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We are studying the Gospel of John and are currently in chapter 5. Please open your bibles, and we will read this together; today from the NASB.
Pray
When reading God’s word, it is good to ask questions.
This can keep us from just reading over it and moving on without really thinking about it.
The question for today is...
How is God at Work?
Context: Jesus has healed a man who was lame for 38 years.
He showed mercy and compassion on this man and healed him.
It just so happens that this man was healed on the Sabbath.
As we saw last week, the Sabbath was given for man to have a break from their labor, and to set aside time to remember God who had brought them out of Egypt.
They were to observe the Sabbath to remember how the LORD God brought them out of bondage in Egypt with power!
Now, Jesus has released this man from 38 years of bondage with power!
But instead of praising God for this wonderful act of mercy through power, what is their reaction?
They were persecuting Jesus.
To them, he broke their traditions.
He did what they called work on the Sabbath.
We will always get into trouble when we start calling things differently than God does.
How was Jesus going to respond to this persecution?
It isn’t the only time this happened.
There were other occasions.
Once in Galilee this happened.
Mark records that for us.
What is lawful on the Sabbath?
In the synagogue, Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”
They knew even their traditions said, doing good on the Sabbath was a good thing.
however, they had hard hearts.
They already made up their mind that if Jesus healed on the Sabbath, it was work!
And that broke the Sabbath according to their tradition!
So, how is Jesus going to respond this time, now in Jerusalem, when this same issue is coming up?
How is He going to respond when they accuse Him of ‘working’ on the Sabbath when He was doing good?
He already knew they did not care about doing good on the Sabbath.
This is how he responded...
Jesus said his Father is always at work to this very day.
Now, from the context, we know that the Jewish leaders he was talking to knew exactly what he meant.
He was calling God his Father, and saying that God was at work to that very day.
What?
God is working on the Sabbath?
God is working?
What about Exodus 20:8-11
Another reason for the Sabbath was because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath.
What does that mean that he rested?
Was he tired?
Let’s go back and look at Genesis 2 where this is recorded.
God Created and then rested...
God Rested on the seventh day.
Was God tired?
What was the rest?
1st.
God did not rest from all work.
He rested from the work of creating.
2nd. the Word shabat, has a range of meaning including rest, cease, and remove.
For example...
Remove.
cease, put an end to.
Keeping in mind the range of meaning, God rested, or removed himself from, put an end, or ceased his work of creating.
It does not mean that God stopped all activity, and laid around like I do when I want a rest.
Jesus pointed this out when he said His Father was working.
God may have stopped doing his creation work, but he did not stop all activity.
Actually, the Jewish religious thinkers knew this.
They knew God was at work showing compassion every day.
They knew God’s providential care, his administration of justice and his creation of life (children born) all continued on the sabbath.
Jewish scholars acknowledged this and made efforts to show that while God worked on the sabbath he was not guilty of breaking the sabbath law.
They argued that God was not guilty of carrying things from one domain to another, because the whole of creation is his house and so he never carries things ‘outside’
So, the Jewish religious leaders had the idea that God would work.
They knew that He did good on the Sabbath, and came up with a logical argument to make God ‘working’ (according to their definition) jive with their interpretation of the Sabbath of doing no work whatsoever.
However, when Jesus came and did good things, healing people on the Sabbath, it did not fit their model.
Why not?
I think in big part because they thought of Jesus as a man!
They did not think of Him as God!
They did not recognize Him as God even though he was doing things to show that is who He is! Who else can make the lame walk?
God alone can do that!
So, in this case, Jesus makes it plain to them.
And when Jesus said that, they got the point.
Just like they already knew that God was working, so too Jesus was working.
But Jesus didn’t just call God, ‘God’.
He called Him Father!
Just as my Father is working to this very day, I too am working!
They got what He was saying.
He was claiming to be God!
I love this passage.
It is plain here that Jesus is God, and they knew exactly what it meant when He was called the Son of God.
They knew it meant that He was God!
Well, that is an awesome truth!
And we are going to get into that next week.
But for today, I wanted to pause a moment back on verse 17.
God is always at his work to this very day.
Last week we talked about how these Jewish leaders and the lame man sinned.
Remember how Jesus said to the man in the temple, “Stop sinning.”
Do you remember how he was sinning?
Failure to see God at work
Blame-shifting
Fear of man
Rejecting the Lord’s Discipline
Last week, I pointed out that these men were failing to see God at work.
Here He was, making a lame man walk, just by telling him to get up!
Before, they had seen him restore a man’s crippled hand.
On another occasion, they saw the Lord forgive a man’s sin, and make him walk!
Remember that one?
God is at Work!
Here was God at work, and they were missing it.
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