Take out your Bibles again and turn with me if you would to John chapter 5. John chapter 5 and today we will be looking at verses 1 through 15. So this is God's holy, inspired, and inerrant word. Pay careful attention then to the reading of it. After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, an Aramaic called Bethsaida, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. 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 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, 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, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that 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. And 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 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.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. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of our God remains forever. You may be seated. Let's pray. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this reading of your word. We ask now, O God, that you would help us to pay careful attention to the preaching of it. We ask, O God, that we may understand your truth, that we would apply it to our lives. So deeply, your gospel into our hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. We come today to something of a transition in the ministry of Jesus in John's Gospel. Now, throughout our study, I've been continually reminded of John chapter 1, verses 11 through 13, which says this, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." In our study we have seen Jesus call His disciples, His disciples received him. John the Baptist bore witness of him. We have seen Jesus interact with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and teacher of the law. And we have seen Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, where the people of Samaria respond to the gospel, even as later the Galileans will demand signs and wonders. Jesus said that unless one is born from above, and born of water and spirit, they cannot see the Kingdom of God. Spiritual rebirth is an act not of the human will, but of the will of God. Sometimes people experience the fantastic. They experience something supernatural. They see the work of God. They see God's hand. And yet, it seems to have no impact on their life. As chapter 5 opens to us, Jesus has yet another encounter. But we'll note that the mood here is different from some of the other encounters. Here we find a man who's been infirm for 38 years. The man seems indifferent to Jesus, perhaps even a little irritated by Jesus. He is healed by our Lord, but then when the officials come to question him as to why he is carrying his bed on the Sabbath, he is willing to sell Jesus out. This encounter with Jesus is different from some of the others we've seen in John. This may be in part because the crippled man is not really the main focus. The focus really is on the growing winds of antagonism that are blowing against Christ, as the Jewish leader's animosity begins to grow against him. Here we will begin to see some insights into why the authorities in Jerusalem are becoming so hostile to Jesus. It all begins with a controversy. A controversy over the Sabbath. But then it will center on Jesus' authority as the Son of God. A fact which the authorities deny and then seek to destroy. And so chapter 5 is introduced with this statement, After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. So after having spent some time in Samaria, and then later on in Galilee, Jesus again returns to Jerusalem, and he returns to Jerusalem for a Jewish feast. So an indeterminate amount of time has gone by since the events of chapter 4, but Jesus returns again to Jerusalem. Now usually John tells us what the feast is that Jesus is attending. whether it's Passover or Tabernacles or the Feast of Dedication, John would tell us what that feast is. Here he doesn't say what the feast is. He just refers to it as a Jewish feast. Now, John usually mentions it because he's thematically connecting the feast which Jesus attends with the teaching that Jesus will give. Here, though, as no particular feast is named, and so it's unknown to us. Many scholars have guessed as to which one it would be, but we really have no idea what feast it is. But it's unnamed probably because the teaching, the material, which John is presenting is not intended to relate to the feast. In fact, the events, in terms of events, the Sabbath is more the focus than the feast is. And so in Jerusalem, we see near the sheep gate there was two pools, which were oriented north and south. And they had four covered colonnades. And then there was a fifth colonnade, which separated the two pools. It was in the shelter of these colonnades that were to be found a multitude of disabled people, blind, lame, paralyzed. They were all gathered with hopes of being healed. These people with differing maladies would wait under the shelter for the water to be stirred up, and they believed that if they were the first one to get into that pool, then they would be the one to receive healing. Now, you will notice If you're using a King James, you might notice that there was... It seems like maybe I skipped a line or I left something out in my reading of it. But you'll notice that there is, if you're using anything else, that there is nothing at the end of verse 3 and that there is no verse 4. Maybe there's a little 4 but it's blank in your Bible. Now some of you probably have a footnote. If you drop to the bottom of your page, you'll notice a footnote. Or if you're using a New American Standard, I believe they usually have it as brackets in the text. Either way, you might have something like this. For an angel 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. First of all, we should note that there is no place else in Scripture which indicates that there were pools in Jerusalem where an angel would come and stir up the water and that the first one to get into that water would be healed. There's no place else in Scripture which talks about this. It's only found here, in John, and it's only found in some manuscripts. So we might ask, why is this here? Or how did it end up in the text in some cases? And how do we account for it? Now in order to do that, we need to speak for a moment about biblical manuscripts. Now there's a lot that can be said. I'm not going to say everything that can be said. That would take too long. But we want to talk about the various copies of manuscripts which come from in the Greek. We have thousands and thousands of these manuscripts which go back thousands of years. Now we should understand also that we do not have the original autographs. We don't have the original autographs. That is to say, we don't have the documents where the Apostle's pin was applied to papyrus. What we do have though are thousands upon thousands of copies. And what scholars have done is to take all of these manuscripts, all of the evidence which is available to us, and they've attempted to reconstruct what the original documents were like. Because of the vast number of sources, which also come from a variety of geographic locations and time frames, we've been able to reconstruct what was in the original text with a great amount of accuracy and confidence. However, there are instances where there are copies in manuscripts which have disagreements. where there are questions about what was in the original, and this is actually one of those instances. Most of the oldest and best attested manuscripts that we have available to us, though, don't contain verse 4. So it is possible that this statement about the stepping down into the pool, what is called a scribal gloss, That is, a note. Often this would find its way into the margins, where a scribe is trying to explain something. They're trying to help us, maybe it's a note to themselves, or potentially they were preaching and they were trying to explain something. But sometimes those margin notes end up in the text as it's copied again. Remember, they didn't have Xeroxes, they didn't have printing presses, they had hand copies. And so, as they would make new copies, sometimes the margin notes ended up in the text. There are examples of these sorts of things going on. If you've ever played the telephone game, you understand how that sort of thing can happen. And so, most likely, what verse 4 reflects is not the reality of the situation, but rather is an explanation of the superstition of people at that time. Now we do actually know, there were these pools, they did exist, and we know that beneath these pools there was an artesian well. And water underground is under pressure, it builds and builds and builds, and eventually it would release into the pools. And so the water came in quickly and it would stir up the pool. And so there were some people who thought that this was the work of an angel. And they believed that if they could just get into the pool first, that they would be the ones to experience healing. So based on the evidence available to us, verse 4 is most likely not original to John. Nevertheless, it is useful as it reflects the beliefs of the people present at the time. A lot of the people at those pools thought that the stirring of the water was an angel, and if they only could get down there. It was a superstition that they had. So, returning again to the narrative, we read of a man who had been suffering as an invalid for 38 years at these pools. Now, he was probably brought there by someone at the appropriate time for when the stirring of the pool was expected. You know, these things tend to work on something of a schedule. Now, it's not clear what his ailment was, although it's implied that he was suffering from paralysis. He wasn't able to walk down to the pool. That a multitude of sick and infirm should gather at these pools, awaiting for an angel to come stir up the waters. Striking in light of what we've been reading in John up to this point. Jesus had turned water into wine at the wedding feast. Which symbolically showed that the purification system could not produce new wine of the kingdom. And the water from Jacob's well could not satisfy the true thirst of the sinner. And now here we see that a merely outward superstitious religion is powerless to transform the needy. Only Christ can truly heal body and soul. And so picking out this paralytic man out of the mass of humanity gathered there at the pool, having seen him lying there, knowing with divine knowledge that he had been there for a very long time, he inquired of the man, asking this, do you want to be healed? Again, we see a demonstration of Jesus' divine knowledge. He already knows the man. He already knows him. Just as He had known Nathanael, just as He knew the woman at the well. Do you want to be healed? Now, that question on the surface seems silly, doesn't it? I mean, does He want to be healed? You might think, of course he wants to be healed. I mean, he's laying by the pool to get in the water. Why else would he be there? Does he want to be healed? He's waiting for the water to be stirred. However, as usual, Jesus' question gets right to the heart of the matter. He's right to the heart of the matter. You see, there are many people, even in our own day, who are perfectly satisfied with living in a state of inertia. This man may have become quite accustomed to having people giving him handouts and assisting him with all of his needs. He didn't need to work. He didn't need to do anything. His life didn't require him to be productive in any fashion. Many people, though unhappy with their life circumstances, are at the very same time not wanting to see their life circumstances improved. Because they become accustomed to the inactivity of their life. So they look for charities and churches and good do-gooders to help them, to support them as needed. And so they go from person to person until that, well, runs dry. And so what Jesus is asking the man is, do you really want to be healed? Because if you do, if you truly want to be healed, no longer will you be in this state of inertia. There will be no more handouts. There'll be no more assistance. You will need to become productive in your life. You will need to function in society in some way. Because up to this point the man hasn't been very productive for 38 years. Sometimes our deacons run into things like this. There are individuals who would rather remain in a perpetual state of crisis. Because this is where most of everything they get comes from. They know this. They know that if they're in a constant state of crisis, that in that crisis people are willing to give to them. If they're not in a state of crisis, then there's a less willingness for people to give. And so they've learned by experience, they've learned by experience to stay in a state of crisis. And so they go from church to church, they go from charity to charity, they go from do-gooder to do-gooder, looking for someone to provide for all of their felt needs. In some cases, given the choice of having their life situation changed, they refuse. And our deacons do run into this. And we do help people like this. But we want to tell them that your biggest need isn't the crisis that you're finding yourself in. Our deacons try to work with people to see their life transformed because they know Jesus. And more often than not, sadly, I wish I could say, you know, here's all these examples where it's different. But more often than not, they actually refuse that. They don't want change in their life. They want to remain in this constant state of crisis. We might wonder why. Well, the reason isn't necessarily because they're lazy. That's often what we want to say. Well, they're just lazy. It's not because they're lazy. I think it's because they fear. There are some who would rather stay in their paralyzed state of affairs because they're afraid to deal with the various changes and difficulties which this life can bring to you. It's easier to deal with the difficulties you know than the ones you don't know. It's easier to deal with the difficulties of a paralyzed state of affairs than deal with the sinful patterns of their heart. And so again, Jesus' question, do you want to be healed, gets right to the heart of the matter. Indeed, do you really want to be healed? Do you really want to see your life transformed? Not just your body, but your soul as well. Do you want to be healed? Now notice that the paralyzed man, doesn't answer Jesus directly. Instead, he says in verse 7, 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. So, apparently this man did believe that if he could just get down to the water first, or at least he says he does, but he points to all the reasons why He's not answering the question whether he wants to be healed or not. Really, does he truly want to be? Now understand that this is an example in a place where we need to understand the difference between things that are descriptive in Scripture and prescriptive. Just because the Bible tells us that people believed that the first one to get into the pool would be healed does not necessarily mean that was true in reality. The Scriptures are simply recording for us the beliefs of those people. In this case, wrongly held beliefs, superstitions. This man had hopes which were rooted in superstition. And he wasn't even able to fulfill it. Somebody else is always getting in front of me. There's always something else in my life which is making my life so difficult. Somebody else is getting into the water first. He needs to be the first one again, but he's crippled. He can't get there. How is he supposed to get there? He's been like this for 38 years. The man's response here is at best the complaints of a bitter man, and not a very perceptive one, because he thinks he's having to answer a stupid question. Do I want to be healed? I suspect that perhaps the man knew something of the truth of the healing powers of these waters. He'd been there for 38 years after all. However, note, Jesus' powerful words heal the man. Jesus says to him, get up, take your bed, and walk. The man was to rise up, he was to take the mat which he was lying on, and he was to go. Now note that when people are healed by Jesus, they don't stagger off in some sort of ambiguous health. They aren't being pushed out of their wheelchair and crawling on the floor. No, they leave with full healing and bodily strength, even to carry a mat. The man's bed was likely a straw mat, so it would have been light enough to roll up and carry on his shoulder. The man, having been told to stand and walk, taking his bed, did so. He was healed immediately. He took up his bedroll, he walks away. But notice, again, too, that this occurred on the Sabbath day. John mentions, and this was on the Sabbath. Now, this information isn't provided by John for chronological reasons. He's not telling us, well, here's the day of the week this happened to occur on. No, this actually is to mark the controversy which we will be getting into. This is where the shift is beginning to occur in John's Gospel regarding the Jewish leader's attitude towards Jesus. They had begun with some amount of curiosity, which had then moved to concern as Jesus was gaining more followers than John the Baptist, and now the shift has come toward outright hostility. There are a number of events throughout the ministry of Jesus which trigger controversy concerning the Sabbath. This is one of those. This healing highlights the powerful words of Jesus as He speaks with authority. Healing a man of a lifelong ailment. Telling him to walk and carry his mat. And the controversy will grow as Jesus insists that He is Lord of the Sabbath. As He says in Luke chapter 6. That is, that Jesus has ultimate authority. In fact, all the disputes which are recorded in the Gospels lead to sharp disagreements, and these lead to the authorities seeking to put Jesus to death. They saw Jesus as being overly lenient on the Sabbath. He was teaching others similarly to be lenient, to not fulfill the Sabbath. So we do have to ask the question, was Jesus being lenient? Was Jesus not following the law rightly? First of all, we know that the Old Testament forbids work on the Sabbath day. In the Ten Commandments, Exodus chapter 20, for example, verses 8 and 10 says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner within your gate." So the Sabbath day, the Ten Commandments, forbid work. In fact, in Nehemiah 13, which we read for Old Testament reading, Nehemiah 13 records the prophet's complaint against those who are loading and unloading carts filled with all kinds of various wares on the Sabbath day. They were there to transact business. And so the question we must ask is, what constitutes work? Was the man picking up his mat at the command of Jesus work? Now Jewish authorities took Nehemiah 13 to mean that any kind of carrying of a thing on the Sabbath day was a violation of the Sabbath. In fact, the Jewish Mishnah, which provides the main source of rabbinical opinion, gives 39 specific kinds of work which were prohibited on the Sabbath day. And one of those prohibited categories was the carrying of anything from place to place, with the exception of an act of mercy, like the carrying of a paralytic. So, according to Jewish law, the Mishnah, you could carry a paralytic, but you could not carry his bed. Which does make us wonder how the man got to the pool with his bed on the Sabbath day. Now the assumption of the scripture is that work constitutes one's normal employment. The fourth commandment tells us that there are six days by which we are to do our work, the work that you have, your ordinary employments. But the seventh day was to be sanctified to the Lord. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 61, which is something of an exposition of this, asks this question, what is forbidden in the Fourth Commandment? Answer, the Fourth Commandment forbiddeth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, by doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words, or works about our worldly employments or recreations. So by the standard of the Old Testament Scriptures, the man was not breaking the law, since he did not carry mats around for a living. In other words, he wasn't a mat salesman. He wasn't paid to move mats around. He was a man who had been confined to a straw mat for 38 miserable years. The man was not in violation of God's law by carrying his bed. He was not engaged in unnecessary works, worldly employments, or recreations. He was simply carrying his mat away from the confines of the pool, having been fully healed. By biblical standards, the man was not breaking the law, but according to human tradition, according to rabbinical law, the man was a Sabbath breaker. And so the man walked about with his bedroll upon his shoulder, and he is accosted by the Jewish authorities, who say to the man in verse 10, It is the Sabbath! It's not lawful for you to take up your bed. Again, according to the traditions of the elders, the man was breaking the law. But notice that the man responds by shifting the blame. Look at verse 11. The man who healed me, that man said, take up your bed and walk. Look, this is the very sort of thing that Adam did in the garden, isn't it? It's the woman you gave me. Push off the blame to somebody else. I'm not responsible. It's not my fault. It's somebody else's fault. This is actually a little bit like the response that he gave to Jesus, isn't it? It's always somebody else's fault. The formerly crippled man does not even attempt. He doesn't even begin to attempt to defend Jesus. Instead, he throws Jesus under the proverbial bus. He could have said, you know, this man came and told me to stand up and walk. It's amazing. It's amazing. You know, I was confined to a mat for 38 miserable years, and here I am walking. I've been healed. Isn't this amazing? He told me, pick up my mat and walk. Am I supposed to just lay by the pool all day? I can walk. It's incredible. I've been healed. It seems to me that someone who can heal like this man with such authority has the authority also to interpret the law. However, the man doesn't say anything remotely like that. No, instead he shifts the blame away from himself. I'm not responsible for this. As he's got his bedroll on his shoulder. I'm not responsible for this. Maybe I should drop it. Someone else came and told me to do this. The one who healed me, he's the guilty one. Think about this for a moment. This man had just been healed after being crippled for 38 years. And the Sabbath police want to know why he's carrying a mat around. And his miraculous healing doesn't even come into view. It's like they're ignoring this amazing thing that just happened. The authorities don't rejoice that this man has been made well. Wait, you've been like that for 38 years and now you're walking around healed? This is amazing! No, they don't have any compassion for him. They don't rejoice for him. Now, perhaps we're being a little bit too hard on the man. It is understandable that he might try to deflect attention away from himself. Perhaps he has a good understanding of how the authorities operated. And so verse 12, they ask him, who is the man who told you, take up your bed and walk? Now honestly, the man doesn't know. It seems that he couldn't even be bothered to find out. Jesus had slipped away, the place was crowded, so he's unaware of who it was who had healed him. Later on, though, we read that Jesus finds him in the temple. And again, it's not clear how much later it was. But Jesus does find him at the temple, which is just to the south of those pools. And he says to him, see, you are well. You are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you. And so Jesus explicitly connects the man's healing with his need for a change in his spiritual and moral character. Jesus is saying to him, in effect, you are well, now sin no more. Saying this is not to suggest that all physical ailments are because of some particular sin. That is actually not Jesus' point. It is true to say that there is some suffering in the world which is result of personal sin. But all suffering is because of the fall of man. But not every single point of suffering is because of some particular sin. Jesus is simply telling the man, you have been healed physically. You've been healed physically. You can now walk. Now don't continue your life of sin. Don't continue walking in sin, or something worse may happen to you. Something with eternal consequence. One thing that is certain is that the man wasn't chosen by Jesus to be healed because of some moral goodness. And Jesus is here giving him some good advice. He's urgently telling him to stop living in sin. Now, how does the man repay him for healing him and for giving him such great advice? Verse 15, the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. What a way to repay, huh? Now, the man is not giving the dude credit. We see that with other people, right? They say, this is the man who healed me. We'll see this actually when we get to the blind man, right? Now here, he's not bearing witness to the mercies of Christ. The authorities had accosted him. They had accused him of breaking the Sabbath. And so he's saying, here's the one who told me. I found him. He's the one. You might ask, is this man just dull in the mind? Or is he being treacherous? That's a hard one to answer. I don't know. One thing that is clear, is that he wasn't grateful. There's no gratitude toward Jesus for what had been done for him. His healing had no impact on him other than the physical. He's physically healed. He is made well. But it had zero impact on his spiritual life. Unlike a lot of people recorded in Scripture who receive healing from the Savior, this man was only healed outwardly. He did not receive inward healing. He was not born from above. This is at least as far as we know. I mean, what is recorded for us in Scripture. As far as we can tell, he continued in the same sinful patterns and sought only to protect himself, which is sad. This is sad. This is a sad reality of life. There are some people who want what God has to offer. They want what the church has to offer, but they don't want God. Give me what you have to give me, but I don't want you, is what they're saying. They want the blessings of Christ without Christ. As I was pondering this text and pondering this man, I wondered, what was he doing at the temple afterwards anyway? Why was he there? Likely he was in the court of the Gentiles, this is where Jesus had given him the warning of sinning no more. And I have some serious doubts that he was there to offer a sacrifice to God in thanksgiving for his healing. I have serious doubts about that. I suspect that his old means of begging having now been removed, he was seeking a new way to gain his breath. He was a man who had been healed from 38 years of dreadful suffering. who could not walk and now could. But he's not grateful for that. And he shows no sign of inner transformation. This again illustrates what we have said before, what we talked about last week, that people don't believe because they witness a miracle. Even when the miracle impacts themselves. That's not what makes people believe. People believe because they've been transformed internally, having been given new hearts. They have been born from above, born again, born of water and spirit. They believe because they've been transformed by God. Not because something external has happened to them. Pray that the Lord would be pleased to transform hearts in this community. When our deacons do acts of mercy, may the Spirit of God be pleased to transform the hearts of those that they give aid to. That those that they give physical aid to have ears to hear and eyes to see. Please be praying for our deacons. Pray for our community that they may receive the Gospel with great joy. That they again have ears to hear and eyes to see the truth. Gospel ministry is effective not because we do so many wonderful things, not because we're giving money to people who are needy, but it's because we bring the means of grace, the Word, the sacrament and prayer. The Bible says to pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would send workers into His harvest. Pray for workers into the harvest that is West Plains, Missouri. And may our church be effective witnesses of the Gospel. May we be a people who wear out our knees in prayer, seeking the Lord to transform hearts and lives here in our home. Let's pray. Gracious God, Heavenly Father, we do pray, O God, for our deacons, as they do acts of mercy, just as our Lord did, Our Lord could heal. We can only provide temporal things, helping people pay rent or pay a bill. But we pray, Father, for their ministry, that our deacons would not lose heart as they seek to press the truth of the Gospel. That they seek to ask the same question that Jesus asked, do you really want to be healed? Do you really want to see your life changed? We pray, Father, for people that they would have hearts which have been transformed by your Spirit, that are eyes which are open to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We pray that you would grant to our deacons an effective ministry for our elders as well, for the ministry of this church, each of us as we go out into this community, into our spheres of influence and the people we rub shoulders with, that as we bear witness to our Savior, the eyes would be opened, the hearts would be ready to receive with great joy the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless us, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.