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 In John 5, Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years.

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 But instead of being excited about this miraculous event,

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 the Jewish leadership was angry at Jesus.

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 They accused him of breaking the Sabbath.

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 In today's study, we'll talk about the contrast between Christ's mercy and the Pharisees' legalism.

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 One of the things that God just hates is when you call evil good,

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 and when you call good evil and today's text the most wonderful thing is going to happen there's

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 going to be this paralyzed man a sick man for 30 years he hasn't been able to move everyone knew

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 this guy you pass him by it's oh it's that guy this man that the people knew was sick was ill

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 was helpless was hopeless this man is healed to the point he's able to stand up and walk and jump

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 to me remember the guy who was lying there the reaction to that by the jews of his age was not

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 joy. It was anger. And this is the sort of thing that just boggles the mind of God when we routinely

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 call it which is good evil and that which is evil good. And the Pharisees were experts at this. If

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 you want to know why the Pharisees were constantly at odds with Jesus, it's because time and time and

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 time and time again, he would do something good and they would call it evil. They would flip-flop

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 the two great moral imperatives. And because they would flip-flop it, they would demean the one who

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 undertook them. They would demean Christ. They would denigrate his miracles. They would refute

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 his words. They would turn others against the things that he was saying. And in place of the

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 grace that he was offering, and the kindness, and the mercy, and the charity, and the like,

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 they substituted something. They substituted works, and laws, and legalism, and things that

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 made religion just a chore. Just this albatross around the necks of broken, hurting people that

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 were already under the boot of Rome. You have a guy show up, and he's preaching grace, and these

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 people are preaching laws. All the while, they're all under the boot of Rome. And you would think

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 one day the Pharisees would wake up and go, boy, this doesn't seem to be working out so well for

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 us. We're all constantly miserable. Well, Jesus came to set them free, and their response again

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 was to kill him. Now, furthermore, of the things that they messed up, of the things that they

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 distorted, of the things that they took something wonderful and made it just awful, towards the top

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 of the list in their day, in the first century, was what they had done to the Sabbath. Why did

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 God give us the Sabbath? Is it something that's meant to be hard or laborious or difficult or

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 are to us of course not the sabbath is made for men it's made to give us rest it's a good thing

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 it's a blessed thing it's a joyous thing sabbath is meant not only to give us physical rest from

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 our labors but to instruct us to the great rest that awaits the sabbath is wonderful absolutely

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 wonderful but the pharisees had made just the most joyless thing imaginable and part of it's because

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 they departed from the book we talked about this in our sunday school class one of the things that

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 the pharisees did and rome is done later on and the like one of the things the pharisees did is

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 they took the bible they had up to that point the old testament but they took that and they said

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 that's a good start but on top of that we're going to add some stuff specifically they said we're

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 going to have our traditions the rabbinical schools have been meeting for centuries and the rabbis had

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 great traditions or at least a lot of traditions now among the traditions which are recorded in

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 various places including something called the jewish mishnah there were 39 laws for things that

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 you had to do on the sabbath or that you couldn't do on the sabbath so god says out of the sabbath

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 keep this holy. It's a day of rest. They say, okay, okay, amen and amen. But also, also do this.

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 There was 39 laws. Among those laws were these. I'm not going to read all 39. It would take some

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 time. But among the things you couldn't do, you could not sow. You couldn't sow seeds. You couldn't

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 plow. You couldn't plow your fields. You couldn't bake. You couldn't weave. You couldn't tie things

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 up. You couldn't build anything. You couldn't destroy anything. And notably for today's text

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 about this guy who was going to carry his bed, you know what else you couldn't do? You couldn't

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 carry things. The amount of things that were limited, the amount of things that they told you

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 you cannot do. Has anyone ever lived in an HOA that was really restrictive? You know, your grass

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 is an inch too high and you get a letter, you know, that sort of thing. The Pharisees were those sort

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 of individuals. The Pharisees were like the HOA people, you know, looking around to see who had

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 your grass one inch too high. And because of that, they see this guy dancing, he's got his bed and

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 he's healed. And they don't see the happiness and the joy and the miracle, they see him carrying a

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 bed. And so they say that's wrong. Now, where did they appeal to? Did they appeal to the book and

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 say it's wrong here? No, they appealed to their traditions. And the traditions in almost every

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 case were silly and impossible to enforce. And when you did enforce them, the enforcement was

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 stupid. And I'll give you an example. A few years ago, I went to Israel. Went to Israel and had a

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 wonderful time, saw the sites, had good encounters with other believers. It was wonderful. With that

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 said, we stayed in a hotel. I think it was in Tel Aviv, but we stayed in a hotel. And on the Sabbath,

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 I encountered something I'd never encountered in my life. There was two elevators in this hotel.

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 And on the Sabbath, one elevator was just a normal standard elevator, and the other elevator was

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 called the Shabbat elevator. Anyone have an idea what that elevator did and didn't do? Well, here's

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 the thing. If you were a devout Orthodox Jew, one of the things that the 39 laws said that you

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 couldn't do, remember the 39 rules, was that you couldn't start fires, that you couldn't start

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 fires. So fast forward all these centuries later with the invention of electricity and the like,

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 you know how they've interpreted electricity? They've interpreted it as the start of a fire.

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 So what they've created in these hotels and the likes, they've created elevators. One's a standard

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 elevator. You go in, you go boop, and you ride up to whatever floor you're looking. The other

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 elevator on the Sabbath, what happens? That elevator stops at every single floor, up and down.

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 And an Orthodox Jew will get on that elevator, why?

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 Because they don't have to push a button to start a fire.

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 This is the whole idea.

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 They'll go into the elevator.

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 Stepping isn't against the 39 laws.

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 You can step into something, but they don't have to take any action.

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 No work.

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 I don't have to push a button.

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 I don't have to start a little tiny fire that's going to send this to the 7-4 or what have you.

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 The Shabbat elevator stops at every single floor, even to this day.

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 That's legalism.

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 It's silliness.

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 But it's also the sort of silliness and legalism that we see here.

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 Well, the Jews and the elites and the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees

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 and whoever was gathered there sees a guy carrying his bed

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 and they freak out because he's carrying his bed on the Sabbath.

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 Today's text involves this one-on-one encounter with this guy.

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 But you know what this text is really about?

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 The winds of persecution begin to blow right here.

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 The things that would lead to the last two-thirds of the book of John,

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 where Jesus is going to be persecuted and ultimately crucified,

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 here the winds start brewing.

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 because Jesus is going to do two things

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 that they're not going to like.

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 Number one, he's going to do a healing on the Sabbath

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 and this man is going to respond

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 by breaking the Sabbath regulations

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 and carrying his bed.

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 So that's going to offend them at the outset.

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 But then, then he's going to do something

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 you're going to hate even more

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 and they're going to say, we're going to kill you.

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 He's going to say something that is going to link himself,

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 Jesus the Son, with God the Father.

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 And it's going to break their brains

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 and for the rest of the book of John,

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 they're going to be out to get him.

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 All right, let's look at verses one through four

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 and then work our way through this passage.

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 Verses one.

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 Verse 1 says, After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

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 As a side note, we have no idea what feast it is. It isn't named here.

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 And secondarily, when it says Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

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 in that context it didn't necessarily mean that he went from the south to the north.

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 Going up to Jerusalem is this idea that you went up to the mountain, up the hill,

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 up into Jerusalem because the altitude was higher.

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 So after this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

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 Now there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool,

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 which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches.

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 In these lay a great multitude of sick people,

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 the blind, the lame, the paralyzed, waiting for the movement of the water.

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 For an angel would go down at a certain time into the pool, stir up the water.

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 Then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water

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 was made well of whatever disease that he had.

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 In verse 1, Jesus goes to this unnamed feast in Jerusalem,

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 But he's really going right into the hornet's nest, so to speak.

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 Because the overwhelming majority of the enemies who would make it his life

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 are going to be right here in Jerusalem.

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 And the holy city, God's holy city, ironically, are the greatest enemies of God.

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 So he goes up into this holy city in verse 1 there.

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 Now, interestingly, just as a side note, in verse 2,

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 it says that he goes in by the sheep gate.

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 Now, what went in the sheep gate?

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 I'll give you one guess.

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 It was sheep.

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 Principally, it was sheep that went in through the sheep gate.

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 That's why all the sick people are hanging out there.

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 This is the smelly gate, right?

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 He goes in through the sheep gate, which is fascinating.

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 When you think about all the gates, all the ways that he could have entered the city.

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 He goes in through the sheep gate.

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 Well, the sheep gate, obviously, is where the sheep went in.

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 But why did sheep go in the city?

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 Were they crazy about sheep?

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 Why did the sheep go in the city?

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 Well, the sheep were taken into the city to be what?

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 Sacrificed.

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 Jesus goes to the sheep gate.

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 All right, so you have them go to the sheep gate.

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 And then near the sheep gate, there's this pool that's believed to have these miraculous healing properties.

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 because of these miraculous healing properties, verse 3 says that multitudes would hang out there.

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 All the sick and lame and diseased people in Jerusalem, if they're going to heal and go

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 anywhere, they would go to this pool. And the reason they went to the pool, we see there in

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 verse 4, is because an angel would come down, apparently daily at these intervals, and would

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 stir the waters, and the first person in would be healed. Now, as an aside, as an aside, not all

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 translations include verse 4. The ESV does not. The New King James does. Not all translations

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 include verse 4 because some of the original text, there's some question mark as to the

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 authenticity of verse 4. There's the thought that maybe this doesn't depict something that

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 actually happened, but this depicts something that the Jews believed happened. So you may find

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 that verse 4, especially if you open the ESV, that it is not there. I think there is a greater

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 burden of proof that it is part of the biblical narrative. And part of the reason I believe it

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 is part of the biblical narrative and not what we call marginal gloss to the side, but part of the

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 reason I believe it is part of the biblical narrative is because it's the only way to make

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 sense of the verses that follow. The reason people hung out by this pool is because something

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 happened. The reason they waited to go in and their desires and this guy for years hung out there

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 is because people were healed. I think the burden of proof is certainly on those who would say the

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 verse 4 is not part of the witness. I absolutely believe that it is. With that said, there was a

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 biblical precedent for immersion in water followed by healing. Going to the water, we see in 2 Kings

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 5, you have the Syrian general, a guy named Naaman. He's healed. He goes down in the Jordan River and

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 he's healed of his leprosy. If you were a sick person sitting there by this pool, you could look

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 back at your own text. You could look back at the Old Testament and say there was other examples of

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 water having these healing properties. And water was obviously symbolic of purification and

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 cleanliness and the like. So there's more than one reason why the people were there, but the very

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 least they were there because people got healed there. And this one individual who'd been sick

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 for 38 years, he hoped that they would come when he would be healed too. All right, let's look at

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 verses five through nine. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity for 38 years. Now Jesus

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 saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time. He said to him,

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 do you want to be made well? And the sick man answered him saying, sir, I have no man to put

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 me into the pool when the water is stirred up. Again, it doesn't make sense if that water wasn't

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 being stirred up. But while I'm coming, another steps down before me. Verse eight, Jesus said to

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 him, rise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately the man was made well. He took up his bed and he

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 walked. And then we hear something ominous. And that day was the Sabbath. All right. Verse five,

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 Jesus spots this man who was a fixture at this pool, a fixture at this pool of Bethesda. And what

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 we see there is that Jesus sees him in verse six, and he knew that he'd been in this condition for

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 a long time. And so he approaches him. It wasn't the other way around. It wasn't like the guy

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 clamoring for Jesus. Here he approaches this guy. He says, do you want to be made well? Now, if you're

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 the guy, what was your answer? Yes, absolutely. You see, my problem, good sir, is yeah, I want to be

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 made well, but see, all these other people have people who care about them, and you know, the water

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 gets stirring, and the people are clamoring, and relatives are bringing them, let's get them in the

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 water and the like, and they get in, and I don't, and I've been waiting, and sir, I lack a man to

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 help me out in this regard. So Jesus asks him the question that, in a greater sense, he asks all of

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 us, do you want to be made well? And he answers in the way that some of us do answer, yeah, yeah.

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 But notice here that he saw this one, this Jesus, as the means to an end, but not the end. Yeah,

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 if you can wait right here, and when the water moves, you'll see, when the water moves, you take

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 me down into it, and I'll be good. I'm going to jump up, and all is going to be well. He saw Jesus

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 as a means to an end. Jesus came to him with the question, do you want to be made well? He affirms,

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 I do want to be made well, and he sees Jesus as the means to that end. How often do we do that?

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 It's not hard to get people interested in Jesus, as long as the Jesus that you propose to them is

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 a Jesus who can cure their finances, who can cure their cancer, who can heal their illness, who can

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 make some miraculous provision for their circumstances. People want that Jesus. You will

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 have a line up and down the road. If Jesus did as small a thing as give everyone a free po' boy here

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 in town, they'd come for that, let alone if everyone got healed who came in here. If everyone

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 who walked through these doors right here could be healed, all of Gulfport would show up. People

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 have no problem turning to God, turning to the church, turning to Jesus on the basis of their

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 lack of wellness. Do you want to be made well? Yes, I do. Absolutely. But their problem is they

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 don't necessarily come to him. And the sad thing we're going to see about this guy is he's going

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 to affirm, Jesus, I want to be made well, and Jesus is going to heal him, but the man doesn't

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 want Jesus thereafter. We're going to get to that in just a few moments. With that said, again,

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 verse 9, we need to linger on this point for verse 9. This passage really isn't about this dude.

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 He's not the focus here. The focus is on this phrase, and it was the Sabbath, because everything

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 is going to turn. Everything is going to hinge. The trajectory of Jesus and his relationship with

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 everyone in Jerusalem is going to hinge on this verse and the response that people are going to

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 have to him healing man on this day so that day was the sabbath verse 10 now the jews therefore

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 said to him who was cured so they go to the guy they see him he's carrying his bed and he's excited

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 the jews said him was cured it's the sabbath it's not lawful for you to carry your bed what a weird

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 thing to say to this guy debbie downers here verse 11 and he answered them so look at his response

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 they come to him and they're all the fire is they're just you know who did this what's going

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 on. Why are you doing this? What's the deal here? In verse 11, he said, he who made me well said to

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 me, take up your bed and walk. So they come to him and say, why are you carrying your bed? And then he

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 says, that guy told me to. Which guy? Oh gosh, I don't see him. Did you get his name? No, but he

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 told me. The reason I just broke the law and one of the 39 laws is because that guy told me to do so.

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 we see that in verse 11 so verse 12 then they asked him who is it who is the man who said to

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 you take up your bed and walk because now they're rolling up their sleeves all right we're gonna

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 find that guy then so who is the man who said take up your bed and walk but the one who was healed

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 did not know who it was because jesus had withdrawn a multitude being in that place all

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 these sick people just everywhere and you know he gets lost in the crowd but then interestingly

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 Verse 14, afterwards, Jesus found him in the temple.

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 Jesus seeks this guy out twice.

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 Jesus comes to this guy twice.

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 He finds him in the temple, and he said to him,

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 see, you have been made well.

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 But then he says something interesting.

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 He says, sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.

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 And finally, verse 15, then the man departed

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 and told the Jews it was Jesus who'd made him well.

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 rather than rejoice in this man's healing as we said a few moments ago the jewish leadership of

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 that day they did a holy harumph harumph they said to this man harumph what's the deal here

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 they're like that overzealous hoa board we talked about earlier so they ask him what's the deal

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 what's going on you're carrying your bed put that thing down and who did this and he says that guy

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 which guy i don't know he went somewhere else so that led up to this moment where then jesus goes

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 and finds him. Jesus comes and finds him and tells him, hey, see, you've been made well. But then

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 interestingly, interestingly, Jesus then says, now sin no more, lest a worse thing should come upon

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 you. Now, there's a lot of ways that could be interpreted, and most of them are wrong. This

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 verse does not mean that everything bad that's ever happened to you is a form of judgment. There

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 are those who will have something happen to them. They'll get into a fender bender. They'll have a

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 sickness. They'll have a cold. Something will happen to their vocation or their finances.

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 Something will happen, and their instinct will be to say, this happened because I did something

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 wrong. This is punishment for what I did. That's simply not the case. Everything bad that has ever

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 happened to you is not a function of your sin. How many bad things happen to Jesus, and how many of

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 them were a function of his sins? Zero. This is true of Paul, virtually most of his ministry.

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 Paul's doing wonderful, good, righteous things, and yet suffering and bad things are happening to him.

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 So there's not a one-to-one correlation between I messed up and God's punishing me in some form.

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 I did this thing wrong, so tomorrow I can expect him to deal with me in some way.

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 So that's the wrong conclusion.

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 But it's also the wrong conclusion to think that he never responds to our sins through some sort of temporal punishment, because he does.

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 And this is what he says right here.

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 Sin no more, lest a worse thing should come upon you.

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 We don't know how and when God doles out such punishments.

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 But I know this much, that there are temporal consequences for temporal deeds.

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 And we are wise to walk righteously and to avoid the discipline of our master.

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 So we see this in verse 14.

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 That's effectively what he is telling this individual.

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 And then in verse 15.

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 So the guy hears that.

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 Sin no more.

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 He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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 And then verse 15.

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 The man departs.

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 It's like the moment the conversation ends.

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 The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well.

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 Now, what was his motivation?

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 Honestly, we don't know.

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 There's commentators who say all sorts of things.

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 They ascribe every possible motivation to this guy.

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 But, while we don't know exactly what was going on in his heart,

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 we can look at this text in John 5 and compare it to when Jesus heals the blind guy in John 9.

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 Now, the blind guy that he heals later on is excited and professes and tells the leadership straight forward it was Jesus.

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 He does not shirk, does not hide, does not run.

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 He openly confesses, this is the one who healed me, not this guy.

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 There's no sign of his promotion of the healer.

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 There's no sign that his response was one of faith.

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 And some read into verse 15, and they say, you know what he did?

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 Jesus comes and finds him.

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 He'd been looking to point him out to the leadership earlier

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 so he could get himself out of trouble, and then Jesus came and found him.

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 And so he goes to the Jewish leadership and says, see, it's that guy right there in the temple.

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 That's the guy. That's the guy. He did it to save his own skin.

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 I don't know. I don't know what his motivation is, but I know this much, that him identifying

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 Jesus put all the eyes like laser beams upon him there in the temple. Let's look at our last verses

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 for today, 16 through 18, to see the response of the Jewish leadership of this time. Verse 16.

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 For this reason, this, this, this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus. Remember, because he healed

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 someone and told him to carry your bed. That was it. The bar for killing Jesus was pretty low.

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 For this reason, they sought to kill him because he healed someone and told him to carry his bed.

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 Okay? Apparently that's the death penalty. If they had described that sort of thinking inwardly to

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 themselves and all to their malevolence and naughty deeds, man, they would all be smited moments later.

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 But here, this guy does this wonderful thing in response for this reason. Verse 16, the Jews

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 persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things. And not just he'd done

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 them but he'd done them on the sabbath remember the laws of 39 things he broke one therefore it's

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 all over but verse 17 but jesus answered them and said my father has been working until now

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 and i have been working he's saying this to people who had 39 you know laws that they could pull out

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 here's the 39 things you can't do don't work don't work don't carry no fires don't push a button and

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 he goes and says to them, my father's been working, which is okay because God the Father,

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 he was exempt from their laws. They did have an understanding that God is at work. God is always

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 working. So they understood that. That's not the part they have a problem with. He says, my father

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 has been working, there verse 17, and I have been working. That they understood with no equivocation

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 to mean he was yoking himself to him, yoking the son to the father. Jesus' answer is that my father

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 has been working until now and i have been working now how do they respond how do we know that they

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 made that connection how do we know that he was testifying and explained to them his divine nature

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 how do we know that that's what he did because look at how they responded verse 18 verse 18

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 therefore the jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the sabbath but also said

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 that god was his father making himself equal with god they understood exactly what he said and what

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 he meant. Exactly. So to summarize these verses and the overall persecution that was manifest here

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 and that was going to follow, there were two reasons they wanted him dead. The first involved

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 breaking their made-up laws. However, again, healing a man is not a violation of God's laws.

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 If anyone tells you that you can't work on the Sabbath, they're wrong in this regard. You can

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 work as long as your work is confined within the fields that we would call mercy and necessity.

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 If I have a heart attack, do we have any doctors in the room? If I have one, I hope a doctor comes

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 up. I hope that there's doctors in this room, and I know that there's several. I hope a doctor comes

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 up and helps me out. That doctor would be working, but the work would be a work of mercy, and I would

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 argue necessity. Mercy and necessity would be manifest at that moment. At the same time, I hope

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 that Gulfport's finest are out thwarting crime and dealing with evildoers. Again, this is mercy

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 and necessity. These are good and appropriate works to be done on this day. With that said,

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 healing a man who was born in this condition, or for 38 years was in this condition, certainly

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 falls within the realm of mercy and necessity. Secondly, they want him dead not only because of

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 that, but because of what he said in verse 17. Again, in the Jewish, it's in the Talmud. The

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 Talmud says that God can and does work on the Lord's day. And Jesus said, I can too. And so

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 they understood that he was saying, I am God and I'm equal with God. That was the implication. They

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 heard it and wanted him dead. So this sets the stage. We'll wrap up in just a moment here, but

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 this sets the stage for all the rest of the book. We're only here in chapter five, but what we've

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 seen right here is what we would call the catalyst for everything that's going to happen.

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 All the persecution and anger and hatred and animosity, it starts here. And not simply because

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 a guy healed someone and not simply because a guy carried a bed, but because of this claim we saw

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 in verse 18 where Jesus is identifying himself as divine. People heard it and they wanted to kill

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 him. This morning, the good shepherd came through the sheep gate. He came to broken, hurting people

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 saying, do you want to be made well? This morning, there are broken, hurting sheep in this room.

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 Numerically, I can bet the house on it. There are broken, hurting sheep in this room. Jesus comes to

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 you and says, would you like to be made well? Almost all of us will say yes. Jesus, I want you

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 to cure this issue, this cancer, this illness, this hardship, this relationship, this financial

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 issue, this occupational issue. Cure it all. Yes, I want to be made well. But that's not the wellness

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 that Jesus came to bring.

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 He did heal those who were hurting,

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 and he does answer prayers.

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 God answers prayers with regards

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 to the hardships in our lives,

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 but that's not principally the problem that you have.

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 Your problem is not singularly your relationships,

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 your finances, the other things going on in your life,

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 even your health.

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 And due time, all that can

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 and probably will be taken from you.

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 Your problem is that you've offended a holy God,

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 you stand under his wrath,

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 and the wages of sin is death.

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 Jesus, the great shepherd,

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 came through the sheep gate with the intention

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 not only to heal the people he found on the periphery,

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 but to go to the cross, to take his message, to take his gospel, to take himself and to be hung

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 up visibly for all those to see and for our sins to be imputed to him that his righteousness might

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 be granted to us. Do you want to be made well? What do you want to be made well of? If the answer

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 to that is my sin and the cataclysmic gap between me and the one who's made me, that's what I need

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 to fix. If that's your object, that's your desire, then two things. Number one, Jesus did come to do

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 exactly that to save us and reconcile us with our maker and number two that should be the great

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 priority of our life and of our testimony into the fallen world jesus came to offer temporal good and

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 temporal miracles and temporal healings and all these things but principally came to save us from

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 the wrath of the father by laying down his own life if that's what you want if that's the wellness

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 that you seek jesus comes to offer it and to offer it abundantly turn to him and live let's pray