Morning, brothers and sisters.
Open up to John 20. Let us read our theme verse.
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that believing, you may have life in His name.—John 20:30-31
Then I want to go back to John 1:17-18.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.—John 1:17-18
Let us pray.
Father, I thank You that I am purchased by Your blood, purchased by the blood of Christ, and take my place in Him today. Lord, we come to You asking that You would open Your Word, that You would let us see Jesus Christ saving us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This morning, I need to speed things up, so I want you to listen faster. No, I need to speed things up because otherwise the Lord will return before we have finished this.
Instead of trying to go verse by verse, I am going to try to cover a chapter and hit the highlights each time. We want to pick up where we left off after the woman at the well, which is the last part of John 4, and cover through John 5.
It is not going to be as detailed, but there are things that we want to see. We want to see Jesus Christ revealing the Father to us, and we also want to see the application that has for us.
This morning, we want to look at three things:
The first part comes from John 4:43 through the end of the chapter. The healing of the impotent man is in the first fifteen verses of John 5. Then John 5:16-47 has to do with the Lord dialoguing with the Jews.
Let us read from John 4:46 about the nobleman’s son.
So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”
The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.”
So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.
—John 4:46-50
And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”
Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.”
So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.
This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.
—John 4:51-54
This is the second sign. What was the first sign? The turning of water into wine. Other people say the cleansing of the temple was another sign, but John says this is the second sign here in Galilee.
What was the sign? Healing from a distance. That is right. It was healing from a distance.
There had been healings, but almost all the other times the Lord was there: touching someone, speaking to them directly, putting mud on their eyes, or doing something. The only other healing I can recall where the person to be healed was not present was the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. The Lord said, “Go,” and the demon had left her.
Here it almost seems as though the Lord is discouraging this man. But I want to look at this man for a minute. This is man at his best.
What is man at his best? It is not because he is a nobleman. Man is at his best when he is seeking God. That is when man is at his best.
In our sinful nature, we say, “I will go my own way.” Seeking God is unnatural. It is not of our nature. The only time we normally seek God is when we need something. We do not seek Him for Himself; it is when we need something.
One of my daughters had to read C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain. Lewis is trying to answer the question: if God is good, why is there so much suffering?
It is a tough read, is it not? It deals with suffering. My daughter has been very lonely at the college she attends, and she has suffered. I am amazed at the way God works. The person in charge of the core classes had them read The Great Divorce and The Problem of Pain, and it really spoke to her.
She was saying, “I have no friends. What do I do?” This caused her to seek the Lord. That is exactly C. S. Lewis’s thesis in the book: pain is often the only way we will go to seek God.
Even in the Old Testament, when Moses was preparing the people to enter the land, he told them, “When the grain is in, and you have the rains and everything, do not forget the Lord.” Then he prophesied that they would forget Him because things were good.
Is that not the same way with us? Read the Book of Judges. It is a great testimony to human nature. Everybody did what was right in his own eyes because there was no king in Israel.
Every time an enemy came and oppressed them, the people turned to God and said, “Please save us.” God saved them and raised up a judge. Things would be good for a while, and then they forgot again, and again, and again.
We were talking on Friday night: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” Man is at his best when he is seeking God, because he has come to the place of saying, “I need You.”
Otherwise, we feel that we do not need Him. “I have my 401(k).” Oh, not anymore. I am just kidding around with that. But that is the way we are. If things are going well—my car is running, I am making house payments, my children are okay—who needs God?
Oh, yes, we will go to church and do those other things, but other than that, it is almost like living as if God does not exist. Everything is taken care of; we go on autopilot.
But here we find man at his best: a man in great need. This is his loved son, his beloved son. We do not know whether it is his only son, but it is a beloved son. He comes to the Lord Jesus and says, “Please come and touch my son and heal him. He is at the point of death.”
The Lord seems almost to upbraid him: “Unless you see signs and wonders…” I am sure that is not the way He said it, but He says, “You have to see signs and wonders.”
We see a lot of signs and wonders. In a sense, for the most part, signs and wonders do not have any real effect on us.
When I was a young Christian, in my twenties, I went to a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. We waited in line, saw people in wheelchairs, and saw people healed. We thought, “That was amazing.” It was amazing. But a couple of weeks later, did we want to go again? You know?
Even if we went outside today and looked at the sky after a snowfall, that sky could be so blue and incredible. It is awe-inspiring, but it does not change my heart. It does not do anything for my faith.
Jesus says, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” But signs can lead us to diminishing returns. There has to be something better and better. Those who have done drugs or alcohol know that: you have to get a different high, something more.
What happens if there are no more wonders? Where is your faith then? Signs do not establish faith when faith is based merely on seeing wonders.
The man could have gotten up and said, “Well, if that is the way You are going to be, I will go somewhere else.” It is almost like Naaman the leper in 2 Kings 5.
Naaman’s faith began with a little girl telling him about Elisha. The nobleman’s faith began when he heard that Jesus had returned to Galilee and that people had seen signs in Judea. His faith began to rise: “Jesus can do something. Jesus is here.”
Naaman came to Elisha’s house, and Elisha did not even come out to see him. He sent his servant out and said, “Go wash in the Jordan River seven times.” Naaman was offended. He thought Elisha would come out, call on the name of the Lord, and make a great display. Instead, he was told to wash in the Jordan.
But Naaman’s servants persuaded him, and he was healed. Here the Lord is doing the same type of thing. It is not the show. He says, “You want a healing. You want a sign. I am going to give you a sign, but the sign will be a word.”
The sign is merely a word, but a word pregnant with power, if you respond to it. Jesus spoke a word, and over twenty miles away all the microbes, germs, and everything that was debilitating that young man heard the word and obeyed it.
The man was given a word after he came back and said, “Please, please come.” The Lord always tests our faith. How much do you want this?
Remember the Syrophoenician woman. She kept coming and coming, and the Lord put her off, but He drew out what she was after. The same thing happened with this man. What he was after was his son: “You must save him. You must stop him from dying.”
The Lord gave him this word as a sign: “Go home. Go your way. Your son lives.” The only way he could find that out was by going his way.
This is a rhema. There are different Greek words used for “word.” One is graphe, the written word. One is logos, used in John 1: “In the beginning was the Word,” the conception of what God is. Then there is rhema.
Rhema is the word for this moment, the word the Lord speaks to you and witnesses to you: “This is the word for you right now. Go and do this.”
When the Lord speaks rhema to you, it may come as you are reading the Word, or He may quicken a verse or a story to you in a difficult time when you do not know where to turn.
All of a sudden, the Lord quickens a verse to you. It is a rhema, a word to get you through that time, to show you a way through it, or even to say, “Hold on. Just hold on. I am with you.”
It is like when He spoke to Paul in Corinth: “Do not worry about things. Just stay here. There are many of My people here.” Paul was wondering whether he should be there; there was a lot of warfare and a lot of people. The Lord gave him a rhema.
My daughter, whom I was telling you about, has been reading her Bible. Before she came home for spring break, she emailed me. She said, “I am not reading it every day or as much as I should, but I am reading it.”
We go through struggles as teachers, and she wrote an email saying, “I was reading the Word, and this really helped me. I thought maybe it would help you.” That was a wonderful thing. It was a rhema to her, and it helped her.
Here we find that the result of responding to the word was that the man believed. In other words, he fully believed.
When the servants told him, “Your son lives,” he did not simply say, “I know it.” He asked, “When did this happen?” He confirmed his faith.
Jesus did not say, “Your son will live,” as though the sickness would simply pass. He said, “Your son lives.” Your son lives now.
Looking at Jesus as God, we see Him as the finisher of faith—not only the beginner, but the finisher of the man’s faith. The man’s faith began when people testified to the signs Jesus had done. Christ brought that faith to fruition, where the man said, “I believe that He is the Christ.” His household believed also.
Secondly, we have the impotent man. Let us read some of these verses.
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, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of sick people—blind, lame, paralyzed—waiting for the moving of the water.Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”—John 5:1-6
The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”
And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.
—John 5:7-9
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
—John 5:14
A lot of versions do not call him an impotent man. I think the original King James Version does, and I like that word. The root word of impotent is potent. If we put another prefix on it, as in omnipotent, what does that mean? All-powerful.
Impotent is the opposite of omnipotent. It even takes away from just plain potent. All it means is that this man has no power. He has no power to do anything.
We have power. I have power right now to stand. I have power to move my arms and power to talk. This man, as far as his body goes, is impotent.
Some versions call him lame; some call him paralyzed. I do not know. But I know he is impotent, and where is he? He is with a bunch of impotent people. They are all lying around this pool.
There was a legend that an angel would come and stir the water, and people would be healed, but you had to get in there fast.
This man was at the point of being without hope. Hope is an expectation that something is going to get better. He did not have that expectation. He said to the Lord Jesus, “I have nobody to help me into the water.”
“I have trouble moving as it is, and nobody can help me. Nobody is here to help me. I am here by myself.” This man was alone, even though he was around crowded people. All these other people were in the same place, but he was alone.
He had been in this condition for thirty-eight years. For some of you, that is longer than your lifetime. For me, if this had happened, I would have been about seventeen or eighteen years old when I started sitting by that pool.
It seems from John 5:14 that sin had brought him into this condition. We may wonder what sin he committed. Was it adultery? Was it murder? Let us not point to one thing.
How about a life ruled by sin? A life that says, “I will do what I want, and no one will stop me. I will do what I want because that is what I want to do.”
What happened? It crippled him. There are many sins that cripple us—not necessarily physically, but spiritually. There are things that we let into our psyche that cripple us spiritually.
Think about it: things from the internet and television, holding grudges, bitterness. Those are crippling things spiritually.
Here is a man who is crippled, impotent, powerless. Of all the people around that place, Jesus takes note of this man. Why this man?
I think it is because he was the worst. In other words, he was in the worst condition. He had been in it for thirty-eight years.
The Lord singled this man out and went up to him. The other man came to Jesus, but here we have Jesus going to this man. He knew the man, because it says He knew he had been in that condition for a long time.
The first thing He says is, “Do you want to be made well?” Some of us might have answered sarcastically, “Well, no. What do You think?” But this man had been in this place so long that he did not even say he wanted to be made well. He simply said, “Sir, there is no help for me.”
What a terrible place to be in. Yet some of us are in that place. Maybe some of us as Christians are there: alone, feeling there is no way to get out. There are unbelievers in the same place.
But how wonderful it is that there is One who comes to someone in such a condition and honestly asks, “Do you want to be made well?”
After the man answered, the Lord did not say, “Well, I will help you down into the pool. We will wait for the angel.” No. He said something impossible to this man.
After thirty-eight years, Jesus says, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” Wow. Can you imagine that being spoken to you and responding to it? This man responded to it.
Jesus is the author of our faith. When the man heard that word, he got up, took up his bed, and walked.
I think this was done very privately. You do not hear about a big crowd gathering or Jesus calling people around to watch Him heal this man.
I think He went up matter-of-factly and said, “Do you want to be made well?” He got the man’s attention. I do not think He raised His voice and shouted, “Rise up and walk.” I think He looked at him and said, “Take up your bed. Walk.” Actually, keep walking.
The Lord got away, and the man did not know where He had gone. But where did the man go? Jesus did not forget about him. He went to the temple.
Why did he go to the temple? I think he was offering thanks. Perhaps people had been throwing alms at him; perhaps he bought a sheep or a turtle dove and brought it to the outer courts. The passage does not say that, but Jesus found him there.
He was offering thanks because he knew more than anything that this had to be God. This had to be God Who took pity on him.
Sometimes we think God has no pity for us. But does not the psalm say that He is mindful that we are but dust? He takes pity on us.
Pity in a self-righteous way is bad. But pity out of love is grace. This man found grace.
The Lord found him there and said, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” I am not saying that if he sinned again, some other tragic thing would necessarily happen. It could mean separation from God.
The Lord had set him free. It is like in Les Misérables: “I have redeemed your life with this silver. Now give your life back to God.” He now had a choice.
The Jews asked him about the One who had commanded him to carry his bed. He did not merely say, “Here is the man who commanded me to take my pallet.” He said, “There is the man who healed me. There is the man who set me free.”
He was a prisoner to his bed, and now he was no longer a prisoner to his bed. He was carrying his bed away. It is a wonderful picture of the Lord: a rhema—“Rise up. Rise up and walk.” The impotent man gets up and walks.
This causes quite a stir. This man picks up his little pallet and walks out, and it creates quite a story.
The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”
He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’”
Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”
—John 5:10-12
This man is walking on the Sabbath, and he is a cured man. Do you think they recognized who he was? He must have been a mainstay there for a while. Yet what was their focus? Carrying his bed.
In the Mishnah, there are commentaries about how to keep the Sabbath and the commandments. They have twenty-three chapters on how not to work on the Sabbath. What constitutes a burden? Is it for business? Is it for this or that?
My wife was in Jerusalem in the seventies. On the Sabbath, hotels pushed every elevator button the night before so the elevator would stop on every floor, because pushing the button was work.
You could scoop ice cream, but you could not heat fudge for a hot-fudge sundae because that implied work. Figure that one out. It is too much for me. I am still trying to figure out how many angels can get on the head of a pin.
This brings the Jews into a discussion with Jesus. It seems to be more of a monologue, because they ask, “What is the deal? Why are You telling this man to carry his pallet?” Jesus has three parts in this dialogue.
The first thing He does is state Who He is. Why is He telling this man to do this? Because of Who He is.
He begins by saying:
My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.
—John 5:17
His Father is working on the Sabbath. How can that be?
G. Campbell Morgan says that the sin of humanity caused God to come out of His rest in order to save mankind. I think that is a great way to look at it.
On the seventh day, the Lord rested. We do not know how long after that Adam and Eve fell, but from that time God came out of His rest and worked for the redemption of His creation.
What were Jesus’ last words on the cross? “It is finished.” The work is finished.
The Jews were offended because He was making Himself equal with God. In John 5:16-20, the Lord speaks about how He and the Father are one, and how He does only the things the Father shows Him.
He is reasoning with them, like Isaiah says:
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.—Isaiah 1:18
The Lord is saying, “I am doing what I see the Father doing.” Really, He is saying, “You do not know the Father.” If they knew the Father, they would understand what He had said twice in Matthew: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”
If you see Jesus, you see the Father.
We could say, “That is just a bunch of words. What do You have to back this up?” Then Jesus says:
But I have a greater witness than John; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.
—John 5:36
Is that not what Nicodemus said when he first came to Jesus in John 3? “We know You are sent from God.” Why? Because no one could do these works unless God was with him.
Some people recognize and say, “I see God at work.” Others see nothing. Jesus says, “Look at the works. What do they speak of? This is not human power. This is the power of God.”
Morgan says they were straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
Then Jesus says:
And the Father Himself, Who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.
But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe.You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.—John 5:37-40
He is not saying, “Go and search the Scriptures.” He is saying, “You are the people who search the Scriptures. You are always reading the Scriptures.”
But in reading them, do you not understand that they testify of what I am doing here?
Remember Luke 24, the men on the road to Emmaus. The Lord opened the Scriptures to them and showed them how the Christ was to suffer and die. It is all in the Scriptures.
Paul says that Christ died according to the Scriptures. Jesus is saying to these men, “You search the Scriptures. You know them. They are the very things that speak of Me, and yet you will not come to Me.”
The studious Jews searched the Scriptures to find out what they needed to do in order to be righteous. They thought they had to be righteous to appear before God or to merit His blessing and salvation.
Paul said they had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They were zealous for the law.
When we read the Scriptures, what are we looking for? W. C. Fields was found reading the Scriptures near the end of his life. Someone asked him, “What are you looking for?” He said, “I am looking for loopholes.”
“I am looking for a way out.” Is there a way out for me? Yes, there is. But the way out is not something to do. The way out is a Person.
“You will not come to Me that you may have life.” They thought they could create life for themselves and make it themselves, and He says, “You cannot.”
He goes so far as to say, “Look at Moses. Moses talked about Me. Moses is your hero. Read Moses.” Deuteronomy 18 speaks of the prophet who was coming. If you will not believe Moses, how can you believe what Jesus says?
There was a veil over their eyes. All they could see was that a man had broken the Sabbath and that Jesus was calling Himself equal with God.
In the movie Pulp Fiction—I am sorry—Uma Thurman asks John Travolta whether he is the type of person who listens to somebody and waits to speak, or the type who is just waiting to speak while the other person is talking.
I know what type I am. What about the way we read the Scriptures? What are we looking for? It is a big thing.
How does all this apply to us? I have four applications, and I will make them quick.
The first man: we talked about his faith. Faith does not get God to do what you want Him to do. That is not what faith is.
Sometimes you listen to some of these guys on television, and it is as though they give you a verse and twist God’s arm: “Okay, I have to do it.” That is not faith. That is manipulation.
God answers faith; He does not answer manipulation. Faith gets us to do what God wants us to do. That is really the whole thing.
Abraham had faith. God said, “Go out. I am not going to tell you where you are going, but get out of here.” Abraham went. God got Abraham to do what He wanted because of Abraham’s faith.
Faith does not demand actions from God. Faith obeys God’s word to us.
By faith, the nobleman went on his way. He went on his way knowing that his son would be well. Jesus got him to do what He wanted: “Go home. Your son lives.”
Here is my embedded hymn, hymn number 218, “Thou Whose Name Is Called Jesus,” verse five:
O what joy to trust Thee, Jesus,
Mighty Victor o’er the grave,
And to learn amid earth’s shadows
Thine unceasing power to save.Only those who prove Thee know
What the grace Thou dost bestow.
How do you prove God? You respond to the word He gives you. That is how you prove Him.
Secondly, consider the man who was called to get up and walk. He had no ability to do that. He had been there for thirty-eight years and had no ability to rise up and walk.
His ability was given to him by virtue of Who Jesus Christ is. By the virtue of Who Jesus Christ is.
I am not using “virtue” in the sense of a vehicle getting you somewhere. I mean by the holiness, purity, and everything that is in Jesus Christ. That is what made this man walk.
Jesus was not merely a vehicle. Jesus was the vehicle.
Some of us get into places where we are like that man waiting for somebody to stir something. We are looking for a circumstance to change. We say, “God, show me. Give me a sign that everything is okay between us.”
We cannot get out. We do not see anything. We only see ourselves, and the more we see ourselves, the sicker we get. The more paralyzed we get. We cannot even come to the Lord or read the Word.
Sparks says this: “We must refuse to accept our own state as the criterion and final argument as to why we cannot stand before God.”
That is what we do. We think we get standing before God by cleaning ourselves up and doing these things. But when we try to do that, we find out what messes we are.
We have to get past that and say, “This is not the final criterion. This is not the basis on which we go before God.”
The enemy says, “You are going to try to go before God today? You are kidding me, are you? Let us go back on the calendar. What about Monday? What about Tuesday?” Then all of a sudden, you are getting down, down, down.
We are called into the presence of God by the virtue of Jesus Christ. That is 2 Peter 1:3. We are called by His virtue. It is His virtue that brings us in.
If we can get hold of that and every day say, “Lord, it is by Your virtue I come.” Being raised Catholic, we were really into merit. The merits of Jesus Christ have become new to me.
That is what the Lord looks at. He does not look at you; He looks at His Son and all that His Son is to Him. That is what allows us into His presence. That is how we are called.
He says, “I have come for you as the High Priest to lead you in. Get up and walk. Keep walking, and come into the presence.”
Nothing should hold us out of the presence of God because of Jesus Christ. Nothing.
We always quote Romans and ask what can separate us from the love of God, yet we find thousands of things, do we not? Because our eyes are in the wrong place.
Looking unto Jesus.
Then it says, “You search the Scriptures.” I want to change the cadence there. I said it as though Jesus were merely describing the Jews: “I know you guys search the Scriptures.” But I want to change it: “You search the Scriptures.”
I think that is what the Lord wants for us. He wants us to search the Scriptures so that we find Him, and to search them in a way that looks for Him. That is our goal in reading.
What did they do with textbooks in the 1980s? Kids got bored reading them and asked, “What am I reading this for?” So they began putting the questions at the beginning of the chapter instead of the end.
Smart kids always went to the back first, because they wanted a purpose for reading. What is your purpose for reading the Word? To find Him.
“Lord, I want to find You. I want to find You in Your Word. Show me You in Your Word. I want to see You.”
That should be our prayer when we come to the Word and study the Word: “Lord, open the Word to me. Open it not so I can know things simply for the sake of knowing, or so I can blab something at a meeting. I want to find You. Where are You? Show me Yourself. I want to see You.”
“I want to be changed by seeing You.”
Finally, the last application: He is able to save.
That man had been in that condition for thirty-eight years. He is able to save. If He is able to save that one in a physical sense, how much more is He able to save me?
We are like that man. We say, “I have nobody to do this for me and do that for me.” The Lord is trying to get our attention, saying, “Why are you looking around? Look at Me.”
“Rise up and see that I am able to save you.”
Does not Hebrews say that He is able to save to the uttermost? The uttermost. Not merely to give me a crutch and let me limp away.
A new creation is not bound by sin. Not bound by sin.
That is Jesus Christ. That is salvation. That is the new covenant. That is what is offered to us in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank You today that You sent Your Son for us. You sent Him to save us, and how we thank You.
Lord, I just want to say what Martin Luther was taught to say by his superior: “I am Yours. Save me.”
Lord, so we say to You, “We are Yours. Save us. We need Your saving. We are sick of trying to save ourselves. We just lay ourselves before You and say, ‘I am Yours. Save me.’”
In Jesus’ name.