Jesus has a very different view of what needs to happen next in your life for change to occur…
Jesus asked a question.
“Do you want to get well?”
Not “Do you want to feel better?” but “Do
you want to get well?”
There is a difference.
We can come to church to feel better and never
get well.
We can come to church for comfort and leave
unchanged.
That’s what the pool represented.
It was a place to be comfortable.
It was a place where you could be around other
people who had similar disabilities, thereby
feeling more normal in your own dysfunction.
So I’m hanging out by the pool and I’ve been
this way so long I’ve given up hope of change.
Part of this is the reason why sometimes I
have fantasies about going back into youth
ministry, because they don’t know yet.
They haven’t learned yet that some things
never change.
They haven’t gotten all crusty like us, rusty
and crusty, sitting there waiting, waiting
for verse 4 to happen.
Can I teach you something really quick about
your Bible translation?
You have one of those Elevation Bibles.
This is called the New International Version.
It’s a good translation.
You can look all this stuff up.
Do you have the Bible App on your phone?
You can get a reading plan and all of that.
Even if you just start with a verse a day
it would be a good place to start.
You can look at The Message, which isn’t a
translation; it’s more like a paraphrase.
The Bible I learned off of was the New King
James Version.
Sometimes I like to quote in the King James
Version, because if you put thee and thou
on it it sounds more spiritual.
The Devil can’t take a thee or a thou.
You have to look at this NIV because…
In John, chapter 5, verse 3, we read about
this pool called Bethesda.
It means house of mercy, five covered colonnades.
Five is the number of grace.
It’s in John, chapter 5, so Jesus, who was
full of grace and truth, is walking up.
We won’t preach about that today.
That’s a whole other sermon.
If I get started on that we’ll be here till
Friday night.
It says in verse 3, “Here a great number of
disabled used to lie—the blind, the lame,
the paralyzed.”
Then right there it goes to verse 5.
It’s kind of hard to see on the camera.
Verse 3, and then that’s a note to tell you
why it goes straight to verse 5.
Here’s what the note says.
It says these people who were sitting around
the pool came to this particular pool for
a reason.
This is in some of the later manuscripts.
It’s not in the earliest ones.
That’s why the translation doesn’t put it
in.
It says, “From time to time an angel of the
Lord would come down.”
Sometimes that’s what we’re waiting for God
to do when we say we want change to happen
in our lives.
We want him to break through and come down.
“Come down, God, and fix my situation.
Come down, God, and work in my life.
Come down.”
We could pray during this revival for God
to come down, because it says from time to
time the angel would come down and stir up
the waters.
When the angel would come down and stir up
the waters, the first person who was in the
pool would get healed of whatever was wrong
with them, which put this man we read about,
who is lying on his mat, in a disadvantageous
situation.
When the angel would come down, the first
one in would win.
That’s the way religion works.
The first one in wins, the person with the
most titles or the most knowledge or the perfect
church attendance, but here’s what grace does.
Remember that Jesus is the personified grace
of God.
The Word made flesh dwelt among us.
Jesus walked up to the one who would have
been last in line and said, “You first.”
I came to announce that the more desperate
the situation, the greater the opportunity
for a miracle.
If you need something from God, guess what?
You’re in the right place at the right time.
This is the spot for revival.
They would wait for the angel to come down.
“God, I need you to give me your joy.
God, I need you to give me your peace.”
The other day, Abbey was begging me for a
certain item she wanted me to buy for her.
She is our youngest child, so she has had
the least amount of time to learn the system
by which her parents can be persuaded or manipulated,
depending on how you want to put that.
Elijah, being the oldest, walked up to her
and said, “Abbey, this is not the way to get
something from Dad,” and he pulled her aside.
I want to pull you aside today.
Those of you who are begging God for a breakthrough,
this is not the way to get something from
your heavenly Father.
You don’t have to beg him for what he already
bought for you.
You don’t have to beg him for what he died
to give you.
Guess what?
You don’t have to convince people.
You don’t have to convince anybody.
When God decides to do a work in your life
it’s done.
The man had some reasons why he couldn’t receive.
“Do you want to get well?”
The man said, “Sir…”
At least he was respectful.
“…I have no one…”
I’m expecting Jesus to any minute jump in
and say, “I did not ask you all that.”
Isn’t it crazy how in the presence of an unlimited
God we will stay stuck in an explanation?
Let me be balanced.
Everything the man said was true.
Everything the man said was a fact, but faith
has the ability to override the facts.
That’s what he didn’t know.
He started explaining to Jesus the way things
work around here.
“The pool…
I need somebody.
I don’t have anybody.
Nobody appreciated me.
Nobody loved me.
I have nobody.
I didn’t have anybody to show me.
I didn’t have anybody to hold me.
I have nobody.
I appreciate the conversation, but you don’t
know my situation.
I have nobody to help me into the pool.”
What’s funny about that that you have to really
be a Bible nerd to understand…
It says in John, chapter 4, that Jesus was
going through some area and he comes up on
this woman.
He says, “Hey woman, give me a drink.”
That’s a great pickup line, by the way.
She’s like, “But you’re a Jew and I’m a Samaritan.”
Jesus is like, “Don’t even worry about that.
I’m not worried about what people think about
it.
Give me a drink.”
She says, “But you don’t have a bucket.”
Jesus says to her essentially, not in these
exact words, “You don’t need a bucket when
you’re the well.
I am the living water, and if you receive
what I have to give you it won’t be about
what people can do.
You won’t need a bucket.
What’s in me will get in you and it will become
within you a well that will never run dry.”
I feel joy welling up inside.
I feel peace welling up inside.
He spoke this of the Spirit.
She said, “But you Jews say that we have to
worship in Jerusalem and the Samaritans say
we have to worship on this mountain.”
Jesus says, “You’re both wrong, because it’s
not about a geographical location or a situation
in your life.
This is the place, and those who worship the
Father must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus walks up to the man and the man starts
telling Jesus how he can’t get to the water
and Jesus says, “Don’t you get it?
I saw that you couldn’t get to the water.
That’s why the water came to you.”
This is grace.
This is revival.
This is the essence of salvation.
I couldn’t get to the water so the water came
to me.
Do you know where breakthrough begins?
Breakthrough begins where my excuses end.
“I don’t have anybody.
I don’t know enough.
I’ve been this way a long time.”
Jesus steps right over his excuses and gives
him a command.
Here’s the command.
While we’re busy trying to get God to come
down, Jesus has a very different view of what
needs to happen next in your life for change
to occur…real change, deep change, lasting
change, sustainable change, evident change.
Jesus, after hearing all of the man’s reasons,
after reading his doctor’s excuse…
“I have no one to help me when the water is
stirred.
Every time I try to get in someone else…”
I noticed that all of this guy’s mentality
has begun to revolve around other people.
“They won’t help me in, and every time I try
to get in they keep me out.
They keep blocking me.
They keep blocking my breakthrough.”
It’s funny.
Everybody listening to me preach thinks they’re
the exception to what I’m preaching.
“My situation is different.
For her, yeah, but…”
Jesus is simple.
Essentially, hearing what the man said, he
looks at him and tells him to get up.
Could it be possible
that while you’re waiting for God to come
down God is waiting for you to get up?
Maybe breakthrough doesn’t begin when your
situation changes but when you make a determination
within yourself, “I’m not blaming anybody.
I’m not waiting for anyone.
I don’t need my situation to change.
God, change me.
God, change me.
That’s my prayer.
God, change me.
Do a work in me.
Living water, spring up a well within my soul.”
God says, “This is the place where breakthrough
begins.
This is the place.”
“Not with them.
With me, God.
Do a work in me.
I’m ready, God.”