Our Misplaced Hope - John 5:1-17 (04.19.2026)

We are continuing our gospel series or the sermon series through the gospel of John.

And if you haven't already, I invite you to open up your Bibles to John chapter five.

And today we're going to be looking at verses one through 17,

which recounts the healing at the pool, the pool of Bethesda.

And this is likely a story, a recount that many of us have heard before.

You probably heard a sermon preached about it, or maybe you read it for yourself.

But there's something in this passage that if you read past it too quickly,

if you brush it aside, you'll miss it entirely.

But if you slow down and actually sit with it, it may even unsettle you a little bit.

Because what we're going to see here is that Jesus walks into a crowd full of suffering people.

John tells us that there was a multitude of them, blind, lame, and paralyzed.

There are hundreds of people, most likely laying around this pool,

all of them waiting and all of them desperate to be healed.

And Jesus, the Son of God, the one by whom and through whom all things are made,

He walks in, He heals one man, and then He withdraws into the crowd.

He doesn't work His way through the crowd. He doesn't stop at every mat,

but he heals one man who didn't even ask to be healed, who had no apparent faith.

This man didn't even know who Jesus was.

And then Jesus withdraws into the crowd.

Now, if that does not raise a question in you, I invite you to let it.

Because the question, why this man?

Why only one? And what was Jesus actually doing here?

Is exactly what this passage is designed to answer.

And honestly, the answer may not be what you expect it to be.

Because the answer, it's bigger than a healing.

It's more urgent than a miracle. And if we're willing to slow down and follow

Jesus through this text, I believe it will reframe the way that we think about

sin and the way that we think about suffering.

And it will help us to understand what Jesus actually came into this world to do. So let's pray.

Lord, we praise you, God, that you are three in one.

Lord, that you have not deserted us, but Lord, that you came to us.

God, we thank you for allowing us to gather in your name this morning.

We know that it is not by accident that we are here in this room,

but by your sovereign grace.

So Lord, I ask that as we move through this text, that your spirit would speak to us.

Lord, give me words to say. Would help me to teach and preach this text faithfully.

Would help us to remove distractions from our hearts.

And Lord, we pray that all glory would be to you. We ask this in your name. Amen.

So to understand what Jesus is doing here in this text, I want us to kind of

back up a little bit before we jump into it and look at three observations that

I think will help us reframe what we're about to go through.

Because we see three observations in the first three verses of this text.

So I'm going to read those for us again one more time.

Verse one says, After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda,

which has five roofed colonnades.

In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed.

So the first observation we see here is simply that Jesus is back in Jerusalem.

If you've been with us the past couple of weeks, or if you remember John chapter

four, Jesus had been in Samaria, he had been in Galilee, and now he's back in Jerusalem for a feast.

And John doesn't tell us which feast, but like any faithful Jew.

Jesus is back in Jerusalem to observe it.

But what's interesting here is that John doesn't bring us to a scene in the temple courts.

He doesn't bring us to a scene as Jesus is entering the gates,

but he brings us to a pool called Bethesda.

And what we're going to see here is that Jesus is there with purpose and Jesus

is there with intentionality.

And the second observation, tying back into that, Jesus is at this pool.

And John tells us that it has five colonnades. And scholars actually believe

that this wasn't just one pool, it was two pools.

And on the outside of those two pools were four colonnades, and then there was

one down the middle dividing the two.

So I want you to picture that in your head. And I want you to imagine that under

each one of those colonnades, these porches, that there are bodies wall-to-wall

laying there, sick, blind,

lame, paralyzed people wanting to be healed.

Imagine that in your head. And now I want you to keep that image in there because

later when we get down to verse 13, I'm gonna tie that back in to what John

says there. So keep that image in your head, but tuck it away for now.

And then the third observation is a brief one, and I only want to cover this

because I don't want it to trip anybody.

If you're reading from any modern English translation, so ESV,

NIV, NASB, CSB, you'll notice that verse four is either missing or it might

be in brackets in your translation.

In fact, the only English, one of the only English translations that still retain

this verse is the original authorized King James Version.

And to understand why this is no longer in our modern translations,

we have to understand a little bit about how the Bible is translated and preserved.

Because this actual gospel that John wrote, that he penned, we don't have the

original paper that John wrote on.

But what we do have that have been discovered over thousands of years are New

Testament manuscripts. These are copies of John's gospel.

We actually have over 5,800 copies of the New Testament. that's more than any other ancient text.

So when translating into a new language, scholars compare all of these and then

they come into new languages and also our English translation.

And the oldest and most reliable manuscripts that have been found don't include verse 4.

And let's read verse 4. You may see it in your footnote, but I'll also read it aloud.

So verse 3 says, In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed.

And then verse 4 would have said, Waiting for the water, the moving of the water.

For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred

the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed

of whatever disease he had.

So the likely explanation for this verse is that a scribe at some point added

it in the margins of John's gospel.

So John was, the gospel of John was written to a non-Jewish audience.

So they would not have understood why people would be sitting around this pool

waiting for the water to be stirred.

So it's likely that someone added this, and then it made its way into older

or newer manuscripts, which the King James and some older translations were translated up.

So long story short for the people that care nothing about that.

Here's why this matters, and here's why this does not. This does not affect doctrine.

Verse 4 has nothing to do with the doctrine of this passage.

It doesn't change the point of the passage at all. But I wanted to say that

because I don't want you to be reading it and be like, okay, where's verse 4?

And then you don't hear anything else, I have to say. But what matters in this

passage is this man, this man sitting by this pool, is waiting for someone to help him in.

He believes that this pool is his only hope.

And this misplaced hope is the backdrop to which Jesus is about to act as we

move through this passage.

So after a very long introduction, let's actually jump into this.

The first thing I want us to look at as we move through this passage is the

character of Jesus, which we are going to break that down with verses five through nine.

So I'm going to read those for us again one more time, starting with verse five.

It says, one 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.

And while I'm going, another steps down before me.

And 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.

So the first thing we see here is that Jesus knows, verse six.

So when Jesus arrives at this pool, he doesn't scan the crowd generally.

He sees one man among the multitude.

And verse six tells us that he knew, he knew this man had been there a long

time. This passage even tells us that this man had been there for 38 years, 38 years.

And when Jesus got there, no one introduced this man to Jesus.

This man didn't offer Jesus his story.

Jesus simply knew. And this isn't a surface level awareness.

Jesus didn't just know a few facts about the stranger, but the word knew here

refers to Jesus's supernatural knowledge.

Jesus knew this man completely. He knew about his sufferings.

He knew about this man likely being paralyzed.

But Jesus also knew his entire history, all of his failures,

all of his fears, all the things this man had ever done in the dark that he

was never going to tell another living soul. Jesus knew it all.

And Jesus knew this man had been sitting here a long time, hoping and longing to be healed.

And friends, the same is true for us today. There may be some of us who feel

lost in the crowd among the hundreds of others.

But Jesus knows us the same exact way.

He knows everything we have ever done. He knows everything we will ever do.

He knows every thought we've ever had, every feeling we've ever had,

every action that we are most ashamed of, even the ones that we hope will follow us to the grave.

Jesus knows all of it, every last corner of us.

And honestly, as we think about that, it may frighten us a little.

It's kind of hard to comprehend how much Jesus knows about us.

But when we see what he does next, despite knowing all those things,

it should undo us entirely.

Because our precious Jesus, he doesn't turn away. He doesn't walk past this man.

He stops. He speaks. And he heals.

And this is the ground of our relationship with Christ.

Not that we have him figured out, not that we try to impress Jesus in any way,

but that he knows us entirely, more than we know ourselves.

And he comes to us anyway, comes to us anyway.

Which brings us to our next point that Jesus seeks. Keep looking at verse six.

So let's see again how Jesus ends up at this pool because Jesus doesn't stumble

here. It's not like he came across this place accidentally.

If you've been with us, remember a couple weeks ago when we were at the beginning,

John chapter four, with the story of the woman at the well, we see that Jesus

moves with intentionality.

With the woman at the well, Jesus went through Samaria, which is not the route

that many Jews at the time would have taken.

And it tells us that he went at the sixth hour at the middle of the day to the

well and waited for a woman. a woman who had been married five times and was

now living with a man who was not her husband.

This is a woman who would have been an outcast of her city, of her society.

And scripture tells us that Jesus went to her, intentionally went to her.

And this is who our Jesus is. He seeks people out.

He goes to them. He goes to where the broken are and he finds the one that nobody

else is looking for. Thank you.

Luke 19.10 tells us plainly that the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.

And that's not a metaphor.

That is a literal description of why Jesus became incarnate,

taking on flesh, came to this world, and died on the cross for our sins.

He came to seek and to save the lost.

So here in chapter 5, Jesus comes to Jerusalem.

He walks past everything else and he ends up at a pool full of sick people and

he finds one man, a man who had no one, no one to help him into the pool for who knows how long.

And Jesus goes up to him and he says, do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed?

In Hebrews 4.15, the author of Hebrews calls Jesus our sympathetic high priest.

One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

And this word tempted in Hebrews 4.15 also means tested, meaning Jesus sympathizes

with our tests and our trials.

And friends, Jesus is one who is genuinely touched by our weakness.

He doesn't look down at our sufferings from a distance, but he moves and he intervenes.

And that's what Jesus did for this man.

He sought him out and he asked him, do you want to be healed?

And the man's answers in verse seven are pretty telling. Look at verse seven.

So when Jesus asks him this, he doesn't say yes.

He doesn't ask who Jesus is. He just explains why he cannot get into the pool

in time when the water is stirred.

What we see about this man is that his eyes are completely and utterly fixed on this pool.

He thought this pool was his only hope.

His only hope had a name and it was Bethesda. It was this pool.

And Jesus comes up to this man and this man has no idea who Jesus is.

There's no expressed faith here.

There's no recognition. There's

no reaching out. This man is just hoping that someone will help him.

And what we find in this passage is that Jesus has compassion on him.

Jesus is moved by this man's misery. Not because this man earned it,

but because this is the type of savior that Jesus is.

But also, if we keep going, we'll notice that Jesus's remedy was not what this

man expected or many of us would expect because this man was not helped into the pool.

Jesus didn't lift him up and walk him down in the water.

Jesus looked at him and he said, forget the pool and get up.

Which brings us to our third observation is that Jesus heals with sovereign power.

Look at verse eight again. There's three commands here. Jesus says,

get up, take up your bed and walk.

That's it. There's no formal ceremony here. There's no process.

There's no gradual improvement.

Jesus speaks and a man who has not walked in 38 years stands up and walks.

And John tells us that it happened immediately. Look at verse nine.

It says, and at once the man was healed.

Think about that for a second. Think about what that means physically.

Because these are muscles that have not been used in nearly four decades.

Joints that have not borne weight in all of this time. And yet scripture tells

us that there's no stumbling.

There's no physical therapy. This man doesn't take months and months or years

to learn how to walk again.

His body was made whole.

The word of Jesus was sufficient.

Completely and utterly, instantly sufficient.

Jesus required no assistance from anyone else. Friends, that is the God that we serve.

He speaks and someone is healed.

We see the same pattern in the later half of John chapter four.

If you were with us last week, looking at the healing, the official son,

Jesus is on his way to Galilee.

This official comes out to him, asking him to come heal his son.

And Jesus says, your son will live.

And the man on his way back home, his servants come out to meet him and tell

him that his son has improved.

And when he asked him what hour that this happened, it matched exactly the same

precise moment that Jesus said, your son will live. That's no coincidence.

It's an example of Jesus's sovereign power.

So here back in this passage, we meet a man who is desperate,

desperate to get into the pool.

And Jesus knew how much this man desired it because Jesus knew this man completely.

So Jesus sought him out. He had compassion on him.

He sovereignly healed him in the most miraculous way.

But also Jesus bypassed the very thing this man was trusting in to heal him.

And that's significant because Jesus didn't come to help this man get into the pool.

He came to replace that pool entirely.

Moving on into verse 9, we see something else that happens right after this.

It's the conflict that Jesus intentionally walks into.

Look at verse 9. It may not be this way in your Bible, but verse 9 is kind of broken up.

The second half of verse 9 is actually the start of a new paragraph in my Bible.

It may not be the same for you.

But it almost seems a little bit attached when you first look at it,

but it's anything but that. Because the second half of verse 9,

well, let's look at verse 9 altogether.

Verse 9 says, and at once the man was healed and he took up his bed and walked.

And then it says, now that day was the Sabbath.

And if you've read the gospels before, perhaps you've even read this passage

before, we know that the Jews do not like Jesus healing on the Sabbath.

There's a lot of conflict that arises from that.

So when we see this, when John says, now that day was the Sabbath,

we're like, man, Jesus, what are you doing here?

Like, you know, this is going to cause an issue.

But what we see as we move into this is that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing.

He knew it before he even arrived at the pool.

In fact, we see that Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath on purpose.

It wasn't carelessly. It wasn't in spite of the conflict it would cause,

but Jesus did it precisely because of it.

Because what Jesus is doing here is he's beginning to force a confrontation

that would require people, and

especially these Jews, to reckon with who he is and what he came to do.

And sure enough, that's exactly what happens.

Verse 10, these religious leaders, they see this man carrying his mat,

and they immediately go up to him and tell him, that is not lawful. Look at verse 10.

It says, so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, it is Sabbath and

it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.

And the man in verse 11 says, but he answered them, the man who healed me,

that man said to me, take up your bed and walk.

And in verse 12, their response, and this verse 12, I think is actually one

of the most revealing parts of this passage. Look at verse 12.

They asked him, who is this man who said to you, take up your bed and walk?

Notice what they don't say here. They don't say, whoa, whoa,

whoa, you've been healed?

That's incredible. Who was this man? They don't say that.

They don't say after 38 years, who gave you your quality of life back?

None of that. They go immediately to the Sabbath violation.

They were so focused on the law, on their, what I would claim their extra biblical

set of rules that they added to it, so focused on these things that they missed God entirely.

They missed Jesus who was acting right in front of them.

The law that they trusted in, these extra rules that they added to it,

became the very thing they were trusting in for righteousness.

They were not looking to the God of the law, the one who created it.

Their hope was set and their religious observance, and their gatekeeping of it.

They were guardians of a system that they turned into an end of itself,

so much so that they missed this miracle.

They missed Jesus.

And in verse 13, the man goes on to tell him that he doesn't know who this man

was that healed him. Look at verse 13.

It says, 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.".

Go back to what I said at the beginning, that image from verse three.

All these colonies, all the people around this pool surrounded hundreds of people,

more than likely sick people crowded around.

So Jesus heals this man and then he withdraws into them.

This crowd, all these people, sick people laying around becomes the cover that Jesus disappears into.

And the reason he does that is because he's not finished yet.

Because as we keep moving on in verses 14 and 15, we see the pursuit that reveals the purpose.

So Jesus heals this man. There's this confrontation with the Jews.

Jesus withdrew into the crowd.

And then we come to verse 14 and some time passes. We don't know how much time.

I wouldn't imagine long, maybe a couple of hours, maybe a day, we're not sure.

But verse 14 says, afterward, Jesus found him in the temple.

So Jesus goes to find this man again.

And I want you to notice that the second finding is just as intentional as the first.

Because Jesus didn't heal this man at the pool and consider his work finished.

And I believe that right here, we arrive at the heart of this entire passage.

Because what Jesus says to this man in the temple is exactly what Jesus was there to do all along.

Because Jesus had no intention of healing this man and leaving him with a meaningless

health, a mere healed body prepared to burn in hell.

Because Jesus says to him in verse

14, see you are well, sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you.

Nothing worse than 38 years of paralysis. Thank you.

Let that sit there for a second, because what Jesus is warning this man about is not a relapse.

It's not more paralysis. He's not warning him about a pulled muscle.

Jesus is talking about something so much worse than nearly four decades of suffering

and helplessness that it doesn't even compare,

because what Jesus is warning this man about right here is eternal judgment,

and he means for this man to understand that clearly.

And I believe us too, because Jesus goes up to him and he doesn't ask him how he's feeling.

He goes straight to this sin, no more.

Because Jesus knew this man's real and ultimate issue was never his paralysis.

This man's real need was never to get into the pool, no matter how much he hoped in it.

The real threat to this man was his sin.

Next week, we're going to keep going through John chapter five,

and we're going to make our way down, or Ben will be preaching then,

not me, make his way down to verses 28 to 29, I believe.

And that is the aftermath of Jesus's healing on the Sabbath.

This is kind of like the dialogue and the rest of the story that follows.

And when we get down to verses 28 and 29 of chapter five, Jesus began speaking

of the resurrection day and the day of judgment, a day when all,

all people will stand before him and give an account.

Look at verses 28 and 29 of chapter 5.

28. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs

will hear his voice and come out.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done

evil to the resurrection of judgment.

This right here, this is the backdrop to the warning that Jesus gives this man to sin no more.

Because the consequence is an

eternity. We see here in this passage that Jesus healed this man freely.

It wasn't deserved. It wasn't earned. It wasn't asked for.

But now Jesus is telling him to live in light of what just happened to you.

Jesus is telling him, know who I am and turn Learn from your sin because judgment is coming.

Jesus is more concerned with this man's holiness and the condition of his soul

than he ever was his healed body.

Now, he was concerned about his healed body. Jesus granted him this miracle.

We don't want to skip over that.

But Jesus is more concerned with this man's soul.

And he says, Sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you.

And I want to be clear about what this is and what this is not.

Because Jesus is not demanding perfection from this man.

I think we can all attest to the fact that everyone needs to come before God daily in repentance.

We see that in the Lord's Prayer when Jesus himself tells us to ask for forgiveness

as a regular rhythm of life.

What we see here is that there's a difference between a daily need of grace

when we go before the Lord in repentance. There's a difference between that

and a life that simply continues unchanged after an encounter with Jesus.

We see a gospel pattern right here in this passage. Jesus gives a gift that

is entirely undeserved.

And then he calls the recipient to live a life worthy of it,

not to earn it, but calls him to live a life worthy of it because the gift itself changes everything.

And friends, that's the story of our salvation.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins, taking on the punishment we deserved.

And in return, he gives us the free gift of righteousness and forgiveness.

And we're called to live our lives in response to that. We're not called to

try and earn our salvation.

We're not called to try and prove ourselves, but with the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit and the help of the Holy Spirit,

we are to live lives of holiness and obedience to God in response to the love

and the grace that he shows us every day, every day.

But here's what this passage will not let us escape.

Everyone in this story has a misplaced hope. The man, he hoped in the pool.

The Jews, they hope and trusted in their self-righteousness.

And if we're honest, every single one of us in this room, we have often find

ourselves with our hope resting in something other than Jesus.

And that's not an accusation. It's a diagnosis because that is the fallen condition that we all share.

Whether you like it or not, or whether you want to believe it,

we are all prone to put our hope in something other than Jesus. Jesus.

Let me ask you directly, what is your pull? What is your self-righteousness?

What is the thing that you are placing your hope in rather than Christ?

For some of you, it may be your health. It may be a relationship.

It may be longing for a prodigal child to return home.

For others, it's financial stability. It's wanting another job.

Maybe it's the sense that if just this one thing in my life changed,

everything else would be better.

And for many of you, I mean, those things may not be bad desires.

The man we see in this passage this morning was not wrong for desiring to be

healed, for wanting to walk again.

But when the thing that we are waiting on becomes the thing that we are placing

our hope in, that's when it becomes an issue.

We are turning other things into a God.

But the good news is that Jesus doesn't leave us there.

We see very clearly what Jesus does with misplaced hope in this passage.

He doesn't shame it. He doesn't ridicule it.

But he walks straight into it and replaces it with himself.

For the Jews, Jesus came to fulfill the very law they were trusting in to save them.

He died on the cross for their sins, leaving a sinless life,

fulfilling every ounce of the law.

For the man at the pool, Jesus didn't help him into the pool.

He made that pool irrelevant.

And he finds him again in the temple intentionally, not to celebrate the miracle,

but to complete the work.

He tells him sin no more.

He says, stop going back to the pool.

Jesus says, I am what you were always looking for.

Want to say this next part very, very carefully. Cancer is real.

Depression is real. Paralysis is real. Our sufferings are real.

I don't want to minimize that.

Because Jesus has genuine compassion and sympathy for every single person carrying

those things. We see that clearly right here in this text.

And we're to take those things to God. We're to ask for healing.

We're to intervene for each other. We're to mourn with those who mourn and care for the sick.

And miracles still exist today. Those aren't irrelevant. Jesus,

God is still working in miraculous, supernatural ways today.

But what we see here in this passage is that sin and its consequences are incomparably worse.

Because the consequence for sin is not 38 years. It is an eternity. An eternity.

Every healing we see in the gospels and the New Testament, even the miracles

that we see today are pointing beyond themselves.

Every miracle is a foretaste of the age to come.

An age when every tear will be wiped away, when every broken body will be made new.

And for those who have placed their trust in Jesus, that day is certain.

And I promise you that it will make every hard year in this body look like a

brief shadow compared to the

glory that follows because it doesn't even compare. That day is coming.

This is the invitation for every person in this room.

Don't just add Jesus to a list of things that you're hoping in,

but let him replace that list entirely.

Fight sin in his power, not through gritted teeth and willpower,

but fight sin through the same power that told a paralyzed man to get up, and he did.

Fight sin through the power that walked out of a tomb.

After being dead for three days, defeating sin and death for all of humanity.

That power is available to you.

And I promise you, wholeness is coming.

Full, final, unimaginable wholeness is coming. That day will come, I promise.

And it's not secured by how well you have done.

It is secured by Jesus's finished work on the cross.

And if you are here this morning, and you have never called out to him for salvation. Today is that day.

He's not waiting for you to get it all together, to get your hopes in the right

place. He's there for you right now.

Jesus walked up to a man whose eyes were so fixed on a pole he didn't even know who Jesus was.

And Jesus healed him anyway.

That's who our savior is. And that's exactly what he offers each of us today.

Place your hope in Jesus. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you that you do not leave us in our sin with our misplaced hopes.

God, we thank you that you have intervened, that you took on flesh and blood,

becoming incarnate, taking on man.

Lord, you came and walked this

earth and died on the cross, taking on all the sin of humanity for us.

You do not leave us in our brokenness.

God, we thank you for that.

Lord, I ask that we would place our hope in you.

God, help us to identify areas of our life that we are looking to for hope and fulfillment.

And Lord, show us how those things are always going to come up short.

Lord, renew a right spirit within us. Help us to see you.

Help us not to become distracted by any self-righteousness or anything that is not lasting.

And Lord, we thank you that there is an age to come when everything will be

made whole. and we will be with you.

And Lord, the sufferings of this lifetime will not even compare to the glory that is there.

Lord, help us to set our mind on the things above and help us to live for you.

Lord, help us to bring you glory so that your name will go forth to all the

nations and Lord, to all the ends of the earth. And we ask this in your name, amen.