Week 3 – Andy Hazelet – March 8, 2020
Main Scripture: John 5:1-15
Big Question: What are the three roles in the miracle?
1Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” 7“I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”8Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” 9Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” 11But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 12“Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded. 13The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. (NLT)
- The Healer.
Vs. 3-4: In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; 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.] (NASB)
“The fourth verse of this chapter is not in the better manuscripts. To say this, does not mean that I don’t believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. But I do think we should heed scholarship—fundamental, conservative scholarship which suggests that because it is not in the better manuscripts, it was put in by a scribe as a word of explanation. I believe it is factual and helps me understand why this crowd of impotent folk were here. But whether it belongs in Scripture or not is not worth an argument.” (Dr. J Vernon McGee)
“God won’t answer 100 percent of the prayers you don’t pray. If you assume the answer is no, you don’t even give God a chance to say yes. You cannot answer your own prayers. But if you fail to ask God, He cannot answer them either!” (Mark Batterson)
- The Healed. There is SO much we can learn from the lame man that was healed by Jesus on that day, let’s look at three specific things.
a. Healing involves movement.
John 5:6 – “When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” (NLT)
“Do you want to get well?” This question gets to some deep-seated issues. For the invalid, getting well meant getting a job. It meant actually using his healed legs. It meant a new level of responsibility to society. Like every blessing from God, it comes with the burden of responsibility to steward it.” (Mark Batterson)
b. Healing requires a different approach.
Vs. 7 – “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” (NLT)
c. Healing results in a different life.
John 5:14 – But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” (NLT)
- The Haters.
John 5:9b-10 – “But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” (NLT)
“He deliberately challenged the legalistic traditions of the scribes and Pharisees. They had taken the Sabbath—God’s gift to man—and had transformed it into a prison house of regulations and restrictions.” (Warren Weirsbe)
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