what he does affects other people. Yes, but do you want to be healed of this? You see, somehow, some of us, we know that what we hold onto is destructive, that this grudge or this lack of forgiveness is like a poison to us, but we simply can't let it go because it's become so much a part of who we are.
Joel Brooks:And we don't want to get rid of it. We wouldn't know how to exist without that grudge, without that bitterness. So Jesus says, Do you wanna be healed? And I think this is why when you go through the rest of the Gospels, Jesus instantly and with unbridled enthusiasm heals people who ask Him for healing. When the blind and the lame, the deaf come to him and ask for healing, he's like, yes, yes.
Joel Brooks:Because he knows how hard it can be to actually ask. Now, in this story here, although the man doesn't say yes, he at least does this one thing. He acknowledges that everything he's been trying isn't working. And for Jesus, that was enough. Notice he doesn't show any faith.
Joel Brooks:And there's no, Hey, you're Jesus the Messiah, aren't you? You're the Son of God. You're like the creator of the universe. Of course, there's none of that there. He doesn't even know who Jesus is.
Joel Brooks:People ask him who did this. He's like, I don't know. I don't even know his name. So there's no faith here. All He does is tell Jesus, I can't do it.
Joel Brooks:I'm helpless. And that's all Jesus was looking for. And perhaps this is a good place for some of you to start, is simply by acknowledging that you cannot do it on your own, that you actually need a savior. Look at verse 8. Jesus said to him, get up, take up your bed, and walk.' And at once, the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Joel Brooks:So Jesus heals this man with a simple word, and then he quietly slips away. Even though he's completely surrounded by all of these sick people, these desperate, hurting people, he only heals 1 man. He leaves more people not healed, far more people not healed, than this person He heals. As a matter of fact, if you read verse 15, it says that the reason Jesus slipped away is because there were so many desperate hurting people. He didn't want to heal them, and so he slipped away.
Joel Brooks:Can you imagine the the utter commotion and chaos that would have surrounded Jesus if word got out He was healing people? He would have been completely sworn, because these were the miracle seekers. They were there to get a miracle. But handing out miracles is not the reason that Jesus came. We read about the reason Jesus came and the reason He healed this man in verse 14.
Joel Brooks: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. So although Jesus, he slipped away right after he did the miracle, he sought out this man in a less conspicuous place in order to tell him the real reason he healed him. This would have actually been hard work for Jesus, because remember, Jerusalem is packed. He had to go looking out for this man to make an effort to find him, but he wanted to find this man so he would know the real reason.
Joel Brooks:This is why I've healed you. And when he finds him, he says this, I see your will. Now sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you. This man was healed in order that he might live a holy life. This man's holiness is the main thing that Jesus is after.
Joel Brooks:Not his health, but his holiness. Do do do you see this here? Jesus says, stop sinning. Repent. I came and I gave you a gift, an amazing gift.
Joel Brooks:You didn't seek me for it, you didn't ask me for it, You didn't earn it. You were not good enough to receive it. This healing I gave you came completely from my goodwill. It was all an act of grace. I did not command you sin no more and then I healed you.
Joel Brooks:You did nothing but received this. And now that you are healed, what I ask you to do is to walk in this power I have given you. Walk in it for my glory. Now that I have freed you, I want you to live in this freedom for me. Let this gift of my healing be a means to your holiness.
Joel Brooks:Now if you are in this place and you are not a Christian, and I know we have several, perhaps you're here because you were curious about the Christian faith. Maybe a friend just dragged you here, I don't know. I want to be real clear with you as to what the gospel is, what the Christian faith is, because you see it here. This is what it is not. It is not getting your life together, deciding to turn over a new leaf.
Joel Brooks:Is not saying, I will become a better person, and then I'm gonna follow you, Jesus. This is what the Christian faith is. It is Jesus with a heart of compassion, pursuing you, reaching out to you in your utterly helpless state and saving you. He takes away your cold, paralyzed heart, and he gives you a new one. He gives you new life, and he says, now that I've given you life, follow me.
Joel Brooks:That's the Christian faith. After Jesus tells this man to go and sin no more, he says that if you don't repent, something worse is going to happen to you. And we're actually gonna look at that more next week. But in a nutshell, what Jesus is talking about is final judgment here. Now when Jesus healed this man, He did all of this work on the Sabbath, and He did this intentionally.
Joel Brooks:He could have easily waited another day to heal this man. The guy's been waiting 38 years. He could have waited another day, but he chose this day, chose the Sabbath, because he wanted to create a controversy. He wanted there to be a stink about this. We even see this in the way that He healed a man.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't just say, hey, stand up and walk. He says, stand up, carry your mat, and walk. He commands him to do something that was prohibited on the Sabbath, as part of his healing. And that's what this man does. And sure enough, people see this guy carrying his bed, and they get angry.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 12. They asked him, who was the man who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk?' That to me is one of the most incredible verses here. They just see a man who's been paralyzed for 38 years walking, and what they choose to ask him is, hey, who told you to carry that bed? Who told you you could do that? That would have been the appropriate response.
Joel Brooks:That would have been the appropriate response. These people are crazy. In this day, the Sabbath rules were crazy. The Pharisees and the religious leaders, they had taken the simple command, observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. And they had put all of these rules and regulations and details to it.
Joel Brooks:All the 10 commandments are pretty simple. But the Pharisees, religious leaders, they would add all of these extra rules. For instance, let me give you a few. On the Sabbath, you were not allowed to look in a mirror. I think most of you have broken that today.
Joel Brooks:I see a few who might not have. But I think most everybody here has broken it. And the reason is this, because if you look in a mirror, you might see a gray hair and you're tempted to pull it, and that would be work. I did that today. I don't pull them because they're gray.
Joel Brooks:It's because they go crazy out of my head. Another one, if you're traveling on the Sabbath, you were only allowed to travel 1,000 yards past your house. However, if you needed to travel further, there was a way you could get around it. You just had to get a rope or a string, tie it to the edge of your house, stretch it out another 1000 yards, and it said, technically, now at this point, you have now stretched your house an additional 1,000 yards, and now you can use that as the starting point to go a 1,000 more yards. You were not allowed to spit on the Sabbath, not because spitting is work, but because if you happen to spit in some dirt and your foot went across it and scuffed it, that was tilling the earth.
Joel Brooks:You will even find ridiculous rules about what to do if you have a wooden leg and your house catches on fire. Are you allowed to pick up your leg and carry it out if it is on the Sabbath? Even further, what if the wooden leg catches on fire? Are you allowed on the Sabbath to put it out? It's crazy, isn't it?
Joel Brooks:Almost as crazy as leaving a paralyzed man at the edge of the pool, yet refusing to take him to the waters because it's the Sabbath. But nobody would touch this man. Now you gotta ask the question, why? I mean, why, why, why all of these ridiculous rules, these regulations? Are they just trying to make things harder?
Joel Brooks:And the answer is actually the the opposite of that. They're not trying to make things harder. These religious leaders were actually trying to make things easier. Because listen, we all want rules. We want rules to follow so then we can rest in them.
Joel Brooks:If we follow a bunch of rules, it makes us feel pretty good about ourselves. We could pat ourselves on the back. And so they would ask a question, how can one observe the Sabbath? How can one keep it holy? And the people were thinking, that's that's a tough one.
Joel Brooks:But why don't we just list all of these things, and then if I could check that I've done all of these things, ta da, I have observed the Sabbath and I have kept it holy. I don't really have to think about it anymore. They don't even have to engage their heart. Admit it. All you firstborns out there, you like lists, don't you?
Joel Brooks:You like making boxes and checking off? I mean, actually, you make boxes you know you're already gonna check off just so you can do it. We like doing that. I grew up Southern Baptist, and in our pews, they had, they had envelopes, the offering envelopes. But on there, it had all of these boxes you could check off.
Joel Brooks:And so it had read your Bible daily, it had went to Sunday school, had giving, had shared your faith with a friend, had all these things and you could just check them. And let me tell you, if I got to check every single one of those, I was like, God, you are so lucky. I mean, you are just so lucky to have me. I mean, look how good I did. You know, you just kinda wanna frame it, put up, look down at the others with only 3 check marks.
Joel Brooks:It makes you feel so good about yourself that you could check these things off, yet my heart could have been so far away. Here's the problem. I don't care how many boxes you get to check off, you cannot keep the law of God. You cannot do it. It is too big for you.
Joel Brooks:It is a weight that you cannot carry. Instance, you look at the 10 Commandments where Jesus breaks down the 10 Commandments into 2 main ones, love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, strength, And then he says, love your neighbor as yourself. So let's look at love your neighbor as yourself. Is it possible for you to fulfill that law, to keep that commandment, to perfectly love your neighbor at all times? Is it possible for you to always want the best for them?
Joel Brooks:To always sacrifice your time and your money for them? To always encourage them. Never say a negative word about them. Always build them up. I don't care how many little boxes you make under that and you check.
Joel Brooks:You cannot fulfill that. For those of you who are married, you can't even do that with your spouse. 1 that you have covenanted with, professed your undying love with, you can't do that, let alone just your neighbor. So what is the point of the law? One of the main points of the law is to show us that our hearts are bad.
Joel Brooks:It's, is to show us that our hearts are bad. It's, that our hearts are bad. It's to show us who we are, that our hearts are bad, and we desperately need Jesus to give us new hearts. I'll give you this illustration maybe illuminate this up a little bit, but we live in a house just a couple miles away from here. It's old house, over a 100 years old.
Joel Brooks:We've never had any vandalism or anything against it. Alright? If I were to go home after this service and I were to put a sign in my front yard that said, Please do not throw rocks at my house, But I can guarantee you that the moment I put a rule or a law here saying don't do this, somebody's gonna drive by, stop back up and say nobody tells me what to do, and my house will get pelted by rocks. Because there is something in us when we see the law says, uh-uh, nobody. God, you don't tell me what to do.
Joel Brooks:I'm the master of my own fate. I'm the captain of my soul. And the law exposes this rebellion in us. It exposes in us that we are broken people who need Jesus. We cannot do the law unless Jesus first heals us.
Joel Brooks:This This paralytic man here, he is representative of us trying to keep the law. We can't do it unless Jesus gives us new life, unless he heals our brokenness. When the Jews confronted Jesus about his Sabbath breaking, he responds in verse 17. We'll end with this. But Jesus answered them, my father is working until now, and I am working.
Joel Brooks:What Jesus means by this, he's saying, listen, my Father and I, we created a beautiful world. It was beautiful. It was perfect. The pinnacle of our creation was when we made man and woman, and we stepped back and we said, This is very good. And after that, we had a sabbath rest.
Joel Brooks:We didn't we didn't rest because we were tired and we just needed to build back up our strength. We rested so we could enjoy. This is God taking a step back and just saying, I want to enjoy this perfect beautiful world that I have created. But then sin came into this world and messed it all up. Sin brought with it calamity, it brought disease, it brought death.
Joel Brooks:And from the moment that happened, my father and I had been working again to bring back a Sabbath rest. We've been working to repair this world, to fix the brokenness, to give people life so that once again, we can sit back and we can enjoy this beauty and this perfection. I am restoring here a true Sabbath rest, not the kind of rest that leaves you paralyzed in your sin. I intentionally did this miracle on the Sabbath so that you would know who I am and what I am now doing. And so the question now is this, do you believe this?
Joel Brooks:When you read this, do you believe this? And do you want to be healed? Are you willing to give up your old identity for a new one? Do you want your soul to finally find rest? If so, then Jesus says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give that to you.
Connor Coskery:Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Our Father, we need the rest of Jesus, real rest. I pray right now in this moment that if there are any people here who are paralyzed in their sin, Jesus, that you would liberate them. Any who are holding a grudge or unforgiveness, any part of their identity that is sinful that they refuse to let go of, God, through your spirit, give them the power to let go of those things and just say, I can't do it. I need a savior. And Jesus, will you meet them there?
Joel Brooks:For those who know you and love you, who've received this new life, God, I pray for their holiness, that they would go and sin no more. They would use the freedom that you have given them to run hard after you. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
