In the sermon 'Hope For The Hopeless,' Pastor Jerry Zepnick expounds on John 5:1-9, emphasizing the significance of miracles as signs pointing to Jesus as the Messiah. He highlights the importance of obedience to God's word, suggesting that true Christian life involves a commitment to study and adhere to the teachings of the Bible, irrespective of one's formal education in theology. Pastor Zepnick discusses Jesus' compassion as demonstrated in the healing of the man who had been infirm for 38 years at the Pool of Bethesda. This act symbolizes Jesus' authority and power to provide instant restoration and healing beyond human rituals, underscoring the priority of spiritual over physical needs. The sermon encourages believers to respond to Jesus' call with immediate obedience and to fulfill their purpose as reflections of Christ's light in a dark world. The ultimate goal is to walk in complete submission to God's will, understanding that spiritual deliverance is our greatest need.

Music Morning church family. Another blessed day that God has given us in His house. And so today we will be in the book of John. Again, we'll start in chapter five today. We're gonna go through first nine verses of chapter five, and that is what is another miracle.

But John the writer doesn't identify them as miracles. John the writer identifies them as signs. And he does that because as the book of John is, it is written to point to Jesus as being the Christ, the Messiah. And so a sign points to something. And these miracles point to Jesus as being the Messiah.

And so, I'm going to read the text and then we'll open up in prayer. It is John chapter 5 verses 1 through 9. And it reads, 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, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda. Having five porches and these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water, for an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water.

Then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time. He said to him, Do you want to be made well? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man. Put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.

But while I'm coming, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. Father, we thank you this morning for your word, for the power that it holds, Lord God.

I pray for our hearts and our lives to be able to grasp this this morning, Lord. I pray that, starting with me, that it does a work in hearts. I pray, Father God, for your Spirit to do a work and for your Word to speak. In Jesus' name this morning, Amen. And so it was, I think it was about 10 and a half, I think this summer it will be about 11 years since Bonnie and I have been coming to the Voice of Faith.

And when we started coming, I had no intentions of doing what I'm doing, But as the Lord would have it, I was given an opportunity in Alaska to speak at a church up there. And when I came back, Pastor Rick asked me to speak. And the same message, I tuned it up and gave it. Maybe a few of you remember me choking my way through that one and stumbling. But at the end of it, about a week later, he asked me to prepare another.

And this went so on and so on. And here we are today. And one thing I realized early on in the whole process of what I'm doing is that I don't have any formal education to do what I'm doing. I'm probably one of the most under-qualified preachers that I've ever known on paper. And so I purposed early on that I would study the word of God and hang on to it for dear life because it has the power.

My words don't have any. And so, this has been what we have done to this point, and this is what we will continue to do. And I believe that no matter how much Bible education and seminary training a person has, we still have the Bible and that's our foundation, that is our force right there. There is no other way around it. And this morning is gonna be no exception as we go through the Word of God and we exposit it and we see how we can draw from it to change our lives and to live for Jesus every day in that and how he can be glorified by how we study it and submit our lives to it.

And so the book of John has been for me foundational in the growth of my preaching and teaching and my personal Christian walk in a lot of ways. It is so fundamental and showing the glory and the deity of Christ to me in a way I've never seen before. And I pray and I hope that it does the same thing for you all. But in recapping the book of John, we have to go to chapter 20 verse 31 again and I don't wanna sound redundant, but I keep forgetting. And so I'm assuming that we can all be drawn back to this basic fundamental beginning that says, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

And so, this is to persuade the reader of Jesus' divine identity. This is to persuade every single person here of Jesus' divine identity so that that we might receive eternal life. So that our personal lives will walk in a direction of total and complete submission to the will of Christ for our lives and that our lives will bring glory to God. That is the purpose of this study and of this book altogether. And so in today's reading we see Jesus is going up to Jerusalem to attend a feast.

It doesn't say what feast, it's got to be one of three, the Passover, Pentecost, or Tabernacles, the Feast of Tabernacles. And it always says going up to Jerusalem. He's coming from the north, but he's going up to Jerusalem. The reason is that geographically it sits high. And so every road that goes to Jerusalem, you're going uphill, literally.

And so he's going up to Jerusalem in the reading today. And So the point is that that amazes me throughout this, and I didn't understand it really well until I studied it, but Jesus didn't skirt these great feasts that were celebrated. He didn't skirt the wedding in Canaan where He did the first miracle. He didn't skirt these great feasts, but saw them as an occasion of celebration, of delight, to worship with His own people. Okay, weren't His own people all people?

Well, he was a Jew. He saw this as an occasion to worship with the Jew because he came to save the Jew first, but also the Greek, right? But also the Greek. We see how this is all evened out in the love and the grace of Christ. But He came and He loved to worship with His own people.

He had that in common with them. It brought Him among the very ones that He came to serve and to save. And so He came among the Jews to bring the Messiah that they had expected forever. And at the same time, knew that they would reject for the most part. And so, this miraculous cure in today's passage isn't recorded in any of the other gospels that are the synoptic gospels.

Mostly, the book of John mostly records miracles in Galilee. I'm sorry, the synoptic gospels record the miracles in Galilee while the book of John does some of the miracles in Jerusalem as well. But John tells of all of these that had happened in Jerusalem, so when he gets there, Jesus is going to Jerusalem for this great feast, and If you're going to a place of a great feast, would you not want to go to the best place there and hang out with the coolest people there and the best food and all that kind of thing? That would be our nature, correct? You walk into a wedding, you go to what is going to be the bar where you get your pop and maybe your snacks and whatever else.

You want to go to the group of the cool people that you know, that you can talk to. Well, here, Jesus, I'm sure a lot of people in Jerusalem know Him. And so when He gets there, He immediately goes to the Pool of Bethesda. And so he gets there and Jesus seeks out the special place. It's the the Pool of Bethesda which which means it means a lot of different things but generally speaking it means the house of mercy.

And so Jesus Jesus goes to this downtrodden place with all these cripples. It's a, I'll get into that in a little bit, but there's five porches. And he finds this guy that has 38 years had an infirmity where he can't walk. At the pool, on the Sabbath, he is showing his power. He's showing his power to overcome long-term hopelessness.

Okay, this grip that was on this man for 38 years where he can't walk. This mat, this pallet, this portable bed, it owns him for 38 years. This is a hopeless situation that he's in. For 38 years. And this shows Jesus as the real source of healing.

Moving beyond ritualistic hope. Moving beyond this thought and the schemes of man to what is instant restoration. Okay. I have received from God instant restoration. I did not deserve it and I got it.

And so, however, our greatest need is not, what is this physical healing? Okay, if I have a paralyzed back, if I'm a paraplegic and I'm not saved, what is my greatest need? To walk or to be saved? That's a slam dunk, right? We can say this.

If I was in that case, I might say, I really wanna walk, I can get saved later. No, our greatest need is not our physical needs. Our greatest needs are spiritual needs. And so, it's not a healing of any kind. It's not that we don't have enough money.

It's not that I don't have the latest fishing gear technology. That's not my biggest problem. I think it is sometimes. I get fooled into thinking I really need the new Garmin LiveScope with the $700 telescoping pole that puts it in the water, right? I really need that.

I'm just not going to be okay. No, I'll be just fine without it. It's not money. It's not our location. It's not that, man, I'd be a lot better if I was someplace else.

If I was at a different place, I'd be a lot better off. It's just cold and it hurts my bones. Well, that might be something to that. But our greatest need is not that stuff. It's deliverance from sin.

It is the grip of our sinful nature and ourselves that is our greatest problem. And that is what we need deliverance from most of all. And this man in our account who was healed, he eventually died anyway. And that's everybody throughout history. Everybody in the Bible.

Even Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead. He died again. That guy might have died three times, not twice, right? That's something else. I never thought of that.

But the question is, where does his soul spend eternity? And so Luke 19 10 tells us, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. That is the purpose why he came. He didn't come to give me a new truck or a live scope. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

That is the purpose why He came. He didn't come to give me a new truck or a live scope. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And He uses people to do that too. He uses us to give that message, to give that word to those who are lost.

And so the first point that I have today is Jesus' obedience. The obedience of our Savior. And so you have what is the Passover feast or whatever feast was going on at the time, we don't really know, it doesn't say, and you know what, it doesn't matter. If it mattered, it would be written here, correct? And so, but it was an ordinance of God that Jesus did observe.

Jesus observed the ordinances of God. Remember being made under the law, and that is Galatians 4, 4 and 5, where it talks about this. It says, "...But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons." And so, he was born under the law. He's still following the law, correct? And so this is what he is doing here.

And so, the reality is that he's God's son. He could have excused himself. He could have said, Do you know who I am? I don't need to go to these feasts. I'm something, you know, I'm kind of big stuff.

I don't know if you know, but I'm a big deal. And I don't need to go to your fees." He could have excused himself as an exception, but he did not, Jesus did not. He walked that walk, he laid down the example to show us what commitment is. He showed us what obedience looks like in a Christian's life, what it's supposed to look like. And so right here it says in Hebrews 10, 24, 25, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching." One word caught my eye in that exhorting one another, strongly urging.

This is going the extra mile. This is dragging people by the, let's go, come on, we're going. This is what it looks like. And sometimes we think of obedience as our option. We live in a culture where we have lost that edge of reality within our church culture.

We think it as our option in our daily or in our weekly appointments. Now, I said appointments, right? It's like, wait, I got no appointments. I got a dentist appointment. I got a car appointment.

I got to go to the grocery store That's that's not an appointment, but but I got to do that too. No, we have appointments We have appointments Sunday morning at 10 o'clock is an appointment It's appointed by God and it's an appointment. Your daily devotions, your daily prayer life, your family worship time, these are all appointments. And Do we care? Do we miss them?

Do we make excuses? Do we walk past that? And so, we walk past these appointments when it comes to the ordinance of God because of This love and grace culture that we live in, it's showing everything of God's grace, mercy, love, but it doesn't show anything of the fear of God. It doesn't show anything of the righteousness of God. And you can't have one without the other.

We live in this grace culture and we're surrounded with it. And while we all come to God seeking some kind of deliverance, we lose sight of what that really means or what the end of it should be because we live in this lazy, underladen culture of me-ism, of excuses. And so He is more than capable to give us this deliverance in His time and always according to His will and according to His Word. And God has personally delivered too. We can't forget that He doesn't always deliver in a way that we assume, in a way that we desire, but He does deliver.

He was in the delivery business then and He still is today. The same Jesus that made that man stand up, pick up his mat and walk, is the same Jesus in your life today. And we forget that sometimes. And it's No different. But it requires the same obedience.

And so, He is more than capable. But this God is a personal God. He has delivered me by His mercy and grace. Personally. I can tell you that.

I can remember the moment He has delivered countless others. He knows the number. I don't. I don't. But only He can.

But this, we can't forget this mercy and this grace and this deliverance that we freely receive if we do indeed or have indeed received it, and that we enjoy this free grace and this mercy, it came at a costly price. It costed. And we just went through that the Friday before Resurrection Sunday called Good Friday. He gave His life. God poured out His wrath on His Son on the cross that we might have this freedom, that we might have this ability to live a life unburdened by sin.

It came at that cost. So we have to understand that we have a responsibility for that deliverance that we receive from God. We have a responsibility because we are delivered for a purpose. We aren't delivered from hell and damnation so that we can be happy. God did not send his son to the earth to live a sinless life and then crush him.

Make him drink the cup of the bitter wrath of God, every last drop, so that we can be happy. So that we can be holy. So that we can be a right reflection of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. Philippians 2, 14 through 16 says, "'Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom You shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain." This is what we were saved for. This is why we're saved.

To obey and to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. To be His right reflection. Then to be His reflection and light of hope before other people in this lost and in this dark world. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here for.

I was I was up in Michigan this last week and I was working inside and I put on a headlamp because electricity had been shut off for working on some electrical stuff. I put this headlamp on and I'm walking around and when I get down in the crawl space, I could see everything because my headlamp was shining. And then I go outside and I'm like, wow, is it turned off? I can't see it at all. And I'm like this, I couldn't see it even on my hand.

I took it off and I'm like, oh yeah, it's still on. See, you don't need a headlamp when you're in among the light. But when you're in the darkness, you need that light. And other people see by that light. See that what we have a picture of is a world that's stumbling around in darkness.

And we have a light to help other people see. And so this is what we're saved for. And I would challenge us to fulfill our purpose in obedience and glad obedience to the Lord, to listen to, to study, to be a student of the Word, and then to walk in that obediently. It's what we're saved for. It is the purpose of it.

And so, Jesus did this to the glory of God His Father. The second point I have is the compassion of Jesus. And that is verses 5 through 7. It says, Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years when Jesus saw him lying there. I knew that he already had been in that condition a long time.

He said to him, Do you want to be made well? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I'm coming, another steps down before me. We see several realities in this account today. One being that Jesus knows your condition without being told.

He knew this man's condition. He knows our heart. He knows our condition before he's told. He doesn't have to be told our condition. He knows it without being told.

Just like Jesus knew the details of the life of the Samaritan woman at the well, after having just met her. He told her everything about herself. He also knew of this man and his infirmity because he's God. And this is why John is writing this up, because he's God. And so, and the text of chapter 2 verse 25, it says, 24 and 25, it talks about how Jesus knows.

Jesus knows the heart of man. It says, but Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of men, for He knew what was in man. See, Jesus knows this. We can think that we're doing something and he doesn't know. He knows everything.

He sees your heart. He knows you. Your innermost being. Because He's God. Psalm 139 verses 1-4 say, O Lord, You have searched me and known Me.

You have My sitting down and My rising up. You understand My thought from afar off. You comprehend My path and My lying down and are acquainted with all My ways. For there is not a word on My tongue, But behold, O Lord, you know it all together." He knows you all together. See, this is a joy to the person that's surely saved.

It's a fright to those who are not. He knows. He knows everything about you. So Jesus asked the man in verse six, do you want to be made whole? Or do you want to be made well in New King James, whole in King James?

And so Jesus' main concern was doing his Father's will while caring for others. And so even with the large crowds in Jerusalem for a feast, Jesus went to where the sick and the infirm were. He went to where the cripples were lying. And so his compassionate heart noticed the overlooked, the downtrodden, the outcast ones. And so we see the Son of God, the Lamb of God, visiting this man near the pool by the sheep gate.

Now this is ironic, This is where the sheep gate was in the north wall, and it's a very small gate where the sheep came in for the sacrifices. And so the priests would have to sacrifice for the sins of man. And this Savior by the sheep gate would be sacrificed shortly for the sins of all humanity as if He had just come in the sheep gate, the last sheep that would need to be sacrificed. And so, He is there. And the priest's job was to basically sacrifice the offerings.

And they would come into these gates and the priest would be... The priest was basically a butcher. And so he would be up to his waist in blood. He would have to sacrifice these animals, put them on the altar, And that was what He did day in and day out. And so this is something that was something that we forget when we look at Behold the Lamb of God that we talked about John the Baptist.

And now we have Him by the sheep gate, by this pool with all the cripples and his propensity to gravitate toward the lowly, the down and out people. And so Christ approached this pool of water to bring living water for those who thirst for something better. Like the woman at the well, I can give you living water. You'll never have to, you will never thirst again. And so something that satisfies, something that satisfies your soul, and that's what He offered, and that was himself.

That's what he offered that that satisfies It's himself and you you know what? He still offers it today He offers that today The spring of living water, it's still available for us today. And the question is, do we capitalize on that? Do we take that living water? Do we drink from it?

Because I'll drink from this, then I'll have to take another drink in 15 minutes, right? That tastes good, especially when you're talking a lot. But this is something that He offers. And so, we don't read in this account that Jesus healed everyone there. Could He have?

He could have walked up to that pool. There's a large pool and it said that it had an underwater aquifer where water came into it and the healing powers of it are thought to be more of a fable, more of a not really type of a thing than a reality thing. But it was thought that, that it did have healing powers. And so there was this large pool and there were five porches. And so they would be like pavilions that were, I don't know, all the way around it, semi-circle around it.

I don't know. I wasn't there, so I really don't know. And it really doesn't matter. But this is what the picture of it kind of looked like. And so we don't read that Jesus walked up there and said, does everybody want to get better?

And they're like, yeah, I suppose. And boom, everybody got up and walked. No, there's one guy out of how many dozens of people, maybe hundreds of people, that He healed. And so, this is really no different today. Many people are afflicted in this world.

It may do good to our souls, if you think about it, that we would spend time, that we would visit or see in front of us those who are infirmed, those who are not as well off, those who are in the hospitals, those who are in nursing homes. You ever spend time in a nursing home? It's different, isn't it? It's just a different feel. It's just like this different air about it.

But think about it. If we spent more time in nursing homes, in hospitals with infirm people that we know that elderly care facilities will go visit my mom later today, and we think of it there. But God works in our hearts through those kind of times and those things. And I can say for myself that God has been talking and working in my life, individually and particularly, through death. And it started a year ago last December when our father passed away.

And it seems like there has been methodically every little while someone else passes away. And now we have most recently Dear Violet, and these things will never stop. But we can't understand it, and the way I understood it in the beginning was, I gotta grieve through this some kind of way. And then I'll be better. I'll be back to the same old me.

That's not how it works. For me, it was a process of grieving and trying to get through it. And I never did. You know why? Because God didn't want me the way that I was.

He wanted me different. So he allowed these sufferings and these times in my life to see this death and going on and on and on, and it never ends. And He changes and He shapes and He molds us and out the other side. You're different. You don't forget it.

You don't get past it. You're never the same again because God doesn't want you the same again. Matthew Henry, I'm going to quote, he wrote, Those that were sick of these bodily diseases took the pains to come from far and had the patience to wait long for a cure, any of us would have done the same, and we ought to do so. But oh, that men were as wise for their souls. And as solicitous to get their spiritual diseases healed, We're all by nature impotent folks and spiritual things blind, halt, and withered.

But effectual provision is made for our cure if we but observe orders." If we but observe orders, the Word of God. If we but walk in the truth, that is the cure. Our greatest diseases are not what we think. Our greatest diseases are spiritual. And it could be speculated that Jesus asked man if he wanted to be made well, because not all who are ill want to be made well.

Not all that are withered want to be healed, but in a physical or a spiritual illness, on one hand, and I will talk on a physical illness, we have others taking care of our physical needs and we're not used to or educated in taking care of our own needs. It would require understanding our finances, understanding shopping, understanding medical, book work, whatever it might be. And it would be a great inconvenience and sometimes an impossibility. I'm not going to say that everybody should or has to, But to be in a place where we had to shoulder that burden ourselves seems intolerable sometime. And so he asked him, do you want to be healed?

On the other hand, if we're talking about spiritual needs, well That's different. There is no excuse not to be healed from our spiritual infirmities. On the other hand, having spiritual needs, we would need to give up our own free lifestyle. We would have to give up what we perceive to be what we need or want, what we have. And that we choose this lifestyle that we have and these things that we have, we choose to hang on to them like grim death and we try to pass them off as God's will for our life.

Well, this is what God gave me, so he must want me to have it. No, I played that game. It doesn't work. I've been there, okay? Just believe me.

We can fool ourselves, but it's not until we strip it down before the Lord and we can say, okay, this is not good, this is not good. I need to strip these things out of my life. But We try to pass it on as God's will. And we need to understand that Jesus compassionately offers healing of both kinds of needs. And we are to respond with a surrendered will and yielded life if we would be made whole.

We want to be made whole, Jesus asked him, do you want to be made whole? Do you want to be healed? If he would have said, get away from me. You have no idea what kind of benefits I get right now and I don't want to take care of myself. Gizeh.

Zzt. You know. No. It wouldn't have worked, right? We are to respond with a surrendered will and a yielded life if we want to be made whole.

There were times in my life where I had horrible, horrible habits. Jesus saved me. I asked for strength to overcome these things that were wrapped chains around me for over 20 years of my life. They wrapped chains around me. And it made me miserable.

And He took them away. And so all this being said, Jesus has moved with compassion. Even as this man didn't know who it was that was talking to him. Came up, I have no idea. Yeah, I do want to be made whole.

Some stranger walks up to you, hey, do you want a million dollar? Yeah, I suppose, you know. Well, Do you want to be made whole? Yeah, you bet. So he didn't ask Jesus for healing.

However, Jesus still healed him because Christ showed mercy and he felt compassion. And he knew the man's situation had been miserable for so long. See, this shows that the healing came from Jesus out of a compassionate mercy, not from the man's faith or righteousness. It's not something that he earned or deserved even. And at least nine times in the gospel we read how Jesus was moved with compassion.

And so not only does Jesus know your condition and is near the brokenhearted, But the misery a person feels moves Jesus unto compassion. You understand that? When we are down and out, when there's nothing else that we have, we're at the end of the rope and there's no knot tied in the end of it, He's there. He's there. Matthew 29.

29 through 34 reads, Now as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him, and behold, Two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David. Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet. But they cried out all the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David." So Jesus stood still and called them and said, What do you want Me to do for you? They said to Him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes and immediately their eyes received sight.

And you know what they did then? What does the rest of it say? They followed Him. That is the right response. That is the right response.

Jesus saved my soul. November 15th, 1988, two days before gear season. I didn't care if I saw gear at all that year. I had one. I won.

It was big. And what did I do since then? Everything else was small. I followed Him. I have failed many times, but I'm following Him.

That is the right response. That is the right response to the one who saves your soul, the one who makes your blindness see, The one who has raised you from the dead, that is the right response to follow Him. Again, Jesus is compassionate to us in our misery. He's a sympathetic high priest for all, for everyone who will trust in Him. We see this in Mark 1.41 where He's healing a leper.

In Luke 7.13 He's raising a boy from the dead. In Matthew 14, 14, He's feeding the multitude. There's 5, 000 men plus women. That's 10, 000 plus children, probably at least another 10, 000. We're talking potentially over 20, 000 people.

He had compassion on them, on feeding the multitude. John 11.35, I put this one in after, but where he had heard that Lazarus had passed away, And he goes there and the whole family is there weeping. And you know what? John 11.35, the shortest passage in the Bible. Jesus wept.

Jesus wept. Jesus has compassion for your souls. He has compassion on His own children. Jesus wept. He's not detached from human pain or human sorrow.

He wasn't human. These examples are just the beginning of the accounts of the compassion that Jesus had. And Isaiah 53, 5 is prophesied, a man of sorrows, Right? He can relate. So even today with every soul that gets saved, we get a glimpse of the compassion and the power of this great Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

With every soul. You know someone that is living in themselves and for themselves, and all of a sudden they get saved. They get born again for real. And you see that life that they're living for Jesus, that used to be lived for themselves. And you see the compassion of Christ toward that person and toward us to be able to see that even.

It's just, It's exciting. It needs to excite us. The third point I have today is Jesus' authority. Verses 8 and 9, Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed and walk, and immediately the man was made well. Took up his bed and walked.

And that day was the Sabbath." They put that at the end of 9 and it probably should be part of 10. But this is setting us up for what we'll be preaching next, which begins the persecution of Christ. This gives ground for the Pharisees, but we see His authority in the beginning of this. Jesus knows us and He knows our needs and our souls and our hearts perfectly. He knows everything about you, every thought, every feeling, every motive in all that we do.

All of this is made known to us so that we can completely trust in Him, so that we can lay it down in front of Him. We know that He knows us completely so that we can just lay it down in front of Him. We don't have to question it. That we can completely trust Him with our lives, with our families, with our souls, with everything and rightly live a life that's pleasing to Him. Being God, Jesus has authority over us.

He is Lord. And please don't, don't, don't, If you don't know Him today, don't put it off. It would be a tragedy if you waited too long. Every day is another day closer to eternity. And there's two places that you can spend it.

But we're given the reality that one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's not universalism. That doesn't mean that everyone will be in heaven, singing the praises of Christ. No. Those on the earth, those above the earth, and those under the earth will all say that.

It will be made known. And He is Lord of all. Whether you want to confess to that, whether you want to submit to that now or not, but you will someday. And my plea with you today is that you don't wait, because if you wait You'll be doing it from under the earth instead of in heaven. There is no in-between.

And so that is my plea with you today. So We also see how near He is to the brokenhearted. Jesus chose to go to the pool of Bethesda. He chose that. He didn't stumble there by accident.

And when you're suffering, when you're hurting, He's not going to stumble on you by accident, cry out to Him, plead with Him. See, Jesus had purpose to go to that pool the same way that He went to Samaria to find the woman at the well. The same way that he purposed to listen to Nicodemus at night. He was there, a divine appointment again, made himself available at night, I'm tired, I want to go to bed, I don't like to be disturbed. No, he made the time And He was giving him answers to his question.

And so the same way Jesus' purpose to go to a sign-seeking, prophet-hating Galilee to find a noble official who had a sick son and healed him. Jesus knew the needs. Psalm 34, 18 says, Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Cry out to Him today if you don't know Him. See, Jesus always moved toward need.

He never moved toward comfort. He moved toward the broken people. He didn't move toward the self-righteous. He's not looking for the self-righteous. The well need no doctor, need no physician, because he had compassion.

And when he shared the good news with the feeble, with the broken, Christ expected a response. Not the response of the rich young ruler who refused to completely give it over. He said, I'm a good man. I follow the commands. I follow the commandments.

I even give money. And Jesus said to him, you know what? Forget everything that you have and follow me. He couldn't do it. See, that's what He requires.

That's what He requires of us. And so, this is a lesson for us to not trust in riches and in good deeds, but a heart that responds like the Samaritan woman. Here we have the woman at the well, who Jesus stayed back, he took the time to talk to her. And in the end, she confessed Jesus as Lord. She went back to town and she brought out a multitude and came under His authority over her life and immediately left behind her life of practicing sin.

This is the pattern of someone that follows Jesus. And so, we'll read maybe next week where this comes to do with this man as well. Where the man is healed, and then the Pharisees ask him, who did it? Who did it? We want to nail a guy to the wall.

This guy's going to be in trouble because you're carrying your bed on the Sabbath. We don't allow these things. And so, we're going to get this guy. I think it's Jesus. We've been after Him for a while.

This is proof we can get him for this one. And so, Jesus finds him near the temple and He says, go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. That is the response. That is the response of a Christian that is saved.

You get it, And then your life has changed. You go from death to life. And I'm not saying that there's not a process that we go through. I'm not saying that we go from being sinners to being sinless. There are many things in life, and I had things in my life, and I still have things in my life.

It's a process. But he tells us that we're a new person. And that He's got the power to save us over that. Galatians 1 for who gave Himself to our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. So when the man at the pole obeyed the authority of Jesus and lifted His mat, it was against the law of the Sabbath that the Pharisees had established.

The Pharisees had made this and it was against the law. Yeah, what this tells me is that sometimes faith acts against every human law in order to obey God's law. We need to follow God's law. It goes counterculture. It goes counterculture.

Well, is it okay to do this and not that? Well, I don't know. We've got two choices. What's the culture doing? What are them other churches doing over there?

What's going on with that people over there? I think it is, you know? I think it's all right to do or do we go like this right here? See this right here? That's that's my nose.

You know where it belongs Right in my Bible, that's where we get our answers right there. And so this is this is the difference And so today we have a choice to act against our circumstances, to act against your own will, to act against your negative thoughts, hold every thought captive, right? Take action against your own will and submit to Christ's authority. And I'm not saying that this is like, boom, it's easy. Let's do this.

No, it requires discipline. It requires a heart for Christ. It's something we can't accomplish in our own will and in our own way. This is something that is done by the power of God through the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in our lives, we are a new creation. The old is passed away.

And so we take action against our own will and we submit to Christ's authority. Or you got the option, continue in your own way. Submit to Christ's authority, continue in your own way with the inevitable sentence that comes at the end of it. So, when this crippled man listened to the voice of God, his condition changed, right? For 38 years, the mat carried him.

How did he get to the pool? People that he knew, family, friends, whatever, put him on that mat and they carried him there. Maybe put him on a cart or something. They dropped him off there. That man carried him for 38 years.

Now, he's carrying the mat. That's the difference. And why? Because that man harkened to the voice of Jesus and he obeyed. You want to be made well?

Okay, here's what you do. Stand up, pick up your mat and walk. Okay, sounds pretty simple doesn't it? That's Isaiah 45, 22, something like that. Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

What do you do? Look! That's what you do. You look. Look unto me and be ye safe.

See, dear family, whatever circumstances you face in life, if you act in faith, if you walk by the Spirit, you can overcome them by the power of God in your life. There's not a problem you have in your life right now that wasn't preordained by God and that you can't get past with God. The power of God in your life. You are going to succeed. I sound like a motivational speaker, right?

You want a lot of money? Give a lot of money. That's not going to work. God wants hearts, not money. See, only in the power of Jesus' name, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, it's the same Jesus that healed this man that's in our lives today.

It is no different. And I want to draw your attention to this word immediately in verse 9. It signifies the instant power of Jesus. When He speaks, when He acts, Diseased muscles, dry bones obey. The dead come up the light, right?

The blind see. The withered hand of the man is made whole. And they obey at once. This is John exalting Christ again, showing Him as the Messiah. In the sovereign power of Jesus, the same way He did in John 4, where the official Son was healed at exactly the seventh hour, 15 miles away.

Isn't that something? When Jesus authoritatively spoke his words of healing, the man's obedience was at once. It was at once. There's no excuses, just obedience. Pick up your mat, walk.

Okay, well, I gotta finish the sandwich. I got this Burger King and a Coke. As soon as I'm done with this, I'll get around to it. I'm playing a game of Sudoku on my phone. So when I'm done with this, I'll get...

No. There's nothing. Nothing is more important in your life right now than following Jesus' call for your life. There's not a thing. Not lunch, not a packer game.

Nothing. There's nothing more important. When Jesus speaks to you, immediate obedience. See, this man's obedience was at once. And This is what happens when Jesus speaks and does a work in the life of a repentant believer.

1 Samuel 15-22. So Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. And so let's draw the parallel. Jesus seeks us.

Jesus seeks us, right? Jesus went all the way up to Jerusalem. Remember when he went across the Sea of Galilee in that nasty storm? Everybody's almost dead when they get there. Their eyes are this big, they're soaking wet.

And he gets out of the boat and They all get on dry land finally, and they think this danger is over, and this crazy man from the tombs comes running at them and chains, argh, and wouldn't you be scared? I would. This guy's got a bad reputation. And then he's like, demons get out of him, go into the pigs, and the pigs run into the water, into the sea, right? And then what?

He got in a boat and he went back. He went to that man. He scared the living tar out of 12 people, went out of his way, crossed that sea, killed a herd of pigs, saved a man's soul, left him there to go and tell other people about him. And then he went back. You don't think that he'll answer your prayer?

He will. He has compassion for us. He knows our needs and He has the authority and the power to deliver us from troubles. He leaves some trouble in our lives to keep us. He left a thorn in Paul's side.

We will have that. We walk forward. He has authority and the power to deliver us from the sin in our life if we respond to Him in faith. My question is this morning, have you or will you respond to him in faith? It takes faith.

Now, I'm pleading with you this morning that if there's something hanging out there, and if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, if he is not the master of your life, of your every choice, and of your every decision, that you would make that right today. That you would pull me aside and talk with me after service today. Father, we thank you this morning for your Word. We thank you for this miracle that you performed on this man at this pool, Lord God, to show us your power, your compassion, your love for lost people, Lord God. How you go out of your way and you choose who you will I?

Thank you Lord God for choosing us I Thank you for what you've done in this church Lord God for your love and your care for us I pray that you would glorify your name Lord God to our lives in whatever way you see fit, Lord God. Pray for submissive hearts and lives in Jesus' precious name today. Amen.