Day 1: You Become What You Live Around

The environments we live in shape us more than we often realise. They influence our thinking, affect our expectations and can determine what we come to accept as normal.

In Day 1 of The Courage to Get Up, we begin at the Pool of Bethesda, where a man had spent thirty-eight years surrounded by sickness, disappointment and limitation. What began as a place of hope had become a place of waiting. A place where people gathered in expectation of change, yet many remained trapped in the same circumstances year after year.

As we explore John 5:1–15, we'll examine how prolonged exposure to unhealthy environments can affect our mindset, our confidence and even our faith. Over time, we can become so accustomed to limitation that we stop expecting anything different. We adapt to what surrounds us and gradually lower our expectations of what God can do.

Yet when Jesus arrives, He sees beyond the environment, beyond the labels and beyond the years of disappointment. He challenges the man to see himself differently and opens the door to a future he may have stopped believing was possible.

This study invites us to reflect on the environments that influence our lives and asks whether they are drawing us closer to God's purpose or keeping us stuck in cycles of limitation.

Scripture Focus: John 5:1–15

Key Question: Have you become so shaped by your environment that you've started to accept limitations God wants to break?

Join us as we begin this journey from waiting to walking, from limitation to freedom, and from surviving to living with renewed purpose and hope.

The Courage to Get Up – From Waiting to Walking. From Limitation to Freedom.

Seek. Discern. Obey.

Thank you for joining me in the Word & Prayer Room. If this study has encouraged you, please follow the podcast and share it with someone who may be seeking God's direction. Remember, God is not distant or silent. He is able to make His will known to those who sincerely seek Him. Until next time, keep listening for His voice, keep trusting His word, and keep walking by faith. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

So welcome to day one of this teaching series, courage to get up. And today's topic is called You Become What You Live Around. You become what you live around. I'm going to be reading the base text from St. John chapter 5, verses 1 to 15. And hopefully you've had an opportunity to listen to the introduction and also to the context. So we're coming together on a journey. And it says, Afterwards, Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the sheep gate, was the pool of Bethesda with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people, blind, lame, or paralyzed, lay on the porches. One of the men lay there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, Would you like to get well? I can't, sir, the sick man said, for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me. Jesus told him, Stand up, pick up your mat and walk. Instantly the man was healed. He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking. But this miracle happened on the Sabbath. So the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, You can't work on the Sabbath. The Lord doesn't allow you to carry that sleeping mat. But he replied, The man who healed me told me, pick up your mat and walk. Who said such a thing as that? They demanded. The man didn't know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. But afterwards Jesus found him in the temple and told him, Now you are well, so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you. Verse 15. Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. May God add his richest blessings to the reading of his holy word. So here we are on day one, the topic again, you become what you live around. And in this context, what we live around is not just our physical location as in our home and the community and the streets that we live on, it is the atmosphere that we live in. It includes the voices we hear, the experiences that we repeat, the relationships we choose to keep, and the expectations that gradually shape our thinking and behavior. In verses 2 and 3 of the text that we read, it says, Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheepgate a pool, and here a great number of disabled people used to lie: the bled, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. And it's interesting that before Jesus addressed the man, he actually entered this man's environment. The pool of Bethesda was far more than a location, it was an atmosphere. It was a place where people gathered, carrying sickness, limitation, disappointment, and unfulfilled hopes. The blind, the lame, and the paralyzed all came there seeking a breakthrough that seemed forever beyond their reach. Just take a moment to think about that. For the man in this story, Bethesda was not somewhere he occasionally visited. It was where he lived. Day after day, year after year, he was surrounded by people whose lives were marked by struggle and waiting. One of the most powerful truths in this passage is that environments shape us more than we often realize. You know, as human beings, we are deeply influenced by what's around us. The conversations we hear, the attitudes we encounter, the expectations that dominate a place, and the behaviors that become normal all have a way of quietly forming our thinking. And we may not notice it in the moment, we may not notice that it's even happening, but over time our environment can begin to define what we believe is possible. After 38 years, Bethesda would have become familiar to this man. The sight of people waiting for healing would no longer have shocked him. The stories of disappointment would have become ordinary. The frustration of watching others move ahead while he remained stuck would have become a part of his daily life. What once perhaps been a temporary circumstance had gradually become his normal reality. And this is one of the dangers of prolonged exposure to unhealthy environments. We can adapt to things that God never intended us to accept. We become accustomed to anxiety and call it caution. We become familiar with negativity and call it realism. We settle into spiritual stagnation and call it stability. We tolerate unhealthy relationships, limiting beliefs, and patterns of disappointments simply because they have been present for so long. Familiarity has a way of reducing our sensitivity to what is actually happening around us. The challenge is that environments don't only influence behavior, they influence our expectation. You see, if everyone around you is struggling, it can become difficult to navigate and to imagine that you can thrive. If everyone around you speaks the language of limitation, it can become difficult to think in terms of possibility. If disappointment is constantly reinforced, hope can begin to feel unrealistic. And over time, the atmosphere around us can shape the atmosphere within us. Let me say that again. Over time, the atmosphere around us can shape the atmosphere within us. And this helps us understand why Jesus didn't simply heal the man, he also removed him from the environment that had defined him for nearly four decades. The miracle was not only about getting strength into his legs, it was about breaking the power of an atmosphere that had continually reinforced his limitations. Jesus was calling him into a completely different way of living, thinking, and seeing himself. And we know that throughout Scripture, God often calls people out of environments before he moves them into new seasons. Remember, Abraham had to leave his country, Israel had to leave Egypt, Ruth had to leave Moab. The disciples had to leave their nets. Before God does a new thing, he often challenges the atmosphere that had been shaping our expectations. And perhaps the question for us today is not simply what we are living with, but what we are living around. What voices are influencing us? What conversations are shaping our thinking? What environments are feeding our faith, and which ones are quietly reinforcing our limitations. Sometimes the first step towards freedom is recognizing that the atmosphere around us has become part of the reason we remain stuck. Well, let's look at three takeaways, three things that we should remember from day one. The topic again is you become what you live around. Number one, environments shape our expectations long before they shape our behavior. Our environment shape our expectations long before they shape our environment our behavior. Number two, familiarity can cause us to accept things that God never intended to become our norm. And number three, God often changes the atmosphere around us as part of changing the person within us. I love that one. God often changes the atmosphere around us as part of changing the person within us. Amen. So let's look at an application. And throughout this week, why don't you pay close attention to the environments you spend time in? Don't only think about your physical environment. In this day and age, it's also about the consumption of the internet, whether you're on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, there's so many, Snapchat, all the others, TikTok, they are also environments that are very much influencing so many people today. So don't only think about your physical location, think about those online locations and also about the conversations that you have, the relationships that you're nurturing, what we consume in the media, influences and routines that surround us. And ask yourself the question: is this environment strengthening my faith, my hope, and my growth? Or is it really quietly reinforcing limitation? And you need to take some time to really think about that and be honest about what it is that may be shaping and influencing any limitations that you may be experiencing. Then make one intentional choice to spend time in an atmosphere that aligns more closely with where God is calling you. So maybe it would be if you're on media listening to a credible gospel channel or a word from a credible person, man and woman of God, rather than just consuming whatever's out there under the name of gospel, for example. What about the relationships? Stay away from people that you know gossip, people that talk about other people, people that don't have anything good to say and do about you know their lives or anybody else around them. We've got to think about the environment and ask the Holy Spirit to give us that wisdom, that discernment to say, this is not helpful for me. And I know that when we make that first step, as we're going to see through this series, then God is more than willing to do the rest. So let's close this first day in prayer. Father, I thank you. I give you glory, I give you honor, I give you praise, I thank you for the revelation of your word, and the entrance of your word gives us light. Word tells us that your word is a lamp onto our feet and a light onto our pathway. And so, Father, we thank you for the revelation of your knowledge and thank you for this teaching. Thank you for opening our eyes to the influences of the environments around us. Forgive us, Lord, for the times when we've accepted things as normal that you never intended for our lives. Father, we pray that you will help us to recognize the environments that are shaping our thinking, our expectations, and our faith, and give us wisdom, Lord, to discern what is helping us to grow and the courage to step away from what is keeping us stuck. In the name of Jesus, we pray that your presence becomes the strongest influence in our lives and that your promises will shape our expectation, will fuel the hope within us, and give us fire in our belly for your word and for you, and hunger for your presence, and that Father, you will shape our surroundings so that it will be pleasing and honorable in your sight and according to your will. Father, we thank you that you hear us when we pray. We give you glory, we give you honor in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we hope that you've been blessed by today's series, and we look forward to seeing you in day two.