The sermon titled 'Healed For Holiness' examines John 5:10-18, focusing on the healing performed by Jesus on the Sabbath and the subsequent conflict with Jewish religious leaders. The speaker emphasizes the personal nature of salvation and the necessity of seeing Jesus as both God and Messiah. The sermon critiques 'toxic religion,' which imposes man-made rules that obscure God's true message. It argues that true salvation involves submission to Jesus' Lordship, leading to a life of holiness. The sermon underscores the futility of relying on works for salvation, insisting that only faith in Jesus and a life transformed by His grace can lead to eternal life. It warns against the dangers of superficial religiosity and urges believers to live in obedience to God's commandments, emphasizing that holiness is both the purpose and outcome of salvation.

[♪ Music And Music And Music And Music And Music And Music And Music And Music And Morning, church family. So today we will be in the book of John. Again, John chapter 5 verses 10 through 18. Gonna kind of take a stab at it and see how far we get. But John 5 verses 10 through 18, if you want to grab the Bible alongside you and follow along, I'm going to read those texts right now.

But we're coming right off the backside of last week, if you remember. There's a cliffhanger sentence right at the end in the last verse last week, because it went on to tell how Jesus healed this man at the pool, Bethesda. And right in the end, he told him, pick up your mat and walk and go. And so he did. He got up, he did three things.

He listened, but He took up His bed. He stood up. He rise. He rose up. He took up His bed and He walked.

Three steps of obedience that that man had. And so the last sentence in that verse is, and that day was the Sabbath. That was the Sabbath. And so that sets the table for the next text for a little while here now. And so the grievous reality that you weren't supposed to do anything on the Sabbath.

And so, let's read from 10-18 today then. The Jews therefore said to Him, Who was cured? It is the Sabbath that is not lawful for you to carry your bed.' He answered them, "'He who made me well said to me, take up your bed and walk.' Then they said to Him, "'Who is the man who said to you, take up your bed and walk?' But the one Who was healed did not know who it was for Jesus had withdrawn a multitude being in that place Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him see you have been made well sin no more Less a worse thing come upon you The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My father has been working until now and I have been working.

Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father making himself equal with God. Let's pray. Father, today we thank you for your love and your care for us. We thank you for your totally inerrant word, Father God. We just pray for your Spirit to work in our hearts and your Word to work in our lives today, Lord God.

As we pick our way through this tax, Lord, have it speak to us and move us, Lord God, unto a greater, deeper submission to you, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. And so, the recap of the whole book of John is that, is that John's goal is for us to see that Jesus is the Christ, that he is Messiah, that he is God. And I keep on saying that, but we need to, while we need to see everything through that lens, we need to take it back and down to a point where what does that really mean to me? And if we translate that to us today, Jesus is God. We can say that, but do we submit to that?

Is what my point is. And we have to come to a point where it's personal, because salvation is personal. Jesus was personal when He went across the sea of Galilee to save one man in the grave, in the tombs. He was personal when He met the woman, where He wasn't supposed to be, all alone and met this woman at the well. It's personal.

Your salvation and your relationship with Jesus Christ is personal. You need to make this whole book personal to you as well. And so it's very imperative that we take in the midst of everything going on, not just in your life. You know, we've got some brothers that have a lot of things going on in life. And some sisters that have some things going on that we don't even know about.

And what we do know, we tend to pass over instead of pray for them. But when we look at what is going on, not just personally, but the sin that's going on in the world. We've got an assassination attempt now, and that turns our political world on its head, so to speak. We've got wars going on all over the place now. It's hard to even keep track of all the wars going on.

The death that's been happening, not just far and wide, but deep and close, that is painful. And it's meant to grow us. It's meant for God to see our hearts and to change and shape and mold us into his image. For us to get a real understanding of the brevity of life that we are all mortal. And if we miss this stuff, we're looking past what God has planned for our lives and His purpose in our lives and in our world.

But this text is rich in the answer to the world's issues, everything that's going on, or at least our world view of them. And the one true need, the one true need, and that is salvation. It's deliverance from sin is what it comes down to. And so, the first point today that I have is the healing power of Christ. And to understand that is to also understand the opposition of it.

Whether it was the official son in chapter 4, when he did that at a distance, 15 miles, this man at the pool. But you know what else? We've got the woman at the well. Was she healed? I'd like to think, yeah, because the name of the message day is healed for holiness.

You know what? That's saved for holiness. Right? The healing, the salvation, I'd rather be saved than healed. But they are interchangeable in one and the same.

And so saved or healed for holiness. The healing power of Christ. Like I said, whether it was that official son that He did from 15, 17, 18 miles, I read different accounts. I didn't measure it myself because I wasn't there. But it was quite a distance and it was at the same hour.

We have to see that this is John again saying, see, Jesus is God. Jesus is Messiah. He is the promised one. And so We need to come underneath that in our lives and submit to that reality. And so, it was that the nobleman's son and now with this crippled guy at the pool.

However, The thrust of it is good versus evil. And this text focuses heavy on the power of false religion and deception. But after this lame man is healed, with such an amazing miracle, We look at, I wanna back up a little bit because we see this healing power of Jesus on display and this is something also that was prophesied. It was the Jesus that was prophesied that is to come. Isaiah 53, 5, He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. And by His stripes, we are healed. Right? Healing, again.

And now it doesn't mean our physical healing, but it means by His stripes, our sins are removed. We're healed. This is the bottom line. This is where it's at. And so, Psalm 103, verses 2-4, Bless the Lord, O my soul, forget not all His benefits, Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy.

Amen. And so, we see this happening and that's all the religious leaders of the time saw was a man breaking their imposed rules in verse 10. That's what they wanted to see. They didn't see that this man was healed, that he was made better. They saw that.

And in Exodus, if you back up to see where that comes from, these rules, these laws that they had come from Exodus 20 verses eight through 11 in the Old Testament, it forbids work on the Sabbath day. It doesn't spell out what that work is on the Sabbath that you're not supposed to do, but it didn't stipulate that work. And so what we have is an ongoing time string line of what was rabbinical opinion developing what was an oral tradition. Okay, and yes, I stole that from Matthew Henry. And so, this terminology is rich, but it's real.

And that goes far beyond the Old Testament law, what they did. And it was them saying, well, God, you created this law, this law's not quite enough. And so what we have to do is impose a little bit more on top of it. We're going to strict it up for you. We're going to straighten out what you laid down so that because your people aren't doing what you want them to do, so I'm going to straighten this up for you God.

Okay, I'm going to fix this." That's what it ended up being. And how often do we try to do that? It's not for us to do. It really is not. And so, we don't get anything out of this if we don't see ourselves in the shoes and in the life of these Jews, it says, the Pharisees, Sadducees, the scribes that are picking at this.

If we look past the reality that that's us too, we're missing the point of this whole thing. Okay? And so we have to be able to see ourselves in that. And so in this case, they went far beyond the Old Testament law, which they had outlined that you, they had 39 activities as forbidden. And so these manmade rules were made into religious laws by the rabbis over the generations and the time.

They'd see something else going on and they'd like, oh, we gotta change this up, we gotta fix it. And so one law included carrying anything from one domain to the next. Which was, they saw this guy carrying his bed, his pallet they call it. It probably was a roll-up type of a mat stuffed with straw that you could carry on your shoulder or under your arm. And so this is what broke the law to them.

So this lame man had broken man's oral tradition, not God's Old Testament law. He wasn't working. He was carrying something. And so it's important to distinguish between these two. God's laws are not burdensome.

And I wanna read that because It's in 1 John 5.3. 1 John 5.3. It says, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. Okay, and so These were the design of the commandments. They're not burdensome.

They're there to help, but they're not burdensome. And so the second point that I have is toxic religion. And I've already touched into that and I understand that. But toxic religion, this type of man-made spiritual rules is nothing other than toxic religion. So the Jewish leaders, they missed it.

They had a chance. The Jewish leaders had a chance. They had Old Testament prophecy, they had John the Baptist, and then Jesus Christ Himself right in front of them. But they missed the Messiah who came. And so John is trying to help them and help us.

And help us to see that Jesus really is the Messiah. And the only way to God, There's only one way to God. And that's the blood of Jesus. It's not the pool of Bethesda water. It's not good attendance.

It's not good works. It's not a soup kitchen. It's not saying a beat of prayers a hundred times a day, end up in the same place, right in the pit of hell. There's one way to heaven. There's one way to God.

And Jesus tells that Himself. And so, we need to not forget that all of these laws and all of these works were to one point, and that was to draw us and to drive us to the foot of the cross, to Jesus. And that's it. And so John is trying to help them and help us see that, that he is the only way. And every other way, I don't care what way it is, it's a lie.

If you were told there's a way to go to heaven or if you were led to believe that if you do this or do that or do that or do that, and if you come to church, that you're going to be in good standing. That somehow there's this scale that's going on. And that you've got all of your good works over here, and then you've got your bad works over here. And that somehow, If your good works outweigh your bad works, you're good with God. No, all of our works are like filthy rags.

The Bible tells us. And so, there's one way. Unless we submit, surrender our hearts and our lives 100%, surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life, and live for Him, you will spend eternity in hell. And that's the Word of God tells us. It's not my words.

And so, we see again religion in this text at work. So, you say, well, are you really going to talk bad about religion? Yeah, I'm going to. Okay. I'm just going to.

There is the reality of religion. I grew up in religion. But we need to understand that not all religion is good. And our world, our culture will have us believe that we need to be ecumenical. We need to accept and receive all these different beliefs because it's like the spokes of a wheel.

They all go to the same place. Many paths up the mountain and they all lead to the top of the mountain, right? No, it's not going to work. More evil has been done in the world over the centuries in the name of religion than anything else. Did you know there's...

I made these numbers up, okay? And I'll confess to that. But I'm going to say that 99% of religion in the world is of Satan. It's man-made and most of it, a high, high, high majority is from Satan. And maybe 1% of it comes from the one true God.

This is addressed in Matthew 7, 13, and 14. There we go. Matthew 7, 13, and 14. It tells us to enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go by it, because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to light, and there are few who find it. See, in verse 10, it talks about, it says, it is not lawful.

This is saying that Judaism, during Jesus' time, had been generated into this pious hypocrisy. And I've seen this and I've lived it within the religiosity of my life, of my youth. And so, this is what enraged the Lord Jesus. This is what had him heal this man in the first place, but this is what enraged him against the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Whitewashed tombs, right?

Brute of vipers. A brute of vipers. That's a box full of snakes. This is wicked talk against wicked people. And this is what got Jesus mad.

And who used this healing incident, it's what Jesus did, He used this healing incident to set up a confrontation with the Jewish hyper-legalism, man-made walk of religion, exposing the need in all reality for national repentance. And we need national repentance today, if ever we did. But man's religion is not only a belief system, it's a snare, it's a trap, It's a system that can be a force that captivates the person and it controls that person. Now, maybe you know somebody in that and maybe that is you. Maybe you're here today and you think that you need to be here because this is religiosity.

That you need to fulfill the commands to to not forsake the Sabbath. Well, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and that's today. And so man's religion is not just a belief system. It captivates, it controls a person. And It makes you believe that causing a person to believe a lie, it causes a person to believe a lie which says that a work of man can gain you merit with God.

That my work gains merit with God. This is not so. And what does the word tell us about that? It's kind of brutal. It's kind of hard.

But it says in Isaiah 41, 24, indeed you are nothing and your work is nothing. What is my work? There we go. Got that cleared up? Can move on now, right?

So we need to come to base doctrinal fundamental understanding that we can do nothing to gain our salvation. We can't wear the right clothes. We can't say the right things. We can't go to the right places, do the pilgrimages. You can't say that the prayers on the beads a thousand times and no, it's not going to do anything.

So in John 5 we read of this miracle and it comes down to two options. The healing is either God's work or it's man's work. And so it's God's work in Jesus or it's man's work. And at this pool, they're sat countless, sick, blind, lame, paralyzed, all kinds of people that were disabled. They came from far and wide and they didn't have the doctors and the system that we have today.

You didn't have wheelchairs and you didn't have what would be the badger care or the health system. And so in the end, they were dragged, carried, pulled, ridden, whatever took to this pool just waiting for the moving of the water. Waiting for the moving of the water. Waiting for the moving of the water. And then the first guy in, he's money, right?

See, Jesus knew that the water had no magic religious power. Even though this man believes something like that. And yet all these people that Jesus would choose from, he had compassion on this one man, on this one man. And the man is immediately cured and his obedience to Christ is immediate, stand up, take up your mat, and walk. This man being 38 years paralyzed seemed an unlikely candidate for being healed.

Yet Jesus seems to work with the most impossible cases, right? He works with the hardest heads, the most reversed cases that you could ever imagine. That He saves and He showcases His power through these situations. Right? Yeah, this is what Jesus does.

The very religious, yet eternally lost Nicodemus, a Samaritan adulterous woman at the well. And then a man's son who was healed at 15 plus miles away with just a word. And now this man who was crippled for 38 years. And the recent examples that I could give you as well, but I don't want to name names. I know a few years ago we had healings within the church after we cried out to God for healing to people that were ill, people that had cancer and things going on.

And God in His grace and His mercy and His love, He came down and He answered those prayers. That's a miracle. This is God's love on us. We can't afford to miss it. We can't go past it and say, oh, that was cool, answered prayer, here we go.

No. No. There's a command that He gives this man that we're called to live in a different way. We walk. We live.

We breathe. The sky's a different color. And so, Jesus saves wretches. And I can tell you that from experience. 1 Corinthians 1, 27-28.

But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. Right? Isn't that how He works? When I read of these people at the Bethesda pool, it made me think of a modern day situation.

All the faith healers that are out there today with their dog and pony circus shows. Big auditoriums. And after the plea for money, these healings that happen, they walk outside and after it all, they see outside a line of wheelchairs stretching around the building, heading down the road with those chairs and the people in there still unhealed. See, we put such an emphasis on some things that are not there. The reason that they're not healed, they tell them they didn't have enough faith.

What is faith? It's money, right? You need to give more. You need to have more faith. See, we see His healing here as a compassionate mercy of Christ on one man who didn't deserve it.

And that was me. That was me too. Right? A compassionate healing of a man who didn't deserve it. And while this man was healed physically, it was really sending a message that Jesus came to save us from our sins.

This was the message that was the end of it. Those miracles were preview of coming attractions. And this is just the beginning. There's many other people that were healed. We don't know about.

But wouldn't it be great if Jesus would, the same way that He did that, that He'd give me a new back. I've got a kink right back here, right above my hip bone. That's just sometimes I can hardly get out of my truck, get out of bed in the morning, or give me new legs. Somebody needs new legs, brother, right? Good legs, or a shoulder.

I got this nasty shoulder for 20 some years. Diane's broken finger, wouldn't that be sweet, right? But you see The story that happened here is an example of a preview of things to come. And the fact is that the day is coming when He will. The day is coming.

And in Philippians 3.20-21, for Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies that it may be conformed, that it may be conformed His glorious body according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Right? That new body is coming. We just got to hang in there a little bit longer, right? And we're going to get them new legs, that new back, that good vision that we miss now.

That is coming. And there will be no more sin or death. That'll be amazing. There will be no more sin or death. No more sin or death.

In verses 10-13 it says the Jews, but that's not all the Jewish people because the disciples were Jewish. This was the big shots of the Jews. And this is referring to the religious leaders who turned the true message of God into basically a self-serving, self-righteous religiosity that only they could hold the standard, which they really didn't anyway. So this works keeping impossible to follow religion. This healed man responds to the leaders questioning him saying that the man who healed him said to pick up his mat and walk.

And so here's this man saying, well, he told me, why are you carrying your bed? Well, he told me to pick up my bed and walk. And it was like, okay, Why are you doing it? You know it's against law. Well, if he can heal me, I'm gonna listen to him.

Whatever he tells me to do. I don't care if he tells me to walk on my lips through busted glass. He healed me. I'm gonna do what He told me to do. And that's it.

And so here He is, carrying His bed, through the Jews, on the Sabbath, getting in trouble. Why? Because He's obeying Jesus. And He doesn't even know who Jesus is yet. So they missed the true miracle.

And what about me? What about you? You've been healed of a greater thing than being paralyzed. Your soul headed for hell, your life living for Satan, He saved you. He pulled you from the den of iniquity that you lived in, from the pit of hell.

He set your feet on the path. He redeemed you. He healed you. And now He says, walk like this. Are we going to walk like this?

Why do we end up walking in the pickers. You're walking in there looking for treasures. You come out all covered in scratches. Stay on the path that He chose for us. See, they look past all the Old Testament foretelling of the Messiah Jesus coming and had no clue that He is Lord of the Sabbath.

Luke 6.5, it tells us, and He said to them, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. He's greater than all of that. And so God's Word and his will had become so obscure to those who were in religiosity that they missed it. They didn't see the truths of the word. They didn't see John the Baptist.

They didn't see the Old Testament prophecy. They didn't see the Christ healing and working the works that He did. Because they put so much garbage in front of it and made it into so much their own thing that it was dim. They could not see it. God's Word was obscure to them.

They couldn't get it. Do we do that? The question. See, we can't ask that of them without asking it of us. Do we do that?

Do we put things in our life that are unimportant And then we come up with, well, I can't really make it to this, and I can't do that because I've got that going on, and I've got that going on. I can't really read my Bible every morning. I should, but I didn't because I had this happening or that happening. Walk on the path that He gave you. He redeemed you for this.

So this is the point of it all. And so the law of God is a beautiful thing, but man has ruined it with his own rules, with his own laws. The word of God is a glorious guideline. But you gotta follow it. We can't pollute it with our thoughts.

They worked harder to not break the laws than to keep them. And some were definitely crazy laws. I'll give you that. So are some of ours. But on the Sabbath, you couldn't eat an egg.

You know why? Because the chicken had to work to lay it. You could eat the chicken on the Sabbath though, but you couldn't eat the egg. And so you couldn't tie a knot on the Sabbath. That was one of their rabbinical rules.

But you could put your clothes on. Probably had to tie knots to do that. And if you needed a tie-in knot in your sandals, put them on. But you see this craziness of man-made laws, this one, you couldn't carry a ribbon up a stairs, but you could wear it and go up the stairs and then take it off and have it. So this is the laws, this is what man's mind devises.

Okay, we need to be careful for that. This is ridiculous. In the day there was, and I could have given a picture, but I didn't. Maybe some of you have heard there was in the country of Turkey today, there's ruins of what is the Temple of Diana. Temple of Diana at the time was one of the seven wonders of the world and it was 377 feet long and it was 180 feet wide.

And it had pillars, columns that held it up. It had 127 columns that held it up. These columns were over 60 feet tall each and So these columns were given as gifts By different kings and this this Temple was built on a swamp It's built in a swamp And the purpose for that was that if there were ever earthquakes, that would happen that the soft ground underneath it would allow it to not fall down. It would be a buffer for it. And so these 127 columns that were donated were gifts from different kings of different countries and it became what was a representation of different forms of religious cults and pagan practices.

And so Diana was the goddess of fertility and you can see online, you can see statues of her and images. And so this truly was what was a temple of false religion. It was a temple of debauchery, so to speak. And today, like I said, it's in the country of Turkey and they know where it was and they went there and they found it and they took one of the pillars and they stood it back up. And they said, That's where it was, right there, the Temple of Diana.

And that's the only way you know that it was there. They found one of the pillars and they stood it back up. And so this reality is that today it's like all false religions and when Christ returns they'll all be rubble because there is only one. And it's not the voice of faith Bible church. It's not all these other churches.

It is Jesus Christ living inside of each individual person as they submit to His authority in their life. And so there's many rules that are made up that put control on people. And it blinds them. It's like the magic water. It blinds them so that they don't see Jesus.

You get caught up in all these different things that men have and plan. And in the end, you miss Jesus. And I grew up in that. It hits close to home because I grew up in that. And so with the worship of images and shrines and weekly sacrifice of the Mass and whatnot.

And even actual priests making these sacrifices. So much religion, like at the pool of Bethesda, but not God's way to eternal life. Not God's way to eternal life. And the third point I have is saved for holiness. Jesus found the man and in verse 14 it says, "...Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you have been made well.

Sin no more, lest the worst thing come upon you.'" Jesus found the man and He tells him, not the man finding Jesus. The man didn't track Him down. Jesus found the man and He told him, "'To sin no more, lest the worst thing come upon you. You see, we're saved for holiness. We're saved for separation from this world.

We're saved for holiness. 2 Corinthians 7.1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." When a person is born again, they live born again. Okay, The former things have passed away. Behold, all things are new. Right?

I've been crucified in Christ. It is no longer I that live. It is Christ that lives in me. This is what a new life looks like. And at this point, you can say, but I thought that Jesus was love.

I thought Jesus was love and He healed this man. And then how can something worse happen? He healed him. Jesus is love. How can this make sense?

How can Jesus of love be, you know what? That is so misconstrued today. And what's worse than being paralyzed for 38 years. How can anything worse happen than being paralyzed for 38 years with no hope except a pond of magic water and you wait for the stirring and for 38 years somebody else got in it in front of you and that's there's just no hope Except some magic water that gets stirred once in a while, but you're too slow to get into it. That's no hope, right?

But now that this man's healed, all of his problems are gone, right? Nope. I'm glad to see head shaking. No, his problems are not all gone. You can now He can walk.

He can probably run. He can go to the gym and he can work out. He can go fishing. Right? He can be employed.

He can support himself, etc. But if you don't stop sinning, your problems are not solved. You'll spend eternity in hell. And so people, we can't pay the wages for our sin. We cannot do it, no matter how many rules we keep.

We cannot pay the wages for our sin. Romans 3, 26, 23 says, for the wages of sin is death. Wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, in Christ Jesus our Lord. So what kind of force are you for the Kingdom of God that has rescued you? What are we in the Kingdom and for our God and our Savior that has rescued us From the grip of this world, from the wages of this sin that we all have committed, and Romans 3.23, for all have sinned, it tells us.

And come short of the glory of God. All have sinned. I'm part of all. Okay, and so what do we do? How do we respond?

And Christ is telling this man, go and sin no more. He's not saying you're going to live a perfect life from now on without ever one sin. No. The habitual sin, the pattern of sin in his life has got to be gone. That's what he's telling this man.

That's what he's telling us today. There is no option. And from being saved from the grip of the world, being saved from the evil one, the eternal damnation that we all deserve, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. And so, Revelation 3.16, there is no in-between, right?

It's like, well, I'm a pretty good person. You better know today. So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. That's not a good place to be. Vomit.

I was vomit once when I was floating in the trough of humanity and Christ pulled me out and He cleaned and He set me up. I don't want to be puked out. Hot or cold, in or out, Jesus is saying to this man, my aim in healing your body is for the healing of your soul. And that's the end of all of it. You got a free gift, and it came before my command for you to not sin.

You didn't earn this gift, but I chose you freely and I healed you. Doesn't that sound familiar? I didn't earn any gift. I didn't earn any healing. He chose me freely and He healed me.

Then comes the warning that if this man doesn't turn away, if he in any way mocks this gift or makes an idol out of the health that Christ just gave him, or if he embraces the sin in his life this way that he will perish. This perishing, it means final judgment. And so, what could be worse? What could possibly be worse than to be crippled for 38 years? It would be facing the final judgment.

Because there aren't any natural things worse than 38 years that this man endured, that I can imagine. And so in verses 28 and 29, it tells us, Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation." See, he's saying, I have healed you that you may be holy, that you may be present at the resurrection of life. I heal in more ways than one. He healed him physically and spiritually. He can.

Don't turn from me to a life of practicing sin is what he's telling you. Surrender completely to me and prove that you have surrendered by doing what? By walking in Him. By walking, by turning away from the old lifestyle and walking in Him. The implications of this are the elephant in the room today.

Jesus walked into a huge bunch of invalids according to verse 3 and John 5 and He heals one man, just one. Then He disappeared before even that man can know who he was. He leaves hundreds of invalids behind, unhealed. Then he finds the man in a less conspicuous area where people can't pick him out. And he puts all the focus on holiness when he says to the man, sin no more.

The point is this, in the first coming of the Son of God into the world, we receive a foretaste of this healing. We saw these healings. We read. And a small preview of His power. The point and the focus now is that the preview we get is seeing Him here in our lives.

The preview that we get now and that's in 1st Corinthians 13-12, I love this text says, for now we see in a mirror dimly. In a mirror dimly. They didn't make mirrors very good back then. They were a little blotchy and dark. Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

We'll see clear. Our faiths will be sight. And so, his preview that we get here, seeing his miracles, people being saved, prayers answered, some people being healed. 2 Corinthians 1, 21 and 22 says, Now who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us in God? Who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee?

It's not the down payment. This is the guarantee. This is the seal. The Holy Spirit in our hearts. And the point of these fortes is to call us to faith.

It's a cost of faith and holiness the Holy Spirit in our lives Salvation in the first place To call us a holiness Many people who suffer from disabilities in this life are going to have them till the day they die. And all of us, until Jesus comes again, all of us will die of something. Nobody in this room is going to make it out alive. You're a hundred or a fear of one. You're not, we're not going to.

But even though Jesus had all the power to heal, he didn't usher in the final day of perfect wholeness. It wasn't his will. His ministry points to that day. But while this age of groaning lasts, it talks about in Romans 8.23, not only that, but we also have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

See, it doesn't mean that we don't believe that God can heal somebody. And we have prayer meetings. We had one last Wednesday night. I don't know if you heard about it. I'm assuming you haven't.

You hadn't. It was poorly attended, but it's very important. We've prayed over many people and we plead with God for prayer, in prayer for healing. Healing of the physical body though is typically not the rule. And not because we're weak in faith.

Jesus left hundreds of unhealed people at the pool of Bethesda, and He told the one man that He did heal who had not even believed on Him to wake up. To wake up, quick, start pursuing holiness. The main issue in the present age, till Jesus comes back, is that we meet Him, that we see, and we meet Him in our brokenness. That we know Him, that we receive the power of that forgiveness. That is the greatest.

That enables us to go on to pursue after holiness, to go after holiness. As we live a life of obedient love to Jesus Christ, our obedience to Him is through the love that we have for Him. In this calling to faith and holiness, the disabled often run faster than those who are well. I know those who haven't been saved long that are far beyond those who have been saved a long time. And so, there are those who might be mentally challenged who who have a bigger heart and a stronger heart and more faith in the Lord than those who are the highest intellects that I've ever met.

But do we care about what God cares about? Eternal life in Christ is not about following man-made rules and something that supersedes God's laws. There's nothing that we can do. Sabbath or not, Our worship is supposed to last all week long. Every minute that we're awake, every minute that we're alive, it's about life of surrender to God's will and surrender to His Word and His truths.

In all of our daily practice, in every part of our life. We can't say that we love God and we follow Him and then disobey Him on this major part of our life and say that He is my Lord and my Savior while we reject him over here. See, the Spirit of God, through His Word, through the Spirit in, and through the fellowship of believers, points these out and convicts. And the Spirit in them allows them, gives them the power and the courage to change that. And so anything less than that is not salvation and healing.

We remain spiritually lame, ineffectively lost. See, just as religious leaders who refuse to give up their own ways to follow Christ. When we hang on to things, we hang on to anything from our life of sin, we shouldn't expect to be forgiven. We can't expect clear direction from God and His blessings in our life when we reject Him and we refuse to walk and follow Him. So Christ grants salvation through the forgiveness of sin, but to only those who come to Him and follow Him on His terms.

He's not going to bless you and forgive your sins and walk with you on your terms. He walks with you on his terms. And in the end, I don't want him on my terms. We're gonna end up in a ditch. So his terms, he is Lord.

He's Lord of the Sabbath. He is Lord of your life. He's Lord of everything you do, everything you say, everything you own, everything you think. Is that your Lord? Is that your Jesus?

And if that is not your Jesus, Will you receive Him today? Will you surrender and submit today?" And so, He said to the man, go and sin no more. He told us that today. What are we going to do with it today? What will we do?

Lord, we thank You. Thank You for the truths of Your Word, for Your love and Your care for us, Father God. I pray Our hearts be touched and moved, Father, by the right truths of Your Word, by the work and the power of Your Spirit in our lives, Father God. I pray that Jesus would be our Savior, our Messiah, our everything, our Lord of our lives, Lord God. I pray that you would move into sanctification in our hearts and lives today.

Help us, Lord, to see in Jesus precious name. Amen. Thanks for watching!