So we are in our third week in a study of the major miracles of Jesus, looking at them in the book of John.
The first week we talked about all of our issues with miracles.
I have issues with miracles.
You probably have issues with miracles.
That was in the first sermon last week.
Matt covered and reminded us that miracles are not signs for us to stop and become fascinated by the miracle and the sign of itself.
A sign actually sends us on to something else.
The sign sends us on to the validation and the wonder of Jesus, which can be hard to see because I can't always seem to get it all together.
And sometimes I have doubts.
And I can't, your horrible brother, or your dad won't cooperate with you.
That hasn't been helping you out.
Or your back hurts, or your knee hurts, or you got sick, or you are sick, and the doctor called, and then the boy you wanted to call you, didn't call you.
Your body feels broken, or your relationships feel broken, or your career feels broken.
You still don't have enough money.
None of us do, apparently.
You don't have enough hair, some of you.
I don't have enough muscles.
That's my problem.
Never have.
Three kids throw up in your kids' class this week.
That didn't help your everlasting peace, did it?
No, that threw you off for a couple days.
We just we can't get a handle on all of it, and so we can get stuck in that.
That woe is me.
Self-pity.
I will never, this will never, my heart will never be healed.
So we understand this man in John 5.
Let's reread the story.
Verse 1.
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheepgate a pool in Arimae called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed.
One man who was there 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?
That could also say, maybe in your translation, Do you want to be made well?
The sick mate answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred.
And while I'm going, another steps down before me.
Jesus said to him, Get up, take your bed and walk.
These people believe that when the water stirred and moved, the first one in would be healed.
Here's point number one.
We are all looking for healing.
We're all looking for healing.
Some sort of healing.
Something in your life.
Some wound.
Certainly for our hearts.
So Jesus is back in Jerusalem.
He sees this heart-wrenching scene here at the pool of Bethesda.
People are sick, they're disabled, they're all over the place.
38 years.
Do you remember where you were 38 years ago?
I mean, some of you didn't exist.
I was in Miss Beatty's kindergarten class.
I was five.
My biggest concern was whether or not I was faster than Patrick Gilbride.
That was it.
Nothing else really mattered in life.
38 years.
I mean, I've had a lot of life since kindergarten Miss Beatty's class.
A lot has happened in 38 years.
And this guy, 38 years sitting here.
And his reflex to Jesus' compassion is self-pity.
He just goes straight into his long script, his narrative of his life, everything not going right in his life.
And he has some legit reasoning, doesn't he?
Because he's sick.
And he has no one.
So he has sickness and he has loneliness, and we sense that he has some bitterness.
See, he doesn't just have pain, he is attached to his pain.
He'd rather feel hurt and wrong than well.
And we know that by how he responds to Jesus.
Do you want to be made well?
And he just launches into his narrative about his attempts and how he can't make himself well.
So the very thing he wants to be healed from is the very thing that stops him from being healed.
Meaning this, point number two.
Our addiction to make ourselves well on our own is where we need healing.
It's the beginning.
A few weekends ago, our family went to North Carolina at the end of that fall break week that some of us had, and we took the girls zip lining.
And so we went with them.
The five of us went zip lining.
The first few zip lines, they're building up your confidence.
You get the harness on, and you're learning about the cables, and you got this big glove on for your break, and you learn how to do the clips and all that.
So you're gaining your confidence.
The first one they just send you out over like 20 feet, right?
And so you're okay, pretty good.
You're learning the confidence.
Then you're like 50 feet, then you're like 100 feet.
By the fifth zip, we're on a platform looking out of a valley, a quarter mile-long zip over the platform, 210 feet above the ground, 100 feet above the trees.
Here's a picture of one of my daughters when she, here's a video of it sending off.
Here she goes.
And then here's where it gets above 210 feet.
Now, if you want some pressure, you watch your nine-year-old go.
I mean, you're gonna go.
Your nine-year-old just went, right?
Like, I mean, there's no debate, you're not backing out at that point.
You're you're in, you're in.
And I so I'm in a sitting down in that harness.
She clips all that, and sit down in that harness, and I go flying out over those trees.
You're going a lot faster, that little video there doesn't feel like the you know, the fear that's going through you because I have questions.
I have questions.
Is there an organization that checks these cables?
They didn't fill me in on that.
You know, I didn't know if granola Joe and granola Jill were the only ones here checking the cables.
Is there an organization that didn't fill me in on that when we signed up?
And it's real clear that if I fell, I would die.
I mean, you're 210 feet up.
Right?
If the cable snaps or the harness breaks or something happens, you're gonna die.
And so I have that right hand back on my brake.
I'm following my technique like I learned, and I'm doing the craziest thing with my left hand.
I am tight gripping with all my life this part of my harness right in front of me.
Like, like that's gonna do anything.
And that's the human dilemma right there.
It really is.
The human dilemma.
Clutching to a harness of self-effort to get ourselves changed or right with God or better.
When in reality, the only thing holding me up the entire time is everything outside of me.
See, Jesus asked the man, that sentence, do you want to be healed?
Do you want to be made well?
That's interesting language there.
The good news is, this is really good news, that there was no faith by the man to cause Jesus to have compassion on him.
He had implemented nothing except helplessness, even sort of like a passive rejection of Jesus.
He's just oblivious to Jesus.
And yet Jesus is pursuing him, compassionate toward him.
And that's amazing if you've ever felt weak or broken or at the end of yourself.
See, our faith does not cause Jesus to pursue us or forgive us or love us.
That's why our faith is so freeing.
Our faith exists because Jesus does pursue us and forgive us and love us.
And see, this is the difference between what we could say to be made well and meriting wellness.
Meriting wellness or to be made well.
So meriting wellness, that's me holding on to the harness.
That's what that is.
It's us using idols of the world, money or beauty or influence or status or sex or comfort, any of these.
Bad things that never go well, or good things that we overuse to try to heal ourselves or make ourselves better or cope in some way.
This is our sin.
If I only have enough, if I only get that, then I'll be whole.
It's even in religion.
In this story, it's believed that most of the people around this pool they believed in a false god.
They believed in the God Ecclepius, the god of the healing waters.
That's why they were there.
Now, I think it's likely that nobody was actually being healed around this pool.
I'm a cynic by nature.
I don't know what you believe.
I don't think anybody was really being healed.
I mean, the pool itself was fed by an underground spring.
That's why the water moved.
An angel didn't really move the water, the underground spring did, but these people had this false belief.
That all the false gods work the same, just like our false gods work the same.
They put us to work.
And they actually hold no power for our hearts.
But Jesus says, Do you want to be made well?
To be made well.
Isn't it interesting that the man responds to this question as if Jesus asked a different question?
The man responds as if Jesus asked, Why haven't you made yourself well?
Right?
He starts defending his technique.
I can't get down there.
I can't, nobody's there.
He defends himself.
We love our self-salvation.
And yet it's the very thing keeping us sick.
And Jesus asks us just an entirely different question.
He does not ask us, why haven't you made yourself well?
He asks, Do you want to be made well?
To be made well, it's a healing that comes from outside of you.
It's given to you while you're hurting.
Or while you don't have your act together.
We would say, while you're a sinner.
And Jesus pursues this man in his condition, outside of the man even asking.
Point number three is this the disruption of our helplessness by Jesus' pursuit is our heart's healing.
So the only reason any of us have salvation or relationship with God is because Jesus disrupted us.
The grace of God disrupted all of our attempts to merit our own wellness.
When we talk about healing, we're talking about a restoration of the heart to God in full relationship with Christ because of Christ's work, not ours, so we are forever secure by his word.
Your inner self absolved of any guilt or shame, being counted fully righteous, fully his because of his work for you?
That's a wholeness of heart.
That's a gift to us, and at the same time it's something we have to learn to grow in.
So we would say we're both healed and healing.
Mockingbird editor Will McDavid says this about John chapter 5.
A bit of a read here.
I think you can hang with me.
There is a crucial difference between wanting to be well, which we all do, and wanting to be made well, which almost none of us do.
Being made well suggests passivity on our parts.
It suggests an improvement in our situation, which is received as a gift rather than earned with cunning and strength of will.
This points to the truth that our attraction to self-salvation is actually what kills us, because it places the responsibility for self-healing directly upon our shoulders.
Parents want the full responsibility for raising perfect children.
Drinking alcoholics are convinced that they have the power to manage their own lives.
And most religious people want to claim full agency in living in a moral way.
And yet the tragedy is that we are hardwired to fail at some point.
Perhaps not in all these arenas.
But certainly in some, people want the responsibility because of pride.
But they are crushed by guilt when they fail, and even consumed by anxiety when they succeed.
Succeed or fail, when the burden is on us, it is consuming.
But there's good news.
And that's that Jesus comes to us and says, Do you want to be made well?
The story continues, verse 9, John 5, 9, and at once the man was healed.
And he took up his bed and he walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, is not lawful for you to take up your bed.
But he answered to them, The man who healed me, the man said to me, Take up your bed and walk.
They asked him, Who is this man who said this 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.
So the man's healed.
He believed this.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, the last thing he's concerned is there's a bunch of rules on the Sabbath.
I mean, so he's the guy who heals you says, Take up your mat and walk.
He said, I'm taking up my mat, I'm walking.
That's what's going on.
So these Jews see this.
That's a break of the rules.
Hey, what's going on?
Why are you doing this?
You're breaking the rules.
You can't work on the Sabbath.
You can't even carry your mat on the Sabbath.
They loved rules.
Lists and lists of rules of what it meant to be reverent, what it meant to be pure.
And if you can fulfill all the rules, then just maybe you could be pure also.
They were living in meriting wellness.
Works righteousness.
The very thing Jesus is rescuing all of us from.
So Jesus is both healing us in a secure sense that we're healed.
And yet we're all still learning what it means to grow in our healing.
Our position with God is freely given in Jesus on the cross.
Our sin put upon him, his righteousness is given to us.
There's a healing there, a permanence for us.
Healed.
And yet we're still imperfect and need to grow in it.
As for growth and our grace, let's just ponder a few questions.
Three questions that hit me this week.
Thinking about growth and grace, growth and our healing.
On a day-to-day basis, do I find myself defined by insecurity and burden or stability and gratitude?
In what ways do I self-save rather than live in God's limitless love and pursuit of my heart?
What would it mean for my heart to grow more deeply in the gift of forgiveness, righteousness, and wholeness that Christ gives me?
We're healed.
And we are learning what it means in that great wealth of healing that we have to our hearts, that Jesus is sufficient for it.
That's what this miracle is showing us.
It's a physical healing, but it's much more than that.
By the end of the story, he's talking to the man about his heart.
He's talking about his inner parts of his life, not just his physicality.
And that's where Christ heals us in the heart.
Now I'm sure you know it's that time of the year, it's October.
We have liturgy in our church.
Certain things that we practice over and over again in spring, we celebrate Easter.
December, we celebrate Christmas.
In October, we celebrate.
Do you remember?
Fat Bear Week.
Did somebody say it?
You were thinking.
I mean, have y'all been paying attention for like the last five years that we know in October we celebrate Fat Bear Week?
I mean, what am I doing up here if we cannot get this?
We're a bit late.
Fat Bear Week ended October 11th.
So we're a little late.
Sorry about that.
But the results are in.
Some of you are aware.
You've joined the subculture.
We do have a Fat Bear Week champion.
Now, let me just remind you, some of you are new to our church, Fat Bear Week's very important to us.
It is a competition up in Katma National Park in Alaska, where all the grizzly bears, from the beginning of June to October, they come to Brooks Falls.
That's Brooks Falls, and the salmon are there and they feast on the salmon through the summer.
And then Fat Bear Week is in the end of October, mid-October, and it's headed toward their hibernation, and it's all about what bear got the fattest during the summer.
And so all the rangers, they post pictures of the bears, the beginning of the summer to the end of the summer.
And you know, like when you walk into Golden Corral and when you walk out of Golden Corral.
That's what this is.
Somebody took your picture.
And then people vote.
Bear nerds vote.
Maybe you vote, you haven't told anybody because you're too ashamed of your bear nerdiness.
It's possible.
Last year's a thrilling battle.
Otis won.
Don't know if you remember.
That's Otis.
Noble champion.
Very noble.
Very regal.
Now, this year the championship was between Holly.
Now, if you remember, because we've been doing this for years, Holly won back in 2019.
And so this championship this year is between Holly and Bear 747, also known as Bear Force One.
I didn't make it up, Mr.
And a scandal broke out.
Did y'all read about this?
It was all over.
Tens of people read about this.
And some people tried to manufacture thousands of votes for Holly right at the end.
It wasn't a big scandal, it was just barely a scandal.
And yet it was settled.
They figured it out.
Figured it out.
And Bear Force One was victorious.
So here's a picture of Bear Force One in June.
And then here's Bear Force One September.
And this is why we celebrate Fat Bear Week every year.
So the Rangers said that Bear Force One likes to sit in a spot at the back of the falls called the jacuzzi.
And he just sits back there.
He expends no energy.
He's passive.
There he is in the jacuzzi.
And he feasts on the fish that the current brings to him.
So it's an active passivism, we would call it.
It's what faith walk is: active passivism.
Fighting to trust, fighting to rest, fighting to receive.
We are in that pursuit, and yet we are in that pursuit because he pursues us and the things we're pursuing, we're actually fighting to receive.
So he doesn't fight the current, he doesn't waste energy, he doesn't stand at the falls and just hope a fish will jump.
Like many of the other bears, Bear Force One has conquered what it means to feast.
And he sits in the jacuzzi and lets the current bring the fish to him.
It's a beautiful picture for us of what gospel faith is.
Because it's not based in what we do for him, but what he has done for us.
We say that every week during communion.
Because the current of grace, the power of the gospel, by the work of the Holy Spirit, our hearts are healed and healing.
We're active, but it's within a passivity of surrender, of trust, of rest.
And it's there that we actually are changed.
But it's not just behavioral, it's actually in our hearts.
Because we're so endeared to him, because he is so endeared to our weakness.
And we are changed.
And it's usually not quickly, which is quite frustrating for ourselves and for people around us.
But over time we are endeared to him.
And we're drawn to learn of an identity that's beyond our merit, beyond our wounds, beyond our inability, our shame, our guilt.
And an identity rich empathy in him.
That he has proclaimed us righteous, proclaimed us worthy.
So my brothers and sisters, our helplessness is met with sufficiency by his sheer grace, his perfect love, and a power that really is enough to enter our hearts.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for your grace.
That in our weakness, you are endeared to us, you move toward us, you find us in our helplessness where we feel stuck, and that you heal us.
Not because of what we do, but because of what you did for us, and we know it on the cross, where all the forgiveness we ever needed is accomplished, and all the righteousness we ever need is full for us.
May we grow in gospel faith of what it means to be active, but what it means to be active within our surrender to you, so that the power of the gospel, the proclamation that the good news of Jesus is enough for our hearts, and that we might be healed from all the ways that we try to self-save, cope, self-justify in the world and even in religion.
And that we would see you to be even greater and more sufficient, even more worthy of our lives and more worthy of our hearts.
In a room this size, and this many people, there's a lot of exhaustion and brokenness.
And I pray that you find us where we're at.
Love us, speak truth to our hearts, and draw us close.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.