Be Healed, Be Holy
John 5:1-14

INTRODUCTION:  Good morning church. We have concluded our look at chapter four. Now we are continuing in the fifth chapter of John’s gospel which expresses proofs and evidence that Jesus is God. As you recall the purpose of John’s gospel was stated in John 20:31, “… That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name..”

Chapter 5 contains a concentrated effort of the Apostle John, going through a variety of proofs that Jesus is God. As we study through this chapter, we want to carefully analyze how John shows this to us. John sets things up with the first fourteen verses in the chapter.

The context of John 5:1-14 is the sign of the miraculous healing of a paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda. The Jews had a tradition that said an angel stirs the water at the pool, and the first person to enter the water after it's stirred, is healed.

I would like you to hold in mind this question and your response to it. What is the worst thing that can happen to you? I want you to just hold that in your mind as we move through this story. It's a point that Jesus is going to use with this man, and it is important for our consideration as we recognize who Jesus is.

I. The Sign – Read with me starting in verse 1, “1, After this 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, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6. 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?” 7. The sick man answered him, “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.” 8. Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.” [ESV] (for verse 4 see other versions)

A. The narrative begins with revealing that this is one of the three feasts of the Law of Moses which compel the people to come to Jerusalem. Jesus came to Jerusalem, and He decided to go to a place that He does not have to go. It is not required that you walk through this gate as you come into the city. The Sheep Gate was built by the high priest as mentioned in Nehemiah 3:1, “Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate…” It was through this gate that the sheep were brought to the Temple for sacrifice.

1. John 5:2-3 tell us He enters an area where there are five roofed colonnades by a pool of water. We are presented with a sad scene in verse 3. Here are a multitude of invalids hoping for healing if they can get into the pool when the water is disturbed. Jesus is going out of His way to walk through this area where these disabled people are lying all around.
2. It is interesting to me that in this atmosphere, among all of people that are there, Jesus selects one to talk to. As He passes through all the people lying there, we are told He speaks to one person. Verse 5, “One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.”
3. I can picture clearly the helplessness of all these people, the multitude of disabled people lying there. There is nothing glorious about this place. You can imagine the kind of atmosphere that would exist here. Jesus comes to this man and asks a very simple, and perhaps in our minds, obvious question. Verse 6, “Do you want to be healed?”

B. Years and years this man had been an invalid. Nothing has made him well and so hopelessness has set in. When Jesus asks him if he wants to be made well, listen to his answer: “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.” These are words of hopelessness. Yes, he desired to be healed but he had desired this for so long that it seemed like there was no chance of it ever happening. To me it sounds like “of course, but it’s not going to happen”.

1. That's what makes the next words so shocking and so powerful. Jesus says in verse 8, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” Then in verse 9, “And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.”
2. What a picture is given here! There's no slow and painful physical therapy—no slow, and gradual improvement. Immediately he grabs his mat. This is a sign of victory. He's going to leave this area of all the paralyzed and the lame and the blind and the disabled. He is now able to grab his mat, carry it and walk through the city of Jerusalem.
3. People would see him and some at least would recognize “there's somebody who has been lame and unable to walk for 38 years, yet he is walking.” It demonstrated his healing to all who saw him. The end of verse 9 records a forceful statement: It was the Sabbath!

II. The Conflict - Verse 10 reveals a conflict. “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.”” The Jewish leaders see this man carrying his mat on this Sabbath day of rest and they reproach him. “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

A. I suspect this is one reason we are told in the first verse that this was a feast day. When you read the Law of Moses, you'll find that these feast days had inherent within them, holy days, Sabbath days, days of rest. In Leviticus 23 starting in verse 2 you find “These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.” These feast days often prescribed various days as holy days, and hence were considered Sabbaths because of the holy day (cf. Leviticus 23). It’s a feast day and therefore it is a Sabbath rest and not necessarily the seventh day of the week.

1. The healed man responds in verse 11, “But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”” He says, I'm just doing what I was told to do. I've been healed and the one who healed me told me to do this.
2. Listen to what happens next. “They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?””
3. Think about this for a minute. Rather than rejoice with this man who has been disabled for 38 long years, they want to know who told him to break the Sabbath by carrying his bed! They do not see the sign that the great healer of the people has come. They only see their traditions being broken.

B. Verse 13, “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.” The healed man does not know who healed him. He did not know that the person he had been talking to was Jesus, and Jesus is not there at this moment. He has withdrawn and the crowds were forming around this man who had been healed.
C. We are at verse 14. Jesus finds this healed man in the temple. There is the man, most likely in the temple glorifying God for the healing he has received and participating in the feast day that he had not been able to enjoy previously. “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 first thing I observe, is Jesus indicates in this shocking statement, that something worse can happen!

III. Something worse can happen - Remember the question I asked you to hold in mind as we read? “What is the worst thing that could happen to you?” Stop for a moment and consider that. Picture the helplessness and hopelessness of this invalid. For 38 years he has been unable to walk and for a long time was left in this covered porch area in Jerusalem. Jesus says there is something worse that could happen to you.

A. We have a cliché of sorts that we say to one another when we are suffering. These are probably the least comforting words you can say to somebody at that moment. It is not a cliché we really like to hear, but based on Jesus’ words, the cliché is quite true. “It could always be worse.” Something worse could happen to us. As terrible as our suffering can be and as difficult as it can be to deal with the challenges we have in life, there is something worse… and that is eternal punishment.

1. For all that we may go through in this life, all the challenges that we face, all the suffering we may endure, and for all the times that we may question God and say I don't understand the injustice that I am dealing with or the great amount of pain I am enduring… there is the reminder that there is something far worse.
2. No matter how difficult things are, no matter how fierce the suffering is, and no matter how challenging our trials are—it is worth remaining faithful to God through those difficulties because there is something worse. It is worth maintaining our integrity as Mark taught last week.

B. It is worth maintaining our hope in God because if we do not, there is something far worse that awaits at the end, and that is the worst thing that can happen to us.
C. When I say there is something worse, I don’t mean, yes, things in this life could be worse, like “I could get hit by a bus”, which is the way we often use this cliché. There are horrible things in this world. There are horrible things that we experience. Things that will break us, crush our spirit, and seem to destroy us. There is something far, far worse than anything we can possibly experience in our bodies on this earth… Eternal punishment.

IV. Healed for holiness – I wondered, why the invalid was told to sin no more. He is to sin no more because he had been healed!

A. Let us have a visit with Isaiah for a bit, Isaiah 6. In this chapter Isaiah has a vision. In this vision Isaiah is in the throne room of God and sees the Lord sitting upon a throne with seraphim round about. Isaiah says in verse 5, “… “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”” We see Isaiah expressing his feeling of total ruin, of being undone before the holiness of God. Then we see one of the spiritual beings, the seraphim, fly to Isaiah with a coal from the altar, touching his lips, making him clean.

1. Next in verse 8 we see the Lord asking “Whom shall I send?” and that caused Isaiah, now healed from his sins, to volunteer for service. Immediately he says before God, “Here am I, send me”.
2. When we have been cleansed of our sins, forgiven, and see the gracious God we serve, it should move our hearts and compel us to service. It compels us to want to look to God and ask what can I do?

B. You have been healed for a purpose. You have not been healed to leave and go your own way. You have been healed to be holy. You have been healed to glorify God. You have been healed to go and sin no more. The life of holiness begins with seeing that we have been healed. This is the radical rebirth John has talked about.
C. Jesus has come to the world of spiritually disabled people and has healed you from your sins. In Isaiah we see the holiness of the Lord from the perspective of Isaiah. The seraphim are crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is filled with His glory.” God’s holiness and our healing are to lead us to service. Today we add to that thought, our healing will also lead us to changed living. We will seek pure lives because of the healing we have experienced. His healing is the catalyst for our turning our lives to Jesus. “See, you are well! Sin no more.”

V. The Meaning - Let’s step back as we conclude and consider why John chooses this miracle and what the sign is which we are supposed to learn. Why did Jesus pick this man among the multitude of disabled people? The text tells us that there was one man who had been in this condition for 38 years.

A. In John 3, we spent some time in verse 16, with the famous words that we all know so well, that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Two verses before there was the connection that just as Moses put the bronze serpent on the pole, so also the son of man must be lifted up. John 3 paints with the wilderness wandering as a backdrop.
B. Chapters 5-6 of John are set to that historical backdrop. Chapter 6 is about the bread from heaven that God gave in the wilderness. The time marker is the Passover, when God set the people free from Egyptian slavery and took them through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land.

1. Chapter 5 began by noting that this was a feast of the Jews. We do not know which one, but all of them centered upon being slaves in Egypt and the freedom God gave to them as they passed through the waters of the Red Sea and walked in the wilderness on the way.
2. In chapter 3 Jesus likened Himself as the bronze serpent on the pole which was erected in the wilderness because of the people’s sins, that all who look to Him would be healed.
3. Jesus selects a man who has been an invalid for 38 years. He is utterly helpless and utterly hopeless. Thirty-Eight does not sound significant but in terms of the wilderness wanderings, it is extraordinarily symbolic.

C. Turn with me now to Deuteronomy 2:14-15. Here Moses is talking about their journey, “And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from the camp, until they had perished.” [ESV]

1. You will remember the 12 that went out to reconnoiter the land. Ten of them reported “We can’t take the land”. The people of Israel listen to the 10. They rebel and try to stone Moses and Aaron. God intervenes and says, because you won't believe in Me and you will not trust Me, here's what's going to happen to you. You will all die in this wilderness.
2. We often hear of the 40 year wandering, but the 38 years spotlight a specific sub-interval between two landmarks (Kadesh-barnea and crossing the Brook Zered), while the full 40 years speak of the entire span of wandering.
3. The 38 years is the time frame of the death of the Israelite people, as God shows His displeasure with extremely wicked men by cutting their lives short. The hand of the Lord was against them for their sins. That is why they were in the wilderness. A journey that should have been relatively short turns into a 38 year death march because the people sinned. They are helpless and hopeless. There is no one who can help. There is no one to deliver these sinful people from their condition. They were completely lost because of their sins, their failure to obey God, and because of that they will not enter the Promised Land.

D. You probably notice John keeps pointing out water in his gospel. Every time he points it out, he's showing how that has been ineffectual water compared to the living water that Jesus offers. We saw it with John's baptism. Jesus is greater than that and brings something greater.

1. We saw it with the water turned to wine. Remember those Jewish ritual stone jars as Jesus takes that purification water and changes it. They're no longer going to be purifying themselves.
2. We saw with Jacob's well, remember what the woman asked? Are you greater than our father, Jacob? The well provided water that filled a reoccurring need, but the living water Jesus offered filled an eternal need.
3. Though this man wants to be healed, he simply cannot be healed. The pool water at Bethesda, like all the water seen in this gospel so far, is ineffectual, leaving the man paralyzed until Jesus comes to heal him. Jesus’ living waters of John 4 replace the water of John’s baptism (1:31-33), the ritual purifying waters (2:6), Jacob’s well (4:14), and now this popular healing pool.

E. Here is our Lord saying, I'm greater than these things. This is who you are. You are helpless and you are hopeless before your Lord. You don't have any way out. This is your spiritual condition. The parallel to Exodus is so powerful because Moses leads the people to take them to the Promised Land. Moses failed. The people sin, Moses sins, Moses does not enter. That generation does not enter. There is failure.

1. There is longing and looking for one who will not fail. Someone who will come and take the people who are helpless and hopeless and give them what they need. Here is Jesus coming and giving that hope. He can give that healing. He selects a person whose time there fits so well with the imagery of the nation itself.
2. The people, ever since the very beginning, have been helpless and hopeless before God. Lost, in rebellion and in need of somebody to come and heal. The history of the Old Testament reveals that one never came. That's why the New Testament repeatedly points to the fact that the Law of Moses shows you your sins. It does not show you your way out. It only shows you your problem. It does not give you the solution. It only reveals your sin, and shows how when you stand before God, you will come up short.
3. John tells us, God in the flesh has come. To use the words of John 1, God with us. God has now taken on flesh. God is now walking the streets of Jerusalem and He is going about bringing healing to the nation… healing to the people. He is the only one who can bring life to those in sin. Or to put it another way to what we saw in verse 14, He is the only one that can make sure that something worse does not happen to each of us. Hope and healing now walk into the scene and here is somebody who experiences it and is now called to live a life of holiness as he praises God in the flesh.

CONCLUSION: Where have you been turning for healing? We are in a world where people try to find hope and healing in all kinds of avenues and places... from books and television to vices and addictions, always trying to fill the void, always trying to find hope, always trying to deal with our need to be healed.

The Bible shows us that the yearning and waiting, the hopelessness and the helplessness, have all been pointing to one person. There is one person who can deal with all the hurt, with all the sins, and can give you what you are longing for. Jesus has come, and He is able to take away sins. He can say to you, go and sin no more so that nothing worse happens to you. He can remove the wrath. He can remove the punishment if you come to Him for healing.

If you will come and have your sins taken away… and then you follow Him and serve Him with all your heart, you will experience the radical life transformation that John has been painting in this gospel. You can be born again. You can be raised to new life, and there will be a whole new you in the kingdom of God. That is the calling that John wants us to hear and he wants us to see that the answer to that calling is only found in Jesus. Jesus is where our hope lies.

If you have not accepted Jesus and believed in Him and submitted your life to Him, that is your starting point—believe that Jesus is the son of God who came to this world and died for your sins. Be immersed in water to have your sins washed away to enter a relationship with Him so that you can know that you have eternal life.

If you've already begun there, don't stop. Do not think you can now put your life in neutral and you're good to go. Deepen the relationship. See Him as the treasure.
Recognize Him and honor Him for who He is. We invite you to come while we stand and while we sing.

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Reference Sermon: Brent Kercheville