AN EYEWITNESS TO JESUS--PART III

.SERMON TITLE: SIGN THREE: HEALING AN INVALID ON SABBATH

SERMON THEME: PICK UP, GET UP, AND LIVE

SERMON TEXT: JOHN 5:1-10

INTRODUCTION: WHEN YOUR VERSION OF RELIGION GETS IN THE WAY OF LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR, SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE.

MATTHEW 7:3-5

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

· JESUS OFFERS AN INVITATION TO PICK UP, GET UP AND TO LIVE A CHANGED LIFE.

JOHN 20:31

³¹ But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

· JOHN ORGANIZES HIS GOSPEL ACCOUNT AROUND SEVEN EVENTS THAT SERVED AS SIGNS THAT POINTED TO THE IDENTITY OF JESUS.

ACCEPTING GOD'S INVITATION TO CHANGE

I) YOU MUST DECIDE YOU WANT TO BE CHANGED.

JOHN 5:1-6

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

· TO BE CHANGED MEANS YOU HAVE TO LOSE WHAT YOU KNOW, AND TAKE RESPONSIBLILITY FOR YOURSELF.

JOHN 16:33

³³ “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

· HEALING IS NOT JUST ABOUT GETTING WELL, IT IS BECOMING WHAT GOD INTENDS FOR YOU TO BE.

II) YOU MUST DECIDE YOU WILL MAKE NO MORE EXCUSES.

JOHN 5:7-8

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

· WE OFTEN BLAME OTHER PEOPLE, OUR ENVIRONMENT OR OUR CIRCUMSTANCES FOR WHAT WE DID WRONG.

EXODUS 32:22-24

²² “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. ²³ They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ ²⁴ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

· WE TEND TO MAKE OURSELVES VICTIMS OF OUR OWN DOING.

JOHN 5:9-10

⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

· WE FORGET OR IGNORE THE WHY BEHIND THE WHAT.

III) YOU MUST DECIDE YOU ARE READY TO TAKE ACTION.

JOHN 5:11-14

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

· WHEN YOU CHOOSE TO FOLLOW JESUS, RELIGION WILL LOSE ITS GRIP ON YOU.

JOHN 5:15-19

¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. ¹⁷ In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” ¹⁸ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

¹⁹ Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

· IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOD IS LIKE JESUS SAYS; WATCH ME, LISTEN TO ME, AND FOLLOW ME.

JOHN 5:39-40

³⁹ You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰ yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

CONCLUSION: WE DO NOT ALWAYS KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE OR WHO TO BELIEVE, BUT THANKS TO JESUS, WE ALMOST ALWAYS KNOW WHAT LOVE REQUIRES OF US.