18 October 2015
I. Introduction
-- turn in
Bibles to John 5:1-8
John 5:1-9 (NIV)
1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of
the Jews.
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.
4
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?"
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."
9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and
walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
-- let me
begin by sharing with you an old joke that I'm sure you've heard before, but I
want to tell it again because it's relevant to the message this morning
-- there
once was this very religious man who was at home when a flood came -- the rains
poured and poured and the waters started to rise until they covered his house
-- he climbed onto the roof of his house and prayed to God for help
-- it
wasn't too long after he prayed that a neighbor came by in a canoe and said,
"The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to
safety.” -- but the man said, "No, thanks, I've prayed to God and I'm sure
He will save me"
-- a short
time later the police came by in a motorboat -- “The waters will soon be above
your house. Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.” -- once again, the man
replied, "No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and
I’m sure he will save me”
-- a little
while later, a rescue helicopter spotted the man on the house, hovered
overhead, and dropped down a rope ladder to him -- "Climb up the ladder
and we'll fly you to safety" -- but once again, the man turned down the
help and said, "No, thanks, I've prayed to God and I'm sure He'll save
me"
-- while
all this was going on, the floodwaters continued to rise, and before long, the
waters covered the man's roof and he drowned -- when he arrived at heaven, he
demanded an audience with God -- ushered into God's throne room, he said,
"Lord, why am I here in heaven? -- I prayed for you to save me -- I
trusted you to save me -- why didn't you help me in the flood?"
-- God
replied, "I did -- I sent a canoe, a boat, and a helicopter, but you never
got in"
II. The Problem of Independence
-- what is
it about us that just doesn't like to accept help from other people? -- if
we're honest with ourselves, there's just something about us that make us want
to do things on our own -- to solve our own problems without asking anyone else
for help
-- I guess
it's something that we are taught at an early age -- I grew up learning in
school that America was
great because of its independent, self-sustaining, pioneer spirit -- we did
things on our own and we overcame adversity and that's how we settled this land
and made America
great
-- and the
message that we were being taught in school was clear -- that was how we should
live our lives -- we should all seek to grow up strong and independent -- to be
self-made people -- people who could get by on their own without having to ask
for help
-- and when
I think about the role models that we saw on TV and the movies when we were
kids -- people like John Wayne -- Marshall Dillon -- Clint Eastwood -- James
Bond -- that's who they were
-- you never
saw John Wayne ask anybody for help -- there wasn't any way Clint Eastwood was
going to say he couldn't handle the bad guys and needed someone to help him --
no matter how bad the situation looked, they didn't need anyone to rescue them
-- and I guess I grew up with that mindset that this is the way you should be
-- this was the ideal picture of an American man -- this was what I was taught
we should strive to become
-- and I
know I'm not the only one -- I was listening to a podcast this week where this
very successful businessman from Nashville was being interviewed -- and as he
told his story, it struck me how similar it was to the way most of us were
raised
-- he said
when he was growing up, his mother told him to never ask anyone for help, but to
learn to do it on his own -- she wouldn't allow him to use the word can't --
she told him to never say you can't do anything -- you were only a failure if
you didn't try -- and she told him when he had a problem, he needed to learn to
fix it on his own, because in this world, he couldn't depend on anyone else for
help -- so he grew up with the understanding that trying to do it on your own
is more important than asking for help
-- and he
leaned into that as a small boy -- he excelled at school -- he ended up
studying on his own at night and taking GRE credits and actually graduated from
high school when he was in the tenth grade because he had enough credits to
fulfill the requirements
-- he
started working full-time and when he was 18, he ended up buying the business
he had been working at and turned it into a franchise with three other stores
there in Nashville -- he sold those four stores at the age of 29 and became an
instant multi-millionaire -- this guy was wildly successful -- the epitome of
an American self-made man -- a true rags-to-riches story of what happens when
you apply yourself and work hard and do it on your own
-- but what
was interesting in the podcast was that he told the host that despite the money
he had earned and the businesses he had started and the houses he owned, he
realized he was a failure -- he said it took him a long time, but he learned
there is more to success than making money -- that there's more to life than
just doing it on your own
-- because
of the advice of his mother to do things on his own, he had never learned to
develop relationships with others -- and after a couple of life-changing
experiences, he realized he had lived a life that was successful from the
world's perspective but that had no true lasting significance from a relational
or spiritual sense
-- so he
has dedicated the remainder of his life to coaching and teaching others a
better way -- teaching them to seek significance as well as success by building
relationships -- and the key to building relationships comes through
authenticity and humility, when you realize you can't do it on your own, but
you need help from others
-- that's
something that I am just now really coming to grips with -- I didn't realize
how ingrained this concept of self-sufficiency was in my life until I
participated in my first foot-washing service -- you know, people talk about
how moving it is to humble yourself and wash someone else's feet, but that
wasn't a problem for me -- I was taught to serve -- I was taught to do things for
others -- so, I have no problem getting on my knees and washing someone else's
feet
-- but I
had a hard time sitting there letting someone else wash my feet -- honestly, I
think it takes more humility to let go of yourself and allow someone else to serve
you in that way -- I think that was Peter's problem in the upper room the night
Jesus tried to wash his feet
-- and
since then, God has been working on me in this area of asking for and receiving
help from others -- I think this bus trip we just went on is a prime example of
that -- when the bus broke down and we had a problem that needed to be solved,
it took all I could do not to just try to fix it on my own, even though I
didn't know what to do -- I had to surrender my spirit -- I had to admit that I
needed help, and I went ahead and called for someone to come help us even
though that went against my very nature
-- it's
just something that is part of us -- I think it's part of our sin-nature -- a
small act of rebellion against God where we still try to solve our problems on
our own without asking Him or anyone else for help
III. Receiving Healing
-- I mean
just look at this passage -- I don't know if you've ever thought of it from
this standpoint or not, but this man refused to be healed simply because he
wouldn't let anyone help him -- let's look back at it right now and see what we
can learn from this passage
-- verse 1
John 5:1-5 (NIV)
1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of
the Jews.
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.
4
5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight
years.
-- if you
have the NIV or one of the more recent translations, verse 4 might be missing
-- it's usually in the footnotes at the bottom of the page -- it's not in the
earliest and best manuscripts that we have, so some translations leave it
because it was not in the original text, but may have been added later as an
explanatory note so you can understand the context of what was going on in
these verses
-- John
tells us that Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem for
a festival -- and while He was there, He went to the pool of Bethesda, where the sick and the crippled and
the lame would gather
-- verse 4
tells us that God would send an angel to the pool from time to time to stir up
the waters and that the first person who went into the pool after it was
stirred up would be healed of whatever disease they had
-- one man
in that crowd had been an invalid for thirty-eight years -- for thirty-eight
years he had been unable to walk on his own -- so he had come to the pool of Bethesda that day for
healing
-- verse 6
John 5:6-7 (NIV)
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?"
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."
-- do you
want to get well? -- what a strange question to ask -- this is the only time
Jesus ever asked anyone that question -- out of all the people He touched --
out of all the people He healed -- not once did He ever ask any of them if they
wanted to get well, which tells us something about this man and about what God
had offered him in the past
--
something tells me that God had already sent a canoe, a motorboat, and a
helicopter to this man, but he turned them down -- the invalid responds to
Jesus' question, "do you want to get well," by saying he had no one
to help him get into the pool when the water was stirred, but his story doesn't
ring true -- I think he had no one to help because he refused to ask
-- I
believe Jesus asked this question because God had already offered to heal this
man in some way, but apparently this man had turned down God's offer of
healing, choosing to do it on his own -- choosing to be healed through his own
power and his own strength
-- so Jesus
sees him lying there on the ground and basically says, "what are you still
doing here? -- why didn't you accept the healing I offered before? -- do you
want to get well?"
-- that's a
question for all of us, isn't it? -- do you want to get well? -- salvation is
offered to us as a free gift -- it's not something we can do on our own -- it's
something that has to be received from God through faith and humility and
submission -- we can only be saved when we humble ourselves and admit to God
that we can't do it and we need His help
-- and it's
the same way with a lot of things in our lives -- spiritual growth comes
through humility and weakness -- through admitting that we need help -- that we
need others in order to become full and complete in God
-- this has
always been one of the most frustrating things I have experienced as a pastor
-- in the various congregations I have served, I knew there were people who
needed help -- not just spiritually, but financially, materially, physically --
I knew they needed someone to come into their lives and help them with a
problem they were experiencing -- but, invariably, they simply wouldn't let
anyone know -- and because no one knew, no one could help -- I wonder if, in
their quiet times together, if Jesus asked them, "Do you want to get
well?"
-- let's
finish this up -- verse 8
John 5:8-9 (NIV)
8 Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and
walk."
9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and
walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath
-- healing
came only when the man answered Jesus' question through faith -- do you want to
be healed? -- are you willing to receive the healing I offer? -- if so, then
pick up your mat and walk
-- and the
man was cured -- he picked up his mat and walked -- healing comes through
humility and surrender -- healing comes when we admit we can't do it on our
own, but we need God and we need His people
IV. Closing
-- when we
began Koinonia Church, we were careful to come up with a vision of who we would
be and we intentionally chose our vision statement as "doing life
together" -- it was a recognition that we can't do life on our own -- we
need others -- we need Christ's power and presence expressed through His body
-- the church -- if we are to succeed in our Christian lives
-- we are
here for each other -- we are here to support each other -- physically --
materially -- spiritually -- to be the body -- to be Christ's hands and feet --
but healing can only come when we humble ourselves and admit to God and to His
church, "I need help"
-- as we close,
I want to ask you to just take a moment and consider if there is a need in your
life that you haven't been able to meet simply because you haven't asked for
help -- it could be salvation -- it could be spiritual growth -- it could be
financial or physical or material -- whatever it is, I want to encourage you to
just take a moment and see if you are like the man lying on the ground by the
pool of Bethesda -- unable to be healed simply because you haven't asked
-- and I
want to encourage you to make your needs known to the body of Christ so we can
do life together -- so those who can help you in your moment of need can be the
hands and feet of Jesus for you -- and so you can be the hands and feet of
Jesus for someone else
-- do you
want to be well?
-- let's
pray
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