How Would You Reply? 

 

(John 5:1-9 ESV)

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”      Stop! . . .  Stop! Stop! Stop!

Here is a man who has been an invalid of some sort for 38 years.  Jesus us comes up to him as a total stranger and asks the $64,000 question: “Do you want to be healed?”  Now if you had been lying there for 38 years, would you hesitate to say anything but, “Yes!”?  I don’t care how long it had been. Thirty-eight hours, days, months, or years: if it were me I’d say, “I’m all in! Where do I sign?”

So back to the scripture, look at this guy’s response:

Verse 5  The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”       

Let’s stop again!

We probably need to explain why He was at the pool.  The King James Bible adds verse 4 [for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.]

So, this guy has laid by the pool for 38 years and never been able to get to the pool in time to receive healing.  Can you believe his answer?   “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool . . . “  Major pity party!!!  This guy perceives his situation to be absolutely permanent. He has given up.  He gives us the impression that there is no hope because he thinks the only way out is the one he’s relied on for 38 years.

Have you ever found yourself in that state of mind?   A state of mind where you have convinced yourself that change is just not possible?  Or maybe you’ve even offered help to someone and they prefer to stay right where they are.  Does it remind you of Winne-the-Pooh’s friend Eeyore?  We all can find ourselves trapped in discouragement perhaps even depression because we perceive our circumstances unsurmountable and the pit we are in actually becomes comfortable because we have accepted it as “normal.” Yep, call it the Eeyore Syndrome if you will.

Jesus offers the solution:

Verse 8: Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

This presented the crippled man with a crisis of belief.  Either he can believe this man has just given him the power to walk away from his infirmities or he can stay right where he is, waiting to be lucky enough to get placed in the pool just at the right moment.  Maybe,  . . . in another 38 years or so.

We see the man has a change of mind.  Why? Even though he has yet to understand who it is he is talking to it matters not.  He is still having an episodic life changing encounter with Jesus Christ!

Verse 9: And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.  

 

What was required of the crippled man?

Faith in the offer that Jesus made.

Action: the actualization of his faith.  He had to get up! 

Abandon his circumstances: Picking up his bed would signify he was leaving the past behind.

Walking forward into the future.

He was healed because Jesus offered him a solution and he decided to take it to heart.

What’s bothering you today?

What’s been holding you down perhaps even for decades?

What do you want to leave behind? 

What circumstances have held you captive and distorted the truth in your life? 

 

“Do you want to be healed?”  How would you reply?

 

Maybe you don’t know Jesus. He knows you and He offers new life if you follow Him. 

"But . . . "

Moses was struggling with all four of these when God first gave him his call to leadership. He was not very mindful that He was from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he was part of the inheritance of the Abrahamic promise, and therefore one of the chosen race of Israel. He was just not getting it as far as who He was, whose he was, and where He came from.

In Exodus chapters 3 and 4 we find Moses in a conversation with God in which he is learning what he is destined for. He is not very confident of himself and starts to come up with excuses.

Exo 3:11:

 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (ESV)

And again, in Exo 4:10:

 But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” (ESV)

God’s response to these petty objections was simply, “I will be with you . . . “

Often, we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations where we are in a crisis of belief. We clearly see what we are supposed to do but we can’t. We momentarily forget who we are in Christ, whose we are as belonging to Him, where we came from spiritually and where we are in that same sense right now. So, we forget the position that places us in. We forget the empowerment that comes with all that. Like Moses we start to make excuses why we can’t accomplish the challenge before us. But God says, “I will be with you.” God say that he will never leave us or forsake us. (Deuteronomy 31:8)

God gives us a new identify when we surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior. It’s an identity that has clothed us with having the distinctive position as being sons and daughters of the most High God. It’s not for the purpose of being haughty and arrogant. It is for the purpose of being empowered to humbly respond to His calling whether it be to lead a great nation of people, simply sit down and talk to a skeptic about Jesus, anonymously take care of someone else’s needs, or boldly face persecution and possible death for being a follower of Jesus.

Know who you are, whose you are, where you have come from, and what you are destined for so that you can bring glory to the name of Jesus in everything you do. God will be with you!