John: Healed of the Addiction of Trying to Get Ourselves Healed

So this morning we're gonna look at two different stories.

And so we're gonna look at m first story and we're gonna look at the second story and then we're gonna connect them and see how how they're relating and then what this has to do with our lives.

So the the first story is the story at the end of John chapter four.

It's a story about this royal official son.

So the royal official sun, they're in Camperum, which is about twenty-four miles down from Cana, and it's by the Sea of Galilee.

So if you could picture a big lake, basically, and Campernum's down there, and so he's down there.

This would have been a guy of resources, would have been a guy well connected, and so he's down there and his son is ill.

And so we don't know a lot about the situation.

I mean, perhaps we would want to kind of like naturally think that he's a super engaged father and he's very concerned, he's been there along the way, and every step of the way he's been loving his kid, and he's just been weeping over this, and then he goes to Jesus.

But it's possible also that maybe he's a a busy father, maybe he's a father preoccupied with his position and his job, and maybe somewhat in denial that his son is ill and eventually maybe recognizes this, and then either way, right?

You know, and it wherever we got on the spectrum, this man, either way, he gets to a point where he realizes the resources we have here are not enough.

You know, the the the doctors we know, the people we know, all the connections I have, none of this is enough.

And he hears Jesus and he remembers Jesus because Jesus performed.

If you remember a couple months ago, we talked about the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine, and he knows that story from 24 miles away, and he remembers that story, and then he hears Jesus is back in town, he's in the area.

And so he decides to go to Cana.

Probably gets on a horse and probably runs full speed.

But can he can you even imagine this moment of leaving your kid?

I mean, this moment that you're sad enough that you're I mean your child's ill, he's dying, and you're going through that, and then you have to leave him to go somewhere else, knowing he might die while I'm gone, and I might not be there for that last moment, that last breath, that final goodbye.

I might not be there.

But he's at the end of himself, this man.

And so we get verses 49 and verses 50.

He gets up to Jesus, he gets to Cana, he gets there, he's at the end of himself, and he says in verse 49, Sir, come down before my child dies.

Right?

And so what he's thinking is, I need to get Jesus to my kid.

And here's the kind of turn or the twist that we don't see coming.

And Jesus says, Well, you may go, your son will live.

This is the moment where I'm going, okay, but let me go ahead and just bring you with me, just in case, because it's my son we're talking about here.

And so I understand that you're saying he'll live, but you know, what I've seen with miracles is the guy's there.

I haven't seen any of this other business.

Let's, why don't you just 24 miles, I'll let you ride the horse, you come on.

But he doesn't do that.

He he he says the man took Jesus at his word and he departed.

Imagine the faith for that.

I'm reading this this morning for who knows the umpteenth time this this week, and uh and it hits me.

This man's son gets healed, but how many sons don't get healed?

Right?

I mean I'm big into reality.

You know, I like reality, it drives Christie crazy.

Um how many how many children aren't healed?

How many people aren't healed?

I mean healing's great.

I mean, I mean Jesus uses the healing to create belief.

It's great.

He's using the healing to create in the context and for history that he is deity, he's God.

A friend of mine, I became friends with Jim Ryman.

Some of you know him.

He came, he taught Bible study uh over the summer for us on Sunday morning.

He came a couple times.

He was the writer of My Utmost for His Highest.

He did the revised versions of those and Streams in the Desert.

A lot of you probably have his books, you don't even realize it.

He was a CEO of Family Christian Bookstores, president of the CBA Christian Booksellers Association, brilliant man, writer, editor, Bible teacher.

Any question you have, you could present to him, and he's going to go at length, ready.

He's ready for that question.

You don't have to go study.

You ask me a question, give me two weeks.

I'll get back with you, ask him a question, he can talk for two weeks, just starting right then.

And me and him, we became very good friends.

We were at the same church together, we became good friends, and we both love theology, we both love books, we both love Georgia football.

I think we were similar speed.

Um we, you know, we like to work hard, but we both value a good nap.

You know, I mean we were just like say, we like to read, but we like to watch TV.

We were we were very similar in our just our speed.

And we would meet together constantly.

One of the smartest, smartest men I know.

Um he was so generous to me.

Uh he would, I he I I could send him my writing and he would edit it, and he introduced me to my my literary agent that I published my book with, and and then I didn't like my editor, the publisher I had, and and Jim stayed up all night and edited my manuscript.

I mean, for just just because he loved me.

I mean, just because he cared.

He took me to Israel and we walked around these biblical sites and just asked question after question after question, and he would just take the time.

I mean, he even helped form this church in some regard as we sat around the Robinson's table, and him and his wife came and helped us talk through theology and helped us do some formation stuff, and he was a part of that process.

In October of this year, he started to get more and more confused.

He's getting confusion, and they didn't know what that was about.

And then a few weeks later, they get some tests and declines beginning and waiting for test results, and it ends up a week ago, they find out he has CJD, which is a degenerative brain disease that leads to dementia and death rapidly.

And uh, no cure, just paid meds.

And yesterday, day before yesterday, day before yesterday, find out they brought a hospice bed in, and um, it's just it's not looking good.

And you go, here's a guy who the next project for him, you know, as we sit and have lunch, and you know, what's up, what's going on, what's next for you?

You know, you you know, that's what we would talk about, what's on the horizon?

And what's what's next?

And he's like, I I want to revise, I want to revise Bonhoeffer's cost of discipleship.

I got a publisher, it'd be great.

I mean, this would be a book that could be a kingdom, but I mean I mean, there's so much work left for him that would be so valuable to the kingdom, and and then he's sick, and then you go, this would be a good moment for some healing.

You know, I mean, there's people praying for him, literally around the world that have read his books.

This would be a good healing moment.

And people would find out about it, create such belief.

I mean, we're still hoping for healing, but he's getting sicker and sicker.

And what Jim would say is he would say, What I read in Habakkuk at the beginning of the service, even if the fig tree does not bud, we glorify and rejoice in the Lord.

He is sovereign and he is good in all things.

And here's what we see with Jesus as he heals some and very clearly walks by others, is we see that he is on a bigger mission than physical healings.

He will use physical healing to create belief and glory.

And he will use sickness to create belief and glory.

So this nobleman comes up to Jesus, and for him, fortunately, this is a healing moment.

But he doesn't do things the way that he wants.

He says, you know, I won't come with you, I'm not gonna go with you.

But he's healed, you can go.

And imagine the faith to turn away from the man you know if you just take him.

I'll take you with me, and that it would guaranteed, you know.

And he has it's a faith.

Faith is this combination of thinking and trusting.

This is the guy who understands Jesus is enough to heal my son.

He gets it.

He's thinking it, he knows it, he knows of the other miracle, he knows this.

But there's this moment where Jesus sends him on his way, and there has to be this moment of trusting.

And some people might say, you know, when it comes to faith, you know, faith is a crutch.

I'm fine.

Faith is actually for people who aren't real intelligent.

You know, faith is for people who are needy.

And the reality is everybody has faith.

We're all pulling meaning from somewhere.

We're all pulling redemption from somewhere.

This sense of needing deliverance from our inadequacy or shame.

We're all pulling that from somewhere.

Faith is faith is every human being has faith.

And it's thinking and it's trusting.

So five years ago, uh, five-year anniversary, Christy and I, we decided to take a trip, and so we go to Costa Rica.

And I'd read a lot.

I'm a researcher, maybe a little paranoid about that, maybe get into it too much.

And so I research and I read and I check everything out.

I want to make the best decision possible.

And so I'm reading and everything, and I'm getting our route down.

We're gonna fly, we're gonna drive into the volcano, and then I'm reading about this.

We're at the volcano, which is Arnold volcano, we're at the foot of the volcano, and it dawns on me about the first night when Christy wakes me up and says, you know, the volcano, it's it's spewing, it's overflowing, and it dawns on me, is vacationing at the foot of an active volcano a wise decision?

This is the moment.

It's beautiful, but is this great?

I'm not quite sure.

We made it out of there, and so we get in our car and we're driving to the cloud forest.

It's a three-hour drive, and we I'd read about this drive of the bumpiness of the ride.

It was a three-hour core workout, is what it was the whole time.

You're exhausted when you got there.

And so at the cloud forest, the thing to do is these zip lines.

And I had I had worked on ropes course in college, and in college in my younger days, I was much braver than I am now, become much more cautious.

Um, but back then I would jump off anything and nothing scared me.

And so, but this is five years ago, so I've kind of moved out of that.

And so we're doing these zip lines, and and we got the best, the best place was a research, the best place to do zip lining, the longest highest zip line, one of the longest highest in the world.

And so, first we go through all the safety stuff and the harnesses, and and I've done this.

So I'm I'm watching, I'm checking, I'm double checking, I'm triple checking, I'm checking, I'm checking everything, I'm checking the employees, making sure that you know they haven't didn't drink last night, checking their breath, checking blood tests.

You know, I want to make sure everything's good.

And so there's maybe 15 zips or so, and so you know, cables, and so you know, the first one, I'm I'm just checking stuff out.

I'm in a foreign country.

I don't know, is there I don't know their insurance rules, I don't know if can we sue them if something screws up.

I don't know.

So I don't know how motivated they are to make this as safe as possible.

And so we're going through zip after zip after zip, and they're all like relatively, you're figuring them off a fall, maybe I break a leg, I'll live, I'll live, you know, you're going zip by zip, but you're getting a little more confidence in this harness and this contraption, the wheelie, and you can clip to it and a rope in your back, and there's a clip up here for safety.

So and you're watching the guy clip you in every time, and you're you're watching.

I'm watching, I don't know.

I guess some people don't watch.

I'm watching to make sure he's done how many times does he do this a day, right?

And you're thinking, well, maybe he messes up once.

I just don't want to be the mess up.

I'm watching this.

We get to the final zip, it's a six-tenths of a mile across, it's from ridge to ridge over a valley, hundreds of feet over the top of the trees.

And Christy and I decided to do tandem on that one.

Then Christy's having a blast, and I start to get pretty uptight about it.

I I don't, you know, I'm looking down and I don't know this guy that's clipping me in and what he was doing last night, and thinking through all of this, and there's this moment, right, that you're on the edge of the platform, and what I'm thinking is I'm thinking every other cable has been safe.

This harness has been safe.

This company is very motivated to make sure nothing bad happens.

People have gone in front of me.

A lot of people, I've I've watched them.

Right?

So I'm thinking all of this.

And still there's this moment where there has to be a shift in the center of gravity of my being from that platform down into that harness and then out.

And then we start zipping out and we get out of the woods and we get out over the open.

And I notice, and this is very kind of common, is you're out in the open, you're fully reliant on the harness, the cable, and I'm holding on.

Like this is gonna do something if the cable snaps, right?

I mean, this is the human condition.

Right here.

And it's pointless, right?

I mean, you might as well just open up and enjoy the ride.

But this is the this is the human condition.

Clutching to a harness of self-effort, whether it's by religion and religious effort, or whether it's by irreligion and pleasure and accomplishments, but clutching to it, even though it's not really gonna deliver you.

To become righteous enough or adequate enough or fulfilled enough.

So with faith, this moment thinking, I get it, thinking, I'll keep thinking, I'm not gonna stop thinking, but then also trusting at some point a shift in the center of gravity of your being into all this thinking about who God is and who Jesus is and what he did for me and how he's my righteousness and my forgiveness.

And then I shift from, okay, I'm no longer gonna form all that on my own and try to prove myself to the world and to God, but I will actually shift the center of my being into Jesus and what he did for me.

And have faith there.

And the human human dilemma and tendency, even when you're a Christian, is to shift into that and then just keep holding on to your harness.

Right?

And to keep going, okay, well, Jesus is enough, but I'll also kind of keep doing this and think this is gonna make myself acceptable to God.

And really, no, it's just it's really just Jesus.

It's complete faith in him.

And you sit into him.

So back to John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Jesus sends this man back, 24 miles back home, and eventually he actually gets news coming back toward him that the son is well, and he finds out, he figures it out, calculates the time, and belief is created.

All right, second story.

This invalid, this lame man at the pool in John chapter 5, verses 1 through 15.

John 5:1–15

So Jesus goes back to Jerusalem and sees this like heart-wrenching scene of diseased people and deformed and disabled people, and there's dozens of them around the pool of Bethesda, and the belief is, and we don't quite know if this is actually occurring or not, but the belief is when the waters stir, some people think the water stirred because water was getting piped in, and others people think that maybe there's something extra was happening.

Anyways, when the waters stir, if you get in first, you know, not second, if you get in first, if you're good enough, uh, you'll be healed.

So all these people are around there, and I don't, I don't know, I'm cynical by nature, I'm not quite sure if that was actually occurring.

And so I'm thinking if it worked, you'd just set a system up and make sure everybody gets in eventually, is what I'm thinking.

I don't know if you'd be on board with that.

I would be like, I, well, we only have dozens of us here.

Let's just set up a system, we'll eventually all be healed.

You know, so I'm thinking maybe it doesn't work.

Not positive.

What I'm thinking, you can believe what you want to believe about the stirring waters, but here's what's clear: this guy ain't making it in first.

And people are there, he's been there 38 years.

I've been alive 34 years.

I was just backtracking this week through my whole life, all the things I've done, learned, seen, been, places been to, how many places I've traveled to, houses I've lived in, 34, I got four more years.

He's been there.

Thirty-eight years.

And imagine that despair every time you get beat.

And again and again and again and again.

And this is absurd.

Isn't this absurd?

An invalid trying to win a race into a pool of water?

And here's the point the sermon doesn't get any better than these next two sentences, so I'm gonna read each of them two times.

This is as good as it gets today.

The very thing he wants to be healed from is the thing that stops him from being healed.

See, the very thing he wants to be healed from is the thing that's stopping him from being healed.

Okay, here's what it means for us.

Our addiction to make ourselves well on our own is the very thing we need to be made well of.

Our addiction to make ourselves well on our own is the very thing we need to be made well of.

That's what sin is.

It's our addiction to try to make ourselves well, make ourselves adequate, make ourselves fulfilled by what we do.

This is the connect between the first story and the second story.

In the first story, we see the man come to the end of himself, and it's the beginning of life.

And in the second story, we see our addiction to make ourselves well or refuse to come to the end of ourselves is the very thing that we need to be well of in order to find life.

So Jesus asks this guy, this 38 years by the pool, do you want to get well?

Verse 6, do you want to get well?

This word get means to be made or receive or become.

And in verse 7, he says, Yes, I want to be made well.

I can't get in.

I have no one to help me in.

I can't get in in time.

You know, I'm trying to go down, and then Mike or Susan, they've only been here 12 years.

I mean, he just got here and they got in right away.

And what we see in this man and what we see in us is that there's a big difference between a desire to be well, a desire to be well, and a desire to be made well.

See, a desire to be well means I just I want to be satisfied, I want to be fulfilled, I want to be self-actualized, I want to feel adequate.

But a desire to be made well is totally different.

This means you have died to yourself, you have humbled yourself, you recognize that you need outside help.

You need God's grace.

And this being made well means our resources, we are at our end.

This will be the hardest thing you'll do in your life.

Is this giving up of trying to make yourself well with other stuff.

See, when we say it's all about Jesus, or we're singing it's all about Jesus, this is what we're talking about.

It's shifting the center of gravity of your being into him, of what's been done for you.

Verses 9 through 13 of this story.

At once the man, he was, he was, he was healed.

Imagine how joyful he would have been.

He picked up his mat, Jesus told him.

He picked up his mat and he walked.

The day on which this took place was the Sabbath.

And so the Jews said to the man, Who had been healed, it's the Sabbath.

The law forbids you to carry your mat.

What are you doing?

You're breaking the law.

Yeah, who cares you were healed?

You're carrying a mat.

That's what mattered to them.

But he replied, the man who made me well said to me, Pick up your mat and walk.

And so they asked him, Who's this fellow who told you to pick up and walk?

Isn't that interesting?

I would have stopped and said, been like, Oh, you were what?

What happened?

And what was your condition before?

It's amazing.

I'm so happy for you.

Now the first thought was, protect the rule, protect the law.

Who's the guy?

Who's the guy who told you to pick up your mat and walk?

Because we're going to protect this thing.

We're going to protect the law.

Protect the rule.

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus has slipped away into the crowd.

And here's this great this story gets more and more interesting because here what happens here is we see that here's a group of people who are trying to save themselves by law and by rules.

And protect the rules and obey the rules and do enough of it.

You know, the idea of outside healing and receiving of grace from outside.

This idea, they're not too concerned about this, but control and protect the law.

They weren't looking to God as their treasure at this point.

These Jews had over time, out of an origination of protecting the Sabbath and respect and reverence for God, created all these rules.

Here's how we will do this.

And then over time became just less about the God of the Sabbath and just about the rules of the Sabbath, and became all about the rules and looked to the rules for their validation as they performed them.

And so, in some sort, faith back into themselves versus into God.

Story gets more interesting.

Verses 14 and 15.

Later, Jesus found him, the guy, the invalid who was healed, found him at the temple and said to him.

See, you are well again.

Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well.

So I dug into this verse, this verse 14, because quite frankly, I'd never done that before, and I find it kind of interesting.

I didn't quite know what he was meaning.

Like, okay, if I keep sinning, something bad is going to happen to me, and is that true?

And what's that mean?

Here's what this means.

It means that the man had been healed and yet he was still not a person of faith in Jesus.

So in a way he had been healed, but in a way, and he's at the temple, so maybe he just became religious.

It's possible.

So in a way he had been healed and yet he was still dead.

Meaning, if you keep sinning, and when we say that, we tend to think, oh, he's sleeping with women or getting drunk.

No, no, no.

I mean, that is sin.

But if you keep sinning, if you keep trying to save yourself in your own addiction to make yourself well, something worse will happen to you.

Meaning you will have forever separation from the very God who's trying to save you from your addiction of you trying to make yourself well.

Stop.

Die to it.

Have faith.

So he was healed, but probably he wasn't alive in faith.

Let me try to connect these two stories a little bit more.

I have a friend who lives down in Atlanta.

He's about 64 years old.

Let's just call him Fred.

He's physically disabled.

He feels he has done everything right in his life.

And he probably has.

He's been successful.

He's been very moral, faithful to his wife, attends church, serves, tithes.

And because of this, he feels entitled to something from God.

And the fact that he is getting older and he's not as rich as he thought he would be, and he's physically disabled and it's getting worse.

The problem here is not his body.

The problem is his addiction to saving himself with his merit.

And he's been doing it by religion.

If I do enough for God, he should make my life good.

And what happens when your physical condition continues or worsens?

And what happens when you don't make as much money as you thought you would?

And you've been tithing.

See, what this creates, this idea of living life by merit, what it creates is disillusionment because this is not how God works.

It's not how the world works.

You can live by merit all you want and still not get a reward from God.

We don't save ourselves by merit.

This idea, if I do good enough, then God will.

If I do good enough, then life will give me.

If I do good enough, then I will feel.

This is the curse of wealth.

It's the curse of having wealth of intelligence or resources.

We start to think that perhaps we can do this.

When really reward, life, contentment, joy, salvation, isn't it the end of ourselves?

Is it the end of irreligion?

Is it the end of those pursuits of pleasure that aren't even morally good?

Is it the end of religion, of moral, merit-based living that say, if I'm moral enough, I'm merit enough, or do good enough?

It's at the end of that.

It's at the place where you realize neither path will bring me acceptance before God.

Neither path will I feel good enough.

It's only when I die to all of it, when I'm the father and Capernaum and all my resources and my town, where I'm a big man, I'm a big shot, and all of that is no longer enough, and I have to leave my dying son and go 24 miles to Jesus and receive from God what I cannot do on my own.

This is where salvation is found.

This is where contentment is found.

This is where peace is found.

This is where fulfillment is found, is in Him.

It is so easy to never make the 24-mile journey.

It is so easy to keep trying to make yourself well by getting in the pool first.

But the end of ourselves is the beginning of life.

Because that's the moment where we're broken and this clutching to the harness begins open-handed, where we begin to receive from God what He wants to give to us in Jesus.

And there's a shift in the center of our beings where we begin to rest in Jesus' sufficiency for us.

And this creates life and fruit and response.

And this is where freedom is.

Let's pray together.

God, would you help us?

Would you help us with our addiction to trying to make ourselves well?

When we don't feel righteous enough, we often turn to doing another Bible study or giving more money or showing up at church.

And these are good things, but they don't make us righteous.

You.

You make us righteous.

When we don't feel adequate or loved or accepted.

We run to all sorts of things, some morally good and some morally repulsive.

Would you free us from these addictions to constantly trying to make ourselves well?

Would you help us get to the end of ourselves?

That we might find healing.

Because we might be broken.

And finally in a place to receive from you.

Would you kill our pride?

And would we be more enamored of your love for us, what you did for us on the cross, taking our sin and giving us your righteousness?

And would our lives not be a merit back to you to try to get something from you, but would it be a response of the fruit of the gospel, of the Holy Spirit being in us, of us not turning away from the gospel, but us resting in it more?

And whether the fig tree buds and the flower blooms, or whether it doesn't, we will rejoice in you, for you are our strength.

And we have a healing in our hearts that will far outlast any physical healing that we could hope for.

Amen.