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Good morning. If I was home, I'd say, guten morgen. I'm always amazed at how many people come up to me and say, oh, I lived in Germany for some time. I learned some German too. And then they tell me their story. And that's already happened this week at the table next to the table for Convoy of Hope. There's another table and there are some books on that table. Just the title is Spiritual Paralysis or. Yeah, Freedom from Spiritual Paralysis. What happened was I gave a series of messages at our center in Texas and somebody put it in book form and the editing wasn't quite complete. And so There are only 20 copies over there. But if you want to take one, you know you can take it for no cost. As far as I'm concerned. I'm a bad businessman. That's probably a bad business model. But none of the money goes to me. It goes to the Ministry of Torchbearers so that we can help those, for instance, in South Africa, in Tanzania and Italy, who are involved in new initiatives. There's also just a brochure back there which tells you a little bit about torchbearers. And of interest to this group would be the short term Bible schools around the world for basically 18 to 23 year olds. And I'll speak more about that on Wednesday. Some people have asked me already, what is Torch? But what do you do? I, I'll, I'll spend some time on that on Wednesday morning. But you can take one of these, there's a QR code and feel free to, to look up some of the information on that. So go ahead and take that as long as they last. There we go. We're in John chapter five this morning. And we're going to look at the second sign in the Gospel of John that we're going to cover this week. I think the second one chronologically is at the end of chapter four. But I need to skip ahead and come right to the lame man at the pool. And the key word here is assurance. Assurance. We need assurance that Jesus is for us and not against us. We need the assurance that I can trust him. We need the assurance that I can move forward from where I am today. That's what we're talking about in this sign. The signs of Jesus were done in the presence of his disciples. It says that in John chapter 20 and verses 30 and 31. And they're intended to teach God's people how to trust him and that we can trust him. And the interesting thing about all the signs of Jesus in John's gospel is that they're all done within the context of human weakness. Weakness is not a problem for Jesus. He never stood in front of a person and said, sorry, you're too weak, I can't do anything with you. If anything, our weakness draws him to us. It doesn't push him from us. And there's a sense in which we need to be comfortable with weakness and our own limitations and know and have the assurance our weakness actually makes us more attractive to Jesus. And he loved to be around people who were in need. Oswald Chambers, a man that I've read for many years, was from Scotland, started a Bible school in London, went with YMCA to Egypt, and he died at the age of 43. He was on the operating table. He was being operated on for appendicitis. And he had this tent in Africa and he used to give devotionals to the soldiers. And his wife would sit down in the back row and take notes. And her notes became a devotional book that we call or that she entitled My Utmost for his highest. And some of you know that book, but that's the background of where that book came from. He said this one day, he said, the greatest blessing that God can give to a man is the knowledge of his own destitution. In other words, how much he needs Jesus. We run a Bible school where I live in Germany at our conference center. I mention more about that on Wednesday. But the students who come to us, desperate. I don't worry about them, but it's a person who comes that is totally satisfied with where they're at and who they are and don't sense their need for Jesus. That's a dangerous place to be. The greatest blessing that God can give to a man is the knowledge of their own destitution. What pleases God most is our empty hands, not the hands that are full. What did Jesus said? One of the first things in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for those belong the kingdom of God. And if we've come empty handed this week, if we come in an acute knowledge of need and our weakness, that type of person is attractive to Jesus. And we're going to look at one this morning, so let me have the next slide. I want to take a look at the lame man in chapter five and verses one to nine, starting verse one. After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there was in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porticos and in these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters. For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever then first after the stirring up of the water and stepped in, was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. Stop there. This took place on the Sabbath day between Ezra and the time of Jesus. The Jews had added 1521 ways to break the Sabbath. And that was in addition to God's command to his people in the ten commandments, Keep the Sabbath day holy. And so what they did is they divided life into 39 categories. The category of travel, the category of building, the category of cooking. And under those 39 categories, they made up 39 ways to break the Sabbath. And the total number of traditional laws that were above and beyond what God ever intended was 1521 ways. Can you imagine? Unbearable. And it was all done out of a desire to keep right before God. The desire was sincere, but the application of God's word was wrong. We'll get to that at the end of this session. But it was all about doing the right thing in the eyes of God. Friends, Christianity is not built on me doing the right thing in the eyes of God. Christianity is built on Jesus doing the right thing for me when I'm desperate. That's Christianity. Religion is man's best effort to reach God. Christianity is God's best effort to reach broken humanity. That's Christianity. And I would suggest to us this morning that the human heart is bent on doing more than trusting. I want to deserve it because of what I've done. Because if I have to receive it by faith, that's a blow to my big fat ego. And so I'm in the dining hall at Bodenzio if there's another load of desserts that comes out, and an attentive student sitting at my table says, can I get you another dessert? Do you know what my knee jerk reaction is? Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it myself. It's one thing a step of humility to recognize your need. It's another step of humility to allow somebody to fill that need for you. And you don't deserve any of it. That's called grace in the scripture, and grace is not grace until it's undeserved. The most. The most accurate definition of faith I've always. I've ever heard is this one. Faith is an attitude of heart that allows somebody else to do something for you, how difficult is that? Allowing somebody else, namely Jesus, to do something for you? That's faith. And yet our hearts are resistant to that. I'd rather deserve it because I've earned says that Jesus went through the sheep gate. There were numerous gates to enter into Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in particular. And the thing about the sheep gate was this. At the Temple, the religious leaders of the day, in particular the high priestly family, was earning a lot of money in God's name. And the way that they did that is that at the Passover, once a year, every family was supposed to bring a lamb without blemish to Jerusalem to be offered as a sacrifice for their sins. But you couldn't give just any lamb. It had to be without blemish. And so what the ruling family did is that they sent out the sheep police throughout the country. And on your little garden plot, you had a little pen for your lamb that you were gonna take to sacrifice for the sins that you had committed during that year. And the sheep police would come through the land and they would inspect your sheep, and they may say something, ah, you can't offer this one. Your dog came off and bit part of its ear. So this is not without blemish. But I'll tell you what you can do. You can go the sheep gate in Jerusalem and you can buy a certified sheep that's without blemish. Oh, you live in Galilee. Sorry about that. You have a different currency than we have out down in Jerusalem. But don't worry about that. You can exchange your money at Jerusalem so that you can buy one of our certified sheep. This was big business in the name of God. And that is why Jesus goes into the temple in John chapter 2, and the parallel passage in other places, and he takes a whip and he said, you have made my father's house into a house of business. Shame on you. A student came up to me and asked me, do you think he really hit somebody with his whip? I think he probably aimed at somebody because it makes God angry for us to profit in his name. The Jews that Jesus met at the sheep gate, and if you've ever been around sheep, sheep are dirty and they're dumb. I've been told by a shepherd that they can only see about 15ft in front of them. That's why they need the shepherd to go before them. And it says, there was a multitude people who were sick, lame, blind, etc. There is a verse in Deuteronomy, chapter 7 and verse 15, in which God said to his people, if you obey me, I will put none of these diseases on you that I put on Egypt. He was speaking to the nation at that time. And yet by this time, the Jews had created a theology based on that. That statement which said this, if you're sick or you're injured, certainly you must have committed a bad, bad sin. And so these people were not allowed to go into the temple so that they wouldn't defile it because they were godless. And these people, and the one in particular that we're talking about this morning, they had been taught this. God isn't for you. God is against you. And that's why you have to go through what you're doing right now. Does that line of thinking happen today? You better believe it does. Because the enemy of our soul and a broken human heart usually assumes the worst about God instead of believing the best about him. And so we draw that theological conclusion very easily. And these people were without hope in my Bible. Let me read the end of verse three and verse four. In fact, this verse may not even be contained in your translation, or it's a footnote, or it's written in another font. Let me read that passage. These were waiting for the moving of the waters, for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in, was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. End bracket. Why is that? Well, when the translators of the Gospel of John got together, there was some disagreement as to whether that should really be contained in there or not. And I say to myself, you mean really? People really believe that. That an angel would go down and, you know, create a kind of a whirlpool there, and you just jump in and you were healed? People really believed that back then? Well, if you suffered for a long time, you would try anything for relief. That's why they were there, And there was a multitude of people there. And then we read on. In verse five, a man was there who had been ill for 38 years. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, he said to him, do you wish to get well? And the sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I am coming, another one steps down before me. The audacity of Jesus to ask that question. Do you want to get well? This guy had been ill for 38 years. Jesus, why would you ask this guy, this question, that would be like asking my friend Keith Yates, who was put in an incubator with his twin brother and the nurses left him there too long and he went blind, not his brother, but he did. I wouldn't have the audacity to come up to him and say, keith, would you prefer to see again? That sounds offensive. And yet Jesus asked the question knowing that this man had been in that condition. There are about 250 questions that Jesus asked in the Gospel accounts, But there are 35 questions that he asked a specific individual. They weren't rhetorical questions. There were questions like the one we'll look at, I think, tonight, when he turned to Philip and said, where are we going to buy bread that these may eat, knowing what he was going to do. So there were 35 questions that he asked a specific person. I have a document on my computer with all 35 of those questions. Makes for a great preaching series I call it. Now that's a good question. When Jesus asked a question, he was not seeking information that he didn't have. He was not seeking information, he was seeking a confession. And the answers to the questions of Jesus reveal a heart condition that he wants to bring to the surface. So the answers to the questions are what you pay attention to. What was this man's answer? Jesus? Every time I go and try and jump in there, somebody else goes before me and that's why I'm still here. And contained in that question is a certain amount of blame, bitterness and desperation. I've tried and nobody's been able to help me. Nothing has worked that is not unique to that man. There can be somebody seated here this morning who would be in that same position. Peter, you don't know my life. No, I don't. Nothing's changed, never will. I've tried all kinds of things and in particular it is a particular sting to my soul when people claim to have the answers and then I try it and it doesn't work. That kind of person can be difficult to reach. But Jesus knows how to reach them. This man had sunk into disappointment, blame and bitterness Again. I brought a quote this morning from Oswald Chambers. I want to read that. He said all. If I could have it on the next slide, please. Thank you. All the Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus. And he will tax the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we obey him. What does it matter if external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be? If we give way to self pity and indulge in the Luxury of misery. We banish God's riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into his provision. And then he says this, no sin is worse than the sin of self pity because it obliterates God and puts self interest on the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out our murmurings on our lives become craving spiritual sponges. And there's nothing lively or generous about them. That's a hard statement, but I was raised by that generation, a post war generation and they just called a spade a spade. And I miss him. And if they sensed me indulging in self pity, they would look at me and they would say things like, well, has it killed you yet, Peter? Because these were people who lived through the war. Beware of self pity, it's pride turned inward. And in reality, this man had made an idol out of his limitations and weakness. Do you know how you recognize an idol in your heart? You just ask these questions, what receives my best? Or where am I willing to sacrifice? Another question is this one. What can I not let go of? This man couldn't let go of his condition. And another way that we can recognize our idol is to recognize it this way. What fills my mind and my mouth, what did I talk about them? This guy, all this guy had to talk about was this. I'm stuck here and I could never ever expect anything good from God. That's why Jesus had to take the initiative to go to him. Because nothing's ever worked. And if you look at my past, nothing's changed. And I've drawn the conclusion nothing will. Friends, your past does not need to determine your future. And furthermore, your failure and your weakness has no influence on the victory of Christ in your life. He is no respecter of my weakness. Oh sorry, you're too weak. I can't do anything with you. He never says anything like that. And he comes to this man and he asks this question. To be disappointed in man is to have trusted in man in the first place. This point in my life that yeah, there's been a lot of disappointment, but I've needed to learn that my trust lies somewhere else. Otherwise I'm just going to continue in my bitterness, disappointment, and I'm going to stay where I am. Usually disappointment is an indication of a misplaced trust. Do you know what scripture says two times in Romans 9:33 and Romans 10, verse 11 and he who believes in him will not be disappointed. Romans 9:33 and Romans 10 and verse 11 he who believes in him will not be disappointed. So Jesus comes to the Most pitiful man in the group. And he addresses him and he pays no attention nor lays much weight on his statement. Friends, stop fighting your weakness. Stop fighting your limitations. Come to Jesus today with empty hands. Come to Jesus today and say, lord Jesus, I don't deserve this, but I sure need it. Lord Jesus, I need you to do something that has never taken place in my life. Only look back at your past inasmuch as it helps you to move forward with Jesus. Only look as far back in your past in as much as it allows you to look. Move forward with Jesus. He's interested in our future. Well, this man didn't need healing. He needed to be rightly related to Jesus. He needed to come and allow Jesus to do something for him that he or nobody else could do for himself. And Jesus in the gospel accounts worked often in the physical realm because the physical realm is the visible realm in order to illustrate what he can do in other areas of our lives which are invisible. So he does things in the physical realm to illustrate what he can do in the emotional, psychological realm and in the moral realm of my being. Why? Because it's easiest to observe that. And it's just an indication of what he can do in all other places in my life. So Jesus said to him, get up. Pick up your pallet and walk. And immediately the man became well and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Jesus says, number one, get up. There was no prayer session here. There was no laying on of hands. There was no counseling. He cornered this guy into a position where he had to make a decision. Are you going to stay here or not? He says, get up. Do you know there's a time when a person, and I say this carefully, please don't misunderstanding understand me. It's not time to study more. It's not time to pray more. It's time for a decision. Get up. On the basis of the promise and power and presence of Jesus. This is an illustration of the gospel. This is an illustration of what Jesus wants to be and do in our lives. This was something that Jesus had said to a person who would assume the worst about God. Do you remember in John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The next verse after that, which Jesus said to Nicodemus, was this one. He said, for God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. The first time God sent his Son was to save anybody. The second time Jesus comes will be to judge those who refused his offer of salvation the first time. And I would argue the point that God does not send people to hell. They choose to go there because they rejected the offer of Christ who had come the first time to save anybody. We don't know how long this man had been at this pool, but he certainly went there at least the first time. Get healed. And again, I don't know how long it had been, but it had been a long time where there was disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. And the thing that Jesus did is that he knew buried underneath all of the cynicism, all of the blame, all of all of the self pity was the seed of faith that got this man there in the first place. Dear friends, wanting to trust is enough trust for Jesus. Wanting to trust is enough trust for Jesus. And Jesus knew this about this man and he knew and had tremendous compassion on this man's lives. And he knew that he had went, he had gone there because he wanted to trust God for something that had never happened in his life. And he says, get up. Do you know, faith is very simply acting as if God's word is true in your case. And it is in the end an act of obedience. Faith really is an act of obedience. And if I do what he says, he'll do what he's promised. And then Jesus says, pick up your pallet or pick up your bed. In other words, you're not returning here anymore. You're not going to need this way of just coping with life anymore. Because that's what his mat was. It was just to provide a little bit of relief, but it didn't address the symptom at all. And I would argue the point that it was just perpetuating his desperation. And there are a lot of, you know, beds or mats in people's lives today whereby we just want a little bit of relief. Friends, that's existing, but it's not living. And Jesus says, pick it up, you're not going to need this anymore. I brought another quote with me. I'm sorry, is this. Yeah, there we go. I love this. Bill Gillen put it this way. The problem is you don't know what your problem is. You think your problem is the main problem, but that's not the problem at all. The problem is that you don't know what your problem is. And that's the main problem. This man's problem was not the fact that he was lame. His man's problem was that he was not yet rightly related to Jesus. And it is amazing how many things take care of themselves when we are rightly related to Jesus. Make that your aim. Yeah, but Peter, what about all the other stuff? I understand that, but get right with Jesus first. And sometimes, friends, the way out is the way through, and he'll not leave you there. Even if your desperate state is due to the consequences of your own actions. He's not going to leave you there. Why? Because his glory is at stake in my life. It's not about me. It's not about my reputation. It's about the reputation of Jesus. Does he have a vested interest in me moving forward? Absolutely. Get up, take your bed and walk or move on. God always finishes what he starts, and he never goes back on his words. And God said about himself in Isaiah 43 and verse 13, I act. And who can reverse it? And I have never read a statement of a promise of God which He could not fulfill. I've never read a statement of Jesus correcting anything that he said. I've never read a promise of Jesus that he has not been able to fulfill. So he says, walk now again, only look far enough into your past as it helps you move forward. But when it comes to the promises of God, don't look at your past. Look at his past again. Has he ever said anything that he can't do? Has he ever had to adjust a statement? Has he ever decided, excuse me, that was a little bit too extreme. Let me just tone that down a bit. He never said that. The first step that this man took after 38 years was dramatic. But listen very carefully. Every step after that one was just as miraculous as the first one. Because the only explanation for any step beyond that point was Jesus. And what was dramatic, the first time became a lifestyle. He just continued walking. That is a Christian life. And you take the first step, and the wonderful thing is it creates a faith memory. And then you realize, oh, if I took the first step, I can take the step. Second one. If I took the second one, I can take a third one. And we build on that. God's movement is always forward, always moves us forward. Next and last slide. Because I'm looking at the clock. The leaders in Jesus, I'm assuming, of the majority of who is referred to were the theologians, the religious leadership of the day, in particular the Pharisees. And it says at the end of verse nine, now, it was a Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, it is the Sabbath, it's not permissible. Carry your pallet. But he answered them. He who made me well is the one who said to me, pick up your pallet and walk. And so evidently carrying his, you know, little thermal therm a rest was against one of the 1521 laws. And they said, you can't do that, friends. What's this guy supposed to oh, you're right, I shouldn't be doing this. I'll just lie down on my thermorest again and just deny what Jesus has done in my life and experience. What a load of rubbish. That's the antagonism of religion against Jesus. In light of 38 years. Jesus could have waited another day, but he did it on the Sabbath day. Do you understand my thinking? He could have done this either the day before, the day after, but he did on the Sabbath day because he's pointing his finger at dead religion. Humanism says I can. Religion says you must. Christ says you can't. And I never expected you to because I can for you. It says in Mark, chapter two, in verses 28 and 20, 27 and 28, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. Do you remember the that man was created on the sixth day. So his first day on earth was the seventh day, the Sabbath day. And God rested on the Sabbath day from all he was doing. Not because he was tired, because he longed for one thing, fellowship with man. It's like dad comes home and he has all the time in the world for the kids and his spotlight love, which is filled with a desire to fellowship with man, rests on man, and he aches to enjoy relationship with him. After every one of the six days that precede the Sabbath day, we have the statement and it was evening and it was morning, the first day or the second day, etc. Etc. That is not contained after the seventh day for one simple reason. The conditions of that day were supposed to be every day and on the Sabbath day God gives, man receives. On the Sabbath day God works, man trusts. And what happened on this Sabbath day is that Jesus, who is Lord of the Sabbath, applied Sabbath to this man's life. He did something that this man couldn't do for himself. The secret of God's relationship with man is simply this. God is the giver and man is the receiver. In verse 14 of this chapter, Jesus finds this man in the temple worshiping first time. He had been there for 38 years because anybody who was that sick would have been banned from the temple and therefore damned by God. And what we realize about this man is that something didn't just happen to his legs, something happened to his heart. And he praised God, not because he was part of a church Service or a PowerPoint was up front, but because the spontaneous response in a man who had experienced Sabbath. Wouldn't it be wonderful to sing because of that? If I could have the last two slides. I'm going to show the first one first. Oh, great. This is a picture of mom and my siblings in the mid-60s. Dad isn't there because mom and dad got a divorce. In Mom's side of the family, there were five. Excuse me. There were four marriages, her parents and their kids. On my dad's side of the family, there were five marriages, his dad and their. My dad's parents and their kids. So in our family, on both sides, mom and Dad's sides, there were nine marriages. Seven ended in divorce, and that was our pool. This has never worked. Never will. After my mom married my stepfather, we went to a family camp, much like Pine. Excuse me, Gull Lake. And it was there that mom received Christ. Pops. My stepfather received Christ. Both of them. It was their second marriage. And then all four of us kids and in a very broken family, Jesus came in and brought healing. And the older I get have no human explanation as to why he would do that, but his grace. My dad and my stepfather have both passed away. But I brought a picture of mom at the assisted living center where she's Now Living. She's 91. She's got advanced Parkinson's. And next week, praise God, we'll visit her. And so there I am with my siblings. And God brought restoration in an area of all of our lives where our family on both sides had failed. So there we are with our spouses. Friends, if you're alive today, there's a future and a hope. There's a future and a hope. And Jesus comes today and he says, do you want to get well? Do you want me to allow. You want to allow me to do what you never have been able to do? Because that's why I'm here. That's why I'm here this morning. Let's pause and pray. And for 30 seconds, in the stillness of those seconds, let's just respond to the Lord as would be appropriate in our situation right now. And I'll close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you that Jesus acts for his own name's sake. It's not about our reputation, what other people think about us or what we're known for, but it's about what people think about you, Jesus and Lord, where somebody has been backed into the corner of decision. I'd pray that by your spirit you would give them the assurance this morning that they can trust you for what they've never experienced. Do that for your own name's sake. Amen. Thank you. God bless you.