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In this teaching, Jesus. Week 9, we hear Pastor Mike talk about when Jesus healed a man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath.
Most people complain about things in their lives that they’re not actually willing to change. I’m overweight. I’m poor. I’m depressed. I’m lonely. I’m childless. So ask yourself:
Would I actually like to get well?
I don’t want to be stressed anymore, but I can’t give up Netflix. I don’t want to be addicted, but I also don’t want to give it up.
So when Jesus asked the guy at the Pool of Bethesda “would you like to get well?” the guy gave an excuse (John 5:7). I’m not sure this man was open to hearing about other possible ways to be healed. He had one idea of how the healing would go, and Jesus’ way was different.
So what is your excuse?
We all do it: “I believe God heals marriages, but not mine. I’m done with my marriage.” “I believe God heals addictions, but I kinda like mine.” “I believe in tithing, but here’s why I don’t tithe. I’m different.”
God’s promise of salvation isn’t that He’ll forgive your sins and then leave you screwed up and broken. Jesus wants to make you whole.
A terrible idea that is destroying lives right now is the idea that people don’t change. It’s not Biblical. It’s not logical, and it’s incredibly depressing. You’re not stuck the way you are, but here’s the problem:
You can’t change yourself. You need God. He’s the creator, the owner. If your goal is to be rich, you might get rich, but you’ll be miserable. If your goal is to get sober, you’ll be sober and depressed. Seek God first, and He’ll give you what you need.
5 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda,[a] with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.[b] 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”
11 But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.
13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing[c] Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. 17 But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.
Did you like this message, Jesus. – Week 9? Check out more of our Sunday teachings here.