John 5:1-9 Pastor Lori Broschat

Isaiah 12:1-6January 28, 2018

John 5:1-9 Pastor Lori Broschat

ALL TO JESUS

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule, and one day the mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the mule braying – unable to get out of the well – and after assessing the situation, the farmer decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together, told them what had happened, and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially the old mule was hysterical (as you can well imagine), but as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling the dirt on the mule’s back, the mule responded rather than just standing there. Every time a shovel load of dirt landed on the mule’s back, he would shake it off and step up! He did this, shovelful after shovelful – shaking the dirt off and stepping up…shaking the dirt off and stepping up…shaking the dirt off and stepping up.

It wasn’t long before the farmer realized what was happening, and shortly after the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well. What seemed like what would bury him actually helped him…all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.[1]

We’ve been talking about it all month, the steps necessary to create positive change in our lives. Maybe by now some of you have already chosen something to change in your life, and that’s good, but I also want to remind all of us that change requires action. During this sermon series, it requires admitting, quitting, replacing and releasing. I read this quote last week, “Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.”

Isn’t that challenging? Dare we say necessity becomes addiction? Not to any substance perhaps, but to an attitude or behavior or vice which is damaging in other ways. As I was driving this week I couldn’t help but think how the very weather conditions which make the trees and shrubs look so beautiful with frost have the opposite effect on our vehicles.

The moist air mixed with the dirt on the streets makes for very unclean and unpleasant vehicles. Some folks choose to wash their cars in the winter, but for me it’s a repetitive and futile process. As I see it, a car wash is pointless unless you wait for the right time. I’m not sure what the right time is, however, since spring brings mud and rain and summer brings dust.

We might just be more impatient about our car care than we are with our self-care. For true change to happen we need to have faith, to place our trust in God’s ability, and most importantly, we need to surrender. Put your hands in the air and declare your defeat by your own weakness. Admit to God your need for Him and ask Him to transform you.

In my life I try to live according to Proverbs 3:5-6; I say try because impatience is also one of my negative traits. “Put your trust the Lord and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.” Some of the wisest words ever recorded. We simply don’t have adequate knowledge or vision to solve our own problems.

To understand that kind of trust we need to look beyond what we know of trust in other people, and how easily broken that may be. Putting our trust in God means never being disappointed by Him as we yield our lives to His will for us. Sounds a lot surer but a great deal more difficult, doesn’t it?

If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.[2]

Last week I discussed the role of the Lord’s Prayer in our lives; this week I want to share a quote from a little book from 1955. “’Thy will be done.’ This second petition of The Lord’s Prayer points out the basic requirement of Christianity – self-surrender. Until a man can pray this prayer, he not only cannot pray as a Christian, he cannot be a Christian.”

No doubt the thought has now crossed your mind you wonder if you are truly a Christian. Do you have what it takes to surrender to God’s will and let Him lead you through life? God will have to reveal that to you and you alone, as it doesn’t concern anyone else. We are Christians in community, but our hearts are known to God alone.

Precisely the situation going on in our gospel reading today from John. Many of Jesus’ healing miracles involve some conversation, but none so unusual as this one. What makes it so unusual is the question Jesus put to this man who had been coming to the temple pool for healing for 38 years yet remained an invalid.

Jesus knew the nature of his illness and how long he had suffered. He approached him and asked, “Do you want to be made well?” What a question! Why else would this man be lying by this particular pool? Here are three possible reasons: A) He did want to be healed. B) Misery loves company. C) He was seeking attention. The most reasonable, obvious answer would be A, but then why would he have no one to help him into the water?

This was the answer he gave Jesus, not really an answer, but an excuse. Jesus didn’t ask if he wanted to be placed into the water, but if he wanted to be healed. His follow up question should have been, “Seriously, do you?” In other words, “Do you want your life to change drastically? That’s what will happen.” Strange as it seems, there are some who do not want to be healed because it will require something of them. Their weakness has become their identity, their reality.

Jesus asks us the same question about change. “Do you want to be healed?” Do you want to be healed in our relationships? Do we want to be spiritually healed? Before we glibly answer, “Yes,” let’s acknowledge that healing in each of these areas calls forth a commitment and some hard work and a willingness to change.

Jesus came to help the helpless, not the self-sufficient. He is the solution for those who have given up trying to solve their problems in their own strength and wisdom. But Jesus can do nothing or those who are determined to make it on their own. If the Lord says to you, “Do you want to be healed?” and you answer, “Not yet,” or “I’m doing okay,” or “I’ll let you know when I can’t handle it,” then He can do nothing more for you.[3]

Jesus faced dissatisfaction head on – no excuses. He would heal this man, but not in the water. Three simple steps would do it. First, Jesus asked the impossible – get up! Sure, after 38 years, I’ll just do that. Jesus expects that we will act on faith; how else would this man have even dared try? The miracle, of course, was that he could.

The second step was, pick up our mat. Get off that symbol of captivity. You won’t need it anymore. Don’t even think of hanging around this place. Third, Jesus said, walk. Ah ha! The real test. Do what you’ve been unable to do for 38 years, just like that, because I said so. Opening ourselves up to healing, to being made well, made whole, always carries with it a risk of experiencing something else. We’re not guaranteed a perfect life, which I suppose is reason enough for some not to seek help in the first place.

Faith might be the opposite of sight, but it must also be the opposite of doubt. It’s not great faith we need, it’s faith in a great God. Pastor Jim Cowart says, “Basically, we have two options as we face the future: fear or faith. An attitude of fear will give in to the obstacles. An attitude of faith will not give up until the obstacle has been overcome.”

In 2 Corinthians, Paul wrote, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I have no doubt you are intimately acquainted with your own arguments, pretenses and thoughts keeping you from the invitation of being reformed through Christ. I know because I can name my own.

Being able to name your obstacles and arguments against being transformed is not the same as willingly dealing with them and asking God to remove them from us. When we’re sitting beside the pool of denial and blaming the world for our problems, what should we expect?

Fortunately, we can expect that Jesus would come up to us and ask if we are willing to be made whole, to be relieved of our burdens and excuses holding us back from another way of dealing with the world. Do we want to be made well? Are we ready to go along with God’s desire for us to become the reflection of Christ?

Anything we do to mar our own appearance will detract from His glory, not our physical appearance, of course, but our spiritual and emotional appearance. Don’t say can’t unless you’re willing to follow it up with, but God can do all things; therefore, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

That verse, Philippians 4:13, was for most of my life as a Christian my favorite verse, my go to verse, my statement of faith. It wasn’t until recently that I learned I had been interpreting it wrong. It is true that Christ gives us strength, but often this verse is taken as a kind of superpower, as if we could fly off the Sears tower if we wanted.

The strength to do all things means whatever we have to do or want to do or need to do we can do through the help of Jesus. It means we can endure, accomplish, or even survive what comes because of our relationship with God’s Son. His Father is our Father. His Spirit is our Spirit.

Our part in this is the process of submitting ourselves to that strength and to the responsibilities it requires of us. Our ability to surrender all to Jesus clears away the hesitation, the second guessing, the frustration, and the disappointment which come as a part of the human condition. Did Christ, who shared our human condition, ever have those feelings?

Maybe His statement of faith went like this, “I can do all things through Dad who strengthens Me.” If you have come to the end of this month eager to own, stop, replace and relinquish the negative things in your life, be they attitudes, behaviors or fears, please don’t stop short of accepting the strength God longs to give you.

Because God so loved the world He gave His people many, many second chances and do overs. Because He loved the world He also gave His Son to serve as an exchange for His other children. It took His life to free us from the trap of our flawed humanity. We were made for greater things, like the image of God and the kingdom of heaven.

Please don’t settle for the flawed humanity and for the opposite of the kingdom. Not when God went to all that pain and suffering to eliminate your pain and suffering. Give it all to Jesus.

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[2]Chambers, Oswald, My Utmost for His Highest, March 13 entry

[3]Stedman, Ray C., God’s Loving Word – Exploring the Gospel of John, pg. 131-132