Do You Want to Get Well?
From the Series: Greater Things
Speaker: Mark Batterson
Date: February 15, 2009
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Transcript
Man! If you’re not fired up after that, your wood is wet! What an exciting weekend here at National Community Church. Welcome to everybody at all five of our locations, and to our extended church family, our podcast listeners, those watching the webcast. I got an email from someone in Singapore listening to the podcast last week. It is so cool to know that the good news of Jesus Christ is going in lots of different directions. I know I’m biased but I’m so excited about what God is doing here at National Community Church, lots of wonderful things happening. Last weekend, can we just give some love again to our Kingstowne location? A lot of new faces, God is going to do some great things. God is doing great things in all of our locations. Last weekend, at least 15 people crossed the line of faith and decided to follow Christ, let’s celebrate that! We also kicked of our small groups semester, almost 100 groups, and four alpha groups, a lot of people exploring the faith and a lot of growth, a lot of exciting things happening, so it is appropriate that this series we are in right now is called Greater Things. That’s what we are believing God for.
This little phrase, greater things, is repeated three times in John’s gospel. Last weekend we walked through John 1, next week will be John 14, this weekend we are in John 5, if you have a Bible, you can turn there or you can follow along on the screen as we continue our ‘Greater Things’ series. John 5, verse 1:
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
Verse 4. Wait! There is no verse 4. What’s up with that? If you’ll look in the foot notes, you’ll see it there. This is the easiest verse to memorize – it’s not there! Have you noticed that? I hope you’ve read through John before, did you notice verse 4 is missing? Here’s what’s happening, in the oldest manuscript, this verse is not there, so most Bible scholars believe that some scribe added something at some point just to explain what was happening here, so most Bible translations do not include verse 4. And while we’re on it, this might be interesting too, chapters and verses weren’t added to the Bible until around a thousand years ago or a thousand years after the New Testament was written. Now, some scholars attribute it to the students of Cardinal Hugo in 1240 A.D. Others give credit to Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1228 A.D., but the reason they did this is because it’s a lot easier to study it and cross-reference, so the chapters and verses were added afterward, so there you have it. Now you know why verse 4 is missing.
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Now we’ve got to stop and talk about this for a minute because 38 years, have you ever noticed how time is relative? Let me give you an example, if you are 6 years old, summer break is 4% of your life, do the math. But if you’re 25, summer break is 1%, you can check my math. If you’re 50, summer break would be half of 1%. You’ve experienced this, I’m guessing, the older you get, the more time seems to fly because everything is a smaller fraction of time relative to how old you are. Are you with me? Have you ever been out on a date with someone you really like? It can’t last long enough right? Have you ever been out with someone you don’t like? Like, speed-dating is not fast enough, like a speed-date can feel like an eternity if you’re with the wrong person. Time is relative.
Here’s what I’m getting at, in the 1st century, the average lifespan was between 20 and 30 years. We have a hard time comprehending that. Worldwide, the average is 66, but it’s much higher in the United States but did you know even in the U.S. 100 years ago, the average lifespan was only 45. We have a hard time grasping the fact, that, in a sense, this guy is 38 years. Because they live less than half as long, this had to seem like twice as long. Am I confusing myself or is this confusing you too? What I’m getting at is this probably felt like two lifetimes to this guy. I guess the reason why I’m saying this is that this is one of the challenges we face when reading the Bible. You can read this story in John 5 in about 38 seconds, but for this guy, it was 38 long years of suffering and wondering. At what point do you give up hope that you’ll ever walk again, that a change will happen or that God will show up? I don’t know, but 38 years is an eternity. We can read the story of Abraham and Sarah in about 15 minutes, but it was 15 years between the promise and the promise being delivered and Abraham and Sarah having a child. We can read the story of Moses and those 40 years on the back side of the desert working for his father-in-law tending sheep; we can read the story of Joseph, don’t you wish you were Joseph? 17 years as a slave and a prisoner but we don’t appreciate that. I think here’s what I’m trying to get at. Most of us have a hard time handling a bad day, I don’t want this to sound heartless but we need some biblical perspective here. The greatest miracles often involve the longest struggle. The reason why ancient records in the Bible is very intentional here in recording exactly how long this man had been paralyzed because what they wanted to do was specify how great the miracle was, and the longer the condition, the greater the miracle, so this is a miracle of amazing proportions. That’s why the Bible is very specific here. What I want to suggest, and it may not be what we want to hear but we need to hear it, the people that God wants to use the most often have to go through longer seasons of preparation, and we have a hard time with that because we live in an instant gratification culture. I love the way Yakov Smirnoff described, you remember Yakov, the Russian comedian immigrated to the U.S. in the 80s, he said the thing he loved most about America was the grocery stores. He said, “I’ll never forget my first trip to an American grocery story, I walked down one of the isle and I saw powdered orange juice, just add water, you get orange juice. Walked a little bit further and saw powdered milk, add water and you get milk. Then I saw baby powder, and I thought to myself – what a country!”
I’m not up here saying that I hope you suffer a long time. I don’t wish 38 years by the pool of Bethesda on anyone. I’m just saying that sometimes those God uses the most have to go through the longest season of struggle. It might not make it any easier but the longer you suffer and struggle, the greater the potential for the miracle is in your life. I believe that.
Let me get to the heart of the issue. I want you to listen to me. Here’s a mistake many of us make when we’re in circumstances like this. Our natural inclination is to pray ‘God, deliver me.’ Right? ‘Deliver me from whatever circumstances I don’t like or disrupt my routine or make me a little uncomfortable.’ I want to suggest that it is the right prayer and the wrong prayer, because I think what happens for many of us is all we can think about is getting out of this circumstance instead of what we need to get out of this circumstance. There are some times in our lives where we need circumstances like this where this is the only way we can learn a particular lesson or the only way that God can cultivate this particular character in our lives, if we go through this, but we’re so anxious to get out of it, deliver me, deliver me, when what we really need to pray is ‘God reveal yourself to me in this situation.’ I know, when we are in these circumstances, I know what you want me to pray for you, you want me to pray that God would deliver you, but I’m not going to pray that, I’m not going to pray that He will deliver you until He has revealed Himself to you. Just a random thought, I’m reading through the one-year Bible, I’m not reading it to share anything in a message, but I couldn’t help but have this particular thought as I’m reading through Exodus and the ten signs or miracles, we don’t ask these questions but why did God not deliver them with just one? Have you ever thought about that? Why not one, boom, we’re out of here. The text reveals why, because God wanted to reveal more of his glory. Please let this be a mustard seed of hope in your spirit. Some of you need to struggle a little bit longer so that God can reveal a little bit more of his glory in your life. So hang in there.
38 years, a long, long time. Let’s get some perspective on this and realize that sometimes we have to go through these seasons so we can really experience the miracle that God wants us to experience. Here’s some good news. No matter how long you struggle, no matter how hopeless or helpless it seems, it is never too late for God. Don’t you love that? Do we live with this reality that at any moment, God could invade the reality of our lives and heal a lifetime of hurt? If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be doing this. I’d be speaking at a Rotary club. But I believe in the power of God to invade our lives and ultimately what I believe is one close encounter with the living Christ can change your life forever. That’s what happened, let’s keep going.
When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
On one level, that almost seems like a pointless question, it almost seems a little insulting. ‘38 years? Of course I want to get well.’ But Jesus knew human nature. I love this, because there’s not a lot of psycho babble, not a lot of reflective listening or emotional mirroring happening here, just a straight up question, do you want to get well? Do you want to get well? Because ultimately, if you don’t want to get well, even the omnipotent Creator can’t help you because He will not violate your free will. You have got to come to terms with this and you have to want to get well. Now, you say, of course I want to get well. But the real question here is, do you want to change? That’s really the real question. If we’re honest, most of us don’t want to change ourselves, we want to change the people around us. Right? And if we can’t change the people around us, we want to change our circumstances. But changing ourselves? That would require change, and that’s something that is very difficult for many of us to come to terms with. It is very easy to read this story on a very superficial level. Of course this guy wants to get well, of course he wants to walk, but we don’t think about all the ramifications, not the least of which is if he is able to walk again, he can’t just beg for money, he will have to find a job, his life is going to radically change. A few weeks ago I read a fascinating book Change or Die by Alan Deutschman and the opening sentence is a play off of the title, Deutschman says, “What if you were given that choice for real? What is a well-informed, trust authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think, feel and act and if you don’t, you die.” Well, according to Deutschman, the odds are 9 to 1 against you. Isn’t that encouraging? It is based on a study done with 1.5 million Americans who underwent coronary bypass angioplasty surgery. It is a temporary fix, if you don’t change your lifestyle, then you are going to continue and the same thing is going to happen. Patients are told they need to do five things, smoke less, drink less, eat less, exercise more and relieve more stress. Change those five behaviors if you want to ultimately get well again, but here’s what Dr. Edward Miller, Dean of Medical School Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, according to Dr. Miller, if you look at people after coronary artery bypass two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle. In other words, 90% would rather die than change. I know this isn’t my most encouraging point this weekend, but I think we need to keep it real. Do you want to get well? This is a legitimate question. You know what I’ve discovered? Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you are willing to get some help to get well. I wish it wasn’t that way, but some of you need counseling but it is a very rare person who will go for counseling until things are just totally falling apart. Some of you need to admit an addiction and get some help, but most of us wait until it starts hurting the people around us. There might be emotional issues you need to deal with, but you know when we deal with them? It’s when our fist ends up going through a wall in our house. It’s not until something tragic or something dramatic happens in our lives, and unfortunately that is when we are willing to change or get some help.
I hope this isn’t too transparent. I had an experience a couple of weeks ago that initiated some change in my life. I had to take a pair of pants to the tailor to get them altered and all I’m saying is, I didn’t get them taken in. I played basketball in high school and college, I have a pretty decent metabolism, still try to keep in shape, I run sprint triathlons, it’s not like I’m grossly out of shape but over the holidays, I wasn’t exercising and I was eating like there’s no tomorrow. I like gummy bears, I’m just keeping it real, I ate about a bag a day, and it’s only recently that I discovered that in every bag of gummy bears are 490 calories. I think the average diet is 2,000 calories. If you want to put on some weight, make gummy bears about 25% of your diet and you’ll get there in a hurry! So I stepped on the scale one day and I set a personal record and it was not the record I wanted to set, but what I’m getting at is this, I needed to make some changes, some simple behavioral changes. I needed to manage my diet and get some exercise in a way that is good stewardship of this temple of the Holy Spirit. But it took having to go to the tailor and getting on that scale. Sometimes, that’s what it takes. Sometimes, it takes your spouse telling you that they aren’t sure if they love you anymore. Sometimes, it takes an annual physical and your cholesterol count shocks you. I wish it didn’t come to that but I’m just asking this very legitimate question, do you want to get well? Because until you get to that point, even the Son of God can’t help you, and it’s why Jesus asked this question. You’ve got to want to get well and you have to be willing to change. Let’s keep going.
"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
There are a lot of things happening here that I don’t have time to explain, but there was this superstition that when the water would stir, that it was somehow angels causing that stirring and unless you were the first one in, you wouldn’t get healed. It’s very interesting to me that a superstition literally held this guy captive for 38 years. One other thing, I have no one to help me. This is interesting to me, we don’t really focus on it, but what that tells me is this, he wasn’t just helpless, he was friendless, he didn’t have anyone to help him.
Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk."
Can we just on a literal level consider what Jesus is asking him to do here? What Jesus is asking him to do is to do something that he hasn’t done for 38 years. See, if you want to experience greater things, you might have to do something that you haven’t done in a long time. You have this memorized just like I do – if you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always gotten. You gotta do something more, something different. Jesus just said take up your mat and walk. Here’s something that I want to consider. Do you think there is any pain involved in this? Can you imagine not walking for 38 years? Maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t get up any morning, especially after the NCC Super bowl, but I don’t get up any morning without limping to the bathroom. It’s painful and I’ve only been on the mat for a few hours. I’ve spent some time in the hospital. I don’t know if you’ve ever been bed-ridden for any length of time, but if you’ve been in a hospital bed for a few days or a week, that first time getting out of that bed and walking is one of the most painful experiences because all the blood rushes to your lower extremities and it hasn’t been there in a while and the law of gravity is twice as powerful when you haven’t walked for a while. I have memories of after long periods of not walking of walking the hallways, then to compound it, you’ve got to work with that little string on the back of your gown to make sure you don’t moon any of the nurses. It is painful. 38 years, I have a hunch there was some pain involved here. If you want to experience greater things, you are going to have to endure some pain. It might relational pain, a tough conversation you have to have, but it’s that tough conversation that might take the relationship to another level. You might have to deal with some emotional pain. You could keep repressing it for the rest of your life, but until you process it, you’re never going to get better. Or it might be on the physical side, no pain no gain. Or maybe spiritually? Confession is painful, is it not? But it is the most healing thing in the world, it is the only thing that will get you well spiritually. You’ve got to endure some of that pain so you can experience the wholeness and the holiness of being in a right relationship with God. I think what I’m getting at is this, I love the way my friend Craig Groeschel Pastor of LifeChurch.tv, he said something a couple years ago – the difference between where you are and where God wants you to be may be the painful decision you refuse to make. If you get nothing else out of this message, forget everything else I say, but I ask you, what is the painful decision you need to make? What is the mat you need to pick up? This mat is an interesting thing to me, I think it is a powerful symbol here because for this paralyzed man, his mat was his mat, but in a sense, all of us have a mat. All of us have something that is a crutch or an excuse or something like I can’t do this or I can’t do that or it’s not in my personality or it’s just the way I am, just my mat. I rebuke that. You need to pick it up and deal with it and get on with your life. You need to hear Jesus saying those words. I pray that the Lord would reveal to us by his Holy Spirit some of the mats we have been laying on. Woe is me. He needs to reveal some of those mats so we can figure out what it is we need to pick up to move forward.
At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."
What a bunch of religious losers! What a bunch of killjoys! Are you kidding me? If you want to experience greater things in your life, you might have to get a little less religious and get a real encounter with the Son of God. I’m not talking about the Bible, I’m talking about the legalism, they couldn’t see the forest for the trees, unbelievable. In fact, it says later they want to kill Jesus because of this. What? Greater things, the only way it’s going to happen is to allow Jesus. By the way, Jesus could have healed him any day of the week. I think He chose the Sabbath to have more fun doing it. Mix it up a little bit with these religious leaders. Get past your religion, get into a relationship with the Living Christ.
But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'” So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
This is awesome. Speaking from personal experience, have you ever done something good but you waited to do that something good until someone was looking? If I do something good, I’m doing one of these, and calling a press conference. I love Jesus. I love this, He just disappears into the crowd. I think on one level, this dimension of his personality is why we love a Zorro or a Robin Hood, just do good stuff and disappear. I love that Jesus healed this man and disappeared, not for any kind of show.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Here’s what I think is happening here. This is just note to self. When you experience a miracle, there is a tremendous amount of spiritual euphoria. The endorphins are flowing through this guy, he has not walked in 38 years, so he’s not just walking, I see him skipping like a little kid around the pool of Bethesda, doing the Running Man, doing the moonwalk. When I read this, you’re going to get a glimpse of the way my brain works, I have this image of John Belushi doing flips down the center isle in Blues Brothers. This guy’s life has been changed, healed, 38 years. The healing power of God enters his body, he is on his feet, walking, if you were ever on a cloud nine, this is cloud nine, and Jesus gives a little reality check here, you need to stop sinning. What’s this about?
The only thing that will keep you from greater things is sin. That’s it. If you live humbly and holy before the Lord your God, He will do greater things than this. Sin is not just right or wrong, sin is a terrible waste of time, talent and potential. Sin is just a waste of a human life, that’s what it is. So often, it is sin that sabotages us. What is that thing? You need to stop sinning, and the way you stop sinning, it’s like a double-bind in psychology, be spontaneous, but once I say be spontaneous, you can’t be spontaneous. I think some of us try to stop sinning by stop sinning. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it. But you’re thinking about it because you’re not thinking about it. What you need is a vision for greater things of how God wants to use your life and who you can become in Christ. That needs to be the thing that drives you so you’re just like, why in the world would I sin? What a waste of my life. I know that’s easier said than done, but what a word to us, stop sinning.
So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted Him. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at work to this very day and I too am working.” For this reason, the Jews tried harder to kill, not only was He breaking the Sabbath but He was even calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself.”
What an admittance here.
He can only do what He sees the Father doing because whatever the Father does, the Son also does, for the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does and here’s the promise, here’s the last phrase, we’re finally there, Yes, to your amazement, He will show you even greater things than these.”
I want to suggest we move toward the close, some of us need to end up at the pool of Bethesda, the place where things seem hopeless and helpless. Can you imagine a more depressing place than this? Everybody has issues, everybody is down and out, this is one of the most hopeless places. If there were a national conference for those with a victim’s mentality, it would be held at the pool of Bethesda. These are people that all the worse things have happened to, but sometimes you have to end up there before you can experience greater things. Sometimes you have to come to the end of yourself. I can’t do it, I’m not strong enough, I’m not wise enough. I don’t know where I heard this, but someone said – church is a place for those who have stopped playing God. I like that. I can’t do it on my own, so why don’t we get some help. You have to come to terms with who you are not and what you cannot do. I think that’s what the pool of Bethesda is, a place where everybody is at the end of themselves. When you come to the end of yourself, I think you begin to discover a God who is described here who is always at work. You begin to discover a God who works in strange and mysterious ways. You begin to discover a God who works way beyond human wisdom or human ability. A God who can show up at any moment and after 38 years, do something unbelievable in your life. A God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, a God who to your amazement will do greater things than these.
A few weeks ago, I met Phil Vischer. Phil is the creator of Veggie Tales. Any Veggie Tales fans? I was so impressed with Phil, I went out and got his book, Me, Myself and Bob, as in Bob the Tomato. I read his story, it really is amazing. By the way, the critical moment of his life was watching MTV and the way it was shaping the generation and he said someone needs to make some redeeming stuff for kids to have a positive message, it was interesting. He grew up and started Veggie Tales, sold over 50 million videos. I don’t know if you know how the story ends, I won’t go into details, in a moment, a jury delivered a verdict that Phil was shocked by, and it ended up by the way being reversed, but after the whole thing had fallen apart, and basically everything he had worked for, his entire dream, shattered and gone, in a moment, he was at the pool of Bethesda, nothing left. But he says something that was so powerful, he said, “At long last, after a lifetime of striving, God was enough.” Not God and impact or God and ministry, you can add whatever, God and whatever, just God. He said it was the turning point of his life when he realized that God was enough. This is a message of hope, because some of you are right here. I don’t know what you’re going through. For most of you, probably not 38 years, but it may seem as helpless or as hopeless. God can show up at any moment. This story, you need to experience what this guy experienced, an encounter with Jesus Christ. That’s it, that is the thing that will begin to produce greater things in your life.
One last thought then we’re done. Phil shared one other thing, I love this. He said the impact God has planned for us, don’t you want to make an impact, don’t you want your life to make a difference? Don’t you want to be part of something bigger than you, longer lasting than you, more important than you? Isn’t that what we want? He said, “The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we are pursuing impact, it occurs when we are pursuing God.” Nailed me. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. We need one thing, we need to pursue God, we need that encounter with God, if we have that, everything else will take care of itself. Let’s pray.
Father, thank You. Thank You that You are the same yesterday, today and forever. Lord, I love these stories of the change, the impact, the miracle that You can do in our lives. Lord we want to just humbly ask that You would do in us what You did in him. God I pray that today, maybe today could be that defining day when we say, I want to get well. Lord I think so many of us settle for the circumstances, we settle for the issues, we settle for even those sinful habits, God I pray that today You would wake us up to a greater reality, to your vision for our lives, that You have so much more in store for us. God I believe greater things for every single one of us. Lord I pray that we would come to that point where we are willing to get well, where we are willing to make the change, Lord where we are willing to pick up that mat, whatever it is. Lord I pray that right now You would help those of us who feel helpless. God is the God of second chances. It is not about Him giving you one more chance, it is about you giving Him one more chance. Lord I pray we would have the courage to say here I am, to get up and take our mats and walk. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Ministry Transcription
Margaret Salyers
606-706-5006
margaretsalyers@gmail.com
