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Good morning, church. And uh morning uh to all of you who might be guests here today. Uh my name's Nick, and I'm one of the elders here at Point Community Church, and just want to say uh that we're glad you're here and uh we hope you're encouraged already. Hey, there I am. Uh already encouraged just by what uh God is doing. And uh we are uh in the book of John. So if you guys have a Bible, uh you might pull that out. Uh there's also some some Bibles under the chairs around you, and I'm gonna invite you to go ahead and to grab a copy for yourself if you don't if you didn't bring one. Uh there's also the words will be on the screen behind me here. But while you're doing that, if you would lift your hand if you did not get a worship guide when you came in the door, if you did not get a worship guide, it's a little half sheet folded uh paper that inside that you can take some notes, uh, you can write along as we talk, as we teach. And I know not everybody uses those, uh, but I encourage you. Um it's a great resource. Uh anybody else raise your hand and just a few more. Okay. Uh great resource to to kind of follow up during the week. Our hope is that what we say on Sunday gets lived out uh Monday through Saturday and beyond. Um just praying that that that what we we say here, it's not supposed to just be uh an intellectual teaching or just some sort of conversation or some sort of class or a one-sided uh me talking at you, and then that's the end of it. It's like, okay, we did our church thing, let's go. It's God, what do you want to say to me and how do I apply that and give me the grace and the strength and the power to apply it? And so we do that uh in our life groups. Uh we help each other with that. And so if you don't have a life group community, uh you can continue to come here and be a part of Point Community Church without being a part of a life group. Uh, but we will tell you that being a part of a life group will accelerate your growth process and your connectedness here and making this church your your home, uh your family, community, uh will really help you grow in your in your walk with Jesus and it's also just be a great support system for you as you go through suffering and hardship and difficulty. So anyway, we're glad you're here and uh encourage you that this morning. John chapter 5. I'm just gonna read this passage to us, verse 1 through 18, and then after I read it, um, we're gonna pray and then we're gonna dive in. John chapter 5, verse 1 says this. After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. By the sheep gate in Jerusalem, there is a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five colonnades. Within these lay a large number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water, because an angel would go into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first who got in after the water was stirred up from uh recovered from whatever ailment that he had. One man was who had then been there, uh who'd been sick for thirty-eight years. Uh when Jesus saw him lying there, he knew he had already been there a long time, because Jesus knows. He said to him, Do you want to get well? Sir, the sick man answered, I don't have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, someone goes down ahead of me. Get up, Jesus told him, pick up your mat and walk. Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, This is the Sabbath. It's illegal for you to pick up your mat. He replied, The man who made me well told me to pick up my mat and walk. Who is this man who told you, Pick up your mat and walk? They asked. But the man who was cured did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex and said to him, See you are well. Do not sin any more, so that something worse doesn't happen to you. That's an interesting thought. The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus responded to them, My Father is still working, and I am working also. This is why the Jews began all the more to kill him, trying all the more to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father and making himself equal with God. Let's pray. God, we just thank you for your word. Thank you that we have the opportunity to read it together this morning, to ask for your spirit to give us insight into what it says, and then ask for the grace and the empowerment of your spirit to actually apply it to our lives and live it out. We just ask that right now you would speak to us exactly what we need to hear, that every person in this room would hear the word that they need to hear from your heart to them. And that God, we would uh again respond appropriately. We love you, and we thank you that we are loved by you. Praise in your name. Amen. Um as I was thinking about this text this week, it struck me that recently I had a little bit of an image of what's going on in this text in my my everyday life, um, being that we uh we were going along through the summer, and you guys know how summer months in Austin are. It's hot, and I always uh hate getting the electric bill in the summer. Anyone else say amen to that? I hate getting the electric bill because I know we've been running, and we and and like I'm kind of a thermostat Nazi, I'm a door Nazi at my house. I'm like, shut the door, turn it down. You know, it's like I'm trying trying to make sure and conserve energy because I don't want to have to pay more money on my electric bill. And uh we get an electric bill a couple months back, it's at the the last month of the summer. Uh well, I guess there's really only two seasons here, but anyway, um before school started, and it was $533. Now, maybe some of that's normal for you, but in my house that's not normal to get a bill that high. And I about had a heart attack. And I was like, say what? And uh so, like, you know, I'm trying to figure out what in the world is going on. And I noticed when I went to look at our unit that uh there was some water under it, so something was not right, okay. So because I'm a cheapo and because I just had a $533 uh lecture bill, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna figure out what's wrong with it, I'm gonna fix it. Look in there, it's really dirty inside of it, so I do I give it a good clean. I got one of my buddies here in church that can help me, can look at it, evaluate because it's all this condensation. It's like, well, I just need a good clean. So I cleaned it really, really good. That's gonna resolve the problem. Next month, $511 electric bill. So now I'm going, I've expended my emergency fund trying to pay my electric bill for the summer, you know, and basically trying to survive. And I'm like, this is this is no bueno, you know. And and so basically at that point, we just decided our house was gonna be hot for a while. And so to shut this puppy off, and and we'll figure it out later. We tried to climb through October in early November. We still kept having some warm days, and I'm like, okay, I'm sort of, but not really recovered from these electric bills. So I call a professional, which is what I should have done in the beginning, and a call professional asked him to come over to the house. He looks at it, and within 10 minutes, he walks out, he says, You got a real big problem here. And I'm like, Well, what's the problem? And he says, Well, your heater and your air conditioner are working at the same time. And so the reason you have this big bill is because the heat coils are on while your air conditioner is trying to blow cold air. So basically they're competing against themselves, and your house is not cooling and you're at you're spending a lot of money on electricity. To which I was like, oh my Lord. Okay, what do we got to do? Now, thankfully the part was warrantied. They fixed, they had to pay some labor, they fixed it. But I was thinking about that this week because I was thinking about how the heat and the AC were working against each other, and I was thinking about how that in our lives there are two competing systems in our hearts. This is as only a preacher can do, right? Connect the dots here. And I was thinking, isn't that interesting? You've got cool air and hot air, you know, this heater system and this AC unit, and they're working against each other, and the result is a very high electric bill, uh, depression, discouragement, uh, anger, frustration, right? And I thought, you know, that the fact is that in the human heart, there's two systems that compete. And these are the this is a real simplification, but this is the truth. There is works-based salvation, and there is grace. And the fact of the matter is that unlike the heat system that actually has a purpose, works-based salvation has no purpose, but it also does compete consistently in our hearts against God's way, which is grace. Now, there's a lot of pieces to this and a lot of ways that we can see this flesh itself out, but this story actually shows us again that there is a real problem in our hearts because we default to works-based salvation. That we think that if we, to make sure we're all clear and on the same page, that we think that if we do enough good works, that if we will go to church enough, if we'll read our Bible enough, if we'll pray enough, if we'll give enough, if we'll be kind enough to our wife or our husband, or we'll be kind enough to our coworkers, or if we'll serve the poor, or if we'll do something to help the marginalized, or we'll adopt a kid, or I mean, all those things that are, we will then somehow earn God's favor and we will get into heaven through our good works. We'll get God's approval. He'll love us then, he'll let us into heaven. And and the problem is that that's the opposite message of the Bible. The message of the Bible is not a message of earn our way. The message of the Bible is a message of Christ alone. Redeemer, rescuer, friend, savior. Grace. Upon grace, upon grace. And when those two systems are competing in our hearts, and you can be a Christian and still have these two systems competing in your heart, you can be a Christ follower and still be wrestling with that fleshly way when you screw up, when you blow it, when you disobey, when you disconnect, when you feel like you've disappointed God, and you want to make up for that through trying to do enough good things to make that wrong right. That's works-based salvation. And that's not what the Bible teaches to us. It teaches us that Jesus alone is sufficient. And so on the front end of the day, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna already giving you kind of the main thrust of this message, and that is that we want to see Christ alone as a gracious and merciful Savior who rescues us not because of what we have done, but because of just his goodness and kindness toward us. And that's so important for us to understand because when that's off, everything else will crumble for us. Now, that being said, let's jump back into the text for a second. Just a few things to note in this text. After this, uh just refers to the fact that he had done some healings again. Uh, we know this from last week. He had he had healed a boy who wasn't even on site. The father asked for him to heal uh his son, and he chooses to heal him again because of his grace, and he heals him from a distance, which is really awesome. He just says the word. He says, Your son is healed. And he goes back, and sure enough, his servant meets him on the way home, and he's healed. But then it says that he went up to Jerusalem for a festival. We don't know which festival it was. Uh we just know he was there for a festival. It must have not been important, or he would have told us which one it was. But he's there in Jerusalem, that's key. And he's there at the sheep gate, which is just simply a small gate in the wall of Jerusalem. Okay? And there are some pools there. In fact, it says uh there were these pools called Bethesda. And so in your notes, we just said what there's this pool, and I find this pretty interesting that Bethesda comes from this Hebrew word Beth Hezda, which they put together, and some people have heard this called the pool of Beth Seda, uh, but it means house of grace. It means house of grace. And here's all of these sick, lame, hurting people around this pool at the house of grace, which is where you would want to go if you needed healing, right? It's to the house of grace. That somehow we would get some miraculous grace in your life and be healed. And so we find uh these people here. And this pool, um, it was actually a couple of pools side by side, and we're told that there's these porches, these colonnades, there's five of them that surround these pools, and that that underneath these colonnades, underneath these porches, trying to stay out of the hot sun, are these lame people. And he given he tells us they're sick, there's there's blind, lame, paralyzed. And what are they doing? Well, they're waiting for this angel to come and stir up the waters. Now, some believe that what was happening, I don't know, because we don't get a lot of detail, that that that the pool periodically, because it was fed by Solomon Springs, would bubble. And when they would bubble up, these springs would bubble up, some red color would come into the water, and so the people would then try to get into the water. And the first person in, this is according to the text here, uh, was healed. Now, we don't know all the specifics of this, but just note that the context for this story is the house of grace. Okay? And we're gonna see some of that grace poured out in this moment. Now, one man is there. There's a man in particular, there's a lot of people there, but there's one that John draws out because this is the one that Jesus engages. And it's interesting because this is not a story where someone approaches Jesus and has faith in him, who understands who he is, who is able to say, Jesus, you're the master, you're the Messiah, you're the healer. He's just there hanging out with all the rest of them. And in fact, he's been there for four decades. 38 years, to be exact, is what the text tells us. 38 years he's laying on the side of this pool, and he's lame to the degree that he can't get into the water fast enough. We know that. So he's significantly disabled. And for those 40 years, roughly, that he's been laying there watching other people get into the water before him. I mean, I'm sure in his heart and in his mind, he's got to be thinking, this is never gonna happen. It's never, it's never gonna happen. I'm never gonna get in, I'm never gonna get healed. And so this has just become his way of life, hanging out with the other sick people around the pool. Sounds like a really enjoyable, fun time, right? And can you imagine, like, here he is with these people, and he's got his buddy Fred next to him, and he's like talking about it, they're waiting for the waters to bubble, and all of a sudden Fred, his friend, becomes Fred his foe the moment the waters start to bubble, right? Because it's an all-on, we're gonna get into the water, and I'm gonna beat Fred. I'm gonna beat everybody so that I can get healed, but he can't get there for some reason. Again, whatever ailment he has, whatever issue he has, he's incapable. And we know that apparently it has something to do with walking because Jesus tells him, get up, pick up your mat and walk, right? So here's this man. And this man, clearly, um he is in need of some help. Some severe help, right? And he doesn't exactly see it the way that we see it. One, because we have the hindsight of going, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who spoke the world into existence, who's already healed, is standing in front of you. You need healing? Here you go. But he can't see it because he doesn't know who Jesus is. Now think about that. Let's hold on to that as we move forward in the text. Because there's a couple of problems I want to draw out, a couple of patterns that are problems that are actually in this story that keep us from seeing Jesus as the gracious healer. That we have the same problem this man did, as easy as it is for us to say, man, all he had to do is say, I want to be healed, and Jesus could do it. We have a couple of problems, a couple of blinders, you might even call them, that keep us from seeing and experiencing the healing that God wants to bring into our lives. The first problem that we see in the story is self-absorption. Now, I could have used just self-centered or self-focused, but I mean, this guy is self-absorbed. Now, and this might sound harsh, some of you in this room are like, come on, give the guy a break. He's been sick for 38 years, he's laying outside the pool, like, come on, Nick. Show some compassion. Well, it's probably not one of my highest spiritual gifts, but more than that, I think as we look at the text, we learn a little bit about this guy, and you you gotta you gotta see this. The guy's pretty consumed with himself. Well, how do you know that? Well, I mean, first off, Jesus says something very clear, very direct as he engages him. I told you already, he's in a crowd of people. I'm sure Jesus has his posse with him. Most Jews wouldn't go in this place because they're afraid of being unclean, being around sick people, but Jesus is there because why? Because Jesus loves being around sick people and helping them and healing them. Jesus is right in the middle of the mess. And as he's walking around, the father, of course, indicates there's this man he is supposed to speak to, and he asks them a simple question, but a simple question that has a lot more depth to it than just simply what you see on the surface. He says to him, What? Do you want to get well? Do you want to get well? Now we're going to come back to that question at the end, but I think that is a profound question that may seem so silly and so obvious because the guy's at the pool because he wants to get well, right? He's at the pool where people know that if the water's stirred and you get in, you can get healed. So he wants to get well, right? Well, Jesus asks him the question. And instead of him just saying, Yeah, I want to get healed, he then begins to tell Jesus his plan, how he's going to get healed, how he's going to fix his problem. Again, reminding us that he doesn't understand who Jesus is, that the Son of God is standing in front of him, the one who has the ability to speak healing and him be healed. He doesn't see it, he doesn't know it. And so he says, Well, um, here's the deal. Uh I uh need some help getting in the pool. And people keep getting in before me. And so if I had help, I could I could get better, you know? That was his response. And he not only does this, which shows that he is so consumed with himself by giving his plan, we know that he doesn't even acknowledge Jesus as a rabbi, as a teacher, as a healer. He just calls him Sir, which is really kind of just a normal cultural language of saying, hey, you know, man, dude, you know, it wasn't even like that formal of a respect title for him. And then this plan that's not working, uh, that he is he's so locked in on, he doesn't even really stop and give pause to why do you ask? He just says, I give this plan. And what does Jesus do? Jesus doesn't look for faith, Jesus doesn't see if he's worthy. He just heals him. On the spot. He says, get up, take your mat, and walk. Done. You're healed. Four decades of laying here, it's over. Done. In a moment, just like that. That's the Jesus we serve and worship. In a moment, he can heal everything. In a word, he can heal everything. Isn't that awesome? I mean, just think about that for a second. The Jesus that we sing about here, the Jesus that we teach about and preach about, he's not just a theoretical character in a fairy tale book. He is a creator God who is powerful and who can speak healing. And in a moment, he can heal. Now, some of you are saying, well, then why doesn't he? That's a whole other conversation we'll have to have later on. And he he does heal in this instance because out of his grace, out of his sovereign grace, he chooses to heal this man. And there's something bigger that John's pointing to as he drives this forward, speaks to who Jesus is. Remember what's the goal of John? So that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the rescuer, the Savior of the world. So he's writing this for his very specific purpose and point. And John tells us that Jesus healed him in a moment. So the man gets up and he takes his mat and he walks. Well, we continue to see that this man is a little bit out of sorts because why? Well, he doesn't even get Jesus' name. I mean, when he's asked who told you to do this, because he he, by the way, when he was confronted about walking with his mat, what did he do? He did it. Just like Adam and Eve in the garden. He blame shifted, right? He said, Oh, well, the reason I'm walking with my mat and breaking the Sabbath is because this guy told me to do it. Right? Just like a little kid. Doesn't want to get in trouble. So he did it. Who did it? I don't know. I don't even know his name. Doesn't seem to be any gratitude, any gratefulness, any sense of like, I gotta find him. I need to know who he is so I can tell him, thank you. He just healed me. I've been sitting here on the shore for 38 years, and I I I couldn't fix myself, but he in one moment said, You're healed. Take up your mat and walk. And so we see this man in his healing. In his sickness and then in his hit in his healed state, not really quite getting it. And then Jesus says something to him that's very profound and a little bit odd. And I don't think that we're going to be able to completely understand all this this morning. But he says to this guy, he says, as they sort of reconvene and reconnect in the temple, it says, Jesus tells him, stop sinning so that something worse doesn't happen to you. Now, multiple things here, but I just want to draw out a couple things that I think are important. Number one, if you live in sin, it will lead to physical pain and ultimately death. Okay? Like your sin has consequences. And we need to remember that, right? You may think you're getting a free pass, that you're living in sin, and you're living in complete rebellion to God and He doesn't care, He doesn't know, it doesn't matter. Listen, your time is coming. Consequences do come because of sin. Sin has consequences, and as I said, Scripture clearly tells us that the ultimate consequence is death. And it's not just talking about physical death, though that is can't be a part of it, spiritual death, separation from God forever. That's a consequence of sin. So that's part of the reason Jesus says, stop sinning so that something worse isn't happening to you, is because you think it's bad off being lame and laying by a pool for four decades. Let me tell you what's even more lame, or what's even more dangerous, and what's even more deadly is rejecting the Son of God. Living in sin without a savior, without a rescuer. That's even more deadly. That's even more destructive and even more dangerous. And so Jesus says to him, Stop sinning. This also might tell us how he got hurt to begin with. We don't know if he was 38 years old and he had been this way his whole life, or if at some point in his life he was doing something he shouldn't have been doing and somehow hurt himself and now he's there. We don't know. But it could allude to that very issue, that very thing. In fact, some commentators believe that the way this was written points to that fact. That he had been a man who was doing something he should not have done and it cost him. What I would say to you this morning is, are you living in sin thinking it's not really a big deal? This isn't the primary purpose of this passage, but to miss this would be an error on our part. Are you walking in sin in disobedience to God and you think, I'm cool, it's all good. God doesn't, it doesn't really matter. It's just a matter of time. My dad, growing up in our house, he always told us this. Some of you have heard me say it before, and I'll say it again. A man doesn't suddenly go bad, he just gets found out. He walks in sin long enough, eventually comes to the surface, he destroys his family, he destroys his life, he destroys his friendships, he loses everything because that's what sin does. It takes. It does not give, it takes. It tells you it gives, but it takes. That's what sin does. Now, if that were the end of the story, we would all be depressed for the rest of our life. But thankfully, that's not the end of the story. Yes, sin takes, but God, in his grace, gives. And he rescues and he redeems, just like this man. Not only did this man have a self-absorption problem, and by the way, the religious leaders who we're going to talk about in a second, they also had a self-absorption problem because when they asked the man, they asked the man, uh, why are you walking on the Sabbath with your mat? Instead of saying, like, whoo, you're healed, dude. You've been out there for four decades, you're healed. Like, where's the celebration? Where's the excitement? Where's the, I'm so glad you're healed? It's no, it's like, why are you walking with your mat on the Sabbath? I know some church people like that. I know some Christians like that. Instead of being excited when people are rescued and redeemed, they're like walking around going, I can't believe them. You know how bad they were. You know all the stuff they were doing. Like, how jacked up is that in our heart? That we don't want people to be redeemed? It's a pharisaical heart. It's a legal heart that says we again measure up by what we do for God rather than what Christ has done for us. It is dangerous, it's sickening, and it fills a lot of churches at times, and it creates an attitude, again, where we're not celebrating, rejoicing in the redemption of God. We we celebrate ourselves. We're self-absorbed. We're not thanking God for saving us, we're saying we're good enough, we've done a good enough thing. And underneath all that is tremendous amounts of insecurity and shame and guilt. Even though we put on a great facade, a great front. I hope you know that this is a safe place, a safe church family, a safe environment to acknowledge that we are not okay. We don't have it all together, we don't have it all figured out, we have not fixed ourselves by being good church people. There is no such thing as a good church person anyway. Only goodness is God. So this man is self-absorbed, these religious leaders are self-absorbed. But the second problem, which is even greater and it's expounding on this exact issue, is self-salvation. Self-salvation. Now, again, I could have said self-justification, self-righteousness, but I'm saying self-salvation because this is this operating system that thinks that somehow we do enough good things and work our way into God's good graces, which makes zero sense at all because grace is something you cannot earn. It is a gift. It is God saying, I love you and I grant you grace out of my goodness, out of my love, my mercy, my kindness. I was talking to someone this week about this very issue, and he was basically saying to me, I'm tormented by the fact that I cannot come to a place of being confident that I'm saved because I still struggle with sin. So I must not be saved, right? And I reminded him that if you are putting your hope and your faith in your ability to measure up, to follow God's rules and his guidelines, if that's what your faith is in, then no, you are not saved. But if you have put your trust in the person and work of Jesus, you are saved. You are a child of God, and you cannot be unchosen, unadopted, rejected by the Father. He loves you, he receives you. Self-salvation is something that is very obvious in some ways, but very undercurrent in many ways in the hearts and lives of people just like myself who grew up in a very godly, biblical, sound church home. It's something that creeps in. It's the elder brother syndrome, if you know the story of the prodigal son. It's really the story of two brothers, the son who stands outside and pouts because his brother's getting a party inside. It's this attitude that, again, we can save ourselves. And this is a beginning for John to really kind of bring up a bigger issue that's going to ultimately get Jesus killed. You realize that the reason these religious leaders were so anxious to see Jesus leave the scene for him to die is because he was messing with their religious system. Their religious system of self-salvation through good works, through doing things, through following rules. This taking up your mat and walking was just one of 39 rules on Sabbath day that you could, you needed to make sure you kept if you were going to be a righteous person who was acceptable to God. Totally missing the intent behind it. You see, we see this man carrying his mat, and these guys, again, are more concerned about the rule than his healing. The Pharisaic heart cares more about appearance than love. Ouch. Ouch. And I think this is really fascinating that while this story has happening at the house of grace, we again see the Pharisees trying to make it into the house of rules. The house of follow these guidelines, and then you're okay. And so the point that I want to drive home to us this morning is in opposition to the Pharisees' view that you can save yourself is God's gospel. The gospel, the good news message that we can't, right? That we've already been talking about this morning. But I think it's seen specifically in this word Sabbath. Do you guys know what the word Sabbath is about? They're complaining because this man has been healed and he's taking up his mat and walking on the Sabbath. If we miss this, I think we miss some of what John and importantly God inspiring John to write this actually wants us to see here because they're mad about the Sabbath. The Sabbath was about rest. Rest. When God created the whole world, he created it in six days, and on the seventh day he rested. When God gave the instructions, just like we sang about in this Christmas hymn earlier on the Mount Sinai, and God gives the Ten Commandments, and one of them was keep the Sabbath, keep the Sabbath day, keep it holy. Now, what was behind the Sabbath? Well, practically speaking, the Sabbath reminds people like myself and like you that we are physically not capable of running 24, 7, 365 and never taking rest. We're not made for that. Physically, we're not God. Some of you men and women need to hear that, okay? You need rest. Okay? And so God's practically put in place a way of resting, of taking some time aside. Now, here's the thing: He's not just saying take a day and don't do anything. Or take a day and take a long, long nap. Okay? That'd be fun. But that's actually not going to give you the rest that you long for because your rest is much bigger than physical, it's spiritual. This is why when I go on a vacation, if I take the vacation from God, I come back less rested than more rested. Because when we vacation, when we take time away, be it in the mountains and places that recharge my batteries, but yet not be refueled in my spirit and my soul by the presence of God, I really don't get the rest that God wants me to have. And so I would say to you this morning that what's interesting about this is that these guys are mad about rest, and I would say that the rest that Sabbath points us to is ultimate healing. It's ultimate healing. It's more than the physical healing from some deformity or from some sickness that we have, it's actually the rest from the sickness of our soul called sin. Now, when Jesus replies to these guys who are angry now at him because he's healing on the Sabbath and calling this man to get up and walk, notice what he says. This is verse 17. But Jesus responded to them, My Father is still working, and I am working also. What was Jesus working to do? And what was the father working to do? You mean to tell you what he's doing? Jesus was working so that we could rest. Jesus, he became sick so that we could be healed. Are you with me? If that doesn't excite you or if that doesn't resonate in your heart, we need the Holy Spirit to set a new flame in our heart. Because the truth is, apart from Jesus, we will never experience real Sabbath. There is no such thing as real rest. And so when Jesus says he's working, he is doing the work that's gonna re that is required so that we can ultimately find rest and healing and hope. You don't believe me. Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4, catch this. This is huge, guys. You've got to connect the dots here. Verse 1 from chapter 4 in Hebrews, it says, Therefore, while the promise to enter his rest remains, let us fear that none of you should miss it. There are people that are gonna miss God's ultimate rest because they want temporary rest, and they're gonna try to find it in something that doesn't bring it. But go on to verse 9, 9 through 11. Catch this. Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for God's people. For the person who has entered his rest has rested from his own what? Works. He's rested from his own works. Why? Just as God did from his. Let us then make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience. You know what the same pattern of disobedience is? It's the treadmill of self-salvation. I am going to fix the problem in my soul on myself. Jesus, if I can just get into the pool on my own, I'll get healed. I don't need you. I've got a plan. And I want to say to you and to myself that when we believe that, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Because Jesus alone is the rescue, healing, rest plan. He's good. He is the rescue plan. He is the Sabbath. And when we enter into him, we will find rest. We will find healing. And it's not just the temporary healing. And by the way, God does heal. In this day and age, he does heal. Jesus can heal. But if I ever just pray for healing and miss the bigger healing, the healing that leads to eternal separation, the sickness that leads to eternal separation. If we don't get healed from that, what good does it do for me to be healed of cancer if I blaspheme the name of Jesus? What does it do me any good if I get my hearing restored and yet reject the salvation that's offered to me by grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus? Because real rest and real healing is not coming from fixing the temporary elements of this world. Real rest when we come into the presence of God forever. And even here and now, you want to tell me tell you why I love being in the Word of God on a daily basis and praying? It's because when I go here, I don't just find more rules to follow. I find rest. I don't read this as a book of rules of, man, I better do this and I better do this and I better do this. There's lots of rules in here. But every time I'm reminded that there is no possible way I could ever measure up, but Christ is sufficient. This is a love letter. This is a beautiful story of redemption. This isn't a book of how we beat each other up to try to perform for God's grace. Again, silly, it doesn't work that way. This is Jesus is enough. Christmas. Christ has come on the scene. He has showed up. God made flesh to rescue hearts that cannot rescue ourselves. To give us the rest that we long for, a peace, a shalom that was intended from the beginning of creation. That our rebellion screwed up. Here's the point. Jesus is God and He alone brings ultimate healing because of His sovereign grace. The only reason I'm standing on this platform this morning talking to you about the gospel is God's sovereign grace. I didn't earn this. I didn't do anything. I was praying with my family at Thanksgiving in our little kitchen area, and it just struck me again: what in the world did I do to deserve to stand among a family of people who know who Jesus is and know that our rest is in Christ alone? And the answer is nothing. Nothing. I brought nothing to the table. I was this man by the pool for 40 years, lame, incapable of healing myself, with my plan, theoretically, that doesn't work, but Jesus is sufficient. And for some reason, if that doesn't drive gratitude in my heart, I don't know what will. That I couldn't save myself and I didn't deserve it, but he chose. But there is a question that we need to ask ourselves this morning as we think about Jesus as God, Jesus as God made flesh, as the one who can bring ultimate healing, not just the temporary healing, though he can do that. And if you need that today, we'd be glad to pray for that. We're going to pray for your hearts and the sin problem that is infested in our hearts to be resolved more than just your physical healing to be resolved. The question is, do we want to get well? Now I want to be very careful with what I say here. And I want to be very gracious and compassionate because I don't think some of you realize this. But for some of you, your pain is your identity. Your wounds, your hurts, because I hope you know this, that all of us are PTSD. Every single one of us. Because we live in a sinful fallen world that we have been sinned against. And we're hurt. And all of us are dealing with the suffering in this life. Every single one of us. It's different degrees and everything else. And I don't mean that to belittle anybody who suffers with that as a true diagnosis, be it from a war thing or whatever. I'm not at all trying to belittle it. I'm telling you, we are in a spiritual war and we all have PTSD. And for some of us, it's easier to lay at the side of the pool with all the rest of the sick people and just say, they hurt me. God hurt me. I'm wounded, I'm frustrated, I'm angry. And it's just easier to find that as our identity than to come to Jesus and be healed and be free. And the enemy holds us captive there. Because some of us are unwilling to forgive those in our past. Jesus forgives us freely, but we say, No, but my dad did this, my mom did this, my sibling did this, my friend did this, my boss did this. And we want to hold that stuff and we don't want to let go and release it to God. And can I just say to you this morning, you are not going to be free and healed and find rest until you come to the loving, heavenly, gracious Father and say, I want to be healed. I know that there are times in my life where it's easier for me to stay in my woundedness and be angry and frustrated at God and be angry and frustrated at other people and blame them for my issues. It's easier to be there. It's easier. It's not more comfortable, but it's easier because it means that I can always give an excuse for my behavior. I can give an excuse for this or that. I mean, there's things that right now, this week in my household, I'm working on. My wife's helping me. God's Holy Spirit is working on me and helping me learn that I know are direct wounds from my past that I've said, kind of giving myself a free pass on. There's some stuff that needs to be healed in my heart, and I've given myself a free pass because I'm like, well, they did it to me, they passed this on to me. It's, you know, it's it's a sin pattern that I just, you know, I'm never gonna get over because that's just part of my life. And that's baloney. God's Holy Spirit lives in us. We can walk in freedom, we can walk in purity, we can walk in joy, we can walk in victory because of Christ. So I don't have to give in to those patterns, those hurts, those hangups, those habits. I don't have to do that because of Christ. Because of his sufficiency. Not only do I want to ask the question, do you want to get well? I want you to think about that again. But have you entered God's rest? Have you entered God's rest? I mean, it's a it's a it's just a way of saying, have you received the gift of salvation? Or are you still on a treadmill trying to earn your way to God? You know, the funny thing about treadmill is you can run a long way and go nowhere. Right? And that's exactly what a lot of people are doing. They're running hard, they're running fast, somebody's over there pushing that button, cranking it up on them. They're getting ready to get slid off and hit the wall. But that's what happens when we just try to earn our way to God. We can't go anywhere because it doesn't work that way. The Bible says it's by grace alone, through faith alone. Romans chapter 3. I want to read this over us as we close. And by the way, did you notice what happened when this man hears the words of Jesus? Instead of getting angry saying, wait, you're blaming this on me, when Jesus says to him, Don't sin anymore so that worse things won't happen, he doesn't get up in arms and frustrated at Jesus and go, wait, wait, wait, wait. So you're saying this is my fault? Now? He didn't say that at all. What does it say he does? He goes straight to the Jews and says, Jesus healed me. The people who he was scared to tell earlier that it was, you know, he got up and walked, he wanted to blame Jesus, even though he didn't know his name. Now he says, Jesus healed me. Here's why. Because when Jesus heals us, same thing as the Samaritan woman, right? When Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman and she had to deal with her past, her five husbands that she had divorced and the adultery she was living in, when she was confronted with that and Jesus healed her and she found living water, she went back into the village where she had this reputation and all this shame and this guilt surrounding her, and she goes back into the village and she tells them all. She did it purely as a response to encountering Jesus. This guy encounters Jesus, and what does he do? He goes right back into that religious world and he says, Jesus healed me. And I don't care what you do with me now, he healed me. And it wasn't just I got up and walked today, it's that I found true rest. On the Sabbath. Isn't that ironic? Because the Sabbath points us to God's rest. In Romans chapter 3, verse 21 says this. But now, apart from the law, God's righteousness has been revealed. How has it been revealed? Well, we're getting ready to celebrate the birth of this little baby that didn't stay a baby, right? He grew up, he became a man, and he was sinless, he lived a perfect life, and substituted himself in our place on the cross. That is God's righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. He's talking about between Jew and Gentile, by the way. So if you're not a Jew, you're a Gentile, and you have access to the kingdom of God through the person of Jesus. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, lest we be joked, be deluded here, be deceived, and think that somehow we're not a sinner. He makes that pretty plain. The Bible makes that plain. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We miss the mark, literally, the language, the picture. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Praise God for those words. We are rescued by the substitution of Jesus in our place. He paid the price. That's why he came. To rescue and redeem us. Are you on the edge of the pool with all the sick people? You want to get well, but you're not sure you really want to get well? Are you struggling on the treadmill of self-salvation? Today you can find rest and healing in the person of Jesus. And pray for us. God, I thank you that you are faithful, that you love us. Thank you that even in our rebellion, that you sovereignly and graciously and mercifully come after us. I believe that every person sitting in this room today is not here by accident, but by your sovereign hand. And that the message of the cross, the message of salvation by grace through faith, is a message that we not only believe once, but it's a message that by your Spirit we continue to believe and live out on a daily basis. So that when the pains and the suffering of this life come, we don't question our salvation or our or your love for us because we know that was nailed down in the person of Jesus. We couldn't earn it, we don't deserve it, but you graciously gave it. We are now secure in that. And I pray that for any person here today that is not feeling that security, that safety, that significance in you, Jesus, that today they might find hope. They might come back in a fresh way and say, I trust Jesus is enough. Pray for that.