03/05/2023 Midtown Church Sacramento
Series – Hope, Health & Healing
Do you want to be healed?
Dr. Efrem Smith
Main Text: John 5:1-9
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 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,
What’s it going to take to get well?
Biblical Background: Pool of Bethesda. Verse 4 is omitted in some translations because they question the reliability of this “myth” but essentially, people believed that there was a “god” or an “angel,” who would come and stir the water, and the first person who could get into the pool would get healed. In Greek, Beth: “House of Grace” Hesda: “Shame.” Even amid our shame, there’s grace. Jesus comes and meets us in our shame, and gives us grace instead.
Biblical Healing: To make solid or whole. The restoration of health, the making whole or well whether physically, mentally, or spiritually. Salvation as healing. Seeing God as our main source for healing. (Psalm 103:3) God is a healer, God wants us to be healed, and God leads us to healing.
Psalm 103:3
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
If you want to get well, consider these questions:
1.) What keeps me stuck? (John 5:1-6)
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 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?”
Healing is Divine
2.) What lies am I believing? (John 5:7)
“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.”
Healing Is a Desire and Decision
3.) What is God telling me to do? (John 5:8-9 and 14-15)
John 5:8-9
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,
John 5:14-15
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Healing is a Daily Discovery
Final Question- Will We Let Opposition Keep Us from Healing? (John 5:16-17)
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
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