SPEAKER_00: I'm going to wrap up our series this weekend titled Destination Addiction.
SPEAKER_00: Destination Addiction.
SPEAKER_00: I've been citing the source all throughout the series.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Robert Holden is the one who coined this term, destination addiction, and he's a psychologist who wrote a book in 2011.
SPEAKER_00: And he talks about destination addiction is something that he noticed as a tendency in human beings to think that the destination that they are headed toward is going to possess their fulfillment, their joy, their happiness.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you think, man, if I climb that mountain there that I'm going for, at the top of that mountain, I'll be so much happier, I'll be so much better once I get the relationship goals, once I get uh make six figures, once I get this sort of respect, or I whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: And he said the tendency is to believe that, and you just keep climbing one hill after another, and it just keeps moving.
SPEAKER_00: Once the new car smell wears off, once the adrenaline rush goes down, now I'm going to another one.
SPEAKER_00: And the sad thing is, people can live their entire lives always deferring their joy, always thinking, oh yeah, that's the one, that's the ultimate over there.
SPEAKER_00: And so um uh, you know, he he brought that up, and I think it's worth us noting and talking about and learning about.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we've been.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna wrap it up today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you turn in your Bibles with me to John chapter 5, uh I'm gonna start reading in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: John 5, 1 says, afterward, Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.
SPEAKER_00: Inside the city, near the sheepgate, was the pool of Bethesda with five covered porches.
SPEAKER_00: Crowds of sick people, blind, lame, and paralyzed, lay on the porches.
SPEAKER_00: One of the men lying there had been sick for 38 years.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, Would you like to get well?
SPEAKER_00: I can't, sir, the sick man said, for I have no one to put me into the pool.
SPEAKER_00: I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.
SPEAKER_00: Someone else always gets there ahead of me, Jesus told him, Stand up, pick up your mat and walk.
SPEAKER_00: Instantly the man was healed.
SPEAKER_00: He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking.
SPEAKER_00: Um, depending on the translation that you're reading from, you may have noticed something odd about John 5.
SPEAKER_00: And that is in many of your translations, there is no verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_00: Put it back on the board.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Crowds of sick people, blind, lame, or paralyzed, lay on the porches.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: One of the men lying there had been sick for 38 years.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what in the world happened to verse 4?
SPEAKER_00: If you're reading a translation that was translated after the 1800s, there is no verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: If you're reading a translation that was translated before the 1800s, it does have a verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, probably the most popular would be the King James, which was translated in the 1600s.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I'll read John 5 and 4 out of the King James.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what verse 4 says.
SPEAKER_00: For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water, stirred the water.
SPEAKER_00: Whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why would that be omitted in the NIV or the NLT?
SPEAKER_00: Why is that not in the versions we now have?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the short answer to that is that in the 1800s there started to be discoveries of newer manuscripts of the Bi of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So in the 1600s, the oldest dated manuscripts, in other words, the manuscripts closest to the original manuscripts had verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: That an angel stirred the waters and the first person then got healed.
SPEAKER_00: But after the 1800s, they found newer manuscripts that were predated the old ones.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they were closer to the originals.
SPEAKER_00: And none of those manuscripts contained verse four.
SPEAKER_00: Which then begs the question: well, what's up?
SPEAKER_00: Did heaven send an angel down to stir the water at the pool of Bethesda, and people were actually going and getting healed?
SPEAKER_00: First guy or lady in gets healed or not?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the short answer is I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You we can think of it one of two ways.
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple theories.
SPEAKER_00: One is, yeah, maybe it was.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe heaven did send an angel down and that happened.
SPEAKER_00: But the the second is that uh it's also a plausible explanation that that wasn't actually, in fact, happening, but it was what some people believed was happening.
SPEAKER_00: It was a legend that there was a stirring of the water.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's happening to the water?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there was a natural spring that ran under the pool of Bethesda that from time to time would cause the pool to bubble up from the natural spring.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it would inject the water with, you know, nitrogen and magnesium and zinc and different minerals that would certain ailments might help to towards some healing.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh, if you read different historians, we'll talk about that there around the pool of Bethesda, there were stories of people who had had some process or some progress in healing, but over time they went reverted back to how they were before, and that's why some of them think it was maybe some of these natural minerals that were causing people to get a little bit better depending on their ailment.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's not gonna help with being blind.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's not gonna help if you're a paraplegic.
SPEAKER_00: So, do we know?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was an angel, I don't know if it was a natural spring.
SPEAKER_00: This is on my long list of questions I'm gonna ask Jesus when I see him, okay?
SPEAKER_00: The bottom line for this sermon, it doesn't really matter too much because uh I want to look at the text a little bit differently.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to start with the fact that the reality is whether it was a superstition or whether it was real, there were tons of people who were sick and lame and hurt and had a major need, who had congregated around this pool and had some semblance of hope, like something, maybe this is my solution.
SPEAKER_00: And imagine what that does, not just to those people, but what it even does culturally and to society and how you might feel if you lived around that.
SPEAKER_00: Like imagine that people believe that there were healing powers in the Olentanji River.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And imagine what that would do.
SPEAKER_00: You would go around the Olentanji, and along the banks of the Olentanji, there would be lots of people who were like lame and sick, and they're hoping that when the water does a thing, I can go in there and get and get healed.
SPEAKER_00: How would that affect you?
SPEAKER_00: What would you do?
SPEAKER_00: Would you go there?
SPEAKER_00: Would you hang around there?
SPEAKER_00: Would you avoid that place?
SPEAKER_00: And that's a tough question because you know, sometimes when you in those types of scenarios, people do it tend to avoid places like that.
SPEAKER_00: Because if I go there, number one, I'm overwhelmed to just, ooh, here's a lot of need, you know, it's like bodies just strewn about like a war zone and so much need.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other is sometimes you get asked for stuff.
SPEAKER_00: People start begging you for things and asking you for things, and you want to avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we notice that Jesus, one of the things probably most often talked about with Jesus, is how often Jesus went to hurting people.
SPEAKER_00: He would go to hurting people and he would heal them and he would hang out with them and he would minister to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, whenever that's brought up, usually it quickly escalates into a sermon about Jesus' heart and how we should have the same heart.
SPEAKER_00: We should be like Jesus, who had a heart for hurting people, and we should have a heart for hurting people.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a good sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And I think if you're here and you go, honestly, I'm a Christian, I'm a follower of Jesus, but I really don't care about hurting people, I think that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00: I think you should pray about that, I think you should deal with that.
SPEAKER_00: I think you should go to the Lord and say, God, would you give me the mind of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give me the heart of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Would you break my heart for what breaks yours?
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not here to preach that sermon today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk a different thing.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of people who see when they see brokenness and hurt and pain, and they see a pool of Bethesda with with with blind, lame, hurting people who need help.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of people that care a lot.
SPEAKER_00: They care a lot.
SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't that they don't care, the problem is that they're not quite sure how to help.
SPEAKER_00: And when you're not quite sure how to help, sometimes you avoid the problem altogether.
SPEAKER_00: Um when I first accepted Jesus, really accepted Jesus in my heart as my Lord and Savior, had a transformational renewing of the mind and new in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I was a sophomore in college.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the indicators to me that actually I was different, I had been changed, was I started caring.
SPEAKER_00: I started caring for stuff I didn't care about.
SPEAKER_00: I started caring for people I didn't care about, I hadn't cared about before.
SPEAKER_00: Now all of a sudden I cared.
SPEAKER_00: And so I started going out on Friday nights.
SPEAKER_00: I would go, I went to college just south of Dallas, Texas.
SPEAKER_00: I would go into Dallas and I knew I found out where the homeless people were, and I would go and minister to the homeless.
SPEAKER_00: I would go out sit and listen to them and talk with them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when it was wintertime, we'd sit around a fire, I'd pray with them, I'd listen to their stories, I would take them food.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I took uh some of them I would take, sometimes I would take homeless people back and stay with me in my dorm room, which they didn't like that at my dorm.
SPEAKER_00: I ended up getting in trouble in the dorm because I was bringing homeless people back to the dorm room.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't as compassionate as me.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I no joke, I would bring in homeless people to the dorm and I got in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And um uh it was kind of a learning experience for me because I remember um these people who are living on the street.
SPEAKER_00: I would say, I can help you.
SPEAKER_00: I can help you.
SPEAKER_00: I know people.
SPEAKER_00: I I know a teen challenge, life challenge program.
SPEAKER_00: When we get you in these programs, we're gonna get you off the street, we're gonna get you clean, we're gonna get you help.
SPEAKER_00: One of the guys I was talking to, he had a five-year-old son.
SPEAKER_00: Stay with me in my dorm, five-year-old son, and I said, Man, we're gonna get you help.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, I ain't going, I ain't going to that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they'll wake you up at 5 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: They this and that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, my man, you're on the street.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, come on.
SPEAKER_00: I I I tried to, I tried to talk him into it.
SPEAKER_00: I tried to use all of the persuasion that I had in my being to go, come on, man, you got a five-year-old son.
SPEAKER_00: It's time for you to step up, your future's bright, God has a plan for you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to, okay, and he's like, no, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but man, I sure thought God was gonna use me in that way to just, you know, and I'm I had full of faith.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, God can take and shrink the timeline.
SPEAKER_00: So if you had a rough marriage, I would give you a scripture and pray, God, heal that marriage right now.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe God was gonna expedite the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: And then if somebody was sick, oh boy, I'd pray down fire from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You had an ant with cancer, oh boy, you bring it, don't bring that cancer around me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll pray it out.
SPEAKER_00: I'd start praying hard.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll I'm gonna put you on the, I'm gonna pray till something happens.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I had a wristband push, pray until something happens.
SPEAKER_00: P-U-S.
SPEAKER_00: Pray until something happened.
SPEAKER_00: That was me.
SPEAKER_00: Pray until something happens.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd believe that you know what?
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna use me to pick up your mat and walk.
SPEAKER_00: And to have an immediate miracle.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I'm gonna say.
SPEAKER_00: I believe theologically, I believe God can do what he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, with whomever he wants, anytime he wants.
SPEAKER_00: So I believe God does heal.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe God uses people to heal.
SPEAKER_00: If you read in Corinthians, uh, 1 Corinthians, it talks about the gifts of healing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Gifts of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So you have not only gifts of doing things well, natural talents, but sometimes God will give a gift to people to be able to do certain things at certain times.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also clear in the 1 Corinthians that God alone decides who gets what gift where and how.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not necessarily, you know, for me, I was never given that gift to pray for, you know, to touch a tumor and it dry up, or to go to somebody who was crippled and say, stand up and walk.
SPEAKER_00: I tried it, I prayed it, I have more faith than you can have.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's all the faith in the world, and yet it didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: So God didn't tend to use me in that way.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: I started finding it wasn't that I had less of a heart for Bethesda, the pool of Bethesda, and the folk who were hurting.
SPEAKER_00: I had a big heart for that.
SPEAKER_00: I was confused by my lack of ability to help.
SPEAKER_00: So I started avoiding pools of Bethesda.
SPEAKER_00: Because I wasn't sure what I could do, and I was tired of swinging and missing.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because when Jesus says to this man, and we're gonna get it, we're gonna dig into his question, do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna dig into the man's response, but I want to just take a first crack at it.
SPEAKER_00: He says to him, Do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: And the man says, To a yes or no question, he says, Um, I can't, sir.
SPEAKER_00: I can't.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we would say, I can't should never be in a person's vocabulary.
SPEAKER_00: And I I feel you.
SPEAKER_00: I think you should be resilient, I think you should be tenacious.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get into that in a second.
SPEAKER_00: But every single person throughout your life will come up against something you can't.
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
SPEAKER_00: I can't get autism out of my son's.
SPEAKER_00: You can't make her stay.
SPEAKER_00: You can't make him stay.
SPEAKER_00: You can't make yourself walk when you're a paraplegic.
SPEAKER_00: And we all have at some point, and it's a terrible place to be, and it's a horrible feeling, to get to something that you can't.
SPEAKER_00: And when it hits close to home, if it's an I can't with my kids, it's an I can't somebody I care about, I love, a best friend, something I can't, something in myself that I've tried over and over and over and over, and I can't.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what this man's dealing with.
SPEAKER_00: I can't.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing though, he immediately went to not only I can't, he goes, I have no one.
SPEAKER_00: I have no one to put me in the pool.
SPEAKER_00: And this last reading of this, and when I was really meditating on this, I thought about the fact that I at times, because God doesn't tend to use me in the instantaneous dramatic miracles, that sometimes I might avoid the pools of Bethesda, and maybe others feel the same way.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I don't care, not because you don't care, but because maybe you undervalue the way God may want to use you in a different kind of divine healing.
SPEAKER_00: The divine healing isn't always pick up your mat and walk.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the divine healing, they're dimensional healings.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of just whether or not my legs work or whether or not I can see with my eyes, there's actually emotional healing and there's relational healing and things that happen when the man at the pool of Bethesda has someone.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm talking to somebody today who you do care, but you've been avoiding.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you today to not undervalue your presence.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that God may not give you the ability to tell somebody, stand up with your legs, but you can be there that the person who says, I have no one, has someone.
SPEAKER_00: The man at the pool of Bethesda looked around and saw blind people and lame people and paralyzed people that had a loved one and a brother that was willing to try to throw them into the water that bubbled up, whether it was a superstition or not.
SPEAKER_00: There was a healing that happened in the presence of a brother or sister.
SPEAKER_00: Don't undervalue that.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, you feel the the limitations of what you can do.
SPEAKER_00: If if you're with somebody going through something, you we've we've all had this feeling.
SPEAKER_00: I just wish I could do more.
SPEAKER_00: It just feels like it's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, I just wish I could do more.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, don't let I wish I could do more keep you from doing what you can do, which is to be there and to be present and be part of the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: The miracle isn't always this instantaneous thing.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, let me give you some more food for thought.
SPEAKER_00: James chapter 5 has a famous scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 13, anybody, are any of you suffering hardships, you should pray.
SPEAKER_00: Are any of you happy?
SPEAKER_00: You should sing praises.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Are any of you sick?
SPEAKER_00: You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've been around church before, you know how we usually execute this.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody sick, come forward.
SPEAKER_00: The leaders in the church come together, take out the oil, okay, paint a cross on their forehead and pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, is that what that's saying?
SPEAKER_00: Kinda.
SPEAKER_00: What is the oil?
SPEAKER_00: What is anointing them with oil?
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it really has two meanings.
SPEAKER_00: First, oil does represent the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the one who is able to heal instantaneously and dramatically if he would so choose.
SPEAKER_00: But in that context, anointing with oil was more than just a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It was actually medicinal treatment.
SPEAKER_00: Oil was used all the time to help people to heal.
SPEAKER_00: Think back in Luke chapter 10, the story of the Good Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that story?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus makes it up.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this guy got beat up so bad he had open wounds, and a Samaritan showed up, the Good Samaritan, and what did it say?
SPEAKER_00: How did he help him?
SPEAKER_00: It said he poured in, everybody remember, the oil and the wine.
SPEAKER_00: He poured in oil and wine.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what did wine do?
SPEAKER_00: Wine, the alcohol in the wine would clean the wound, and the oil would help heal the wound.
SPEAKER_00: Oil didn't heal you like that.
SPEAKER_00: It takes time.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have been putting your toe in essential oils for a long time trying to get your headache out.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: But you're convinced, you're like, if I if I put this in my toe in the essential oil for a while, I'm gonna get back.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know it's a slow, it works slowly.
SPEAKER_00: And we tend to want God to use us at the pool of Bethesda with a right now dramatic wham type miracle.
SPEAKER_00: And if we can't have that, we don't go around.
SPEAKER_00: Allow God to use you like oil.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it might take some time, some treatment.
SPEAKER_00: It may not happen overnight, but God could use you as part of that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's uh let's go back to this question.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus asks him, Do you really would you like to get well?
SPEAKER_00: He asks him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's what we know about the man.
SPEAKER_00: We first of all, we don't know his name.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know much about him, so we're gonna have to speculate a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But we know he was sick and paralyzed for 38 years.
SPEAKER_00: That's a long time, 38 years to deal with something.
SPEAKER_00: And so you would think the question, do you want to be well after 38 years of not using your legs?
SPEAKER_00: You would think that's a no-brainer question.
SPEAKER_00: But it's really not.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus asked the man, do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: in hopes that the man will dig deep enough to search his soul to actually really wrestle with that question, do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: I think Jesus knew about human nature, and human nature is that sometimes people have a tendency to develop an odd relationship with their infirmities.
SPEAKER_00: It can often happen that the infirmity that you curse and you're tempted to fall into destination addiction, like if I just could get off of this mat, if I just didn't have this thing to deal with, it would be so much happier and brighter that people actually, when you deal with an infirmity long enough, you can actually develop a weird relationship with it, an odd relationship.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in the in the extremes with parents who keep their kids sick.
SPEAKER_00: They keep the kids sick.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's something about the bond of a caretaker, or there's something about the sympathy and the attention from the outside world that you get from being a part of uh something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Um we we we see it actually if you talk to clinical psychologists who um talk to you about uh things like codependent relationships.
SPEAKER_00: This type of scenario is happens frequently.
SPEAKER_00: You'll have a family that the whole family bonds around one of the family members' dysfunction.
SPEAKER_00: So let's say you have a a father who is an abusive alcoholic.
SPEAKER_00: He's an abusive alcoholic and and he when he's drunk, he comes in violent.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe mom, the mom will provoke dad so that he'll beat on her and leave the kids alone.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you have a sibling.
SPEAKER_00: Once they as they get a little bit older, they want to protect their siblings, and so they'll provoke them to protect the kids.
SPEAKER_00: And then once he's swung all he wants to swing and he's passed out drunk, then everybody huddles together and hugs each other and bonds over the pain and the dysfunction.
SPEAKER_00: And the wildest thing happens sometimes is maybe something happens where that alcoholic father, abusive man, goes and gets help, and he gets clean and sober and is no longer abusive, and you wouldn't believe what happens all the time.
SPEAKER_00: The family falls apart.
SPEAKER_00: They were crystallized in the abuse, and they fall apart in sobriety.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because often people develop funny relationships with their dysfunction.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says, Do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: It's a sincere question.
SPEAKER_00: It is not a no-brainer.
SPEAKER_00: Because although you've been sitting there for 38 years, you know, there's something about 38 years of sitting there that you start to kind of make friends with it.
SPEAKER_00: You start to actually, you start to be comforted by it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a few reasons you might kind of like it.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, I know this man was alone, but a lot of other people who were there who had an infirmity had people around them to help them.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not careful, you might start to think you know, if I got well, I might be alone.
SPEAKER_00: If I got well, see, these people are here because I'm sick, because I have drama.
SPEAKER_00: Because some there there's something that's keeping them here.
SPEAKER_00: And if I was well and I could walk on my own two feet, they may not be around me.
SPEAKER_00: So it's actually the fact that I'm staying sick that keeps people around me.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people's identity is linked to this.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm not the guy for, I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_00: John doesn't even name the guy.
SPEAKER_00: He just calls him, you know, the man who was sick.
SPEAKER_00: The paralytic man.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes not only that's how the world sees you, but that's how you see you.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm not the paralytic guy with the dramatic story, but I can actually walk on my own two feet.
SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
SPEAKER_00: By the way, this paralysis gives me a pretty good reason to stay exactly where I am.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go out there and do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of have a familiar conversation arc with uh the other invalid people around me.
SPEAKER_00: We go, you know, it must be nice to be out there on two feet.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, these guys out here, they have no idea what it's like to be us.
SPEAKER_00: And and so so many of these things, you you just have to go explore.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Hey, do you really want to get well?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really want to get well?
SPEAKER_00: And and I want to encourage you to receive that question for yourself and to do some digging.
SPEAKER_00: Because again, with all due respect, and I don't say this today, I'm not trying to make fun or make light, but but to this man to sit there and go, yeah, I you know, I have I have nobody, and I can't.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um I can't.
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
SPEAKER_00: You you you can't make your legs work.
SPEAKER_00: But if you think that the pool of Bethesda is the solution, is the miracle you need.
SPEAKER_00: If that's what you think, you're telling me you can't get in that water?
SPEAKER_00: What have you tried?
SPEAKER_00: Have you tried making a deal with a blind guy?
SPEAKER_00: Hey man, I see you blind, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I have eyes and you have legs.
SPEAKER_00: Let's make a deal.
SPEAKER_00: Have you tried that?
SPEAKER_00: You throw me in, I'll throw you in.
SPEAKER_00: If you'll pick me up, because if you carry me over, I'll tell you where to go.
SPEAKER_00: And once the water bubbles, you throw me in.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you, dude, I will not bail on you.
SPEAKER_00: Once I walk out of here, I will stay.
SPEAKER_00: And next time I'm throwing you in, we're gonna get out together.
SPEAKER_00: Now you go, well, Greg, that may not have even been worth doing because maybe it wasn't even an angel stirring the water, maybe it was just a natural spring.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, but you at least get to cross this one off the list.
SPEAKER_00: I have no one.
SPEAKER_00: Now you have someone.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: And you said, I can't, and I have no one.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll get to your legs later.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we could deal, you could deal with the loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: You can deal with this by actually, what have you, what, what have you tried, what have you done?
SPEAKER_00: And I think at a certain point in your life it's very easy to go, hey, if I could just get this, if I just had that, things would be so better.
SPEAKER_00: How how well do how bad do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: I I think there's certain things that sort of indicate, like, of course, if I could press a button and have it, yeah, I probably would.
SPEAKER_00: No, how what length if you're not well and you need help and you need to get healthy, what are you willing to do to get it?
SPEAKER_00: I see people sometimes they they they they they want help if it comes in a very specific package.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take help if it comes like this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, well that people reach out from time to time to the church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm always grateful they do because our church is here to help.
SPEAKER_00: We're a safe place.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul says about the body of Christ take joy in covering each other's weaknesses, take joy in honoring each other.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about the body, and sometimes parts of the body need to be protected and covered up and helped.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is that place, and we need to be able to help.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, you need to ask yourself how bad you actually want to get healthy and want to get help.
SPEAKER_00: Well, people that will come say, hey, uh, you know, we'd like counseling.
SPEAKER_00: Well, our church is not a counseling center.
SPEAKER_00: We have a place where we can help people to a certain degree, but if you have been on the map for 38 years, there may be some professional help that you need beyond what we can provide as a church.
SPEAKER_00: And so we might say, hey, we'll have some conversations, or we'll we have some connect group leaders, we have some marriage coaches that are able to help in this way.
SPEAKER_00: But if you got a 38-year issue, you can't use your leg, hey, that may be more than what we can do.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we have.
SPEAKER_00: We've networked with counselors that can help you.
SPEAKER_00: These are people who went to school a long time, they got a lot of experience, they're professionals at doing this, and they can help you out.
SPEAKER_00: And people go, oh no, I don't want to do that because it's not free.
SPEAKER_00: It costs money.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, so you only want help if it's free?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't afford that.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me good.
SPEAKER_00: If you're broke, broke, broke.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: If you're broke, broke, broke right now, go to one dot church slash care.
SPEAKER_00: We will help you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're broke, broke, broke.
SPEAKER_00: But if you have ESPN Plus, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Peacock Plus, Discovery Plus, Hulu, Prime, and Prime's ugly cousin, and you're paying$7.99.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's only$7.99 a month, times what?
SPEAKER_00: It adds up fast.
SPEAKER_00: If you're getting triple pump lattes, you you're paying for three gym memberships.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to you, three gym memberships.
SPEAKER_00: Don't tell me you ain't got the money.
SPEAKER_00: You bought concert tickets.
SPEAKER_00: Sell your 2022 and get a 2014, go get some help.
SPEAKER_00: The winning attitude is I will do whatever it takes to get help.
SPEAKER_00: So when you come in a very specific package, well, I'll only meet with this person and I'll only do it for free.
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to get help?
SPEAKER_00: You don't want it?
SPEAKER_00: If you're still picky, you ain't ready.
SPEAKER_00: If I come on, put the shoe on the other foot.
SPEAKER_00: If I come to you, I'm like, I'm starving.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, cool, I got a protein bar.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I want steak and eggs.
SPEAKER_00: Scrambled.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: Bro, you ain't that hungry?
SPEAKER_00: You ain't that hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: I started thinking about this because my heart goes out.
SPEAKER_00: My heart truly goes out to somebody who has not had use of their legs for 38 years and is sat there and is alone.
SPEAKER_00: I start thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00: I started thinking about my life experience, my personal experience, and like what I've seen.
SPEAKER_00: And I think when people get to a place like this, we'll call this a low place.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, and I have nobody.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you you're you you feel like you've lost everything.
SPEAKER_00: I've lost everything.
SPEAKER_00: I've lost people I care about.
SPEAKER_00: I've lost the respect of my peers.
SPEAKER_00: I've lost my own respect.
SPEAKER_00: You feel like you're in a really low place.
SPEAKER_00: Being in this place usually has one of two effects.
SPEAKER_00: One, it can cause a tremendous amount of humility.
SPEAKER_00: It brings you to your knees and it humbles you.
SPEAKER_00: But I've also seen it do the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen people in a very low place become extremely prideful.
SPEAKER_00: Extremely prideful.
SPEAKER_00: And I started praying about that and thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Lord, how can I what do I do with that?
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I feel like the Lord showed me.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like God showed me this.
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people, when they're in this position, they use pride to try to protect the final vestiges of their dignity, which is a totally reasonable thing to want to have.
SPEAKER_00: It is totally right and reasonable and valid for you to want to hang on to your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have been on a mat for 38 years and you've had to beg, and the best plan you can come up with is to try to barter with some other with another invalid or somebody else or whatever it might be, and you feel like you've lost your dignity, sometimes you put up a wall of pride.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that wall of pride that actually is the thing you've got to deal with do you really want to get well?
SPEAKER_00: Because in order to get well, you might have to risk your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: You might have to risk bringing out from behind the wall of pride whatever you've been trying to conceal.
SPEAKER_00: It might take that.
SPEAKER_00: It might take somebody having a joke about you at your expense, it might be losing a friend, it might be risking humiliation, it might be something that would make you look bad, but the pride that you put up to try to protect your dignity is not working.
SPEAKER_00: But what happened when that pool of Bethesda started bubbling for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_00: Dignity.
SPEAKER_00: I ain't doing that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm embarrassed.
SPEAKER_00: And you might have to risk your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you two things.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm talking to you, I'm gonna give you two things.
SPEAKER_00: The first is this.
SPEAKER_00: I can't think of anything more respectable than somebody who's wise enough to know they need help, humble enough to ask for it, and courageous enough to follow through with whatever it takes to get there.
SPEAKER_00: That's gotta be the most respectable thing I can think of.
SPEAKER_00: So if somebody's got a joke, if somebody's got a joke they see you doing, I I see somebody doing this, it's about the most respectable thing I can think of.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody that's willing to do, somebody that will ask for help, wise enough to know you need help, humble enough to ask for it, courageous enough to follow through.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I'm gonna give you that's even better than that.
SPEAKER_00: The way you restore and maintain your dignity is knowing where your dignity comes from.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 3:3.
SPEAKER_00: David says, You, O Lord, are a shield for me.
SPEAKER_00: You're my glory and the lifter of my head.
SPEAKER_00: You're the one who holds my head high.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, man, they can clown you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they can lose respect for you, yeah, they can try to take your dignity, but they can't take your dignity because they didn't give you your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: You're made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: You, oh Lord, are a shield around me.
SPEAKER_00: You are the one who holds my head high.
SPEAKER_00: You hold my head high.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to squirm.
SPEAKER_00: You hold my head high.
SPEAKER_00: That's where my dignity comes from.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you see in the way Jesus does a miracle for this man, he restores his dignity.
SPEAKER_00: You see it here, and you see it in Mark 2.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: Sir, pick up your mat, stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in Mark 2, the man who's lowered through the roof and through the ceiling by his friends, and Jesus forgives his sin, and then he then he says to him, stand up, pick up your mat, and go home.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he could have said, Leave your mat there, leave the past in the past and leave it right there.
SPEAKER_00: Just leave that thing and just no, he said, pick up your mat.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because not only am I gonna give your legs power, I'm gonna make not only your legs work, I'm gonna I'm gonna make you powerful, you can do work.
SPEAKER_00: So he picks the mat up, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And all the symbolism of that mat, everything that had gone into that mat.
SPEAKER_00: 38 years of being an invalid, 38 years of excuse, 38 years of I have no one, 30.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna you're gonna pick it up and you're gonna walk out with it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is what triggered the Pharisees because they're like, What?
SPEAKER_00: It's the Sabbath, you're doing work on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing work on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_00: Because I can.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm doing work, because I can.
SPEAKER_00: I was an invalid.
SPEAKER_00: I was, I lost the respect and I didn't know where to find my dignity.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, No, I'm gonna make you not only able to walk, I'm gonna make you able to carry something.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna carry and you're gonna walk out and you're gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get your dignity back.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does it in Mark 2, he does it here in John 5.
SPEAKER_00: Now I end with this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how the story ends.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus heals the guy and he disappears into the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus disappears in the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: People are going, who healed you?
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't even know.
SPEAKER_00: Some guy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus tracks him down in verse 14, and look at this.
SPEAKER_00: So afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and told him, Now you are well.
SPEAKER_00: So stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: What was that?
SPEAKER_00: Was that a threat?
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus saying, you know, you were a paraplegic, and if you don't stop sinning, I'll make you a quadriplegic.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what he was saying?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was not threatening the man.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus was doing is he was he was showing him destination addiction.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, you were a paraplegic, and and you thought your biggest problem was your legs.
SPEAKER_00: And for 38 years you sat on that mat and you thought, if I could just get to the destination, if I could just get healed, if I had somebody to throw me in the water, if somehow I could get these legs working again, I'd be happy.
SPEAKER_00: I'd be functional, I'd be productive, I'd be a good guy.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Well, now you're there.
SPEAKER_00: But he said, You still got issues.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't deal with what's going on in your heart, you thought you had a complicated life sitting on that mat.
SPEAKER_00: You can walk into more trouble than you can possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And you thought it was bad there, it can get a whole lot worse.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is helping him understand the thing you thought was the problem isn't really the big problem.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't work on that, and we don't deal with that, it'll come back to bite you.
SPEAKER_00: Today I want to tell you some of you may be powering up pride, and you're doing it for a good reason, you're doing it to protect your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: I don't blame you.
SPEAKER_00: It breaks my heart.
SPEAKER_00: People, I don't even know.
SPEAKER_00: When I see somebody lose their dignity, it upsets me deeply.
SPEAKER_00: Something really sad about that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to take your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody in here wants to take your dignity.
SPEAKER_00: You deserve that, that belongs to you, but it's been endowed to you by God.
SPEAKER_00: You better know where it comes from because somebody's gonna have something to say.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gonna have jokes.
SPEAKER_00: Have your fun.
SPEAKER_00: You, oh Lord, are a shield to me.
SPEAKER_00: You're the glory and the lifter of my head.
SPEAKER_00: You're the one who holds my head high.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I really want to be well.
SPEAKER_00: And if I gotta crawl or I gotta barter or I gotta make a deal, I'm gonna dig as deep as I need to get.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do what I've got to do.
SPEAKER_00: I'll sell my 2022 and get me a 2014 if that's what I gotta do.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take the bus if I've got, I'm gonna do what it takes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get, do you want to be well?
SPEAKER_00: God is here not to take your dignity, to give it back to you, to give it back to you, and to heal every part of you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get caught thinking that the problem you think is the problem is the full problem.
SPEAKER_00: Let the Lord show you what a whole, full healing looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Some of it happens in an instant, and some of it happens with a slow oil over time.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let God do what He wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: Invite you to stand up on your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a moment, turn to the Lord.