The Gospel of John: Missing the Point - Feb 02, 2025 (Myles Holmes)

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, you can open it to John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a Bible, the ushers are making their way down the aisle right now, and they would love to get a copy into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

If you're new with us this morning, I just want to welcome you here.

My name's Pastor Miles, I'm the lead pastor of this church.

I'd love to meet you after the service at a little area at the back of the worship center called Connections We Have.

And I want to let you know you've come on a special day.

Today is what we call step one, happening immediately after the service.

It's a free lunch.

Can you believe it?

And we would love to have you there, not just to eat with you, but to meet you and to talk about the history of our church and who we who God is calling us to be as a church.

And so you can sign up for that at Connections after the service or talk to myself or Joel who was leading worship.

We'd love to get you there this afternoon.

We've all experienced it before.

Addition, the addition of the of a wrong thing can ruin even a great thing.

And it happened in my family.

I don't I'm I'm sure your family has family lore.

My family has family lore.

Happened almost over a quarter century ago, that salt was grabbed instead of sugar and added to the pancakes.

And Mark read for us from Jeremiah 17 about the land that was uninhabitable and salty, and that is what our house became.

Those pancakes were like salt licks.

Then I don't even think a horse would have eaten them.

And we still talk about it because of this.

If you add the wrong thing to even a great thing, it will ruin everything.

And perhaps this is nowhere more true than in our faith.

It says one Puritan said, he said, you contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.

And the reverse of that is true that we miss salvation if we come to the cross with our arms loaded up with the things that we think we have to offer Jesus.

We'll ruin it all.

Now in John chapter 20, we're told of really the purpose of why John writes, he says that there were many miracles, many of which he didn't even record, but he has selected these signs and wonders so that we may believe.

John 20 · chapter mention

John, and therefore Jesus, wants to show you and I something.

He wants to show us faith.

And the reason why he wants to, we've seen it numerous times through the Gospel of John already, is because faith leads to eternal life.

Now, here in John chapter 5, specifically in verses 1 to 18, we find the third sign that John has selected to inspire this faith that leads to eternal life within us.

John 5 · chapter mention

And here, what we're gonna come to understand is this very reality that faith accepts Christ without adding anything.

In fact, we kind of have an equation.

If you've been here for a while, you know that I don't like math, but I do like theology, so sometimes I'll put the two together.

And the equation is this it's gonna come up on the screen.

Here it is.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Some of you guys are math people, you're like, yes, finally, some math, let's do it.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Come to Jesus with nothing, and you will receive eternal life, Jesus tells us.

Now then the reverse of that is true also, that if you add anything to Jesus, you will then receive nothing.

Now many of us are familiar with the story of John 5 of the healing of the man at the pool called Bethesda.

This is a story that we learn in Sunday school because we love the nature of the story, this man had been in an invalid for 38 years, and it truly is miraculous.

What Jesus does in a single conversation, he causes this man to walk again.

Our minds are blown, our jaws drop at the reality of what Jesus does in physically healing this man.

But I want to propose to you this morning that if the physical reality of what Jesus has done in this man's life is the greatest awe we have as we consider the story, we've actually missed the entire point.

Jesus healed this man to show something significantly more awe-inspiring than his power to give physical life.

In fact, I'm not I'm convinced that this story is not only about Jesus' power, but it's a profound warning for us.

Because the reality is that this man experiences Jesus' healing, but he leaves an unbeliever.

And it's this horrifying reality that you and I can be so close to Jesus, even have experienced his power in some respects, and yet walk away, not inheriting eternal life.

You can be a part of the church, you can be around Christianity, but because you have added something to your faith, like this man did, like we will see the Pharisees did, you can miss the point of Christianity entirely.

In fact, immediately after healing this man, we'll find that he turns against Jesus and joins with the Pharisees on a witch hunt to put Jesus on the cross.

John wants to warn us.

Let's read it together.

Would you stand with me as we read God's word?

Starting from Mark chapter 5, verse 1 to verse 18.

Mark 5:1

This is the word of God.

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

Now there is in Jerusalem by a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

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

One man was who had who was there for let me start that again.

One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to them, Do you want to be healed?

Sickman 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.

Jesus said to him, Get up, take up your bed and walk.

And at once the man was healed.

He took up his bed and walked.

Now the day was the Sabbath.

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.

But he answered them, The man who healed me, that man, said to me, Take up your bed and walk.

They asked him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk?

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.

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 man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

And this is why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I am working.

This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

Let's turn to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we need your help now.

God, we are reminded of the reality that so many experienced the power, the miraculous power of Jesus Christ, and yet at the end of his life there were few who remained.

Likewise, so many hear the message that Jesus came to proclaim, and so few believe.

And God, we confess that there is within us a disease called sin.

And Lord, that there are spiritual powers at work to make sure that we don't hear this life-giving message that Jesus has.

And so, God, we come to you humbled.

Lord, we come to you like this man.

Spiritually, Lord, we are helpless.

We need you.

And God, we thank you that you have sent your son to us, just like you sent your son to this man, to give him a message of hope, which, if we believe, we can have life.

And so, God, we are here before you and we are proclaiming, God, we need your help.

Would you help us to hear all that you have to say and change our lives by it, God?

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

And grab a seat.

There is a terrifying and damning power in addition.

You add to your faith and you will miss the point.

And this is really what John is trying to warn us about in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

And I want you to say, see three things we might add to our faith that would cause us to miss the point.

And the first thing I want you to see is this that I miss the point when I add my effort.

I miss the point when I add my effort.

Now, this truly is an astounding story.

In verse 1, we're told that Jesus goes up to Jerusalem.

He's been doing ministry in Galilee, and in chapter 6, he'll actually return to Galilee, but he is called to Jerusalem likely to celebrate this feast, but I believe because of the sovereign encounter he will have with this man.

Jesus has something to teach you and I this morning.

And he has to teach us it through this encounter with the invalid man he found at the pool of Bethesda.

Now, upon entering the scene, you get the picture that John paints for us.

There is a pool.

It really looked like two pools.

Each of the pools had two colonnades, and they were joined together by a ridge with another colonnade, which, again, doing some more math, equaled five colonnades that John talks about.

And while the geography of it is interesting, what truly was interesting was that surrounding this pool were multitudes and multitudes of invalid people, of people who were lame, who were paralyzed.

And all of them had placed their hope in this pool.

Now, as we had read, you might have noticed that verse 4 is missing in your copy of God's Word.

And if you have an ESV, you'll look down at the footnote and you'll notice that it says this some manuscripts insert wholly or in part that these people were waiting for 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 stirring the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.

Now, one of the amazing things about the faith of the Christian faith is that in the, especially in the New Testament, but all of the scriptures, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to copies of God's word.

As you look at copies of the word of God, of people who at one point had the original and then copied it, and people who copied that copy and branching out into many groups of people who copied down portions of scripture, we have thousands upon thousands, more than any historical document comparable.

And as we have looked at these manuscripts, one of the things that some incredibly smart people called textual critics have done is notice that in the earliest manuscripts of John 5, verse 4 isn't actually there.

John 5:4

Which means likely that somewhere along the way, one of the scribes who was copying down this, maybe to take to their church or their family or home so they could study it, felt that this story needed some explanation.

And we can sort of resonate with that because verse 7 really is crying out for an explanation.

When Jesus is asked, asks this man if he wants to be healed, verse 7 says, the sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.

While I'm going, another steps down before me.

The question is, why does this man believe that the pool has healing properties?

Now, what we have then in verse 4 very likely is an addition.

In fact, we can almost certainly say that it is an addition.

That one of the scribes along the way put in for clarification that eventually was mistaken as truly the word of God.

But I think it does give us a hint of what is happening here.

Now, exactly what's happening, we can't know for certain, but it's likely that around this pool there are many hopeless people with hopeless conditions who have come to understand, maybe by rumor or lore, that there has been healing properties in this pool.

I think it's unlikely that truly there was physical salvation found in these waters, but I do think it's likely that maybe just even with the healing properties of water, you ever been in a hot tub?

Maybe people actually found cures to their diseases in this water, and sort of sort of this fairy tale-like mystical story had developed around these waters where there is this belief that if you hopped in, you could find healing for your diseases.

And obviously, these men had been struggling with these diseases for so long, and so they found themselves at this pool hoping to be healed.

Why does John take us to Jerusalem to meet this man?

I think it's because he wants us to see him see ourselves in him.

In fact, I think this man's lameness mirrors our spiritual helplessness.

And what John wants us to understand is that spiritually we are just like this man.

We are living in a world, but daily we are feeling the emptiness of something missing.

You feel it?

Can anyone in here raise their hand and sort of say, like, you know, I feel whole.

I feel like this world is as exactly what it needs to be.

We all feel it.

And all of us look to different pools.

We're just like this man.

I mean, maybe we're not physically invalid, but certainly we are spiritually.

And each of us find ourselves on the precipice of a pool, looking in, saying, if I could just get in those waters, then I would be whole.

If I could just have the kind of success that I'm envisioning in my mind, then I'll be happy.

If I can just find that someone who will love me a certain way, then I will feel complete.

If I could just immerse myself in indulgence and comfort, if I could finish that dream project, finally be satisfied.

Whatever it is, each of us find ourselves on the precipice of a pool that we look in and we feel that if we can just get into the waters of that pool, we'll feel the longing, fulfill the longing that we feel inside.

Our problem though is that we, like this invalid man, can't seem to reach what we're really longing for, and it is because you and I are spiritually lame.

We know that something is missing, but we can't quite get there.

I think you and I are spiritually stubborn people.

In fact, I it's kind of hilarious what's even happening in this chapter because in verse 6, Jesus looks at the man and asks him this question do you want to be healed?

Now, I think this sort of, you know, we can look at Jesus and say, hey, listen, you're kind of missing some tact here.

Of course he wants to be healed.

I mean, he's sitting around this pool and he is longing for healing in the waters of the pool.

But maybe what's even more profoundly shocking is that when he's asked if he wants to be healed, the man doesn't cry out, yes.

Like the answer is you're we mean we know who Jesus is.

This man doesn't.

The answer is, of course I want to be healed.

So instead, look what he says in verse 7.

He says that, sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going, another steps in before me.

In other words, this man believes his salvation is in the pool, and he says, Essentially, Jesus, listen, I don't really need you.

I just need a little bit of help here.

I just need a little bit of just a little nudge.

In other words, he's really saying this: I'll put in the effort, all the effort I can muster.

I just need you to partner with me in my effort.

And in a way, what he's doing is he's asking Jesus to partner with him in his search for salvation in the pools and the waters that he believes truly will lead to that.

You and I, we do the same things, don't we?

You and I have a picture of what will heal us, of what will complete our lives, of what will truly satisfy us, and it is possible that you are even here because you are asking Jesus to partner with you in that effort.

You aren't completely helpless, but you recognize that you do need something from God that you can't provide for yourself.

And so we want God to help us reach that thing that we believe will save us, whether it's a job or relationship or success.

Listen, that's why some of us we have a faith that only cries out to God when we are in need.

You thought about that?

Because when we're in the pool, so to speak, when we are in the waters of what we think will satisfy us, we don't feel like we need God.

It's when life's circumstances take us out of the waters that we believe will heal us and make us whole that we then cry out to God, God, I need you, God help me.

But you know, when life is going well, when we're experiencing the success, when we have the health, then we don't cry out to God because we have what we think we need.

That's why some of us might feel like God is holding out.

Because your joy isn't truly in God, because your fulfillment, like this man, is in something in this world.

Instead of your joy being in God, it's tied to a thing that you think God needs to provide you.

Do you understand the difference here?

Do you understand the difference of coming to Jesus for Jesus versus coming to Jesus for something that he provides?

Let me illustrate it for you.

Let me illustrate the difference between telling God that you are here for him versus telling God that you are here for what he gives you.

You know, there's a huge difference.

If after this service I went to my wife and looked into her eyes and said, you know, Amber, I love you for who you are.

You know, husbands, you take some notes, okay?

That'll be that'll go really well for you.

Do it.

It'll go like if you can do it honestly, maybe give it a few weeks for them to forget the sermon, because if you do it after this, they're gonna say, that's fabricated, okay?

If you did it yesterday, you're like, you know, you're good.

That's great.

But it is an entirely different thing to turn to your wife and say, you know, Amber, I love you because you make amazing lasagna.

That's an entirely different thing, right?

Like we know enough as husbands to say that there's no brownie points there, there's a doghouse.

And yet many of us do this with God.

Now, this man, he will not find healing in the pool.

In verses eight to nine, he finds it in Jesus.

Jesus said to him, get up, take your bed and walk.

And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

I love it.

It like the three commands get up, take up your bed and walk.

And it is in listening to the words of Jesus that he finds healing.

Finds his healing not in the pool, he finds it at the feet of Jesus.

And what Jesus is telling us is this he's not a means to an end.

Jesus will not help you into the pools.

In fact, one of the worst things that he could do for you is allow you to get into the pool that you think will satisfy you.

Jesus isn't a means to the end.

Jesus is the end himself.

Now, listen, this isn't about condemnation.

This is about The good news of the gospel that Jesus doesn't want your effort.

Jesus says to this man, Listen, I don't want to just help you into the waters, I want to do everything.

Jesus doesn't want us because of our effort.

In fact, he's telling us just the opposite.

The thing that makes you desirable to Jesus is that you are unworthy.

That you are like the invalid man.

That you cannot do it.

Jesus came for those who, not who are righteous, but for those who are sick.

So Jesus is here this morning saying to us this, I love you for who you are.

I don't need your effort.

I don't, I don't even want your effort.

I just want you.

And that, church, is incredibly good news.

If that doesn't, by the Holy Spirit, make your heart leap for joy, God thank you that you don't need my effort that I can't even give to you, then we need to wake up.

He loves us for us, so we need to then love him for him and nothing else.

Which leads to our second point.

There's a second damning addition we can make to our faith that causes us to miss the point.

And it's this that I will miss the point when I add my expectation.

Miss the point when I add my expectation.

Now, Jesus in chapter five is writing what we could use as a manual for pot stirring.

There's no one better.

I mean, there are some pot stirrers in this church.

They don't even begin to scratch the surface to what Jesus does in chapter five.

In fact, if Jesus, I'm just kidding, there's no pot stirrers in this church.

If Jesus wanted to avoid controversy, he is doing everything wrong in chapter five.

Everything he does seems to provoke rage from this group of Pharisees who then this man that he healed will join.

But Jesus here, he's not being purposefully controversial.

What he is doing is targeted at us.

He wants to show us that if we place our expectations on him, like the Pharisees, like this man did, we will miss the eternal life that he comes to offer.

Now the first thing that Jesus does wrong is he heals this man on the Sabbath.

When we get to the second half of verse 9, this story comes to a grinding halt when it says, Now that that day was the Sabbath, to which we say, Jesus, what are you doing?

Of course, that's gonna elicit the rage of the Pharisees.

Second issue is this.

He commanded the man in verse 8 to pick up his mat.

Now again, I think this is a hilarious story.

Think about what this mat likely looked like after the man had slept on it for 38 years as an invalid man.

Can I ask you something?

I mean, I'm guessing, I'm hoping, I'm even praying, that you haven't had your pillow for 38 years.

In fact, if anyone has, you can raise your hand.

The ushers are coming down the aisle with a new pillow for you.

And but have you seen your pillow recently?

Have you taken the pillowcase off your pillow recently?

It looks like a band-aid from the Civil War, doesn't it?

It's disgusting.

And this man was invalid, and so I think his mat, probably very likely filled with things I shouldn't talk about from the pulpit, was disgusting.

If it were you and I healing, we would say, leave the mat.

Leave the mat.

Jesus gives him this command, pick up the mat.

And it is the mat in verse 10 that the Pharisees have the problem with.

This man has just been miraculously healed, and these men immediately storm out.

Like this is immediate that they come out and storm up out and say, Who told you to pick up this mat?

Not because they are disgusted by the mat, because now this is breaking a Sabbath rule that the Pharisees had created.

Pharisees, we've met them already, and we'll meet them again.

They're a group of religious elites who not only followed the commandments of God, but they had created a whole separate set of rules.

Like they were on the premium subscription of the Torah plan.

And they look at this man who is breaking one of the rules that they created, and they point their finger at them and at him and they say, How could you?

And he says, Hey, listen, it wasn't me, it was this man, but then Jesus is gone.

Now, now here is the horrifying problem that John is exposing in our hearts.

Both the Pharisees and this man had their own expectations of what Jesus should do.

And because of that, they missed the deeper and more radical work of what Jesus wanted to do in their lives.

And this should invoke terror and fear in you because if you come to Jesus with the wrong expectation of what he wants to do in your life, surely you will be turned away.

It blinds you to a deeper and more radical work that Jesus wants to do.

It's astounding, isn't it?

This man in front of their very eyes for 38 years had been lame.

And as he is healed and brought to new life, the Pharisees stand there with their arms crossed and they cannot celebrate it, they cannot smile about it, there is no joy in their life.

All there is is anger because they are watching this man break their rules.

And you know, when when the gospel takes root in your life, you can actually be happy.

You know what happens?

When the gospel takes root in your life, you come to church on a Sunday morning and you don't have to sing with your arms crossed and a scowl on your face because you're truly happy of the reality of what we sing.

Jesus, there is none like you.

There is none before you.

You can actually be amazed and astounded and filled with joy at the reality of what we're even doing this morning.

That there are a hundred people in this room that Jesus has spoken in the darkness of their heart and said, Let there be light, and light has shone, and you've been saved from eternal condemnation to eternal life.

And you look around on a Sunday morning and this person's been saved.

It's a miracle.

Of course, I'm gonna sing out praise.

But listen, when we come with these expectations, that maybe it's that our life is free from suffering, maybe that it's our life is filled with comfort and entertainment, maybe that it's get that we get the material possessions or the family the way that we want it.

When we you come like that, you will be like the Pharisees with your arms crossed.

There's no miracle here.

There's no miracle here.

Pharisees, they cannot see the power and beauty of God because they are filled with this wrong expectation.

Their religious system has boxed in God, and so they have missed the deliverer standing right in front of them.

The man who had been healed, his expectation was limited too.

He believed the fullness of what he was he needed was in that pool, so that even when Jesus provided what he needed, he would not look to Jesus as the Savior and immediately aligns himself with this religious system of the Pharisees instead of aligning himself with Jesus.

Here's a great problem for you and I.

You and I place expectations on God as well.

And if those expectations don't align with what Jesus wants to do in your life, let me promise you they will distort or even destroy your faith.

And so we pause to ask ourselves this question: what am I expecting from Jesus?

Are you expecting your life to go a certain way?

Are you expecting your family to look a certain way, the relationships in your life to look a certain way?

Are you expecting certain comfort, certain levels of success?

What are you expecting from Jesus?

Here's the real question.

What if you don't get those things?

What if your story is like the story of Job's, where you commit yourself to righteousness and to following God's command?

And you get God, but you lose the comfort, you lose the success, you lose your family, you lose everything.

Will you be able to stay with Job and Blessed be the Lord who gives and takes away?

If your expectation of what Jesus offers doesn't align with Jesus', then the therapy and the healing he offers will never make sense.

The Pharisees, they could not imagine salvation outside of their religious system.

The man who was healed could not imagine healing outside of the pool.

And if you and I don't understand Jesus' true mission, we will always reject it for something that is far less great.

We've likely heard this C.

S.

Lewis quote before.

He says, This, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

Many of us, in fact, I would put forward to you that all of us do not grasp the depth of what God is doing in our lives.

Now I regularly sit with people who cannot fathom why their life is going the way that it is.

And I and I include myself there too.

Ever look at your life and just like, God, why have I been dealt this hand of cards?

God, why does my marriage look this way?

Why are my kids not following the Lord?

Why do I have this certain sin struggle?

Why is my life like this?

I've never had someone come to me and say, listen, I completely understand everything God is doing.

In fact, if we're honest, like most, isn't most of our lives like, God, why are you doing this?

I don't understand it.

I mean, I if I look at my life, I don't want my sin struggles.

In the moments of my deepest honesty, I wrestle with God and say, God, why am I like this?

My wife does too.

She looks at me and says, God, why is he like this?

We all do.

We look like, why is our life like this?

But but Jesus is teaching us something so important.

Jesus is moved by your need, but the therapy that he offers you is often not what you want.

Listen, Jesus hears you cry out.

Jesus knows that you're on the edge of the pool looking in, saying, I need something in that pool.

He hears you, but the solution is not often what you think it is.

The therapy he provides for you is not often what you want.

In fact, that's what most like you ever been to a physiotherapist?

You ever gotten one thing from a physiotherapist you've wanted to get from them?

I don't think we have any physiotherapists if we do, I'm sorry.

All they do is prescribe pain.

My uh mom, many of you know her, just had her knee replaced, and I was shocked that the day that she had her knee replaced, they wanted her to walk up the stairs and walk for 30 minutes.

And it's like she got 40 staples in her knee, and it's an excruciating pain that she's in, but she's prescribed all of these physiotherapy movements so that she can strengthen the new knee that is in there immediately.

And I look at her, I say I look at it and say, I don't think that's the way to do it.

I think you're just supposed to like sleep it off.

But you must understand if you have a knee replaced that the therapy is what heals the knee.

I can illustrate another way.

My kids rarely understand the instruction that I give.

I mean, sometimes I want to write it down because it's hilarious.

Don't touch that hot stove.

Why not?

That's pretty clear.

Why don't you touch it, Dad?

Don't touch it, okay?

Like they just they can't, they're too young, they don't understand the instruction that I'm giving them and how it could possibly lead to life.

But what do they need to do?

Trust, even though it doesn't make sense all the time.

The same way, you and I, we don't always understand God's plan for us.

We don't understand why our circumstances unfold the way that they do, but faith is trusting in God's plan of redemption.

Trusting that if you that circumstance has entered into your life, then God deemed that it was necessary for your sanctification.

Trusting that that battle with you that you have with that specific sin that you hate, that battle is sovereignly placed into your life because you need to be strengthened through the battle by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that is the path to complete redemption for you.

That when you are in heaven, you will look back and you will see that struggle, and that struggle was the strengthening exercises you needed to be redeemed.

Jesus is after something so much better for you.

So lean into his therapy.

Trust him.

Obey his word.

Don't let your expectation of how you think your life should go separate you from the eternal work that Jesus wants to do in your life.

Expectation can ruin everything.

But there's a third and final thing I want you to see.

I'll miss the point when I add my exhaustion.

I miss the point when I add my exhaustion.

Jesus is so purposeful in healing on the Sabbath.

Not just to provoke the Pharisees.

I mean, I think he liked that he got under his skin.

Jesus is kind of like the little, you know, with the Pharisees, he's kind of like the youngest sibling, you know, who knows how to push the buttons.

When the healed man is accused of breaking the Sabbath, he points to Jesus, but Jesus is gone because a crowd has formed.

And I love this about Jesus, and this should encourage your heart this morning, that Jesus doesn't care about the crowds, he cares about individuals.

He comes to individuals.

And when the crowd forms, so often we find Jesus sneaking away because he wants your heart.

After the crowd dissipates, Jesus then seeks this man out again.

And look what he says to him in verse 14.

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.

Jesus is pointing to the reason that this man was healed.

This is why Jesus did this healing.

Listen, one of the questions we have to ask about this is like if Jesus has the power to heal and he walks into this uh the pool of Bethesda and there's all these invalid people, how come he only chooses one?

Like if you have the power, why don't you just heal them all?

Because the physical healing was not what Jesus came for.

The physical healing pointed to something so much greater that Jesus wants to even do in our lives this very morning.

When Jesus changed the water into the wine, he always talked about it, he said to them, You haven't seen anything yet.

And it's the same thing he's saying now.

Listen, I raised this man from his lameness to walking again, but you have not seen anything yet.

I'm about to do something so much better.

All of his signs we're told point to the resurrection, which is the ultimate sign, which is the proof.

All the the signs give evidence that the resurrection truly is true.

Verse 14, Jesus connects this physical healing to a deeper spiritual reality.

He tells the man, go and sin no more.

In other words, what Jesus has healed him for is holiness.

Jesus physically heals him so that he has the chance to spiritually heal him.

Go and sin no more.

The healing that God wants to bring into our lives is ultimate healing.

It's not healing from a physical disease.

It's not even healing from a temporary spiritual problem that you have.

It is an eternal healing of your greatest problem, the fact that your sin separates you from God.

And if it is not dealt with, you will not just be plagued for 38 years like this man was.

You will be plagued for all of eternity.

Listen, there is a devastating, an eternally devastating disease that you have, and it is your sinful condition.

And if not dealt with, you will spend all of eternity separated from God.

And Jesus came and he said, I don't care about all your other problems.

The only problem I care about is your eternal problem.

I've come to solve that.

And so listen, I will let you suffer as an invalid for 38 years.

I will let your life not go the way that you planned it to go.

I will let you endure struggles and battles that you want nothing, you don't want a part of at all, all, so that you see this deeper reality that I came to solve a bigger problem.

That all these other problems they pale in comparison to.

Jesus, maybe you can help me get what I want.

And I want you to understand that no matter what you're coming to Jesus for, he has something better to offer you.

And the reason why I know that is because the whole Christian life is having your mind sort of blown and expanded to the reality that what Jesus brings you is better than what you thought it was yesterday.

I mean, did you feel it worshiping this morning?

I just like that was the sense that was overflowing within my soul this morning.

Like, God, you are so good.

I have worshiped you so many times.

I have studied your word this week, and yet I have not even begun to scratch the surface of just how good you are, God.

He's so good.

I want you to understand that you will find so much more in Jesus than you could ever possibly imagine, than you are even here for this morning.

Jesus cares about your need, but his eyes are on something so much bigger, your eternal need.

And he's not here just to fix this temporary issue, he is here to restore you to eternal life.

This man, he doesn't grasp the full weight of Jesus' healings.

And so in verse 15, he goes and tells the Pharisees all that Jesus had done.

And in verse 18, it's it's really this encounter that launches the Pharisees on this relentless pursuit of Jesus, and it is a pursuit that will ultimately lead to the cross in Jerusalem.

This reaction, though, it reveals something powerful.

The Pharisees they held this strict understanding of the Sabbath, that if you were truly to rest, you had to just avoid all of the physical labor that they had prescribed.

And in this, they understood something that you and I even understand today, and that is that we need rest.

Every night we are reminded of it, aren't we?

I mean, so many of us hold a coffee in our hands right now, reminded of this reality.

I need rest.

I'm getting an amen from the parents with newborn babies.

We need sleep.

We need rest.

We function with it, and we cannot function without it.

Now, the only one who does not need rest is God.

God doesn't sleep, he never tires.

He continuously, 24-7, upholds the world by the word of his power, and never has he grown weary in doing that.

In fact, this was the foundation of the rabbi's teaching, that there was one who could work on the Sabbath, and it was God, but everybody else, as a sort of an ode to their the fact that they were creatures and not creators, would rest on the Sabbath.

So that when Jesus in verse 17, look what he says in verse 17 with me, get your eyes on the text.

He says, But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now, and I am working.

What's Jesus saying?

Yes, God is the only one whose works works on the Sabbath.

That's why I'm working.

And the Pharisees knew exactly what he was saying because in verse 18 they persecuted him, they pursued to kill him because he was calling God his own father and making himself equal with God.

But Jesus wants to declare to us in this passage that you and I, I believe, have fundamentally misunderstood what true rest is.

True rest isn't just about ceasing from work.

This is what Genesis 1 tells us, right?

On the seventh day, God rested from his work.

But if God truly stopped working in the laborous sense, then all things would crumble.

Why?

Because he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

God has never stopped working in that sense.

The rest that God had in the world was a satisfaction, where in verse 6, he says, after the creation of Adam and Eve, behold, it is very good.

And on the seventh day, the rest is the satisfaction he takes to step back and look at his work, which by the way, he is upholding and find satisfaction in it.

You've tasted it before, haven't you?

Like your hobbies, their work.

There are people who say, like, you know, I just feel so relaxed when I'm out in the garage working on the car.

I don't understand it.

That's work to me.

And yet it is the satisfaction that comes when you can take a step back and look at the project and its completion and find rest in it.

So then what truly is Sabbath rest?

Sabbath rest then isn't about taking a day off from work, it's about resting from the endless striving to make something of yourself.

This is where burnout happens.

Listen, the problem with burnout, so as it's come to be known in our culture, is not work.

Work is good.

The problem with burnout is where your identity is rooted.

The problem with burnout is that you are expecting something from the work that it just cannot produce.

And there is this endless work that can happen when you rest in the Lord because you're stepping back and you're satisfied in Him and Him alone.

Now that's not to say, you know, burnout or rust out or whatever.

There is wisdom in the way that we work.

But it is to say this that if we have a sinful relationship with work, if we are trying to prove ourselves from our work, we will never find rest.

That's why, like you've had days where you've done nothing and you feel more tired after.

Why?

Because the rest that we need is a spiritual rest.

It's a spiritual rest, and it's what Jesus comes to offer.

True Sabbath rest is a rest from the endless striving to make something of yourself.

It's deep in our human nature.

We all feel that we have something to prove.

In fact, there's a profound philosophical work.

It's called Rocky One.

Have you seen it?

Where Rocky in this movie, he realizes that he cannot beat Apollo.

And so he says, I just want to make it to the end.

No one's ever made it to the end with Apollo.

I just want to make it to the end because what does he say?

If I make it to the end, I'll prove that I'm not just another bum from the neighborhood.

And is this endless striving that each of us have to prove that we are not just another bum.

We want to prove that we're something more.

We want to prove that we're something valuable.

We want to make something of our lives.

But what Jesus comes to offer us is this you can rest in my work.

He says, I've done the work.

So you don't have to.

Listen, Jesus could have approached us a different way.

Jesus could have looked at the Pharisees and said, hey, listen, that's your rule, okay?

My the Torah never says anything about lifting heavy weights on the Sabbath.

That is your rule.

He doesn't.

Because he wants to point them to something deeper.

He says, I can work on the Sabbath because I'm God.

And the reason why I work on the Sabbath, Redemption Church, loved one, the reason why Jesus works on the Sabbath is because he is working for you.

He is working so that you can rest in him and find the satisfaction that he comes.

He is working so that you can step off the perfor the treadmill of performance because Jesus has done it for you.

He is working so that you don't have to look a certain way or be a certain way because you are already accepted in Jesus Christ.

He is working so that you don't have to prove yourself to anyone because you already have the love and affection of your heavenly Father.

Jesus is working for that.

And it is your faith that unites yourself to Jesus so that when Jesus on the cross declares it is finished, the work that He has finished is the work of dying for your sin and being your righteousness.

The work that you are striving to do this very day, Jesus has come and declared it is finished.

This is what Jesus wants us to understand.

He says elsewhere, I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

In other words, listen, I came to fulfill the Sabbath, just like we understand Jesus came as the Passover lamb, right?

What did that mean?

Well, the Passover lamb pointed to Jesus because Jesus would ultimately be the atonement for sin, just like the Passover lamb was.

It was a shadow of what was to come.

And so Jesus looks at the Sabbath and says, Listen, the Sabbath points to me, the day of rest that is prescribed all throughout the Old Testament.

It points to the rest that we now, Hebrews 4, experience in Jesus Christ.

The rest is a ceasing from striving and a satisfaction that is found in him alone.

You and I, this morning, we live in a world that is filled with invalid people.

And you and I are included in that number.

All of us desperately trying to prove our worth, who are striving, who are weary.

Jesus seeks you out this morning, just as he sought out that man by the pool, and he invites you to enter his rest, to stop striving, to find satisfaction in him.

But to receive it, you must abandon everything that you might be tempted to add.

Your efforts, your expectation, your exhaustion, they only separate you from the rest that Jesus offers you.

But when you lay those things down by faith this morning, you can enter into the rest that he has for you.

The rest that we worship God now for as we turn to him and praise him.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, God.

That every time we open up your word, it's good news.

It certainly is bad news, God, that we are spiritually lame people.

But without the bad news, there is no good news that Jesus has come to us and offered something so much better than what we longed for.

Something so much better than what this man longed for in the pools of Bethesda.

He offers us eternal life.

God, by faith we believe that the work is finished and that you have paid it all.

And so by faith we stand now to give you praise for the work you have done.

God, thank you.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

You stand and worship with me.