Do You Wish to Get Well?

Tom Shrader walks through John 5:1-14, examining Jesus' healing of a man who had been ill for 38 years at the Pool of Bethesda and drawing out its deeper spiritual meaning. The physical miracle illustrates the condition of all people before God — helpless, hopeless, and unable to save themselves — and points to the sovereign grace by which God chooses those He saves. Shrader also addresses the Jewish leaders' Sabbath objection, warning against the kind of rigid rule-keeping that steals joy and blinds people to the work of God happening right in front of them.

“We were dead in our sins and trespasses, and He's going to have to do something to us if we're going to respond at all — that's not a source of arrogance or pride, that's a source of humility, praise, and thanksgiving.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)

Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 45 min

Themes: healing, grace, helplessness, legalism, hope, salvation, miracles, sabbath, feeling hopeless, struggling with religion, new believer, chronically ill, spiritually stuck, seeker, feeling unworthy, recovering from legalism

Scripture: John 5:1-14, John 20:30-31, John 6:15, Jeremiah 17:22

Theological Themes: sovereign grace, soteriology, total depravity, unconditional election, sanctification, christology, gospel of john, divine sovereignty

Full Transcript

Introduction: Why John Wrote His Gospel

Open your Bibles to John chapter 5, as we continue our study in the life of Christ. By now you know exactly what we are doing. It is a study we call a harmony of the Scriptures. By that, I mean we are taking the four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — bringing them together as best we can to arrange in chronological order the life of Christ, and finding yet one more way for us to examine the life of our Savior in a way that might enrich our understanding of Him: who He is, what He has done, and what He would have us do.

We have moved around quite a bit, as a harmony requires, bringing together different passages from different Gospels. Those of you who have been doing a lot of page-flipping are fortunate now, because we are going to camp out in John's Gospel and stay here until we finish the fifth chapter. John is a Gospel writer who is very clear about what he wants to accomplish. He tells you — not at the front, but at the end of the book — why he wrote.

Let me familiarize you with this. John chapter 20 reads: "Many other signs, therefore, Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book." There are many things Jesus did, many things He said, many miracles He performed. But John says he hand-selected these — chosen deliberately, with one thing in mind. That purpose is stated in verse 31: "that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ" — that is, that you would understand Jesus is the Messiah — "and He is the Son of God" — that He is God come in the flesh, one hundred percent God and one hundred percent man. That is why John wrote this book.

John's hope and prayer is that God would open your eyes, that you would believe in His name, and that you would therefore have life — real life, found in Jesus Christ alone, in Him and nowhere else, and in no one else.

The Signs John Has Already Presented

As we come to chapter 5, John has already presented two of those hand-selected signs. The first is the miracle at Cana, which was initiated when Jesus' mother came to Him and said there was a situation and asked whether He would perform a miracle. The second is recorded at the end of chapter 4: a miracle performed at the request of a nobleman whose son was sick. The man came to Jesus, explained his son's condition, and Jesus healed him. Now we move into chapter 5.

I have titled today's message "Do You Wish to Get Well?" — and that title will become very apparent to you. I also want to note that while I had planned to cover verses 1 through 23, we only made it to about verse 14 this morning. This one has something of an abrupt ending because I had intended to go a little further, and we simply did not get there.

The Physical and the Spiritual

Our primary focus of study is on a miracle. Whenever we look at a miracle — whenever we examine one of these physical phenomena — one of the things we can easily do is become so focused on the miracle that we miss the teaching. We can become so fixed on the physical aspect that we fail to understand what John, the writer, is actually trying to teach us, which is spiritual truth. What we are going to try to do today and next week is to unpack not just what takes place physically, but also the spiritual implications. We want to make sure you understand the story and the surrounding details that help us more fully grasp it, but we also want to understand what it means for us spiritually.

Two Audiences

Whenever I am teaching, it seems to me there are two things I am trying to do in the most general sense. The first is to speak to those of us who would say Jesus is Lord — those who would call themselves Christians, at various levels of understanding, intellectual knowledge, growth, and application of what that means. In many cases, it is simply a matter of being reminded. Most often, our problem is not knowledge; our problem is obedience. I have the opportunity to sit and meet with people all the time who say, "I know what I am supposed to do — I just do not want to do it." So this is a way of reinforcing and reminding us of these truths.

The other side is to speak to those of you who would acknowledge that you are not Christians, and to present to you what God has in mind as a plan for the salvation of His people. Our prayer is that God would touch your heart and open your eyes, that you might see the truth of this, that He might change your heart, and that you would change your mind as God works in your life.

A New Section of John's Gospel

James Boyce writes this: the fifth chapter of John's Gospel begins a new section of the book. Up to this point, the emphasis has really been on Jesus the Messiah — Jesus as the God-Man, the Word who was in the beginning and was with God. Now the focus shifts to the life and claims of Christ, and we enter a new phase of the study. As Boyce describes it, this section deals as a whole with the development of the opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ on the part of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, and with Christ's response to their opposition. The fact that this is a new section is important, because if we recognize the difference between this section of the Gospel and the first four chapters, we will have a lesson for ourselves about how we are to persevere in God's service.

As I work through this material and study it, I begin to see themes emerge — themes that stand out to me. It is always interesting to study G. Campbell Morgan, or Ray Stedman, or James Boyce, or F. F. Bruce, or any of the many authors one might consult, and to see how there is always something just a little different — some point of emphasis that captures their attention.

Perseverance in the Face of Opposition

I would suspect it's because of something they've experienced in their life, maybe something they're dealing with even at this point in their life, either personally or with the people around them. Boyce has this dominant theme of perseverance — that Jesus perseveres, that opposition comes. That is what you are going to see here today: opposition comes at Jesus, and when it comes, Jesus in no way backs down.

When I talk about opposition, what you might typically think of is something like persecution — active hostility — and indeed, that is what you are going to see today. But there is also a kind of danger of success in Jesus' life. Look at chapter 6, the next chapter. Jesus feeds the five thousand. It is a magnificent story, and we will be studying it. The crowds love this sign so much that in John chapter 6, verse 15, John writes this: "Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone." He had experienced the danger of hostility, and there in chapter 6, it is the danger of success. His time had not come, and in fact that was not why He came to earth at all.

So we have this idea of perseverance. We see it in the life of Christ, and Boyce really wants to hammer it home: you and I need to persevere, to fight through to the end. While it is important that you and I are Christians, and important that we have a history in our own lives, what is really important is that we finish strongly, that we never stop, in spite of the adversity that comes into life.

Jesus Goes Up to Jerusalem

With all of that in mind, here we go — chapter 5, verse 1: "After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." Every male within twenty miles of Jerusalem was required to come to the city for the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Jesus was certainly further away than twenty miles, but as had been His custom really all of His life, He would come to Jerusalem for these feasts.

Here is a map just to remind you of what we have seen. Jesus has been up in the north, up in Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum, and we have studied that over the last month or so. Now He moves south, back down to really where He started — back down to Jerusalem. Now look at verse 1 again. It says Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Looking at a map, it appears He would be going down south, but in terms of elevation and altitude, He goes from sea level up to one thousand feet or perhaps a little more.

There is a phrase in this verse that is important to us. Again, from James Boyce: "The fifth chapter of the Gospel begins with a sentence that immediately shifts our attention to a new class of people. John writes, 'After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.'" The new class of people is the Jews.

Understanding John's Use of "the Jews"

That is a term John uses almost seventy times in this Gospel — far more than all the other Gospel writers combined. What is important for us is to understand what he means when he uses this term. The vast majority of the time, he is speaking of the Jewish leaders: Pharisees, Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, those who held positions of Jewish leadership. As Boyce writes, "This new class of people is the Jews. But we must not understand that to mean all the Jewish people. That is, the term is not meant ethnically. When John says 'the Jews,' he means the Jewish leaders who had their headquarters in Jerusalem, and it is these primarily with whom Jesus now comes in conflict."

We made that point last week. Jesus seems to have this uncanny ability to get along with nearly everybody. He gets along with the prostitutes. He gets along with the drunkards. He gets along with those involved in adultery. He seems to exist relatively well with tax-gatherers and that broad, generic catch-all group called "the sinners." He never assimilates into their world — He always understands there is a difference, and He tells them the truth — but there seems to be conversation, dialogue, at least communication.

But when Jesus comes into contact with the Jews, there is almost instantaneous opposition between them. Virtually every time we see them together in Scripture, conflict erupts, and you are going to see here today the origin, the very roots, of that conflict.

It is probably helpful to understand that at this time in Jerusalem, the Romans had sent in a new commander to assist Pilate — a man who was anti-Semitic, who hated the Jews. This new commander was beginning to take back much of the authority that had been granted to the Sanhedrin, reversing the arrangement that had allowed the Jewish leaders to govern themselves in certain areas. So there may also be, in the midst of all this, a certain sense of hypersensitivity on the part of the Jewish leaders. Regardless, that is the setting.

The Pool of Bethesda

Here is the story, verse 2: "Now there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes." Bethesda means literally "place of the outpouring." For years and years, the location of this pool was a mystery. Time had passed, ruins had been destroyed, and things had taken place that literally obscured any exposure of these pools. Beginning around 1856, excavations took place, and archaeologists discovered that the pools did indeed exist.

Here is what one author writes — I believe it is J.C. Ryle: "It is now clear that there were two adjacent pools, a northern and a southern, and that the trapezoidal area which they occupied was surrounded by four covered colonnades, one on each side, with a fifth on the ridge of the living rock separating the two pools." That is exactly what John described.

The Setting at Bethesda

In the shelter of these colonnades, a crowd of variously afflicted people waited in hope of healing. Verse 3 tells us that in these porticoes, these porches, there was gathered together a multitude — a large number of people with one thing in common: they were sick. Some were blind, some were lame, some were withered, some were paralyzed. They were there for one common purpose: they were waiting for the moving, the fluttering of the water.

Their belief, as verse 4 tells us, was that an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water, and whoever was first to step into the pool after the stirring of the water would be made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. There was this superstition attached to these pools — a story that had evolved over the years that whenever the pools would ripple, it was the result of an angel of the Lord stirring them. And if you could be the first one in the water, there was a possibility that you would be healed. Their entire focus was this fixation with the pools.

I think of things like that today — when I grew up in the Catholic Church, it was Lourdes, or now it is Medjugorje, or different things associated with a place or a person, where Mary is said to visit, or something of that nature. That is exactly what was going on here as well. They had this belief — a faulty belief. The explanation of the fluttering of the water is actually quite simple: these were pools fed by a spring, the water would flow pretty continuously, and then every once in a while there would be an abrupt surge of water, the surface would ripple, and there was the pool. Yet the emphasis for these people was entirely on the healing they believed was associated with that water. They were gathered together, their hope was that they would be healed, and I assume there was a race to get into the water first.

The Creator Walks In Unrecognized

Here is what is fascinating. These people sit there, and Jesus walks in totally unrecognized. In fact, when the man Jesus heals is later asked by the Jews, "Who healed you?" he replies that he does not even know the man's name — never got a card, had no idea who He was. Here they are, hoping desperately to be healed, and the Creator God of the universe walks into their presence, and yet they are so blind that they are completely oblivious to it. The One who could heal them instantaneously is right there, and they miss Him entirely.

Verse 5 tells us that there was a certain man who had been thirty-eight years in his sickness. Do not read that to mean he had been at this pool for thirty-eight years — that is not what it says. It says he had this disease, and we will see it is a debilitating disease, so severe that he is unable to get himself into the pool once the race to the healing begins. He has been sick for thirty-eight years, and he is there.

I find myself reading this story and wondering why he is there at all, because in a moment he is going to say that he has no chance of getting into that pool — absolutely zero chance of being the first one in. Why is he there? In the grand sense, it is because he has a divine appointment. He is not there by accident. He would not have been there every day, but on this particular day God has orchestrated things so that not only will he be there, but so will Jesus. A meeting will take place, and this man will receive what he desires most deeply — physical healing.

A Divine Appointment You May Not Expect

It might be like some of you who are here today. In your heart of hearts you may be saying, "Why am I here? What am I doing here? I don't believe — or barely believe — what you're going to talk about. My life is a mess. I have all sorts of problems and issues. I have absolutely no expectation that things are going to get better, and no sense that there is anything I can do about it." You are in exactly the same situation as this man right here. I offer words of encouragement to you today, because God has sovereignly brought you here, and it may be — it just may be — that this is a day in which He is going to arrange a divine appointment with Jesus.

There is something else you will notice. There are the multitudes — dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds of people who are sick — and Jesus heals only one of them. Isn't that striking? You can look at this and wonder what is going on. Why this man? Why not the others? If you read this with fresh eyes, you might find yourself a little skeptical, maybe even antagonistic toward the Savior. Jesus clearly could have healed them all — whatever affliction they had was not beyond the scope of His authority — but He did not. He healed one.

Sovereignty, Election, and Spiritual Helplessness

We see the sovereignty and the election of God all around us in this passage. We have said that these physical truths carry spiritual meaning behind them. All of us came into the world just like this man: helpless, and in and of himself, hopeless. There was nothing he could do to make himself well — and that is exactly our condition spiritually. The Bible says we are more than paralyzed; it says we are dead in our sins and trespasses. I believe the Bible teaches, and I think you have to go through some serious gymnastics to deny it, that God chooses those whom He would save.

Do You Wish to Get Well?

This generates all sorts of reaction, doesn't it? Some might say, "Wait a minute, that's not fair." Well, we know this: we are dead in our sins and trespasses, and He is going to have to do something to us if we are going to respond at all. We are incapable of responding on our own. We will look at that next week.

We know we are not universalists. We don't, for a second, believe that everybody is saved. So it is certainly fair to ask in your mind, why did He do that? Why would Jesus pass by billions and billions of people and choose you and me? I don't know. For His own good pleasure.

I have heard people ask, "Do you really believe that God chose you for salvation?" And I say, yes, absolutely — that is what Scripture teaches. Well, that has got to make you arrogant; that has got to make you feel special. No, not at all. Because I understand that He did not look at me and think, "What a trophy. If I could just get him on my team, that would work." No, He looked down and saw a mass of sinful humanity — all of whom, now listen, all of whom hated Him — and for His own good pleasure, He chose me and many of you. That is not a source of arrogance or pride. That is a source of humility, praise, and thanksgiving.

The Strange Question

So here is the man, and he is there. Look at verse 6. Jesus asked him a rather strange question. He saw the man lying there and knew he had already been there a long time. How did He know that? Well, He is God. We have already seen a couple of instances of this — remember the woman at the well? He said, "I know that you have had these husbands." And He asks this strange question: "Do you wish to get well?"

I want to camp on this for a moment. Here is what F.F. Bruce writes about it: "The strange question went home to the heart of the trouble. Did the man really want to be cured? It may seem a strange question, but it is possible that after so many years in that condition, the man preferred not to face the challenge of a normal, healthy life."

Ray Stedman writes this: "What a strange question to ask of a man who had been sick for 38 years — do you want to be healed? But Jesus never asked a foolish question in His life. Obviously, it was more important for this man to answer the question, at least to himself: do you want to be healed?"

Larry Wright and the Comfort of Weakness

I remember Larry Wright — many of you know Larry, and some of you don't, so I want to fill in the gap. On March 6th, 1980, almost 25 years ago, I walked into a Phoenix country club where Larry was teaching. God used Larry to present the gospel to me, and God saved me through Larry's teaching. Larry became a very important person in my life — probably outside of my family, the most influential person in my life. I love him very much. He died just about three years ago.

Larry was sick from the time I knew him. I never knew him healthy. The way he told the story is that one day he wrestled with pride, and one day he prayed for humility — and the next week, God gave him rheumatoid arthritis and hemorrhoids. He tried to recant on that prayer, but it didn't work. The hemorrhoids eventually went away, but the arthritis never did.

On my 50th birthday, the guys here asked what I would like. I said that unless they were going to do something big enough to change my lifestyle — which I doubted — I would rather have Larry teach. Some of you were here that day. I had to wheel Larry out, and his legs were pretty well gone. His hands, just from the weight of gravity and his own weakness, had begun to turn. When Larry would go to get in the car, he would walk to the car door and then back up to it to get enough leverage to pull the handle. He was always sick.

I remember Larry teaching on this very verse, and I remember him saying exactly what Bruce and Stedman had said. When I asked him about it, he said, "I have to tell you that I have discovered in my life that I am sometimes not certain I really do want all of this to go away. There are certain advantages to this." And I don't mean to be insensitive at all to people who are sick — I am simply communicating what these men said, and what Larry said.

He said, "I am spared from doing many of the things I don't want to do, and I have a good excuse. I hate yard work. I don't want to do it. I hate it. So I simply say, 'Sue, I'd love to help you there, but I don't have the strength.'" He said it allowed him on many occasions to let Sue handle things. He said, "It has also worked out well with you — when the check comes at lunch, I can't quite get back fast enough, and I think you have now bought eight times in a row. Is that right?" And I said, "No, nine."

He also said, "I remember saying to God, 'If You get me healthy, You know what I'm going to do — I'm going to get in shape and take care of this body like it's a temple.'" He said, "I have to tell you, when I'm sitting here eating my ice cream and my fries, I don't know that I really want that." He was not suggesting that lightly — he was saying that this is what the question gets at.

Beyond Physical Sickness

Stedman has an interesting paragraph following the one I read to you, because he expands the point beyond physical sickness. He writes: "I know many people today who do not want to be healed. They don't want to receive divine help with their problems. They don't want to be helped out of their areas of weakness. They love their weakness. They love their helplessness. They are always craving the attention of others that comes through that helplessness. They are emotionally attached to their sickness."

They don't want to obey. They don't want to get better. This is something we come back to all the time.

The Problem Larry Sees

Many of you know Larry. Larry has taken over the area of biblical counseling here at the church, and that is one of those areas of ministry that is really tough, because you don't get many wins in that one. By the time people typically come to see you, pretty much the damage is done, and rarely do they change. I asked Larry at staff a couple of weeks ago — with the whole staff there — and I thought it might be an educational moment. I said, "Larry, tell us, what do you see in most people when they come in?" I had in mind: what is the problem you see? His answer was simple: sin. That is what he sees most — people who are just determined to do their own thing in spite of what God says.

So when we are talking here about healing, our focus is on the physical, and we are not going to change from that. But this could apply to a lot of you in a lot of areas.

The Man's Response to Jesus

Jesus said to him, "Do you wish to get well?" And the man answered Him and said, "Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool. The water stirs, but while I am coming, another one steps before me." He is saying: I want to get well, but I have no chance — I am too slow. Apparently he has no friends or family there to help him, no one to assist him or move him toward the pool with any possibility that he would be the first one in. Whether or not this is the first time he has ever heard a question like this, it may have stirred up in him some level of expectation and excitement — wondering whether Jesus is going to do something. And Jesus indeed is.

Three Commands

Verse 8: "He says to him, 'Arise, take up your pallet, and walk.'" Jesus gives this man three commands. He tells him to stand up — arise. He tells him to pick up his pallet. And then, as I added to my study that was going long and hard, he tells him to giddy up. Stand up, pick up, giddy up. Arise, take up your pallet, and walk.

G. Campbell Morgan writes this about the command to take up the pallet: "Rise and take up your pallet — why did He say that? In order to make no provision for a relapse." The man might have said to himself, "I am healed, but I had better keep this bed here — I may need it tomorrow." But Jesus said, take your bed, get rid of it. And that is what He says to you and me as well: don't make any provision for the flesh.

That is the way some sin works in our minds. We begin to plan it, to make provision for it. We begin to think of some sin and then we begin to put in place a set of circumstances. We say, "I am going to drive by, and if the other cars are there, then I am going to stop" — even though we know we have no business there. We begin to make provision for the sin. Jesus says: arise, get up — none of that.

Immediate, Biblical Healing

Verse 9: "And immediately — at once — the man became well." This is biblical healing. You can turn on Christian television almost any time, night or day, and there is somebody talking about healing. So often what they are telling you is: you are healed. The healing, they say, was accomplished in the atonement on the cross, and all you have to do now is claim it. Someone on a platform might say to a person, "You have been healed." And the person says, "But I don't feel healed. I don't look healed. That arm is not growing back." And the reply, in my version, is: the healing is in the mail — it is on its way. That is not how Jesus heals.

Look at the kind of healing Jesus actually does. People are blind, and now they see. People are deaf, and now they can hear. A man is paralyzed for thirty-eight years, and now he walks. It is not Jesus saying, "There is someone out there with a back problem." A few chapters from now, He is going to heal someone who is dead — now that is healing. You do not see that running around today. The healing is immediate. The man takes up his pallet and walks.

The Sabbath Problem

The last part of verse 9 introduces a problem: it is the Sabbath. That may not sound like a big deal to you and me, but to these Jewish leaders — the keepers of the gate, the keepers of the truth — this was a huge problem. They took the Sabbath very seriously and had put together a whole series of rules and regulations around it.

Now imagine the scene. I know it goes beyond the text, but I don't think it is hard for us to picture. Here is a man who has been an invalid for thirty-eight years, and now he can stand up and walk. What do you think his reaction would have been? What would the reaction of the people around him have been?

I have shared with you over the last few weeks that Haley has had whatever this illness is. Tonight, I moved from one spot to another and had four people ask me, "How is Haley?" That is so cool. She went to the doctor on Friday, and the doctor said, "I will give you a clean bill of health — you were very, very sick, whatever it was is gone, and we have no idea what it might have been." It is wonderful how many of you have emailed, or stopped me out in the lobby, and said you are praying for Haley. When I say she is fine, you are excited about that, and I understand that — so am I.

But try to put that, whatever it is, on a scale and weigh it against someone who has been sick for thirty-eight years. There is really no comparison. Imagine the joy. Imagine the euphoria on this man's face and in his mind — and in the minds of those around him, even those who are not healed, who are at least saying, "Something is happening here. There is hope." There has to be an excitement.

Joy Stolen by Rigid Religion

Any joy there is vanishes immediately, in verse 10. The Jews were saying to the man who was healed, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet." They had a problem with him. He was violating the law. The Sabbath is serious — Jeremiah 17:22: "Do not bring any burden out of your house on the Sabbath."

The tradition of the Jewish elders distinguished 39 categories of work that would violate the Sabbath. The 39th was carrying a load from your dwelling place. This man carrying his pallet, his cot, would be a violation of that. They had all sorts of rules and regulations, because people genuinely needed an explanation: What does it mean to keep the Sabbath sacred? What does it mean to not work? What does it mean to not travel?

So they came up with their own definitions. You couldn't leave home on the Sabbath, and they defined a permitted journey as about a thousand yards from your dwelling place. However, if you took a piece of cloth or a meal that you owned and left it a thousand yards away, that established a new residence in a sense. Suddenly you could travel a thousand yards to pick it up, and from there travel another thousand, and another, and another. They had all sorts of ways of working around their own rules.

They even debated whether it was permissible to spit on the Sabbath. It depended on where the spit landed. If it landed on a rock, it was permitted. If it landed in the dust, it created a little furrow, and thus you had plowed — and violated the Sabbath.

Sympathy for the Pharisees

At this point most of us snicker, but I want to stop and digress here, because I find myself oddly sympathetic to these Pharisees. They were taking their religion very seriously. I'm sure they would say the law was on their side.

The reason I feel some level of sympathy toward them is that I see people like that today in the body of Christ. I see people who are very rigid, always with some idea that truth is on their side, always with some idea that the law is on their side, always under the guise of something being more spiritual or more pleasing to God. And they become very, very rigid. With that rigidity comes a very judgmental spirit — not just toward themselves, which would be one thing, but toward you and me and everyone else.

Rather than saying, "This is an area of preference — this is my thing, but you have your thing," the view becomes, "This is my thing, and it should be your thing too." Now, I am not against judging sin. If we are dealing with something God calls sin — and let's not just default to something sexual, so let's use gossip instead — gossip is wrong and sinful. If someone is involved in hateful gossip that undermines and hurts others, it is appropriate to go to that person, confront it, and deal with it. That is not being judgmental; that is addressing sin, which needs to be dealt with.

But these modern-day Pharisees take areas of personal preference and turn those preferences into law. Their preference becomes an imposition on you and on me, until everything becomes a point of judgment. And something happens that is subtle but very real: in the midst of all of it, they lose their joy.

The Porch Light and the Satellite Dish

Let me give you an example from my own life. It is not the same area, but you will see the connection. I have reached a point where many things around me bother me. It is impossible for me to go to a restaurant without them seating fifteen children at the table next to me — it just happens, every time.

Susan has created a home that is comfortable, and at this time of year we can go out on the back porch. Behind us is a little bit of water, then a stretch of houses, and across the street another set of houses. Two blocks away a neighbor has his porch light on, and I said, "Susan, that light is driving me crazy." The man across the way has put up a satellite dish — you probably would not even notice it, but when I look out, all I see is this little house with what looks like a 400-foot tower on top of it. And then I said, "Susan, why is this guy watering his flowers so loud?"

Susan will say almost every day, "Tom, come and sit out here with me." And now I can hear her beginning to say, "Don't you have somewhere to go?" I am stealing her joy, and I am stealing my own, and it is simply foolish. That is exactly what is happening in this passage — all of a sudden, everything becomes an issue.

By the way, I have no particular person or axe to grind here, so if you think I am talking to you, that may be the case, but I do not know it. The air conditioning is not right, his shirt is untucked, what is going on with his hair, what about the music, what about this, what about that, and look at what he missed right there in the text — anybody can see it. Pretty soon you have no joy, and everyone around you can see it. You become a burden to everyone around you. And here is what is truly sad: it is not only Christians who are repulsed by it. Non-believers look at it and say, "Why would I want that?" There is nothing appealing about it.

When Rigidity Replaces Grace

If you fall into that category, take a hard look at yourself and try to figure out why. Some people are simply wired that way — some people's personality is such that they just struggle, and life is hard for them. You may be one of those. It may also be that you have some misunderstanding here and have elevated the law: you are fine with the law, but you are not sure where grace fits in.

Let me recommend a book to you. Chuck Swindoll is actually working through it right now on his radio show. It is an older book called *Grace Awakening*, and it is a great book. Most often, though, I discover that at the core of this kind of rigidity is sin — usually pride — even though it wears the mask of a godly approach. It usually comes down to: I do not know what you are doing, but whatever I am doing is better. That is why I have a certain level of sympathy for these men, because they can say the law is on their side and they believe they are protecting their religion and their faith.

Jesus Passes Them By

But in the midst of all of this, do you know what is happening? Jesus is walking right by them, and not only do they not recognize it, they are now going to take Him to task. They ask Him, "Who is it that said, 'Take up your pallet and walk'? Who gave you this kind of instruction?" But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Then we come to verse 14, and this is where we will stop. Afterward, Jesus found the man — and do you know where He found him? In the temple. My suspicion is that this man is in the temple praising God and thanking Him for what He had done, because he understood how hopeless he had been and how God had healed him.

We are going to stop right there — to be continued. We will pick up at that point next week, summarize it, and get right after it.

Closing Prayer

Father, help us see this truth. For those of us who are here at different places, God, would You speak to us tonight? To those who do not know Your Son Jesus as Lord and Savior, would You speak to them and open their eyes? For those of us who are followers of Yours, thank You for the great reminder that we were lost and helpless, and You saved us.

To those who may be struggling with rigidity in their life — where the joy is gone and the fun is gone — God, remind them that is their own doing, no one else's. God, we thank You that we are under grace. We thank You for unmerited favor. We pray that we would know You are the source of that grace, that we are the recipients of it, and that we would be vessels of grace to those in our lives and around us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.